REMARKS ON THE TRANSACTIONS OF

THE WIGWAM SOCIETY.

SOME of our readers may recollect having seen, in our Number for December last, an account of the literary body whose Transactions we now notice, which was transmitted to us by their worthy secretary, THOMAS THUMB, ESQ. From the tenor of that communication, we were led to expect, that the pages of this Magazine were to have been made the depository of many discoveries in science, and many improvements in literature, for which the world was to be indebted to the labours of this enlightened Society; and yet month after month has passed without our eyes having been gladdened with the sight of a signature which calls up to the mind so many pleasing associations. We cannot tell how much we were delighted, on opening a packet sent to our publishers the other day, inclosing these Transactions, to find on the blank leaf of the first volume the well-known name; and those only who have had the good fortune to receive a similar mark of attention from a distinguished author, can enter into our feelings when we read the acceptable words, "With Mr Thumb's best compliments.'

Those persons who estimate the talents of the editor of these volumes by the pigmy measurement of his celebrated progenitor will be woefully mistaken indeed; for, besides the well drawn up account of the early history of the Society, Mr Thumb appears as the author of several communications which would do no discredit to an academy under regal or imperial protection; and we may be permitted to doubt if, in the whole series of published Transactions or Memoirs, there is more learning or science displayed in the same compass than in the tiny volumes now before us. We had almost, indeed, quarrelled in our own minds with Mr Thumb, when we found the Transactions of so enlightened a body reduced to the insignificant size of duodecimo, when they might have figured so much better in a quarto form; but we consoled ourselves with the reflection, that, if the

* Transactions of the Wigwam Society, including an Account of the Island of Keekboo. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1819.

work had been so unfortunate as to be published in that expensive shape, it might, like its heavy compeers, have slumbered for ever on the shelves of the booksellers, without much benefit, and without material injury, to the great proportion of the human race who have money in their pockets and are able to read. As it is, we have little fear that the book will speedily form part of the furniture of every library, and that the name of the present secretary of the Wigwam Society will, in no long time, be as well known in the drawing-room as his giant-killing prototype is in the nursery.

The book, as all books of the same nature, is composed of memoirs on different subjects, furnished by the members, and read at the meetings of the Society; biographical sketches of deceased associates; and short notices of the proceedings of the Society, lists of its members, &c. Among such a number of subjects claiming attention it is difficult to make a selection; we shall, therefore, open the first volume at random, and allow our readers to judge for themselves.

mals. Read by MR DAVID DUMPY, "On the Education of the Lower Ani14th November 1818.

"THE effects of education on the human mind have long attracted the attention and exercised the pens of philosophers, and the practical details for its improvement have furnished a favourite theme to those who are of opinion that it is indispensably necessary, in this age of the world, to train up our children with reference to higher pursuits than any to which mere animal gratifications can furnish the stimulus. Education has, therefore, held a conspicuous place in the arrangements of all those nations who have any pretensions to civiliassumption of the title of "lords of the inzation; and the consequence has been, the ferior creation," and the disposal of the lives and fortunes of every other order of animated beings, by one prominent species, neither so big, so strong, nor so wise, if there be any truth in natural history, as many other classes of this globe's inhabitants. In this monopoly of education, however, self-interest has taught them the necessity of bestowing that attention to the faculties of the lower animals (as they are termed) which has subdued the horse to our power, and placed almost all the beasts of the field at our disposal. But farther than this neither moral philosophers nor political economists have thought proper to go; and what we call the brute creation are, of course, for want of further education, per

haps much in the same state now as they were left by the patriarchs who trained them to obedience before the flood.

"To what this neglect can be attributed it is, perhaps, difficult to say. It is not bonourable to our own ideas of immeasureable superiority to suppose it to be the mean jealousy of power, or any idea that, if further means were taken to improve their capacities, their instincts might supersede our boasted reason, or that they might usurp our places in society, take up their abodes in our cities and houses, and drive us to the fields for labour and subsistence. I am rather apt to think, that, in their zeal for the improvement of their own race, philosophers have totally lost sight of those more tractable animals who browze our meadows, or walk on all-fours, for want of being taught otherwise, through our cities and villages.

