The clergy vindicated from the charge of hostility to the diffusion of science : being an answer to the pamphlet of Mr. H.G. Wright / by a phrenologist.

  • Phrenologist.
Date:
1836
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The clergy vindicated from the charge of hostility to the diffusion of science : being an answer to the pamphlet of Mr. H.G. Wright / by a phrenologist. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tures of Dr Hope and Professors Wilson and Jameson, in the college, less hostile to the Gospel than those given by Dr Fyfe, Mr Combe, and Professor Nichol, in the Waterloo Rooms? Is there some latent poison lurking in the words of the latter ? Now, we can only say, that if Mr H. G. Wright cannot an¬ swer these questions satisfactorily to his own mind, he betrays a most culpable ignorance either of the doctrines of the church or of the doctrines of Mr Combe. Of the lectures of Dr Fyfe and Professor Nichol we know nothing, never having attended them ; but this we unhesitatingly affirm, that if Mr Combe's lectures be like his work on the Constitution of Man, there is poison in his words, and that, too, neither 44 latenC nor 44 lurk¬ ingAnd can Mr H. G. Wright be ignorant of the fact, that in the later editions of the work alluded to, the author has openly attacked what the Church of Scotland, at least, holds to be the doctrines of Christianity ? and if not, how can he be surprised that the clergy should deem such lectures as Mr Combers, or any others which contain similar views, as 44 bor¬ dering upon hostility to the Gospel ?” But it seems after all, that, notwithstanding his anxiety to make out that the attack in the prospectus of the 44 Christian Herald’ was directed against all the teachers of science indis¬ criminately, and notwithstanding his ambition to have the merit of discovering that Dr Chalmers, with all his philanthro- pical professions, is an enemy to knowledge, he cannot but per¬ ceive that the writer of the prospectus had one class of teachers particularly in his eye when he penned the sentences which have given such a shock to the philosophic feeling of Mr H. G. Wright. Accordingly, Mr H. G. Wright very shrewdly conjectures that the 44 anathema may be intended to be launch¬ ed principally at Phrenology,” and forthwith proceeds to nar¬ row his line of defence, and to concentrate all the energies of his astonishing intellect on the noble enterprise of annihilating at once the religious objections to the science at present flourish¬ ing under his auspices. It is indeed worthy of remark that the cap should happen to have been put on only by those whom it so exactly fits. We are not aware that any other class of scientific lecturers, writ¬ ers, editors of journals or newspapers, not phrenological, have