The public discussion of a proposed question I from a place of public amusement? But this the consider to be eminently calculated to rouse and utmost rigour of the law shall determine: and as the strengthen the exalting faculty of reason. It residence of the keeper brings the Town-hall under the urges the mind to search the pages of history, denomination of an inhabited house, I am informed that the shelves of experience, the recesses of thought, an action will lie for a capital felony. and the flowery fields of creative imagination, St. Anne-street. for new and apt ideas, and appropriate argument. And the continued study to decorate our ideas with some flowerets of eloquence will eventually confer a polish and a brilliancy, without which the acuteness of the grammarian or the versatility of the linguist would but faintly shine. The questions, too, The activity you have evinced, in correcting the proposed at this Society are of a moral tendency, and abuses that formerly existed in the town, has emthe consideration of them must improve the judg-boldened me to take the liberty of pointing out to you ment as well as ameliorate the heart.

I could enlarge on this subject, but shall only observe, that, in pursuance of these opinions, I have attended Mr. Ryley's debate; and although altogether unskilled in public speaking, and possessing a very slender share of those gifts, either of education or address, generally deemed so essential to the attainment of oratory, I have pleasure in stating, that the kind encouragement I experienced from a brilliant audience, although far beyond my humble merits, is a sufficient guarantee for the indulgence that will be awarded to every essayist; and will, I trust, induce others to enter this wide field of instruction and amusement, from which they may carry home a far more grateful and ennobling benefit than they can promise themselves in the giddy pursuits of fashion.

1 purpose making another attempt on Tuesday. The question is (as it relates to the ladies) most appropriate for the debut of young gentlemen; and some bold attempts will surely be made, as "none but the brave deserve the fair." If I can muster up time to arrange my ideas on the delightful subject proposed, I intend to overwhelm with my eloquence all those who shall dare to asperse the lovely creatures, who will ever find an advocate in

STEALING OF HATS, &c.

TO THE EDITOR.

J. S. W.

SIR,-Your notice of the closing scene at the Ladies' Charity ball, which has so much disgraced our town in the eyes of strangers who were present on that occasion, though severe, was not more so than the meanness of the individuals concerned most justly merited. Many gentlemen had their hats stolen, although their names were written at full length on the lining. I am in this situation; but having accidentally discovered the fellow who has thus disgraced the character of gentleman, to which he still pretends, I have resolved to prosecute him for a felony. Respect to some individuals connected with him, has hitherto restrained me from adopting so harsh a measure; but finding that he attempts to justify the theft on the plea "that he himself lost as good a hat, and if I sent him that which he had lost, he would return mine, and not till then," I shall dismiss all further delicacy towards him. Had I taken his hat, it might have been fair to retaliate; but as I went home without any hat, he cannot plead the strange argument he offers in palliation. What would he say of a man who stopped him on the highway and took his purse, alleging as an excuse that he himself had been previously robbed in that place? A

TO THE WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR.

one which has hitherto apparently escaped your notice;
and which, as it respects common decency and the
morals of society, calls loudly for the interposition of
the magistrates.

Your Worship will no doubt have observed the in-
calculable number of indecent placards that are posted
up in every part of the town, as disgusting to the eye,
and as revolting to the common feelings of decency as
the quack pretenders who expose them to public view
are ignorant and illiterate.

If there be no law of the land or bye-law that can put a stop to this nuisance, it is high time to frrme one, as well for the good of society as to guard the public from the disgusting sight of indecent placards.

Formerly the puffs of these illiterate quacks were confined to the central parts of the town; but latterly their impudence has increased to such an intolerable pitch, that the walls and unoccupied shops are literally covered with their filthy effusions.

Trusting that this growing evil may be taken notice of by your Worship,

I am your obedient servant,

AMATOR DECORI.

To Correspondents.

THE CHARITARLE DONATIONS.-C.-THE FREE
AND EASY SOCIETY,-W-NEREIDES,-and B.
A. HEYWOOD, Esq. will be acknowledged in the
Mercury of Friday.

The friend to whom we are indebted for the Review of Materialism, acknowledged in our last, will, we trust, permit us to claim a week's delay. in the fulfilment of our promise. We happen this week to have been favoured with several original com munications, which relate to the prominent literary topics of the day; and as we wish to "Catch the living manners as they rise," our correspondent will, we doubt not, acquiesce in the propriety of our giving the priority to the critiques on KENIL WORTH and on MIRANDOLA, which would have lost something of their value by the delay of a week. We were also previously pledged to the writer of Hora Otiosæ, whose 4th essay had been postponed.