"During the last century, however, solitary instances have occurred where this education has been partially bestowed, and certainly with a success which we must reluctantly confess does not always attend the labours of those who instruct their two

ers.

legged masters. The learned pigs,-the horses of knowledge,-the philosophic dogs, -and the apes, bears, and other animals taught by ignorant and itinerant exhibitors of marvels, show the progress that might be made were those animals taught by proper methods, and by well-instructed teachWe have seen a company of dogs dance a cotillion and drive a coach,-a bear make a bow which might have done no discredit to a dandy or a dancing-master, and an ape go through his martial exercises as well as the best soldier of them all. Horses are found to be as capable of being drilled as men; and dogs seem equally qualified for guarding garrisons and warehouses as their masters. In short, the least observing must have seen more than enough to be convinced, that training only is wanted to enable most species of the brute tribes to discharge the chief duties of civilized life with honour to themselves and advantage to the community.

"The wonderful stories, besides, on record of animal instinct and sagacity, leave no room to doubt the effects which education might have upon their improvement. Every book of natural history is full of them, from the notice of the blind rat led by his affectionate offspring, to the tales related of the courage of the lion, and the reflecting powers of the half-reasoning elephant. The public papers lately contained an account of a suicide committed by a sheep,-but, for want of being taught to bleat out its ideas, the world are in ignorance of the cause which led to the melancholy catastrophe. Pigeons have been known to die for love; there is more than one instance of an affectionate toad, and

kind-hearted frogs; and many species of birds have long exhibited to the world management in their domestic relations which has been noticed with approbation by many of our best moralists and soundest divines. The insect tribes, also, if the volumes of which they are the subject are to be believed, hold out patterns of politi cal and civil economy, which might have saved the publication of many a ponderous volume on these subjects, and which it would have been well if the two-legged lords of creation had in many cases deigned to imitate. No one is ignorant of the state-policy of many tribes of ants, or the mechanism of society in every hive of bees;

their wonderful architecture-or the still more wonderful arrangements of their internal economy. Even fishes, it has been ascertained, are capable of feeling attachments; and, if their habits and powers become more the object of attention and culture, I have no doubt but that, in a future age, it will be as common to take an aquatic excursion on porpusback, dolphinback, or whaleback, as it is now to take exercise on horseback; and that Diligences will be invented which may make the circuit of the North Pole (a thing held now to be nearly impossible) a matter of every-day occurrence.

"It is inconsistent with our belief of the wisdom of nature to conceive that the parrot, the magpie, the jack-daw, and the starling, are endowed with the faculty of uttering sounds for nothing. The same organs by which the sheep bleats, or the ox lows, they might be taught to use so as to produce the due enunciation of every vowel, and the perfect sound of every consonant; and but little further instruction would enable them to frame these sounds into intelligible words. If these animals can be taught to speak, may not a further education teach them to 1ead; and if so, might they not discharge many of those duties in society which reading and public speaking are supposed to qualify for. In the present march of improvement, I should not be surprised if a colony of daws or starlings were to be found qualified (after the usual period of study) to read prayers and sermons with becoming gravity of deportment, perched upon the front of our pulpits; and then after the decease of such of the present incumbents as are equally mechanical in their ministra tions, the improvement of the country might be greatly relieved from the pressure of tithes. The simplicity of their manners, and the purity of their morals, would, no doubt, give a weight to their injunctions, which we must in vain look for from those whose interest in temporals often runs counter to that of their parishioners; and the thousands of existing sermons might be preached in succession ad infinitum, without the

necessity of even supposing the then clerical body capable of composing a single new one. Differences in religious opinion would then give rise to no asperities, disabilities, and exclusions ;-persecutions on account of religion would be entirely unknown ;-and the mild and tolerating behaviour of the teachers of religious truth would to a certainty soon diffuse among their flocks equally tolerant and equitable principles.

