The natural history of the human temperaments : their laws in relation to marriage, and the fatal consequences of their violation to progeny, with the indications of vigorous life and longevity : followed by a fugitive essay on the protection of society against crime / by W. Byrd Powell.

  • Powell, W. Byrd (William Byrd), 1799-1866.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of the human temperaments : their laws in relation to marriage, and the fatal consequences of their violation to progeny, with the indications of vigorous life and longevity : followed by a fugitive essay on the protection of society against crime / by W. Byrd Powell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    between us, wliich, so far as Lis acknowledged learning can bear evi- dence, forever fixes in us the right of discovery. But wherefore, it may be inquired, should this correspondence appear here? We answer: First. Because if a discovery have been made, it fixes the right in us. Second. His learning and abilities enabled him to make the strongest objections of which the subject admits, and we have answered them. Third. It embraces the subject in all of its aspects, and, therefore, gives the reader a much more extended view of it, than could be imparted by merely a didactic dissertation upon it. Fourth. His portion of the correspondence, from his known ability and elegance as a writer, can not fail to interest every one—it will, at least, compensate the toil of reading the au- thor's portion of it.- Fifth. His opposition illustrates the fate of all new discoveries, and shows that ours has formed no exception to the general law. As to his motives for making an assault upon us, we have not one word to say, and simply for the reason, he is not here to reply. AN EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OP PROF. CALDWELL. Sra: In the third number of your Journal, (vol. i, p. 86,) in a commu- nication signed C. C,* we find the following exceptionable sentences: It is not long since, in one of his harangues in the city of New Orleans, and I believe, also, elsewhere, a peripatetic head-reader declared his ability to discover a man's religious tenets by the developments of his head; that he could thus distinguish an Episcopalian from a Catholic, a Baptist from a Methodist, and a Presbyterian from the whole. Such like false and shameless pretenses are among my reasons for so often speaking disre- spectfully of traveling phrenologists. We regard the above language as exceptionable, because it contains an injuriously ^ersonrtZ allusion; and that we are the person alluded to, there is no more doubt than there would have been if he had given our name: because, first, we are personally known in New Orleans, as a phrenologist, more extensively than any one else; and, secondly, we are, perhaps, the only phrenologist who has treated, in his lectures, of the phrenological differences that exist between the different religious denominations. For • Charles CaldwelL