CHRISTMAS BAGATELLES.-By the permission of R
H. W. we shall reserve his Enigma for a future oc
sion.
We have inserted it on a former occasion:
when it was ascribed to Lord Byrom, and not fir
Walter Scott, as assumed by R. H. W.
CHESS.-We shall next week insert the letter of J.B.P.
accompanied by an explanatory note.

If the subject recommended by A READER were not
of too political a nature, its theological charact
would necessarily exclude it from our columns.

We can offer no decisive opinion upon the eligibility of the Series of Essays proffered by a STUDENT, until we shall have some further means of ascertai>» ing in what manner he will execute the task he ha imposed upon himself. The style of his introductory letter is certainly unexceptionable; as is the skete he has chalked out: we only wait to see how the pier shall be filled, coloured, and finished.

INDELICATE PLACARDS.-The letter of AMATOR
DECORI will be found in our columns; and the
writer is referred to the 48th page of our present >
lume, where in noticing a former letter on the sa
subject we made several comments, which superset:
the necessity of a repetition here. We fear the othe
and more serious evil, complained of by a FELLOW
TOWNSMAN, will not so easily admit of remor)
It is too deeply rooted and interwoven with the frame
of society to yield to municipal regulations. It is t
this reason, that we must avoid the agitation f
question upon which discussion promises no good
result.

The continuation of the original paper by C. on Frat
Society, in our next.

We do not immediately recognise the paper to
X. L. D. alludes, but shall consult our portfolio;
the mean time, if it be not too much trouble, we wil
thank him to particularise it.

C. P.-A FRIEND.-EGO.-F. and K. shall not be

overlooked.

THE LATE SHAUGHNASEY, &c.-C. sen. may be
assured that the lines to the RAINBOW, by Campbell,
have not escaped our notice. They are reserved for
our next, as our poetical department is completely
occupied this week, by a variety of pieces, amongst
which is one addressed to MARY, by Sinclair, in
whom, we fancy we recognise our late lamented
correspondent Shaughnasey O'Shaughnasey, Esq.
We say lamented, for if the quondam Custos Ro-
tulorum of Tipperary were alive, poor gentleman!
it would revive his heart even more than that four-
teenth tumbler, which some people suspect led to his
premature exit, were he to hear the way in which all
classes of our readers, and particularly the fairer por-
tion, speak of him. The lamentation of those who
give credit to the catastrophe related by his survivor
Dermot O'Goster, knows no bounds; and we doubt,
whether the Irish howl, as practised in its genu-
ine perfection on those native turf begs, he has
immortalised in his first canto (verse eighth) is
one whit more sincere, although it may be somewhat
more vociferous than the lamentations so generally
heard for the premature and irreparable loss of Sir
Shaughnasey, and his four unfinished cantos. For
our own parts, as Dermot O'Goster has not, as we The extract from Sismondi in our next.
suspected, taken fire at the scepticism we last week
expressed as to the alleged death of his friend, we still
entertain sanguine hopes that we shall shortly have to
announce the reappearance of Mr. Shaughnasey, in
propria persona.

The lines to a FLY are acceptable; the transcriber
would oblige us by the name of the author, if they are
not original.

Could L. G. favour us with the loan of the Edinburgh

Magazine, containing the article he recommends fir insertion in the Kaleidoscope?

Printed, published, and sold
BY EGERTON SMITH AND CO.

Liverpool Mercury Office.

gentleman in the hurry of leaving a crowded assembly R. A. P. presents his or her respects to the editor and to Sold also by John Bywater and Co. Pool-lane; Me

may often mistake the hat or great coat of another for his own; but when he discovers his error, would, as has happened in many cases on the late occasion, restore it to the owner. What epithet does he deserve, who, with the name of the owner staring him in the face, for weeks wears articles of dress which he purloined

our correspondent E. B. B. and begs some further ex
planation respecting the conundrum, No. 29, in the
Kaleidoscope of the 16th instant, page 130, as he can-
not fully comprehend the solution in the succeeding
number, page 236. We beg to join in the request,
having already confessed ourselves too dull to perceive
the full beauty of the explanation.

