a drunken mother, taught to kiss his infant hand for a dram, and made to drink a health long before he could say a prayer? Nor is virtue any more than vice, fair features more than faults and failings, exempt from this certain, though inexplicable destiny. How easy is it for him to cherish the sweetness of his temper, whose health is hygeian, and whose life is all that is lovely of sunshine, except its monotony? How natural is honesty to unexhausted wealth, cherished in circles of proud refinement, and supported by early tuition, and more by the ignorance or absence of the example of meanness or dishonour? How notorious, indeed, is it, that each class has its peculiar virtue, and its besetting sin-that, in short, the fate of its condition, independently altogether of individual exertion or volition, fixes mind and heart, and feeling, and action, with an absolute dictation, of which man is equally the dupe and the slave? To deny, that from Phrenology may be deduced a fatalism, of which this is an example, would be, in truth, at once to assert that it is not true. We do not, however, the more overlook the fact, that those very men who charge upon the science the inferential infidelity of fatalism, loudly denounce as impious sceptics, the metaphysicians who deny this doctrine in another form. It is, indeed, somewhat strange that the sincere Calvinist, who declares that "Man by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good"-that "those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God hath chosen into everlasting glory, without any foresight of faith or good works"-that "the rest he was pleased to pass by, and to ordain to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice"-and that of our first parents, "the corrupted nature was conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation,"—it is, we say, strange and inconsistent, that the believers in such a profession, should dare to tax Phrenologists with infidelity, for holding that man is born with a nature that controls his actions, and determines his moral conduct. But we must now terminate our commentaries upon theoretical objections to a system built of the solid stone and lime of fact. "Reason," says Anchillon, "knows neither useful, nor dangerous truths. What is, is; there is no compromising with this principle. It is the only answer we need make; and to those who, subjecting every thing to utility, ask, What is this good for? and to those who, always yielding to their fears, inquire, Whither will this lead? Jesus, the son of Sirach, has already said, 'We must not say what good will this do? for the use of every thing will be found in its season, but we cannot abuse the truth."

CHAPTER II.

Advantages of Phrenology.

WHILE the investigation of every section of science must conduce to social advantage, the order of precedence may properly be determined by the practical and present benefits which a special department of truth promises to the inquirer. It is certain, that all facts are important, and our acquaintance with them necessary; because they are the laws of God, the obedience to which constitutes happinessand to be obeyed, they must first be known. On this account is it, that we have been anxious to place the objections to Phrenology upon a basis which logic may fairly appreciate, and to demonstrate the irrelevancy of all reasons for its rejection, founded upon any argument but that of fact and observation. But the order of inquiry after truth, may unquestionably much facilitate the rapidity and extent of its acquisition; and by an elucidation of some of the leading advantages which may be expected from a study of the science, we may be enabled to establish its claims to take rank in the van of public attention, by demonstrating that it is a key to the portals of the temple of philosophy, without the employment of which many of its fairest apartments must remain without inspection, like that neglected chamber in the fortress of our Metropolis, which, when at last opened to antiquarian curiosity, was found to enclose the richest jewels and fairest emblems of Scottish royalty and power. We are not ignorant of the fact, that an assembly which has baptised itself the British Association for the promotion of Science, and which establishes its pretensions to the character which its name denotes, principally by annual displays of

the formal and clumsy gallantries of science, the fopperies of philosophy, and the jubilations of the studious, on their brief emancipation from the severe and sober investigations of the college-we say, that we are aware this army of wandering savans have peremptorily rejected the postulations of Phrenology to consideration, however brief, or inquiry, however superficial. This is what is ever to be expected from British philosophers, (?) who are, and ever have been, behind the rest of Europe in the reception and adoption of new and important discoveries. They are always the last to investigate, and the first to oppose, the annunciation of novel doctrines. Homöopathy, Animal Magnetism, Transcendentalism, have at least been considered abroad; and Phrenology has been subjected to an investigation of the French Academy and Institute, and embraced in a report by a section of these bodies, regularly appointed. But the fear of ridicule has ever been stronger in the minds of English professors than the love of science. They admit nothing to be true that is not received, and nothing to be good that is not recognised. British philosophers, like British matrons, will receive no one, and nothing, into the circle of their acquaintance, that has not proved a title to the grand entrée, by being declared by persons of figure, to be "perfectly respectable." They are the reflex of the national mind, that ventures upon nothing until the records have been searched for precedents. As the Countess would admit nobody to her drawing-room who merely offered proofs of their rank and purity of conduct, because that was not evidence in the eyes of other people, but would receive them at once if they visited with the Duchess; so Professor A. or Doctor B. patrons of the Almacks of science, will permit nothing to be entertained as philosophical, until it have been presented at Court, or appear in good company. For such men, Phrenology is not a genteel enough science; because my Lord, or his Grace, are not yet agreed that it is true. To them, it is a system like what Presbytery was to King Charles-" not fit for a gentleman." And what is the result? While they are trifling with knowledge, and stand aloof from society at large, uncheered by general sympathy, the great body of the people, who view their labours with listless indifference, because they cannot show them "any good thing," are receiving this despised science with avidity, and promoting it with ardent enthusiasm. To their verdict, we appeal from the tribunal of dilettanti philosophers, and meditators on the mysteries of midges. We leave them to infuse insect life into flint, and to study the revolutions of an apiary commonwealth, contented by means of this despised science, to create a soul of good out of things evil-to disclose the wonders of the human mind-and to proclaim the philosophy of virtue, and the principles of happiness. Yes; we leave the circles of rank, and title, and money to admire the historian of antediluvian tea-kettles, the chronicler of Roman sauce-pans, and the annalist of ant-hills, and seek only to invite the great body of the people, to know what they are, what they ought to be, what they may be, and how they can become what is dictated equally by their duty and their interest.

