stances, by a writer of any country. He has judiciously done what every author should feel himself bound to do, from respect toward himself, as well as toward the public-gone to his work with a proud ambition, and a determined resolution to attain and master all the knowledge accessible to him, in relation to the subject he is preparing to handle. By no other mode of proceeding can an author, be his talents and general attainments what they may, do full justice to himself or his theme, or produce a work worthy in all respects of public favor. It is not unimportant to remark, and recommend to remembrance (because it may tend to the prevention of cavils and censures, as respects the "Essay" we are examining,) that the expression, "Varieties of the Human Species," virtually involves a belief, if it does not amount to an avowal of it, in the Mosaic doctrine of the unity of man. Our author, with the habitual correctness of judgment which characterizes him, has adopted that division of the GREAT COMMUNITY OF MAN, which, though not perhaps perfect, we are inclined to think the best, because it is liable to fewest objections. The division is nearly the same with that supported, if not originally devised, by Professor Blumenbach, and classes mankind under five races; the Caucasian; the Mongolian; the Malay; the American; and the Ethiopian. These races our author himself divides into twenty-two families, in the following order: 6. The Nilotic Family. 7. The Indostanic Family. "II. THE MONGOLIAN RACE. 8. The Mongul-Tartar Family. 9. The Turkish Family. 10. The Chinese Family. 11. The Indo-Chinese Family. 12. The Polar Family. "III. THE MALAY RACE. 13. The Malay Family. 14. The Polynesian Family. "IV. THE AMERICAN RACE. 15. The American Family. 16. The Toltecan Family. "V.-THE ETHIOPIAN RACE: 17. The Negro Family. 19. The Hottentot Family. 22. The Alforian Family." Such is our author's division of man into races and families; and of the distinguishing and characteristic traits of each division, he gives us a brief but graphical description. On his details however it is not our present purpose to dwell; because neither our time nor our space permits us to do so. Notices of his results are all we must attempt. And even they must be limited and few. We could not make them full and circumstantial, without writing an entire treatise, instead of an article for a periodical work. Nor would it be possible for us to endue with either much interest or usefulness, any thing we could say of our author's details respecting man in Europe, Asia, Africa, or Polynesia. The reason is plain. His work neither contains, nor was designed to contain any drawings of the "Crania" of the "races" and "families" which form the population of those parts of the globe. We have therefore no source of instruction, phrenological or philosophical, either to enlighten ourselves, or to enable us to enlighten others, on the subject of their intellect, morals, fitness for civilization, or general native character and developments. All we have of information respecting them is historical or narrative, or some limited description of person and countenance. And we need hardly say, that from such premises no substantial or instructive inferences can be drawn, as respects either their intellectual or moral endowments, or their prevailing propensities — nothing in fact to throw any clear and satisfactory light on the constitution of their minds. As respects the American race and families however the case is different. Of them our author has laid before us correct delineations of the "Crania," tantamount to delineations of the brains themselves, which necessarily corresponded to the crania, of about fifty different tribes, varieties, or nations. And those skulls thus represented to us, when correctly interpreted, speak the language of nature and truth, as regards the mental endowments of the tribes and individuals to whom they belonged. Are we asked, on what particular mental attributes of their owners those figures of skulls are calculated to throw light? We reply, on every attribute, provided they are thoroughly understood; but more especially on every leading attribute, fitted for the elevation or depression of a people, by giving them more or less of animal propensity, and of general mental power and character. They disclose, for example, the comparative amount of native intellect possessed by those who wore them; the comparative amount of native morality, sociability, and domesticity; the comparative amount of native pride, independence, and love of liberty, self-government, and sway over others; and also the native amount of animality and passion, manifested in sensual appetite, vindictiveness, cruelty, bloodshed, and war. Nor is this all. The configuration of the skull and brain discloses likewise something of the different modes in which different tribes and individuals wreak their personal vengeance, or conduct themselves in war-whether by a bold and open attack by day, or by ambush and skulking stratagem, in the night. And when two tribes or nations nearly equal in numbers engage in war, the comparative size and figure of their skulls, foretell in language sufficiently intelligible, and which ought not to be listened to with incredulity or disregard, to which side victory and conquest are likely to incline. They are evidences of the possession or destitution of war-like qualities. That these sentiments will be received with distrust by many, and perhaps entirely rejected by more of our readers, we are prepared to believe. Nor is the cause of this unknown to us. It is the want of an acquaintance with the principles of the new scheme of mental philosophy. For with those principles the sentiments just uttered are in perfect accord ance. They are in harmony with the admitted physiological fact, that the brain and nerves are the master tissue in the organization of our bodies; that they control, strenghten, and direct the other tissues; and that, other things being equal, the greater the amount of cerebral matter individuals possess, they will, whether acting alone, or in union with their fellows, prove the more powerful, efficient, and successful in their enterprizes. And the more likely they will be to become civil rulers in peace, and temporary victors, and per manent conquerors in periods of strife. Of course, on the contrary, a tribe or nation, whose skulls and brains are comparatively diminutive are, in consequence of that defect, the less able to defend themselves, and the more liable to be vanquished and enslaved, or exterminated, in war. Such we say are the grounds, on which the sentiments just expressed are founded. And not only are they in unison with the science of phrenology; by many of the plates in the "Crania Americana" they are abundantly sustained. And of the following points respecting human character, those plates furnish also, in equal abundance, matter of satisfactory illustration and proof.-Other things being alike, the more the animal organs of the brain predominate in a tribe or community over the moral, religious, and reflecting ones, the more ignorant and vindictive, blood-thirsty and cruel in war, and other forms of conflict and punishment, whether public or private, will that community show itself. The larger in a tribe or nation the organs of self-esteem, love of approbation, conscientiousness, and firmness are, other things being equal, the more difficult of conquest will that tribe be found, and the more certainly will it prefer extermination to slavery. Once more. Other things being the same, large moral, religious, and reflecting organs facilitate the civilization of a people-and the reverse; and when the moral and religious organs are large in a community, and the intellectual, animal and semi-animal ones small, that community will submit to bondage, rather than to extermination, and perhaps even rather than to banishment from its native soil. To illustrate and prove these positions, by materials derived from our author's "Crania. " Those plates demonstrate, that in the brains of what the writer calls the "American family," which constitutes chief |