com happy organization of the human body is always accompanied with excellent intellectual faculties.' St. Gregorius Nyssenus* pared the body of man to a musical instrument. 'It sometimes happens,' says he, 'that excellent musicians cannot show their talent because their instrument is in a bad state. It is the same with the functions of the soul; they are disturbed or suspended according to the changes which take place in the organs; for it is the nature of the spirit, that it cannot exercise conveniently its functions but by sound organs.' St. Augustin, St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose,§ St. Chrysostom,|| Eusebius and many other religious and profane writers, consider the body or even the brain as the instrument of the soul, and distinctly teach that the mind is regulated by the state of the body. Phrenologists, therefore, leave the question of materialism, where they found it. SECTION VI. ON THE MORAL CONSTITUTION OF MAN. THE objects contained in this Section are of the greatest importance, not only to individuals but to mankind at large. They have been examined at all ages, but they are far from being sufficiently understood, and the most contradictory opinions have been defended. I shall consider in succession the doctrine of fatalism, necessity, free will and morality, in reference to Phrenology. Fatalism. Phrenology, by contending that all mental dispositions are innate, is said to lead to fatalism. In reply I remark that this term has different meanings. Certain writers understand by fatalism every thing in the world and the world itself as existing, and all events as * De hominis opificio, c. 12. § De Offic. t De lib. arbit. results of chance, and not of a supreme and guiding intelligence. This fatalism involves atheism, and cannot be reproached to Phrenology. Another kind of fatalism admits the creation of the world, and in every being a determinate nature, and operations according to determinate laws, in inorganized as well as organized beings, in vegetative and animal life. No one doubts of this truth in reference to other beings. We can never gather grapes from a thorn bush, and an apple tree can never bring forth pears; and a cat can never be changed into a dog, or any animal into another. It is also certain that the faculties of mankind and their laws are fixed by creation. First, his existence is involuntary. Who has called himself into being? Does it depend on the will of any one to be born in this or in that country? of these or those parents? under this or that system of government, or of religion? Who has determined his sex? Who can say, I am the eldest or youngest because it was my choice? Who has chosen the circumstances, surrounded by which he sees the light, the capacities of teachers, the mental frame of those about him from earliest infancy, and the thousand other accidents that influence him through future life? The organs of vegetative life perform their determinate functions without our will; the liver can never perform digestion; the kidneys can never secrete bile; what is poison can never become wholesome aliment, and so on. It is the same with animal life. The existence of the five external senses and their laws are an effect of creation. It does not depend on our will to have the power of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, and tasting; we can never hear or see with our fingers, nor smell with our lips, &c. It is impossible to see as red that which is blue, or to see as great that which is small. The propensities, sentiments and intellectual faculties, their mutual influence and their various relations to each other, are determined by the Creator. The determinateness of these faculties may, doubtless, be termed fatalism. Moreover the individual dispositions of body and mind are given in different degrees and their manifestations depend on organization. There are individuals deaf, blind, stupid and intelligent, from birth. Bishop Butler* says, 'If, in considering our state of trial, we go on to observe how mankind behave under it, we shall find that some have so little sense of it, that they scarce look beyond the passing day; they are so taken up with present gratifications as to have in a manner no feeling of consequences, no regard to their future ease or fortune in this life, any more than to their happiness in another. Some appear to be blinded and deceived by inordinate passion in their worldly concerns as well as in religion; others are not deceived, but, as it were, forcibly carried away by the little passions, against their better judgment and feeble resolutions, too, of acting better; and there are men, and truly there are not a few, who shamelessly avow, not their interest, but their mere will and pleasure to be their law of life; and who, in open defiance of every thing that is reasonable, will go on in a course of vicious extravagance, foreseeing with no remorse and little fear that it will be their temporal ruin; and some of them under the apprehension of the consequences of wickedness in another state. And to speak in the 'most moderate way, human creatures are not only continually liable to go wrong voluntarily, but we see likewise that they often actually do so with respect to their temporal interests as well as with respect to religion.' Daily experience, indeed, shows, that in different persons the various feelings and talents of the mind are active in different degrees. This kind of fatalism is certain, and founded in nature, and even in the Supreme Being himself; for perfection and infinite goodness and infinite justice inhere in the nature of God, and he cannot desire evil. So also the feelings proper to man, according to nature, must desire the common welfare. It is therefore not astonishing that the philosophers of China, Hindostan, and Greece, the eastern and western Christians, and the followers of Mahomet, have blended a certain kind of fatalism with their religious opinions. Indeed, it cannot be dangerous to insist on such a fatalism in so far as it exists. Christ, his apostles, A proverb of Solo and the fathers of the church have done so. t mon is, the Lord gives wisdom;' according to Christianity, The t tree is known by its fruit;'* St. Paul says, ' And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.' † And again: 'Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?'‡ St. Augustin taught openly and distinctly our dependance on God, and commanded the preaching of this truth. As no one,' says he, can give to himself life, so nobody can give to himself understanding.' He calls gifts of God, all good qualities, as the fear of God, charity, faith, obedience, justice, veracity. He says, || that God has not distributed in an equal manner noble sentiments any more than temporal good, as health, strength, riches, honors, the gifts of arts and sciences. I declare then that I believe in that fatalism or in that determinate arrangement by the Creator, according to which the nature of man, his fundamental dispositions of body and mind, their relations and dependence on organization, are fixed. Man in this life can never be an angel. I believe farther in a certain kind of Necessity. The doctrine of necessity has also occupied many minds; it has been admitted by some and denied by others. It is necessary to come to a clear understanding about the meaning of the word. I take it as the principle of causation, or in the sense of the relation between cause and effect. This principle is admitted in the physical and intellectual world; but in the moral operations of the mind it is not sufficiently attended to. Yet there is no moral effect without a moral cause, any more than a physical or intellectual *Mat. xii. 33. † Rom. viii. 28-30. 1 Cor. iv. 7. event without an adequate cause. The principle of causation in the moral world is expressed by the connexion between motives and actions. It seems to me surprising, that this connexion should have been theoretically questioned, while every human being is daily dependent upon its truth. It is perceived in all our projects, in the direction of our family, in the regulations of the government, and in every social proceeding. Motives are proposed whenever we wish to produce actions. Without the law of causation in the moral world there would be no foresight of events, and no science of politics. One might act reasonably or unreasonably, justly or unjustly, well or ill, because he acts without motive. Such a state is contradictory in itself, and in this supposition all institutions which implicate the happiness of mankind would be useless. Education, morality, religion, reward and punishment should all be inefficient, man being determined by no motive. And we might expect from every one hatred and perfidy as well as friendship and fidelity, vice as well as virtue. Such a state is merely speculative, whilst in reality man is subjected to the law of causation like the rest of nature. This state alone has been professed by ancient philosophers and legislators, and is supposed by religion and moral doctrines, which furnish the nobler motives to direct man in his actions. But I do not believe in Necessity as irresistibility. It is positive, that the mental faculties are innate; that their manifestations depend on cerebral organs (Fatality;) and that without power we cannot act (Necessity.) The adversaries of Phrenology object, that, therefore, all actions must be unavoidable and irresistible, and that there is no responsibility. It is a fact that without power we cannot act, but it is also a fact that the power being given we need not act. Neither in animals nor in man are all the faculties active at the same moment and irresistible. It constantly happens that one power acts while |