Essentially linked with the power of loco-motion, relative sensibility is distributed to the different animals in an exact proportion to the wants of their organization, being resident in a tissue, whose development is regulated in the various species, by the sphere of activity necessary to their preservation.'-p. 276.

According to this great philosopher, there is in all individuals a preponderance of some viscus (in the brain) which gives it a lead in the organization.' p. 365. In another place he informs us, that the distinction between material and spiritual beings is made a watch-word for fanaticism and persecution:' and that 'the proposition of a Deity without parts or dimensions approaches to absolute atheism.' ib. But it is needless to multiply quotations from a work, of which the mischievous tendency is wholly blunted by the unutterable dullness and puzzle-headedness of the writer.

We now return to Mr. Lawrence.

In accepting,' says the author of the "Cursory Observations," the office of a Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, you were not indeed bound to accede to the creed of the Established Church, nor compelled to express your admiration of the civil institutions of the English nation. You were still at liberty to enjoy your opinions in private, nay, to publish them to the world in any separate and independent form. But, I appeal to your sense of decorum and propriety, whether it be fair or expedient to transform the professor's chair into the seat of the scorner and the sceptic? Suppose, Sir, that I had sent my son to attend upon your Lectures, that your fame and reputation as Anatomical and Surgical Professor had determined him to give you the preference above all your brethren; should not I be shocked, on his return, to find that his religious principles were destroyed, and his moral principles corrupted; that he had ceased to admire the constitution of his country; and that he had gained his professional knowledge at the expense of all dignified and elevated moral sentiment?

It would be a poor satisfaction for me to learn, that you had no such nefarious design; that all you wished was, to divest him of preconceived prejudices, and to free him from national partialities. I had sent him to perfect himself in anatomical and surgical acquirements, not to be made the disciple of Hume or Volney, of Voltaire or Gibbon. Indeed, Sir, you have completely travelled out of your record, by endeavouring to influence the moral and political sentiments of your pupils. Instead of contemplating physiology, in its reference to surgery and medicine, you have exhibited it as the road to materialism in metaphysics, to faction in politics, and to infidelity in religion. These are grave and serious charges; and if I cannot substantiate them, I shall be content to rank as a bigot and calumniator. But if, in the following Letters, it shall be proved that these are the natural consequences of your speculations, then, as a man of honour, you will feel

yourself

yourself driven to the following dilemma: either you will, for the future, refrain from expressing such opinions in your character as Royal Professor, or, you will renounce a situation so totally incompatible with the display of these sentiments in politics and religion.'-p. S.

Nothing can be more just than the language of this remonstrance. Mr. Lawrence, at the close of his lectures, (p. 573) says, I have now performed the task assigned to me by the Board of Curators.' We beg leave to ask what was the task assigned to him by that Board? Was it to give a course of lectures for the improvement of the students in the knowledge and practice of surgery? or to seek to pervert their moral and religious principles, to teach them to doubt the records of Revelation, and to indispose them to the institutions of their country? He talks (p. 575) of the liberality of the legislature in voting a large sum of public money for the purchase of Mr. Hunter's valuable collection; and of the pecuniary exertions of the College of Surgeons in making arrangements connected with the gift, and instituting professorships. We ask again, with what view was the liberality of the legislature and of the College exerted? Can any one doubt that its sole object was to improve the means of education for students and practitioners in surgery and medicine?-not to form a nursery for scepticism in religion, or republicanism in politics.

But, if Mr. Lawrence is deserving of severe reproof for perverting his professional lectures to the purpose of spreading his peculiar opinions on subjects altogether foreign to that before him, the impropriety is greatly enhanced by the consideration of the sort of audiences to whom his lectures are immediately addressed. They consist of young men, many of whom are obliged to enter on the peculiar studies of their profession with little or no general education; and are, consequently, not likely to have any principles of morality or religion steadily fixed on their minds; whence they must be unable to decide deliberately and calmly on those which are presented to their choice. Under these circumstances, a man like Mr. Lawrence, eminent in his profession, and therefore possessing full command over their attention, must be able, so far as his influence as a Lecturer extends, to mould them to whatever opinions he pleases; more especially when he assumes an air of peculiar freedom of thought, pretends to soar above all vulgar prejudices, and to teach in religion and politics a sounder creed than is received by the mass of mankind. But, if those whom Mr. Lawrence addressed were so liable to be seduced, what excuse can be formed for the seducer?

'If there be a thought, which in the hour of impending dissolution must agonize and distract even the most hardened infidel, it is the remembrance

membrance of having been the instrument of perplexing the understandings, destroying the hopes, and corrupting the morals of the young men committed to his charge. At that very age, when every motive which religion can supply, is so imperiously called for, to check the rising passions, and to subdue them into a state of rational and permament restraint, it is an offence no less against social, than individual happiness, to inculcate those principles, which set all conscience and morality at defiance. The man who will coldly and laboriously teach the lessons of infidelity, will not scruple to excuse, if not to inculcate the practice of immorality; and he who will confound the distinctions between truth and falsehood in speculation, will annihilate the boundaries between virtue and vice in practice. Nor will the mischief stop here, nor confine itself to those, who have been the more immediate victims of his delusion. Infidelity, like every other pestilence, is propagated by contagion. In whatever provincial town these young men may settle, they will find but too many of their own rank and age, who will become ready converts to a principle, which, while it flatters their understanding, corrupts and indulges their heart.

