MR. VAUGHAN says, in a recent letter, "I have lately extended my researches to the departments of human physiology, and I have been successful in accounting for Bervous sensation, for the phenomena of intermittent fevers with several circumstances connected with them, and I have also succeeded in demonstrating your doctrines on neurology on the principles of chemical and electric action. Though I did not intend to publish anything on the subject until they appear in the work I am preparing, I shall in a few days send you a concise exposition of these doctrines, as I know they will be interesting to you."

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS.-The first number of a weekly paper, published at Lexington and Louisville, Ky., entitled "The Progress of the Age," edited by D. J. Elder, is just received. Mr. Elder is a successful and original teacher, and his paper is devoted to educational as well as general improvement. His principles of education are similar to those which have been presented in the Journal of Man. As to their practical success, Mr. Elder says, "I have scholars in my school, at Lexington, Ky., of from 6 to 9 years of age, with from 5 to 18 months training from the alphabet, upon principles according with Dr. Buchanan's views on education, in advance in spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, English grammar, and algebra, of those who have been from 3 to 7 years under the common systems of education."

MR. J. C. ZACHOS of the Cincinnati Female Seminary, announces in his last circalar the successful adoption of those principles for which this Journal has contended. He says, "The method of instruction adopted in this Institution is almost entirely oral. Each teacher will be prepared to instruct the class on the subject of study by lecture, without requiring of the members of it, the use of any particular text book, except for illustrations in science, or for the reading of languages. The method of study to be adopted by each pupil is by notes taken in the class; these expanded into abstracts more or less full, and by synthetic or analytic recitations of the subject by the pupil, without relying on questions by the teacher." He testifies to the success of this method as follows:

"All such objections to the system are met by us, by the simple fact that we have tried it, and know that it will work, and better than any other that prevails in the present state of school education, of which the suffrage of our pupils universally and heartily given is the best proof."

The Cincinnati Female Seminary, it appears from its circular, "has been now in operation in this city, for more than seven years. During the course of the last academic year, it has numbered, for the most part, above a hundred pupils. It has em ployed the whole time of five teachers, and the partial attention of five others."

Teachers of Ohio! will you not look again at the Journal for May, 1849—and study those principles which Mr. Zachos and Mr. Elder have thus demonstrated?

SOMNOLIZING BY CLOCKWORK.-"A new form of Mesmerism" has been announced at Bristol, Connecticut, resulting from the attempt of clockmakers to set their chronometers going. "When the whole movement is going (says the N. Y. Post) any per son who sits down and counts the beats or watches the motion of the balance, invariably becomes drowsy. Attempts have been made with other clocks but they do not produce the same sensation. The clocks are of polished work and gilded by a peculiar galvanic process. The person who is put to sleep continues to count the beatings of the time with his hand or foot." "It affords some amusement to visitors (says the Boston Post) to see a company of men at work and half of them asleep, yet laboring to keep themselves awake. Experiments have been made with strangers and it invariably produces the same effect. On Saturday last a collier came to the factory with a load of coals, and was admitted into the finishing room to see the clocks. One of the workmen desired to make the experiment, accordingly the old man was put to count, striking on the bench with his hand in time with the clock. He went to sleep in three minutes, and was kept under the influence for nearly an hour. His dog that had followed him into the room, upon discovering his situation exhibited alarm and ran about howling in the most dismal manner. All this did not disturb the sleeper, but the moment the clock was stopped he awoke, and was surprised that so much time had passed." In regulating these clocks it is necessary "to count the beats in a minute by a regulator, and change the hairspring until both go nearly in time," during which the drowsy influence becomes apparent.

BUCHANAN'S

JOURNAL OF MAN.

Vol. II, No. 2—AUGUST, 1850.

ART. I.-REVOLUTION.

Ir is no partial change-no patchwork of reform that is needed. in this disorderly world. No man who has a conscience and is accustomed silently and reverently to listen to its dictates, can go forth into society as it is, without feeling the dictates of that conscience violated in all the relations of mankind. In the family and the school, in business and in government, in social intercourse and in the associate movements of organized bodies, everywhere, alike, a low standard of life obtains, and he who would suggest purer principles or a life more in harmony with the professions which all are willing to make in abstract terms, at once arrays against himself the firm phalanx of all who are contented with the world as it is, and who repel as visionary or wicked the nobler principles which silently rebuke their own lives.

A sense of the necessity for reform, for universal reform, disturbs the repose of thousands, who feel, that whatever may be the destined course of such reform, whatever shapes of beauty, of fitness, and of happiness the future may be destined to reveal, it is certain at least that universal and regenerative changes are demanded, and that the foreshadowing of their approach is already falling across our path. To discuss these changes in detail-to mark out the definite path in which we must tread to reach the goal of human happiness-to show the structure of a rational society in harmony with itself, all over the globe, universally enlightened and universally happy, is not within the scope of my present designs, or within the possible compass of my space at present.

Yet it is to such an end that I would direct my labors. The great and beneficent result of anthropological science is to show not only the means of organizing the individual-developing the fullness of his intelligence, love, energy and physical power-but also the means of organizing society in harmony with the dictates of VOL. II.-C

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those Divine faculties, which make it Heaven wherever they have an undisputed home.

It may not be obvious to all, how the study of the human brain and mind can lead to so glorious a consummation, but to those who have thought much upon this subject, it is clear that the thorough knowledge of man's nature and relations to all surrounding things is indispensable to judicious arrangement of social institutions. Whenever, at the present time, we propose any change, or criticise any error in morals, society, education, or government, we find ignorance, error, and falsehoods clustered around every abuse and sheltering it from criticism or amendment. The human conscience, like a virgin soil overgrown with a dense and tangled thicket, cannot be reached without demolishing a matted mass of errors and delusions, which shut out the light of day. Often in advocating simple and almost self-evident improvements we are compelled to go back to the simplest elementary truths of anthropology, and enforce by argument that which should be as familiar as the principles of mathematics to every educated mind. Often in suggesting moral improvements we find a profound ignorance of the nature and true dictates of our fundamental moral emotions, and of the manner in which they should be cherished and strengthened-an ignorance not confined to the uneducated classes, but glaringly conspicuous in the high places from which society is taught the morality which it acknowledges.