"Fox-hounds might thus very appropriately, and with but little training, be made to scent out and pursue all depredators of every description; and the police of our cities might be economically conducted by means of trusty watch-dogs. The establishment of the Post-office might be carried on by the winged races with a speed of which no other conveyance is capable; and the same class of animals, employed as supervisors of excise, would, by the quickness of their intelligence, render all evasion of the excise-laws impossible. If animals can be trained to hunt and eat game as well as their masters, why may not the duties of a gamekeeper be devolved on a faithful spaniel, and the charge of the feathered tribes be committed to a trust-worthy hawk? If dogs can be taught to solve questions in arithmetic, may they not, in these days of economical arrangement, be employed to audit public accounts, and take impartial charge of the funds of all the charitable establishments in the country? And if a shepherd's dog can receive and understand orders given in a few words, which shall take him half an hour or an hour to execute, and including a distance of miles, it would be degrading to the proverbial sagacity of the horse, to say that he could not make a charge, advance, or retreat, according to orders given, without the necessity of encumbering his back with a rider.

"Further, if dogs can be made to turn spits, and learn letters, may they not with the same, or a little more trouble, be train ed to sign bank notes,-put in motion the machinery which impresses the stamp on paper, or even be employed in the great public offices in writing or signing circuLars? If a poney, as has been exhibited in the Circus here, can fetch a tea-kettle, a handkerchief, unsaddle himself, and so on, might not our Shetland race of horses be appropriately employed as valets-dechambre, or grooms, to those of our countrymen who delight in horse-racing or the healthy amusement of the chace? Might not lap-dogs be again taken into the favour of the ladies; and could not they be very easily taught to seal letters, write cards of invitation, and do many other useful offices? And might not the same sagacity which enables the dog to lead the blind beggar his accustomed rounds, enable him also,

when seated on the coach-box, to drive our mail and stage-coaches;-or, in becoming livery, guide the carriages of the higher ranks through the routine of morning calls or shopping?

66

Moreover, as war is perhaps a necessary result of the present state of human nature, might not the differences between the states of Europe, which are generally settled by the powerful argument of physical strength, be transferred to the bravery and good conduct of well-arranged armies of bulls and bull-dogs-of warrior horses and armed rams-of light troops of mastiffs and terriers,―and powerful reserves of longhorned oxen? I say, Sir, as the blood of these animals is not accounted of so much consequence as that of their two-legged superiors; and as, by the unalterable rules of modern policy, a certain number of lives must be sacrificed before the boundary of a country or the right to a territory can be ascertained;-might not motives of partiality to the interests of our own race suggest the propriety of substituting brutes, where brutal force alone is necessary, in place of human creatures?-The feeling mind would thus be relieved of all painful reflections on the eve of a battle; and we could read the accounts of terrible engagements, or even be witness of the carnage, with the same coolness as we look upon a game at chess, or a cock-fight or bullbaiting of British cocks and bulls.

"In thus transferring the settlement of our disputes to the lower animals, war would cease to be that calamitous occurrence which it has hitherto been represented; and the field of action, in place of being, as now, an object of dread, would become one which every country, however civilized, might wish to have within its confines. In place of ruined villages and countries desolated, we should have beef and mutton at the lowest prices for a great circuit round the scene of a skirmish; and a general engagement might afford salted provisions for years to a populous empire. If a victorious army (for I do not suppose the proverbial licence of soldiers to give place at once to more orderly habits) occasionally eat up a few fields of standing corn or turnips, the stomachs of the peasantry would be amply solaced by the bodies of those who fell in the conflict, and their pockets filled by the exportation of the surplus carcases. In fine, the only objection to the introduction of this mode of settling national disputes would be, that its benefits would be so apparent, as to induce our rulers to go to war oftener than might be necessary or prudent, and involve the country in beef-eating speculations on the slightest pretences.