'I am at a loss to imagine, what worthy end, or even what plausible excuse, a teacher can propose to himself, for the propagation of opinions, which unsettle and distract the mind, destroy every good and moral feeling, and deprive their victims of all comfort in the day of affliction, of all hope on the bed of death. Will either the principles, or the practices of the Gospel, render the student less ardent in the pursuit of knowledge, or less active in the duties of his profession? Will it exclude any one light of philosophy, any one ray of science from his mind? Will it make him less tender in his manners, less kind in his actions, especially to the poor and the friendless? Will it not rather give him a power over the mind as well as over the body of his patient; so that while he relieves the sufferings of the outward frame, he may speak in the language of peace and of comfort to the soul?

'What are the motives of those, who would take advantage, both of the ignorance and of the passions of those whom they address, and teach them through the medium of the most paltry sophistry, to trample upon all religious and moral restraint, I leave for themselves to determine. It is not to the motives of the teachers, but to the consequences of the doctrines, that I would draw the attention of the public.'-Remarks on Scepticism, p. 51-53.

After these general remarks on the mode and consequences of Mr. Lawrence's proceedings, we must descend to a distinct consideration of some of his opinions. And here, we cannot but observe the notable inconsistency which he betrays, in loudly exclaiming against all attempts to bring men to uniformity of opinion on important points of faith and practice, at the very moment when he himself is straining every nerve to compel them to adopt implicitly those which he promulgates. He burlesques the practice of inculcating those principles which are held useful to society; and hails with anticipations of delight

the

the day, which will soon arrive, when the attempts at enforcing uniformity of opinion will be deemed as irrational and as little desirable, as to endeavour at producing sameness of face and nature.' He does not explain to what extent he objects to the plan of endeavouring to make men act and think alike; and thus we are left to conjecture whether he would have human beings brought up without any notions of the distinction between right and wrong. We take it for granted that he would not think of teaching them to believe in the existence or the providence of a God, or to consider themselves accountable for their present conduct, in a future state; for this would be to interfere with the sacred right of private judgment:' but we should still be glad to learn whether he would consent to have them taught to act and think alike on the subject of murder and robbery being atrocious crimes; of honesty, gratitude, benevolence being social duties; of the institution of marriage being conducive to the good of society and to individual happiness. Our private opinion is, that he would have no objection to make men act and think alike, and would check at no means to effect this purpose, if they would only consent to adopt those opinions which he embraces. If he could see a chance of making all mankind sceptics in religion, and republicans in politics, we should find him, we suspect, amongst the most active to recommend those attempts at uniformity' which he now reprobates with such flaming indignation.

Amongst the subjects to which Mr. Lawrence directs the attention of his pupils in lectures founded expressly for their improvement in the science and practice of surgery, is (strange as it may appear) the Mosaic account of the creation and of the early history of the world! He seems very properly to conclude that his work would be imperfect, if he were not to level a blow at the records of Revelation, at the same time that he proves from physiological principles that men have no souls; accordingly he devotes several pages to an 'attempt' to shake the confidence of his hearers in the truths of them. The entire or even partial inspiration of these writings (he says) has been and is doubted by many persons, including learned divines, and distinguished oriental and biblical scholars ;' (p. 248.) and he kindly proceeds to inform us, that the account of the creation and subsequent events has the allegorical figurative character common to eastern compositions.' To what distinguished biblical scholars' he alludes, he does not condescend to explain, and we are unable to conjecture. In vain have we taxed our memory; two only (notwithstand the many of which he boasts) occur to us, of sufficient eminence to deserve to be quoted as authorities: these are Sir

William

William Drummond and Mr. John Bellamy, persons known to all the world for their boundless proficiency in oriental literature, and their matchless judgment in applying it; and who, though they certainly differ in their views of the sense of Scripture from a large body of divines, still, as far as their opinions of their own talents and attainments go, are highly deserving of the entire confidence of Mr. Lawrence.

In considering the evidence of Scripture as to the derivation of the human race from one common stock, Mr. Lawrence stumbles on a discovery (as he would have us believe) of peculiar originality!* viz. that the Mosaic account does not make it quite clear that the inhabitants of all the world descended from Adam and Eve:'-p. 248. In this he outdoes Mr. Bellamy himself; for, if it be clear' that the sun is above the horizon at noonday, we conceive it to be equally so that, when it is said Eve was 'the mother of all living,' it is said that all mankind are descended from her. But,' cries Mr. Lawrence, we read in the first chapter that "God created man male and female," and this seems to have been previously to the formation of Eve.' It seems to be no such thing; the account of the formation of Eve is manifestly a detailed account of what had been before briefly told. Adam and Eve were created on the same day, but a more particular statement of the manner in which Eve was formed is given in a later period of the narrative. This sagacious commentator on Scripture' discovers' another proof of his assertion. 'We find,' he says, 'that Cain, after slaying his brother, was married, although no daughters of Eve are mentioned before this time.' None mentioned! but what proof does this afford that none existed? It must have happened in the nature of things, it is certain from the narrative itself, that Adam and Eve had many other sons and daughters, although those only are specifically noticed whose names were important to the history.

But Mr. Lawrence's most formidable objections are to the scriptural account of the various animals being brought to Adam to receive their names, and to their being collected in the ark at the time of the deluge. I have only to add,' he says, that the representations of all the animals being brought before Adam in the first instance, and, subsequently, of their being all collected in the ark, if we are to understand them as applied to the living inhabitants of the whole world, is zoologically impossible.' He goes on to state that we have abundant

In fact, this discovery is as stale and hacknied as most of his other opinions. It may be found in Blount's Oracles of Reason,' and Peyrerius's Præadamite,' iii. 4. and has been refuted to satiety, though urged with far stronger arguments than any of Mr. Lawrence's.

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