Most deplorably do we need a true anthropology to clear away from the rich soil of the American mind a noxious undergrowth of prejudices and delusions. We have brought over with us from our European ancestry nearly all the falsehoods of the old countries, most of which are still existing in our midst.

Not only in practical life, but in nearly all branches of knowledge, a man of active mind, who lays aside prejudice, will find a great amount of error-violations of truth, humanity, and reason.

Each of the learned professions, law, physic, and divinity, is full of absurdities and resolute in their defence. My especial attention to one of these has made me aware of its glaring errors and its steady resistance to progress. That the others are equally benighted I have no doubt.

Not only that which leads and governs in society, but the humblest vocations are illustrations of the same general truth. Mechanical and agricultural labors are prosecuted in laborious, unscientific methods, which inventive genius will hereafter greatly abridge and improve. A rude and imperfect practical knowledge of these arts, which might be acquired in a few weeks or months, requires an apprenticeship of several years. Turn where we will-in everything, that man has created, organized, or taught, reason has been violated-ignorance embodied, and the whole system, as well as all its parts, stands in need of that universal reform which is rightly termed REVOLUTION.

ART. II.-ORGANOLOGY OF THE BRAIN

THE question is often asked-how many organs are there in the brain? What is their exact number?

It is asked with as much confidence as if there were a set of organs lying around the medulla oblongata like inverted cones with their points downward, all perfectly defined in their boundaries and separated by membranes, so that we need only to count them to ascertain their precise number. This idea, which is groundless in anatomy, originated from popularizing the Gallian system of Phrenology among those unacquainted with cerebral anatomy.

These cones and these divisions of organs are quite imaginary. The brain does not consist of anything like the popular conception of phrenological organs-it consists chiefly of a mass of convolu tions widely different in their appearance from the phrenological mapping.

You see no distinct organs in the cerebrum-none so separated from the cerebral mass as to make it anatomically certain that they are distinct; on the contrary every organ or portion of the brain is connected with the other portions, and the whole constitutes a connected mass of white nervous matter, intimately associated with a grayish cortical nervous substance, evidently designed to act as one great organ.

In the disputes of the phrenologists and antiphrenologists, as in all other disputes, there was of course some truth on each side of the question, and to the constantly reiterated objection that the dif ferent organs could not be demonstrated by dissection, no satisfactory anatomical answer was ever made, because the objection was true. But a higher and a better answer was made, by showing that it was entirely needless to look for such divisions-that inasmuch as the different nerves could not be distinguished from each other by their appearance, and the nerves of sensation and of motion in the spinal cord run together with no exact or perceptible separation, it would be unreasonable to expect any great separation or marked distinction among the cerebral organs. This was a clear and philosophical view of the subject.

Hence if I am asked into how many organs is the cerebrum divided, I reply that it is not divided into specific organs-it is one connected and continuous mass of convolutions, evidently forming one organ in their aggregate character, but partly divided from each other by the sulci or anfractuosities between them, which separate the convolutions at the surface for the depth of about half an inch, an inch, or inch and a half.

Yet in general no convolution is entirely separated from its neigh

bor even at the surface. The cerebrum appears as a mass of confluent convolutions, not distinct organs.

But do not suppose for a moment that this militates against the Gallian doctrine of the multiplicity of cerebral functions and organs; on the contrary, I would reiterate this view and carry it out consistently to the fullest extent. These convolutions all have different functions, and I believe that every portion of each convolution has a different function-in short, I do not know of any definite limit to their subdivision, and believe that our experiments fully sustain, as far as they have gone, the idea of the distinguished naturalist, Chas. Bonnet, that each fiber of the brain is a distinct organ for the human soul.

This is sustained by reason as well as by experiment. If one nervous mass or fiber performs a particular office, where is the necessity of another mass or fiber to perform identically the same office? What need for repetition? I have never found any such repetition. I have never found any two portions of the brain, however small or adjacent, evolve precisely the same results. I find the brain to be a mass of countless organs for the manifestation of the innumerable faculties and inclinations which belong to man. Man is so godlike in his structure-it is so perfect a display of the divine wisdom, that when we contemplate ourselves, we find an infinity within equal to the great infinity without, in the external universe; and any system of philosophy which does not recognize the vast multiplicity of our faculties is far below the majesty of our

nature.

To return to the question into how many organs is the brain divided. There are no complete mechanical divisions of the organs of the cerebrum, except the sulci between the convolutions, yet we may make as many imaginary divisions as we please, if we recollect that they are nothing more than imaginary lines or arrange

ments.

Neither the old system of craniology, nor any other system that might be proposed in its place could give us the exact number of cerebral organs:-they could give us only arbitrary arrangements or classifications, for all the arrangements are in some degree arbitrary.

But as we must fix upon some divisions for convenience, upon what plan should our divisions be made? The brain is like an unoccupied territory which we may divide into fields and lots according to our fancy or convenience.

A good plan would be to guide ourselves by the convolutions. They are natural divisions which ought to be respected. If we had nothing but anatomy and cranioscopy to guide us, it would be impos sible by so dim a light to arrange the organs so as to correspond closely to the convolutions. But human impressibility, by the simple process of sympathetic diagnosis, enables us to trace through the cranium in the living head the exact site of the convolutions.