‘Malebranche explains the difference of the faculties of both sexes, the various kinds and particular tastes of different nations and individuals, by the firmness and softness, dryness and moisture of the cerebral fibres; and he remarks that our time cannot be better employed than in investigating the material causes of human phenomena. The Cartesians, by their doctrine of the tracks which they admit in the brain, acknowledge the influence of the brain on the intellectual faculties.’ Page 118. Dr. Spurzheim altogether explodes the doctrine of a difference in constitutional temperaments, the sanguine, the phlegmatic, and so on; because this difference, being general, is not consistent with his special organs. He also denies unequivocally the doctrine of the association of ideas, which Des Cartes’s ‘tracks in the brain’ were meant to explain. One would think this alone decisive against his book. Indeed the capacity of association, possessed in a greater or less degree, seems to be the great discriminating feature between man and man. But what _organ of association_ there can be between different _local_ organs it is difficult to conjecture; and Dr. Spurzheim was right in boldly denying a truth which he could not reconcile with his mechanical and incongruous theory. ‘There are persons who maintain that in the highest degree of magnetic influence, the manifestations of the soul are independent of the organization.’ Page 122. What! have we animal magnetism in the dance too? Would our great physiologist awe us into belief by bringing into the field quackery greater than his own? Then it is time to be on our guard. ‘We find sanguine and bilious individuals, who are intellectual or stupid, meek or impetuous; we may observe phlegmatics of a bold, quarrelsome, and imperious character. In short, the doctrine of the temperaments, as applied to the indication of determinate faculties, is not more sure or better founded, than divination by the hands, feet, skin, hair, ears, and similar physiognomical signs.’ Page 128. That is, red-haired people, for instance, have not a certain general character. After that, I will not believe a word the learned author says upon his bare authority. Dr. Spurzheim with great formality devotes a number of sections to prove that the several senses alone, without any other faculty or principle of thought and feeling, do not account for the moral and intellectual faculties. ‘There needs no ghost to tell us that.’ In his mode of entering upon this part of his subject, the Doctor seems to have been aware of the old maxim—_Divide et impera_—Distinguish and confound!