Evans, Chegwin and Hall, Castle-street; Mr. Thes
Smith, Paradise-street; Mr. Warbrick, Pahir
Library, Lime-street; Mr. G. P. Day, News,
Dale-street; and Mr. John Smith, St James's-rood,
for ready money only.

OR,

Literary and Scientific Mirror.

"UTILE DULCI."

No. 32.-NEW SERIES.

Literature, Criticism, &c.

A ROMANCE.

KENILWORTH;

In 3 vols. Edinburgh 1821.

Amongst the many advantages and conveniences we

profess to introduce the reader.

and failure, life and death—as a sort of page- | such an author; and for the delight afforded ant, exhibited, and to be exhibited, for the to us, and given also, by anticipation, to all exercise and amusement of an exuberant that are to follow us, we ought to be, and BY THE AUTHOR OF WAVERLEY, &c and restless fancy. Our modern author truly are, grateful, but especially for the looks upon human nature in a manner nearly work now before us, which, for magical similar. To him, also, it is a gay or a tragic reality, yields to none of its precursors; and derive from the establishment of the Kaleidoscope, we pageant; it is a bundle of tales of times which, for sustained interest, is beyond all do not regard it as one of the least, that it affords us that are done, and for times that are to the rest. The present romance is not so the opportunity of making occasional selections from come; of which some are tragic, some co- imaginative-so poetical in its language as the writings of our ablest brother journalists. In the mic, but all humourous and dramatic. He Ivanhoe; but there is more invention, we exercise of this privilege, we have selected for our present publication some very able comments from would out-laugh Shakspeare, however, and think, displayed in the management of the the Scotsman, upon a subject of very general interest din him with louder mirth; he is more smit-plot; the parts, taking them altogether, are at the present moment. We make choice of this ar-ten, perhaps, with a love of the marvelous; better cast; and there are fewer interrupticle, because, independently of the immediate interest he would enter more keenly into the merits tions of the main business of the piece. it possesses from the recent appearance of Kenilworth, the critique itself forms an exception to those tiresome of a struggle; he would not yield to him There are some digressions and some and diffuse dissertations, in which a very meagre por-in his admiration of what is magnanimous trifling underplots it is true, but they are tion of original comment is swallowed up in an ocean in the walks of what may be called active managed with more than usual discretion; of extracts, which, after all, seldom give any distinct necessary breathidea of the real character of the work to which they and personal, as opposed to mental ambi-since while they afford the tion; and he might surpass Shakspeare, ing time, they also give relief and effect, in observing and describing the peculiar to the more important portions of the The public are more indebted to this au- shrewdness, principle, and affection of his work. Kenilworth is a romance only in thor, perhaps, than to any other who has countrymen; but both are too much in the name; for, with the exception of some matwritten for their amusement since the days habit of looking to the world as a stage, on ter which has hardly the air of credibility, of Shakspeare. We have more than once, which the generations of men go through about empirical drugs and cures, there we believe, compared the one of these their parts merely as players.-Yet who is not much of the work, when we look great men to the other; and the present else could give us such living pictures of back on the times to which it relates, that work affords us one strong reason for not the motley and changing scenes? Who has is carried beyond the pitch of the novel. being ashamed of making the comparison. described conduct in such striking colours, The characters, as we have said, have all the We never said, indeed, that the modern or, by description merely, brought the freshness, as well as the business of real was gifted with the same range of fancy, or actors, so distinctly, and, as it were, corpo- life; and they are drawn with a breadth held the same empire over language with the really before his readers, as the author of and depth and force, which are hardly more ancient writer; but his eye for what Waverley? His characters are not so equaled, and certainly not surpassed on is picturesque in scenery is better, and his many abstractions, each invested with one any other occasion, by the author himself. feeling for what is ludicrous, or in any way or two cold virtues or dark vices, but they His sole merit, however, in the present ingraphic in conduct, stronger. Though a have individual existence, presenting them-stance does not consist in giving us the singular opinion, we have always thought selves to the mind's eye, each with their own most interesting and spirited of all his that Shakspeare was deficient in pathos; peculiar and distinctive lineaments of visage, stories; for whatever be the cause, it has that he was interested in human nature so dress, and limbs. His dominion over inani- the appearance of having been designed far, certainly, as to enable him to describe mate matter is, if possible, still greater; for upon higher principles, and, perhaps, with its varying phrases, but never so far, as to it starts up before us in the shape of an a higher aim, than any of his former procommit himself heartily, body and soul, as inn, a palace, or a landscape, with all its ductions. After having got to the end of one would say, in the cause even of any accessary circumstances, as clearly as if we Kenilworth, one would be tempted to think One of his numerous fictitious characters; beheld it all in nature, and perhaps with it had been written to show how ambition that he looked, in short, on all that was pas-greater force. We cannot, therefore, fail may overmatch love and principle; how a sing around him—folly and wisdom, success to be delighted with the productions of pandering cunning knave may become the

