a loss to conceive how the functions of life can be carried on, without a spiritual immaterial something, which stimulates the living machine, and directs all its energies.'

The next extract that we shall make relates to the shape of the cranium, as exhibited in the different varieties of the human species, and the connection which it bears with the mental faculties.

• Mankind have been principally divided into three great tribes, the European, the Tartar, and the Negro; in these we trace considerable variety in the form of the head. The European, according to Blumenbach, has a round head, the forehead of moderate extent, the cheek-bones narrow, without much projection, the front teeth ranged perpendicularly. The Tartar has his head almost square, the cheek-bones projecting outwards, the nose flat, the eyes angularly situated outwards, the chin slightly prominent, the skull assumes a square form, and exhibits a tendency to lateral projection. The Negro has the head narrow, compressed at the sides, the forehead convex, the cheek-bones projecting forwards, the nostrils wide, the jaws lengthened, the teeth of the upper jaw turned obliquely forwards, the lower jaw large, the skull thus manifesting a character of lateral compression. We trace, then, the superiority of man to consist in the structure of his brain, of which the figure of his skull forms the exponent outline; so that the less an animal has of jaws, and the more of skull, the nearer it approaches the rational structure of the human head. Nothing gives the human face a more brutal aspect than protruding jaws, with a head pushed back; in this case, we find the point of the chin projecting beyond the line of the face, the teeth prominent, the nose somewhat flattened, the eyes separated by a narrow space, the forehead receding, the skull terminating in a sharp point above and behind;-a man with such a head will never make a Lord Chancellor.'

Perhaps the most interesting part of the volume, and that which displays most ability, is the discussion of the question." whether the whole human race had one common origin; a question which Mr. Boyne answers in the affirmative. We do not observe any thing new in the arguments that are employed, but they are set forth in a perspicuous and candid form. As it would be difficult to select any part for quotation, we pass on to the metaphysics, and present our readers with the author's account of some of the intellectual faculties.

Perception is that faculty of the mind by which we acquire sensations or feelings from the impression of external objects; these excite a sensation of their presence or nature on the mind, which is called an Idea: the mind recalls those ideas at different times, after the external object or archetype is withdrawn. Ideas are at first all simple, but by combination and comparison become

very complex, and form the basis of all our knowledge. The seat of perception is evidently in the brain: if the communication between any organ of sense and the brain is cut off or interrupted, the function of that organ is immediately lost. Many physiologists have attempted to trace the different affections of the mind to different portions of the brain; but this has exercised their time and fancy to very little purpose; no progress has been made in the discovery. Des Cartes, who had the usual speculative ingenuity of a Frenchman, supposed the pineal gland was the seat of the soul.'

Much discussion has taken place concerning the origin of knowledge; some have contended that it is derived from certain inherent qualities in the mind itself, by which it possesses an innate perception of the coalescence or incongruity of particular ideas. Others suppose that all our knowledge is acquired by experience, through the medium of the senses; that no idea is innate, but that every truth is the result of an operation of the mind, in combining, separating, or comparing different ideas; that the senses, therefore, are the inlets, and the mind a mere tabula rasa, upon which is successively recorded all the figures and circumstances which the senses announce at different periods. Mr. Locke compares it to a dark closet, with only a little opening to let in external resemblances; he says, "Would the pictures, coming into such a dark room, but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them." Sensible impressions are therefore the keys of all our knowledge. Had the mind any innate faculty of instituting the perception of truth, then all human information would be an homogeneous uniform mass of intelligence universally distributed, and bearing a common stamp. Men would agree upon all the leading points, for, as I said before, universality and uniformity are inseparable attributes of all instinctive faculties; whereas, on the contrary, we find the greatest diversity in the sentiments and opinions of men, upon the most common-place and familiar circumstances.

We have now sufficiently extended our remarks and extracts, and shall conclude with a single observation. In our opinion, Mr. Boyne's production is not distinguished for any peculiar excellence, nor for any gross defects: it may give some useful information to those who have not time and opportunity for much study or research, but to a well stored mind it cannot afford great interest; nor will it satisfy the student who is disposed to proceed farther than the mere surface of knowlege.

ART:

ART. VI. An Epitome of Juridical or Forensic Medicine; for the Use of Medical Men, Coroners, and Barristers. By George Edward Male, M.D., Birmingham. 8vo. pp. 200. 75. Boards. Underwood. 1816.

DR.

R. MALE informs us in the commencement of his preface, that his particular design in this publication is to put into the hands of medical men a concise essay on poisons and their remedies, with a collection of those tests which are most to be relied upon for ascertaining their presence: also to point out what is necessary to be attended to in cases of sudden or violent death, that they may be prepared to state their evidence before a Coroner, or in a Court of Justice, in a manner reputable to themselves and satisfactory to the public.' We believe that he is correct in the statement that no work exists in the English language which treats fully on these topics; and he might have added that there is none in any other language which could have been advantageously translated, without much alteration.

