Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith.

  • Smith, John Augustine, 1782-1865.
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Select discourses on the functions of the nervous system : in opposition to phrenology, materialism, and atheism : to which is prefixed a lecture on the diversities of the human character arising from physiological peculiarities / by John Augustine Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    them by intrigue—nay, if she meant that the race every where enjoys pleasure and eschews pain, she was doubtless right. But if she wished to be understood as declaring, that Turks and Englishmen do not differ ma- terially—that men are not greatly unlike, she was as cer- tainly wrong. But whence can this wonderful diversity proceed ? Naturalists tell us, that although man was designed by nature to inhabit every region, from the frigid to the torrid zone, yet climate greatly affects him as well as all other animals subjected to its influence for a series of generations ; and that the feeble and relaxed Hindoo must necessarily differ materially from the hardy trapper of the Rocky Mountains. Metaphysicians contend that the human mind at the period of birth, is like a smooth mass of ductile wax, void of character and shape, but capable of receiving any impressions which may be made upon it—that these impressions will consequently be either good or bad, uniform or discordant, according to the skill or ignorance of those intrusted with their formation. That man, in short, is the child of accident, the creature of circum- stance, and is virtuous or vicious, great or insignificant, as fortune may have smiled or frowned upon his birth. Political writers, admitting the argument of the meta- physicians, assert, that of all the circumstances which give a stamp to the human character, civil institutions, and manners and customs which depend upon them, are the most important. That it is impossible there should be any similarity between the vagrant tribes of the des- ert, and the over-refined inhabitants of London and Paris