master of his own master; and how the ed, as in the case Dobooby, or Alsco, or manifest. And her answer to the Dean of author might rival Shakspeare. His astro- Demetrius, in particular, with a kind of St. Asaph's (vol. ii. p. 132,) who advises her logical Doctor Alsco will bear a compari-painful sublimity. The fate of this wretch against tolerating theatrical representations, son with the Witches of Macbeth, and is conceived so truly in the spirit of his cha-in which were "bellowed out reflections on Varney is not a less thorough nor worse racter, and described so graphically and government, its origin and its object, tend sustained remorseless villain than Iago. The with so much force, that we know nothing ing to render the subjects discontented,' idea of the character is obviously taken superior to it in the whole range of fiction. that "it is ill arguing against the use of any from Shakspeare, and nothing more, for The death of Foster is also a fine moral thing from its abuse," deserves to be ele the modifications and filling up are the au- award for the grasping and unprincipled vated to the rank of a political maxim. thor's own. And although the creation is avarice of his life; while that of Amy is There are various remarks and hints given not a pleasing one; although were it not breathlessly and sublimely awful and hor- in this work, indeed, which would tempt us for one living lusus naturæ, we should doubt rible. We feel strongly that she deserv- to think, that the author wished to do that, the possibility of reconciling such qualities ed a better fate; and although it partly as a novelist, which he dare not venture to with the imaginable properties of any variety arises from her own conduct, and although do as a man or a politician. The Bishops of our own species; and although the con- we feel convinced that, after what has and dignitaries of the church, are exposed duct of this miscreant, and the fate of the occurred, no happiness remained for her throughout for their mean subserviency. Countess Amy, be felt as something like on earth, our better feelings are out-* an impeachment of the mundane system, it raged by such a catastrophe. But one In the preceding page, also, the reader will is still a powerful creation, and the work of the finest portions of this book, (the find the effect of "elegant flattery in the royal of unrivaled talents. Leicester, too, the finest, we should perhaps say, in any ear;" (which, he observes, it is never long favourite of Elizabeth, the husband who work of imagination) is the scene at Cum- in reaching,) most happily illustrated in the married for love, but whose ambition, with nor-hall, when an attempt is made to poison fate of Orson Pinit's supplication in favou his love and fear of Elizabeth, would not the Countess. It will, if our space admit, of bear-baiting. The dialogue given in allow him to do justice to his immured and be subjoined to this notice; but we cannot page 192 of vol. 3, is likewise exceedingly concealed Countess, is a character whose conclude it without adding our small tribute clever in its way; but we have not room to conduct gives us much pain; but although of admiration to the talents displayed by allude even to one half of the excellencies be takes no great hold of our sympathies, the our author in the manner in which he has of this, the happiest, if not the greatest author contrives by the business which he here depicted the court and character of work of its author. Would he only keep has put into his hands, and the scenes in Queen Elizabeth. In perusing this interest- in mind that when he bows or truckles to a which he makes him appear, to invest him, ing work, we feel exactly as if we formed courtier, it is, as he says of Shakspeare, or rather his story, with an almost unparal- part of the daily levee. It is not a painting "the immortal doing homage to the mortal." leled degree of interest. The motions even that we see, but characters that have started of Mike Lumbourne, ruffian as he is, are from the canvas to perform their living func followed with some anxiety; Anthony Foster, tions in our presence; and in Elizabeth, SIR,-I copy from Coxe's Memoirs of Sir Robert or Fire-the-faggot, is interesting, at least in who stimulates, curbs, and guides the Walpole, the account of a curious transaction in his regard for his daughter, the best cha- whole, we see all the fire of the Queen, the the House of Commons, in 1740. The minista, racter of the whole, though her appear-intellect of the man, the jealousy and caances, like angel visits, are "few and far price of the woman. She is portrayed in between;" and that so much worth and strong colours; but, as we conceive, with affection is ascribed to one of the purists, great impartiality. Loved, she can hardly is some compensation for the ridicule cast, be; and yet it seems impossible, even when too freely we think, on the dissenters, in she is farthest wrong, not to admire her. other parts of the work. Wayland Smith There is in her that energy of character is a most important and admirably brought-which never failed to command attention out character; nor is his familiar, Dicky and respect; and, as a sovereign, she deSludge, or Flibbertgibbet, without great served both. Varney, immaculate scounmerit. He reminds us, however, of Lord drel as he was, is made to say, that Elizabeth's Cranstoun's Goblin-page; and though drawn was not like other thrones, which could be in vivid colours, and his peculiarities exqui- overturned by a combination of powerful sitely devolved in his first appearances, he nobles; the broad foundations which supis more out of nature than any others of ported it, were in the extended love and the dramatis persona. But with the excep- affections of the people." We would not tion now adverted to, and that of Erasmus (says this Princess) have the minds of our Holliday, who is a kind of Domine Samp-subjects withdrawn from the consideration son, the other characters are all new; and of our own conduct; because, the more though some of them have moral qualities closely it is examined, the true motives by ef a very revolting nature, they are invest-which we are guided will appear the more

