lowest, and to require that an independent sovereignty shall creep, “ with baited breath and whispering humbleness," from court to court, and from tribunal to tribunal, praying the grace and mercy of its masters, the judges. Truly ««' ταν δε Δαιμων ανδρι προσυνη κακα Τον νους εβλαψε πρωτον.” Is it to be wondered at, that when such doctrines as these are advocated in high places, secession is sometimes more than whispered ? ANSWERS FOR A COMPANY AT CONVERSATION CARDS. (FROM GOETHE.) THE LADY. SEEK'ST thou to woman's heart the clew, In the great world and her own! Her's the flower latest blown; THE YOUNG GENTLEMAN. With all Ida's nymphs acquaint; Three heavenly forms Jove to him sent; THE EXPERIENCED. Wins, at length, the gentle meed; Will, perhaps, still better speed; THE CONTENTEĎ MAN. With deep disquiet, sorrows keen; The fair, the good, is often seen; THE MERRY COUNSELOR. Daily strives the rogues to school, Leaves him but the more a fool; S. E. B. with and es, the NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. * ocated The work at the head of this article, has been many years before the public, and has been so far as we know, universally commended. It appears, however, from Dr. Prichard's own showing, that his labors have been more highly esteemed by the Germans, than by his own "utilitarian countrymen, a fact which should have made him suspect its value, and examine it with severe scrutiny. We fancy that no people judge more correctly of the substantial merit of literary or scientific labor, than the English; and most certainly none are more abundantly gifted with the desire, or the means, to patronize home genius, as none are more exclusively national. The whole work, too, was evidently constructed moulded, to harmonize with popular opinion ; and the second section, on the “ Bearings of the Question,” is an artful appeal to public sympathy for support. But, although he might complain of the patronage of the Eng. lish public, he had reason to rejoice in the liberality of the press and learned bodies, which strove to confer upon him praise and honor. It is no pleasant task to arraign at the public bar a work so extensively known, and received as a standard authority. Nor would we attempt it for anything less than a capital error, in which the public has a very deep interest . We do not regard the numerous judgments he has received from courts of concurrent jurisdictions, as a bar to our proceedings; for nothing is more common and notorious, than for judges in this court, contemporary with authors, to discharge their high functions under influences not very creditable to the ermine. Many of them are, no doubt, very honest, and most of them flippant on the subjects that come before but it is, unquestionably, a matter of first importance to suitors in these courts, to bring with them, in general, as many other recommendations as they can procure, especially if the work to be judged is the first appearance of the author before these august tribunals. Happy is he, who, by reason of merit or influence, should obtain a favorable judgment from a Jerrold or a Macaulay, as the whole pack will give consentaneous tongue, as though the scent of the game actually reached their own noses ; and unfortunate is be, whatever may be his merit , whose time has passed in obscurity, and encounters the severity of the judges in defenceless nakedness. Poor soul! he shrinks back to his obscurity and his books, and appeals to another generation for justice, when he and his successful contemporaries will be weighed with à just balance. We have now in our eye several authors moving among us in “all the pride and circumstance” of factitious glory and wealth, whose fee-simple of reputation in the next generation would be dear at half an hour's purchase. We do not say that Dr. Prichard's reputation is of this character, because he has something more to depend on than his “ Natural History of Man.” Besides, it appears to be necessary in every science, that a season of speculation them; The Natural History of Man; comprising inquiries into the modifying influences: of physical and moral agencies on the different tribes of the human family. By James Cowles Prichard, M.D., F.R.S., M.R.I.A., &c. should precede the appearance of truth, just as the dawn precedes the coming of “the glorious orb of day;" and although the dawn is forgotten in the splendor of the day, and the season of speculation is lost in the blaze of truth, by people generally, yet there are a few who retain the knowledge of the necessary progress of events. The very lively interest which has succeeded to hitherto profound apathy in the public mind, in regard to the natural history of man, cannot all be attributed to the higher perfection of the science. Political agitations have produced much of it; and although it is unquestionably true that a scientific natural history of man cannot become a partisan for or against slavery, yet it must present most of the natural facts upon which the arguments of both parties must be based; and we think it must divest the subject of much of the passion with which it has been conducted. But if the public interest were principally founded on these political agitations, and not on real progress made in the science, we should have no hope of any permanent advantage to be gained by it. On the contrary, the science has progressed ; has been taken from the custody and control of mere anatomists, who exhibited only its skeleton, and has been given to the public clothed with its flesh, and endowed with its vitality. We do not pretend to say that it is perfect in all its parts, and exhibits the beauty of maturity. Time is required for these developments, as it is for others. But one man and one woman came into the world as adults; all others have been infants, requiring constant attention to raise and inn prove them. It is instructing to follow the progress of some of the most important sciences from their first rude beginnings to their present advanced conditions. It will teach us the important lesson, that the human mind accomplishes nothing when it abandons observation and induction, and attempts to rely on speculation for advance in knowledge. It will teach us, that, after proceeding a certain length by observation and induction, there is a constant tendency of the human mind to rely on speculations to assume premises, and to make them the foundations of systems. It will inform us, that the human mind has a greater tendency to error than to truth; and that in every science, but mathematics, such speculations have prevailed, and postponed progress, until the mind is again brought back to the point of departure, --observation and induction. It will tell us that there are two great principles of the human mind concerned in the formation of science-genius and reason--which are so seldom combined in one individual, that but few Aristotles and Bacons are found dotted among the generations of men; while men with genius without & proper proportion of reason, and the reverse, are not rare. It will teach us, that the departure from the only true process of scientific discovery is always first made by one whose genius predominates, and that it is continued and maintained by those in whom reason predominates, almost to the exclusion of intuitive perception. It will tell us, that the whole time is not lost during which genius has usurped the throne of observation and induction ; for although systematic science is not advanced, and