The subject of poisons occupies nearly half of the volume, as being that on which the opinions of medical men are very frequently required, and likewise that which admits of the greatest variety of experimental proofs. The improvements which have taken place in chemical science, during the last twenty years, have added remarkably to the degree of certainty at which we are able to arrive on this point; while our more correct notions on the nature of the animal functions have contributed, in no small degree, to remove the errors into which we had previously fallen, and which had occasionally given rise to fatal mistakes in the administration of justice. Dr. Male divides poisons into animal and vegetable; a division which may be scientifically correct, but which is practically useless, since in the first class are placed only two, hydrophobia and cantharides. We cannot see on what principle the former of these is introduced in a work of this description; nor how hydrophobia can ever become a subject of judicial inquiry, more than small-pox, measles, or any other disease produced by a specific contagion. The vegetable poisons are divided into the acrid and the narcotic: but perhaps a more simple arrangement, and more useful for the purposes of this work, would have been to separate them into mineral and vegetable; because these differ from each other in the very important particular that it is the former alone to which we are able to apply tests for their detection, while we can only judge of the presence of the latter by their sensible qualities.

Of the mineral poisons, the effect on the body, either as producing a certain train of symptoms during life or as giving REV. OCT. 1817.

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rise to peculiar appearances after death, has been very frequently the subject of legal investigation, but still remains involved in considerable obscurity. Dr. M. has brought together many valuable facts, but he appears to us to fall into. the error so common with those who depend more on the collected opinions of others than on their own observations, of regarding all writers as nearly of equal authority; and, which is a natural consequence, of being too much disposed to give credit to marvellous tales. He thus states the effect of arsenic when taken internally in any considerable quantity:

It occasions a sense of heat in the tongue and throat, nausea, and sickness, followed in about half an hour by violent vomiting and purging of watery viscid matter, sometimes of blood, generally pain in the stomach and bowels, hiccup, spasms, thirst, cold sweats, extreme coldness of the whole body, particularly the extremities, fainting, and death. Delirium, or loss of reason, is seldom a consequence of it; and the unfortunate person is conscious till a few moments before the termination of his existence. After some time, these symptoms cease, the abdomen becomes tender to the touch, the pulse imperceptible; and with the sensation of faintness, exhaustion, and tendency to sleep, which may continue many hours, he expires: these symptoms took place in a case I attended, where a tea-spoonful of alum and arsenic had been taken, in the proportions of one-third of the former to two of the latter, which, by the negligence of a druggist's servant, had been sold for magnesia. If the patient recovers, he is often affected with epileptic fits for some time afterwards.'

The two points, to which we are to attend in these cases, are to ascertain whether the poison has actually been administered; and, provided that the patient be still alive, what are the best means of obviating its effects. Arsenic being the substance. generally employed for the purpose of destroying life, as the means either of suicide or of murder, peculiar pains have been taken to obtain a number of unequivocal tests, by which even the smallest quantity of it may be detected. Dr. Male gives an account of them; which is chiefly derived from the experiments of Drs. Jaeger, Bostock, and Roget, and which contains perhaps all that is known on the subject: but we think that it is defective in not discriminating between the respective merits of the different processes, and in not pointing out, for the benefit of the inexperienced chemist, the exact manipulations which are necessary for performing the operations. The same general remarks apply to corrosive sublimate; for the detection of which twelve different processes are enumerated, some of them being comparatively of little value, and others of extreme delicacy and accuracy.

After

After poisons, the cases of wounds, infanticide, pregnancy, abortion, rape, hanging, drowning, insanity, and some others of minor importance, are successively discussed; and we must do the author the justice to say that we generally find a number of sensible remarks on all these topics, and not often any to which we can positively object. We perceive, indeed, throughout the whole, a want of discrimination, to which we have already alluded; as also of that acuteness which enables a writer to seize on the-most prominent parts of his subject, and to bring those more especially into view, while he consigns such as are less essential to their merited obscurity. Altogether, therefore, though we consider Dr. Male's work as the best manual of the kind that we possess, we conceive that it would still be easy to write a better.

ART. VII. A Description of the principal Picturesque Beauties, Antiquities, and Geological Phænomena, of the Isle of Wight. By Sir Henry C. Englefield, Bart. With additional Observations on the Strata of the Island, and their Continuation in the adjacent Parts of Dorsetshire. By Thomas Webster, Esq. Illustrated by Maps and numerous Engravings, by W. and G. Cooke, from original Drawings by Sir H. Englefield and T. Webster. Imperial 4to. pp. 265. 71. 78. Boards. Payne and Foss. 1816.

THE history of this sumptuous performance is distinctly un

folded in the preface. So long ago as the years 1799, 1800, and 1801, Sir Henry Englefield, during his summer-residence in the Isle of Wight, had repeatedly visited, with the eye of a scientific observer, almost every part of that interesting district which seemed to claim particular notice. In 1802, he had collected, and prepared for publication, his copious notes, sketches, and measurements, but circumstances of a private nature induced him to suspend the execution of his design for ten years. A recent revision of his materials having convinced him of their inadequacy to complete his geological delineations, and being conscious of a failure of his strength and activity, he had recourse to the able services of Mr. Webster, the results of whose diligent and accurate investigations are reported by himself in a series of twelve letters.

'Not being satisfied,' observes the learned Baronet,' with the execution of those plates [which] I had etched, and my eye-sight not permitting me to hope that I could by re-engraving mend those already done, or execute the many which yet remained to do, I thought it best to engage those two excellent artists, Messrs W. and G. Cooke, to execute the whole of the views, under the joint inspection of Mr. Webster and myself: of the beauty of the

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