TO THE EDITOR.

being threatened with articles of impeachment fo
corrupt practices, declared, “that he was net
scious of any crime to deserve acccusation. He
emotion the line,
laid his hand on his breast and quoted with some

Nil conscire sibi, nulli pallescere culpæ.'
"Mr. Pulteney observed, that the Right Honest-
able Gentleman's Latin and logic were equally inac
curate, as Horace had written uulla pallescere
culpâ. The minister defended his quotation; and
Pulteney repeating his assertion, he offered a wager
referred the decision of the dispute to the ministers
of a guinea. Pulteney accepted the challenge, and
friend, Nicholas Hardinge, Clerk of the House, a
man distinguished for classical erudition. Hardinge
decided against Walpole; the guinea was imme-
diately thrown to Pulteney, who caught it, and
holding it up to the House, exclaimed, 'It is the

only money I have received from the Treasury for many years, and it shall be the last.""

This is probably the most remarkable among the many disputes that have arisen on classical pa sages. I should be glad if any of your University correspondents would furnish us with some others.

C

Scientific Notices.

MATERIALISM EXAMINED.

TO THE EDITOR.

These extracts will enable our readers to form some idea of the light, easy, and summary manner in which SIR,—Thinking the following beautiful animad- Mr. L. disposes of one of the most serious subjects versions on a lecture delivered and published by that can occupy the attention of a reasonable being When the introductory lectures, from which the exWm. Lawrence, F.R. S. Professor of Anatomy, Phy-tracts are taken, were formerly published by themsiology, &c. to the Royal College of Surgeons, in London, will be acceptable to the greater number of your readers, and that the work from which it is extracted is not likely to be in your possession, I

send it you.

As in my opinion it sets to rest a subject of the highest importance, on which not Mr. L. alone, but every physiologist who has dared to think, has had bis doubts, and has expressed the same in some way; as it can easily be comprehended by the meanest capacity; is of equal importance to all mankind, and cannot give umbrage to any religious sect, I think it cannot be inimical to your work; but this I leave to your superior judgment,

Yours, &c.

A THEO-PHILANTHROPIST.

Mr. Lawrence is well known to the public as a man of acknowledged talents and attainments. His high professional character, and the important situation which he holds as Professor of Anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons, will procure for his work an extensive circulation among that interesting class for which it is chiefly intended, the younger part of the medical profession; and it is, therefore, with deep regret that we find in it certain opinions, from which we are under the necessity of entering our strong and decided dissent. To this part of his work we mean to confine our observations; and, with all the respect that we feel for eminent talents, we reserve to our

