Remarks on the erroneous impressions and spirit of hostility at present existing, more especially amongst the religious public : in regard to the diffusion of scientific knowledge in general, and of phrenology and its supposed effects in particular / by H.G. Wright.

  • Wright, H. G.
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the erroneous impressions and spirit of hostility at present existing, more especially amongst the religious public : in regard to the diffusion of scientific knowledge in general, and of phrenology and its supposed effects in particular / by H.G. Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Whilst every well-wisher to the great cause of human improve- ment must rejoice in the establishment of a work promising to be productive of much good, it is certainly to be regretted that it should have been heralded in such a jealous, grudging spirit. It is not my intention or object, however, to offer any farther remarks on this prospectus than are rendered necessary by its relation to the subject in hand ; and I shall therefore confine myself at present to pointing out the extraordinary, though, as it appears to me, strictly legitimate, consequence to which one of the passages leads. The writer states that religion should be going forth “ in the might of the Lord,” to attack the “ gigan- tic foe,” viz. the teachers and the taught—the authors and their works. Now it is obviously implied here, that the directors of all sorts of literary machinery,” and the pupils, are proceeding “ in the might of”—the devil—for there is no medium—they must be serving either God or Mammon ; and thus we have the “ father of lies” in the somewhat novel and anomalous situation of lending his powerful aid in spreading the truths of science, and inculcating the beauty of morality and religion ! Let us follow out the writer’s idea, and imagine the people acting up to what the “ unholy spirit” teaches them, viz. that the Creator having bestowed upon them faculties, the fruits of which are be- nevolence, justice, integrity, &c., it becomes an imperative duty, dictated by Nature and enforced by Christianity, to keep these faculties in habitual action. What would be the result? Why, according to the prospectus, these unfortunates, being under an “ infatuation,” would be doomed to follow their arch-instructor to the regions below ; and we should thus have the curious spectacle of the place of the wicked being occupied by highly moral beings. This, I suspect, would be carrying the millen- nium considerably beyond what even its most sanguine advo- cates have imagined possible. Let it not be thought that this is meant in any profane spirit. If the conclusion at which we are arrived be rather startling, it is at least a fair deduction from the premises laid down in the prospectus. When I saw at the head of the list of those individuals who cordially approved of the design stated in the prospectus, the name of the Reverend Dr Chalmers, I could not help feeling very considerable surprise, that a writer who had entertained