many errors are propagated, yet a number of useful facts are often collected, and the errors became pointers, to a well-balanced mind, for the discovery of truth. These, and many other valuable lessons, will be taught to him who closely follows the progress of the sciences from their beginnings to their present conditions. We might easily illlustrate the above remarks by the example of chemistry, astronomy, medicine, &c.; but as our special subject, the natural history of man, will be sufficient for our purpose, we propose to follow it as closely as our limits will permit. Unlike most other branches, the natural history of man has been emphatically a creature of pure speculation from the earliest period until very recently. Other branches have their origins in the necessities and wants of mankind, which begat the arts, and which supplied the numerous facts and induced the observations from which the principles of science can only be inferred. From the first rude conceptions of the Greeks, to the last labored and artificial system of the Blumenbachian school of philosophers, the natural history of man has only been a series of speculations, unaccompanied by any of those sound logical arguments which we most generally find in the supporters of speculations in other branches of science. Nor is it very surprising that such has been the case; for although the natural history of other animals had its origin from observation of, and induction from, the great store of facts gathered during ages, no such store had been collected in respect to man. Civil, political and religious histories, together with the arts, sciences and polite literature of the world, contain innumerable facts illustrating the nature of man, as perfectly as the facts relating to the honey-bee, or the economy and regulations of a community of any other social animals, illustrate the nature of the animal described. But, unfortunately, the condition of man has never been regarded as the product of his nature, but as an artificial state; as if he had the power, by art, something extrinsic and superior to nature, to rise superior to the condition to which the Creator destined him, by other aids than his natural endowments. Under such circumstances, what facts were left upon which to found observation, and to make the necessary inductions preparatory to the formation of a science? None. The beaver, the bee, the ant, the spider, and many other animals, exhibit powers as strange in comparison with many other animals, as the extraordinary powers of man are strange in comparison with the whole organic kingdom; but these animals are exterior and inferior to us, and we can observe their natures without prejudice or passion. Besides, our capacities, without being severely taxed, enable us to comprehend the whole monotonous routine of the powers of such animals, however intricate, and we readily and justly ascribe them to natural operations; just as a race of beings equally superior in capacity to man would comprehend and describe human powers; "and show a Newton as we show an ape." But man, investigating himself, is another and a very different affair. He encounters not only his pride, his prejudices, his passions and the accumulated errors of ages, but, if he should entertain a correct view of his subject, it is equal to, if not beyond his highest intellectual capacity, whatever may be his estimate of it. It embraces all his relations, sexual, social, political and religious, just as, when describing the ant, we tell of the arrangements and economy of the hill; or the honey-bee, we speak of the regulations and economy of the hive. It embraces his poetry, his literature, his science, his eloquence, for the same reason that, in describing the mocking-bird, we must not omit his inimitable powers of song; nor in describing the preacher-monkey, must we forget his long and noisy harangues to his congregations, which are, no doubt, very ed ifying. We proceed to show that the natural history of man, until very recently, has been only a series of speculations, unsupported by any of those sound arguments which we most generally find used by the supporters of speculations in other branches of science, To do this we must give a short history of the rise of general natural history, (or that of the lower animal kingdom,) to show that the value of the principles obtained in this science is subordinate to long and laborious observation of the animal world, grew out of, and would have no value without such observation; consequently, as the principles thus obtained are applied with equal authority to the natural history of man, without any previous observation of his nature, and are attempted to be supported and confirmed in their entire control of the science exclusively from analogy, with the lower orders of animals, that the whole fabric is an assumption, a speculation,-not a science founded on observation and induction. It may be proper before we proceed, to define the terms “observation," “ induction," and speculation,” as they are philosophically understood, because some readers may be at a loss respecting them. Observation, is a close and critical attention to, and examination of the phenomena of nature. Induction, is the process by which, from the natural phenomena collected by observation, we arrive at the general principle or natural law, indicated by a kindred class of phenomena. Induction, is the opposite to reduction ; for as induction is the synthesis or combination of all kindred phenomena into one general principle or law, so reduction is the analysis, or resolution of a principle, or law, into its elements, or individual phenomena. But the powers required for the successful practical operation of the two are vastly different; as different as between the power of one individual to invent a chronometer, and the power of another only to take it to pieces, and lay each piece by itself. Induction requires genius, intuitive perception regulated and chastened by reason; but reduction is a simple act of reason, the mere act of the logician. The proper exercise of the first power belongs only to the prophets, the seers of the scientific world; while the proper exercise of the last, belongs, in a great or less degree, somewhat in proportion to cultivation to mankind in general. This is the hy Aristotles, Bacons, Newtons and Cuviers, are so few and far between, in the generations of men; while professors, philosophers, critics and scholars, are so We, lastly, proceed to the definition of speculation, which is an assumption of general principle or law, without observation and induction. It is not pretended that a speculation would become a generally received proposition without having some plausibility; some appearance of truth by being in harmony with some known facts; for willing as most learned men are to take first principles,--premises--for granted, because of the difficulty, and often, the incapacity to expose their fallacy, yet logical powers are too common with educated men, to believe they would be long led astray by a speculation which leads directly to an absurd conclusion. Thousands possess good logical powers for one gifted with a genius for correct induction ; consequently, thousands are more willing to take premises from some authority, some great name, that they may with becoming vanity, exhibit their logical skill, than to question premises, and grope in a region in which there is no Pisgah's top to which they can son numerous. |