"It must not be concealed, however, that much danger may be apprehended, and the basis of future revolutions made

certain, in the universal education of the lower animals. If the number of welleducated and accomplished brutes should ever happen to double or treble the present human population of Europe, the consequences might be fearful indeed. To say nothing of their assumption of place and power, which in that state of things might naturally be expected, serious fears might be entertained of the great mass of the people losing all their rights and liberty, without much chance of their ever being able to recover them again. And, upon the whole, though it might be advisable to train a certain number to fill subordinate offices, it would be folly to let any plans of universal beneficence lead us so far, as to run the risk of binding fetters on the future generations of men for ever."

Though we by no means enter into all Mr Dumpy's views on the subject of animal education, we do think that the facts he has brought forward are deserving of solemn consideration. We would only suggest, that, before legislating on the subject, societies might be formed, as a matter of experiment, for training a select number of the different species on the system of Dr Bell or Joseph Lancaster; and we trust this hint will not be thrown away in an age distinguishéd for its charitable and beneficent establishments.

The paper which immediately follows seems the continuation of a subject, of which a sketch was given in our Magazine for December last. The system laid down by Dr M'Fungus, with his usual precision, is calculated, in conjunction with that of Drs Gall and Spurzheim, to throw new light on, if not totally to overturn, the former doctrines regarding the

cranium and its contents.

"On Men without Heads.-Read by ISAAC M'FUNGUS, LL.D. 21st Novem

ber 1818.

"IN consequence of investigations into which I was led from the subject of my former paper, I shall now submit to the Society an account of a new race of men which I have discovered in considerable numbers in this country-a people without heads. On a hasty glance, it is by no means evident that the number of that description of persons is great; but upon more minute investigation, I have arrived at the conclusion, that most, if not all, the duties of society may be respectably dis

See Edinburgh Magazine for Decem. ber 1818.

charged, without reference to either head or brain; and I confidently appeal for the truth of this conclusion to the lists of all the city corporations in the kingdom. The store of facts which I have collected, at considerable expence of time and thought, on this subject is immense; and I flatter myself I have brought them to bear on a subject which may eventually require from the Legislature a new code of laws, applicable to existing circumstances; for it is by no means self-evident, that any of the statutes now in force apply to, or could in strictness be put in execution against, this race of men. With my minute and elaborate anatomical researches into the structure of this part of our body, (formerly thought, in the simplicity of our forefathers, so material,) I shall not at present trouble the Society. I shall merely give you the conclusions to which they lead, drawn, in the true spirit of the inductive philosophy, from actual experiment and observation.

In the first place, then, my researches have led me to the conclusion, that a round knob between one's shoulders by no means indicates that its possessor wears a head, else every rounded mass might be called by that name: 2dly, That to constitute a head, it is necessary that it should be furnished with a certain quantity of matter called brain: 3dly, That if this said matcovered from the conduct of its possessor,) ter be inert, (and this can easily be disit differs in nothing from any other organized mass; and for all purposes for which a head is supposed to be given, might as well have been placed under the arm, or carried in the hand: 4thly, That though the power of locomotion indicates the possession of legs, and a mouth suggests the idea of a stomach, yet it by no means follows that a circular projection implies the power of thought, or a mass

of matter that of consciousness: 5thly, That all animals possess rounded masses of pulpy matter called brain, differing but little in quantity or apparent quality from that of the human race; yet they are not on that account called upon to pay taxes, and possess of course no representation in the great Senate of the nation: 6thly and lastly, That to constitute a head in the literal and philosophic sense, it seems necessary that it should be provided with corresponding furniture; that it should be capable of receiving and retaining ideas or impressions upon the senses, and have the power of arranging and combining those ideas; that it should have the faculty expressed by the word judgment; and should be furnished with that intuitive check upon conduct implied in the term conscience; and that it might have (though this did not seem so material) the power of imagination and the faculty of taste.