pression. "No feelings, no thought, no intellectual tunate in his own dissections in support of his own
operation, has ever been seen, except in conjuction hypothesis? Has he shown his pupils a brain in the
with a brain," And, recurring to the favourite illustra- act of thinking? Or has he, even "with the assistance
tion of the liver, it is asked, "What should we think of Mr. Bauer and his microscope," shown them a sin-
of a person who told us, that organs have nothing to do gle thought that had been recently produced from it?
with the business; that cholera, jaundice, hepatitis, Something of this kind is necessary, before we can
admit that "the same kind of evidence that shows
are diseases of an immaterial hepatic being?"
digestion to be the function of the alimentary canal,
motion of the muscles, and the various secretions of
the respective glands, proves that thought is the func-
tion of the brain." We lay open, in the dead body,
the alimentary canal, and we trace the articles of food
through the various steps of the process of digestion.
We examine the various glands, and we find in the
ducts connected with each of them a portion of that
fluid which is its appropriate secretion. The contrac-
tion which constitutes motion, we see in the living
body. When muscles are exposed during surgical
produce it by the application of galvanism and other
operations, and in a body recently dead, we can
stimuli. That digestion, therefore, is the functions
of the alimentary canal. motion of the muscles, and
the various secretions of the respective glands, we
have the most direct and satisfactory evidence. Have
we any such that thought is the function of the brain?
Has a thought, recently secreted, been discovered in
the dissecting room of Mr. Lawrence? If not, this
part of his argument refutes itself; and, by his own
showing, he has left this important question just as he
found it. What avails it to say, that we never saw
thought without a brain? Did Mr. L. ever see it
without a heart, ur lungs, or liver? What avails it to
say, that, though it cannot be explained how the brain
thinks, no more can it be explained how the liver secretes
bile, or a muscle moves, or a stone falls to the ground?
This is true, but has nothing to do with the question:
it is not the explanation that we want, but the fact.
That the liver does secrete bile, that muscles move,
or that stones fall to the ground, however inexplicable
to us, are undoubted facts; that the brain thinks, is
not a fact, it is only the opinion of Mr. Lawrence.

selves, these opinions were considered by many as
amounting to materialism, and consequently as being
highly dangerous to young men attending the lectures
instituted by the Royal College of Surgeons.
in his "Physiological Lectures;" and in the complete
In this light they were regarded by Mr. Abernethy,
edition of Mr. Lawrence's Lectures now before us,
we have a section, entitled, "Reply to the Charges of
Mr. Abernethy." This reply consists of little more
than repeating the same opinions, and arguing in defence
of them, by confounding the important distinction be-
tween an immaterial soul, and the doctrine of a subtile
essence resembling electricity or magnetism, which
some have conceived to be the principle of organic
life, and the cause of the functions of a living animal.
"A party of modern sceptics! A sceptic is one
who doubts; and, if this party includes those who
doubt, or rather who do not doubt at all about the
electro-chemical doctrine of life, I can have no objec-
tion to belong to so numerous and respectable a body."
"Examine the mind the great prerogative of man.
Where is the mind of the child just born? Do
we not see it actually built up before our eyes by the
actions of the five external senses, and of the gradually
developed internal faculties?"-"Where, then, shall we
find proofs of the mind's independence on the bodily
structure? Of that mind, which, like the corporeal
frame, is infantile in the child, manly in the adult, sick
and debilitated in disease, phrensied or melancholy in
the madman, enfeebled in the decline of life, doting in
decrepitude, and annihilated by death?"

This, it is obvious, is only a repetition of the ob-
noxious opinions which this introductory section is
meant to defend; and now comes the defence.

But farther, says Mr. L. upon the supposition of an immaterial part, the brain is left without an office. This is new to us. The brain is the centre of sensation and motion; and every organ of the body depends for its healthy action upon an influence derived from it. Cut off this influence from the eye, and it sees not; from the ear, and it hears not; from the hand, and it neither feels nor moves; from the heart, and it ceases to beat; from the organs of breathing, and respiration is at an end; even the glands cannot perform their

selves the right of examining these opinions, and of at all to the separate existence of the soul; he only secretions without its influence. Such and so extensive

stating, in the plainest terms, the reasons which induce 23 to believe that they are unphilosophical in their nature, and dangerous in their tendency.

The nature of these doctrines, and the mode of reasoning by which they are supported, will be illustrated by the following extracts:

"The same kinds of facts," says Mr. L. "the same reasoning, the same sort of evidence altogether, which show digestion to be the function of the alimentary canal; motion of the muscles; the various secretions of the respective glands; prove that sensation, perceptien, memory, judgment, thought; in a word, all the manifestations called mental or intellectual, are the animal functions of their appropriate apparatus, the central organ of the nervous system.

Be it known to our readers, that in the very strong
passages which we have quoted from Mr. L. and many
others of a similar import, he did not mean to allude
"speaks physiologically." "This sublime dogma,'
(the separate existence of the soul,) "could never have
been brought to light by the labours of the anatomist
and physiologist," but "rests upon a species of proof
altogether different." "An immaterial and spiritual
being could not have been discovered amid the blood
and filth of a dissecting room." Now, that a doctrine
should be really true, and physiologically false, and the
object of ridicule, is a contradiction in terms. It is,
besides, nothing to the purpose; for, whether Mr. L.
was speaking physiologically, theologically, or meta-
physically, he has maintained, in the plainest terms,
that thought is a function of matter; and if we are to
use words in their ordinary acceptation, this is the sum
and substance of materialism.

But there is another point of view, in which we

are the offices of the brain: if we may borrow the figurative language of Mr. L. though it be well fed, clothed, and lodged, it has quite enough of work upon its hands, without assigning to it the additional labour of thinking.

Again, alluding to the zoophytes, who live in both halves after they have been divided, Mr. L. asks, is the immaterial principle divided? Certainly, if there be such a principle, it is no longer immaterial, for it is divided, and whatever is divisible is matter. But, did Mr. L. ever hear of a man being divided into two, and both halves continuing to think? The subject is too absurd to enlarge upon; and we merely mention it here as another example of Mr. L.'s mode of reasoning, and one to which he repeatedly recurs, applying his argument to mere organic life, and then extending

"Shall I be told, that thought is inconsistent with think this reply quite unworthy of Mr. L.; for what it, as if by necessary consequence, to the functions of matter; that we cannot conceive how medullary sub- does it amount to? First, he maintains, in the most mind, to which it has no relation whatever. stance can perceive, remember, judge, reason? I ac- unqualified terms, that matter may think, and that the knowledge, that we are as entirely ignorant how the substance of the brains actually does think. In support brace the leading points in Mr. L's argument, if such of this doctrine various arguments are brought forward, and all his powers are exerted to turn into ridicule the opposite doctrine of an immaterial soul. All this was impressed upon the young men attending his lectures, with great variety of illustration, and without

as

parts of the brain accomplish these purposes, as we are how the liver secretes bile, how the muscles contract, or how any other living purpose is effected; we are how heavy bodies are attracted to the earth, how iron is drawn to the magnet, or how two salts decompose each other."

without an office.

any explanation or qualification whatever.

But Mr. Abernethy, a man of high talents, no sooner In opposition to these views, it has been contended publicly charges him with the obvious tendency of these that thought is not an act of the brain, but of an im- opinions, than he shrinks from them; he meant material substance residing in, or connected with it. no such thing; nothing against the immateriality of By this doctrine Mr. L. conceives "the brain is left the soul; he was only speaking physiologically; he It has indeed the easiest lot in the only intended to say that this iminaterial being is not animal economy; it is better fed, clothed, and lodged, discovered amid the blood and filth of a dissecting than any other part, and has less to do. But its office, room; or, in plain English, that by looking at the brain only one remove above a sinecure, is not a very ho- of a dead man, no one could learn that his soul is imnourable one; it is a kind of porter entrusted to open mortal! This is certainly true; but if this be all that the door, and introduce new comers to the master of Mr. L. meant, we do not know with whom he is conthe house, who takes upon himself the entire charge tending. We never heard of any anatomist who prereceiving, entertaining, and employing them." The tended to exhibit in his dissecting room an immaterial me opinions are repeated under various forms of ex-soul; and we would ask Mr. L, has he been more for

Of

The observations which we have now made, emit can be called. But, as the subject has lately excited much attention, we avail ourselves of this opportunity of delivering our opinion more fully upon the general question of materialism, particularly in the form which it has lately assumed, as connected with certain speculations on vitality and organization. If, in the course of this investigation, we shall refer to topics not properly connected with a physiological discussion, let us not be misrepresented. Let us not be charged with dragging in religion to decide a physiological contro versy. The blame rests with those who have perverted physiology to the support of scepticism.

The Museum of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, among other curiosities, contains a bulrush, cut in Nepaul, 84 feet in length; a serpent with two heads; speci mens of mosaic from Agra and Golconds; crystals from Nepaul, and sculptures from Persepolis, Java, &c.