Examining the present population of

the globe with these data in view, what a scene does society present. The wonders of the telescope, and the wonders of the microscope, though both very meritorious inventions in their way, are nothing to what human nature displays, viewed in this aspect. A due consideration of the fact now brought to light, will account for many anomalies in the annals of the human race; and many of those whose names have been handed down to us with disapprobation or contempt, will be looked upon in quite a different light, when it is considered that all the reverses or miscalculations recorded in history may be satisfactorily explained on this simple principle. The increase of people with out heads in ancient Greece, laid the foundation of the ruin of Athens ages before that city lost its consequence; and the decline and fall of the Roman empire can alone be traced to the general assumption of power by this most numerous class of the population of every country. The convulsions in modern Europe for the last twenty years may also be traced to the ascendancy in the management of public affairs of this body of men; and the success of Bonaparte disclosed the melancholy fact, of the paucity of heads in the management of the affairs of almost every nation in continental Europe. Though this fact be indisputable, and now very generally acknowledged, yet the same cause may produce the same effects at some future period; but I conceive that I have provided for the integrity of my native country for ages to come, by the promulgation of this discovery,-a discovery which, if acted upon, will change the whole system of civilized polity, and give rise to new arrangements in all the governments of Europe. Among the governed, it may lead to unpleasant inquiries as to the real value of the heads of those who have been long in the possession of arbitrary and undisputed power; and among those who govern, it may be of consequence to know, that the surest basis of their power depends upon their keeping their subjects in happy ignorance on the subject; for if once a counting of heads take place, (as has sometimes happened,) it is not difficult to guess on what side the scale may turn.

"Even in our own country, of how much consequence would it generally be, to ascertain, before their election, that our representatives were possessed of sound and sufficient heads; for, taking their number as compared with other bodies of men, it is not an impossible thing that some few of both Houses of Parliament, and of both parties, may have been placed there on the rash assumption of their having heads, who, in fact, never were possessed of this vehicle of thought. In many a city corporation of

this empire the want of heads has been severely felt; and if we look to the learned professions, the melancholy truth cannot be denied, that a great proportion even of these, if not actually headless, have heads which are good for nothing. Even in the domestic circle, of how much consequence must it be for parents to discover if their children be possessed of this necessary rotundity; and what an expence of education would be saved,-how much manual labour to the teachers of youth,and how many stripes to the poor creatures themselves,-if this material point were ascertained before putting them to school.

I

"Such being the case, I beg leave to submit to this society, that no person without a head should be permitted to hold a situation where the want of one might endanger the lives or liberties of his Majesty's liege-subjects, or exercise a vocation where that organ seems indispensable. also take the liberty of suggesting, that if the parish officers were empowered, in making up the annual lists for the militia and other purposes, to enter in a sepa rate column those individuals reputed to have heads, government would thus be put in possession of the effective talents of the nation, capable of being called upon to manage its affairs. The utility of this measure is self-evident; for the maxim of Lord Bacon, that Knowledge is power, was never exemplified on a larger scale than in the arrangement of our Indian colonies, where a committee of merchants with heads rule over millions of Indians whose prominences are not so apparent.

"It might further be expedient, and certainly would be beneficial to the cause of literature and science, if a committee were appointed, of the best heads in the nation, to begin the reform in this particular by the purgation of our public libraries. All books discovered to have been written by authors without heads, (and the number is certainly immense,) should be committed to the flames, as being composed by men who had no right to employ themselves in that manner. By this means, in place of the memory being burdened with catalogues of books in every department of science, the study of the title pages of which in any one branch is sufficient to afford occupation for the longest life, the few that would remain would be come at without difficulty, and their contents be easily remembered.* Our poets,

Dr Watt of Glasgow is said to have collected the titles of nearly eighty thou sand books, furnished by as many authors, in Great Britain alone! It is not possible that more than a hundredth part of these can have any claims to present use, or to future fame; and that man would certain