One of the greatest advantages of Phrenology, arises out of an objection, which has presented a most formidable obstacle to its extension. This is no other than its supposed tendency to materialise human nature. From its principles, society have, for the first time, been made clearly to perceive the quality of the relation which subsists betwixt man's physical and moral structure, and impressed with the necessity of improving his corporeal, preliminarily to advancing his mental, constitution. It has awakened us to the connection betwixt a clean skin and a clear conscience-foul linen and foul thoughts-the indispensability of a sound body to the production and preservation of a sound mind. It satisfies us, that a contribution of Testaments and twopenny tracts, to those who are shivering in the cold of an angry winter, is not so conducive to their spiritual welfare, as a supply of flannels and a cart of coals; and that bodily want produces mental corruption as necessarily as corporeal comfort is the condition of intelligence and virtue. It shows us, that bad health may be the cause of bad passions, and that misery is the enemy of morals. It presents to us the rationale of mental dependencies upon material conditions; and by disclosing the philosophy of physical psychology, if a term so incongruous, though so true, be permitted, it furnishes us with the amplest materials for the promotion of social felicity. It has made man remark the relation betwixt study and stuffed cushions-spine support and spirit strength-the power of attention and chair-backs -and the training of the infant mind, through the play-ground, and the drill-serjeant. It makes what was formerly mere conjecture, a sober certainty, and by practical de

monstration, warrants us in pursuing a course which the vague hypothesis of former ignorance would not have sanctioned. It cheers the philanthropist with the conviction, that although human nature has been in all ages the same, it does not necessarily follow that human action may not be greatly altered. It demonstrates to the legislator, that the position is a false one, which assumes man to be unprogressive, merely because he has not progressed-and unalterable, because he has not hitherto altered; which deduces from such premises the conclusion, that the sources of vice and the causes of crime, are equally ineradicable from the human heart, and that all he can do is, by severe penalties, to restrain them in human action. It discloses to him the real cause of the disease, and shows him that he need no longer waste his time in merely attacking symptoms. It proves to him that a farthing spent in enlightening, and feeding, and clothing, will save a pound in punishing, and that cheap comforts and large schools, will absorb dear crimes and large vices. It bids the benevolent strike at the root of the evil, which every day shocks his fine sensibilities with the most haggard aspect of broken-hearted destitution, and to reflect that where means are circumscribed, the temporary relief of the ragged beggar is actually less humane, than the strenuous exertion of all his energies in the furtherance of those means by which beggary itself shall cease out of the land. Above all, it satisfies him, not by a vague conviction unsupported by the hope of practicability; but by demonstrating the nature and amplitude of the means, and their plain adaptation to the proposed aim and benevolent end.

Phrenology settles many metaphysical and theological controversies, by a reference to physical fact, which were formerly the fruitful source of discussion, in which both parties claimed the victory, and neither had an umpire who could crown the true victor. On inspecting the human brain, and comparing it with that of all other animals, the argument of destination, derived from design and structure, establishes their different and opposite purposes. The brute creation possess no organ which produces the desire of progression-man alone has ideality. The former have no faculties which could give the capacity of improvement. The latter has not only the wish to advance, but the powers necessary to gratify the desire. At the end of a hundred years, the brute has no wish to be more, or other, or better than it is. At the end of a thousand ages, man would have exhausted worlds, and then imagined new. He has the physical organs which wish to be onward, and those also which still advance him higher; and hence is his capacity without limit, and his destiny, therefore, existence without end.

Each individual of the human species, has every organ of the brain possessed by any and every other. The whole human race have, therefore, the same original faculties, and prove thus, that they are all of the same nature, and sprung from the same stock. Phrenology, then, proves Scripture-it teaches us not to be proud, because those whom we despise are capable of being what we are; and it bids us not despair of humanity, because, whatever one man has done or been, has been solely by means of powers which all others possess, and which cultivation may make all others exercise. It thus shows, that vice exhibits the mere present state of man, but that virtue demonstrates his capabilities; that the one tells what he does-the other what he can do; that the former records his actions-the latter describes his faculties. It teaches that there is no difference in susceptibility of advancement, betwixt the highest and the lowest in the scale-that their sole distinction consists in the adventitious circumstances which have called their faculties into action. It bids us remember that the chance of geographical position-the accident of an accident -the fortuitous circumstances of climate, class, or society, produce all the difference betwixt vice and virtue; and then it asks.-us to look with pity and charity upon crimes as misfortunes, and upon moral superiority with humility, as the result only of a kinder lot and a more favouring providence. It applies the aid of philosophy to the exposition of Scripture, and acknowledges the justice of the plea-"Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

Phrenology proves it to be no longer true, that sensual or vicious persons are only their own enemies a proposition which it was not easy to question, while it was held, that the soul had nothing to do with the condition of the body. There is the most conclusive evidence, that the brain of the parent descends to the child; that every exertion of moral greatness, and every act of vice, has its cerebral effect, and transmits to posterity a vitiated or improved mental constitution. It explains how the

exercise of organs increases their liability to action, and the suppression of their activity discontinues the direction of the stimulus towards them-proving the philosophy of the exhortation, to resist evil and it will flee from thee; and by showing that the excitement of an organ of propensity, or moral sentiment, enhances by sympathy of contiguity, the desires or sentiments which surround it—solves the mystery of the fact, that vices are never single, nor the manifestation of one virtue unaccompanied with kindred excellences. By practically illustrating the doctrine of hereditary talents and defects, what an incentive does it not present to every parent, to regulate his passions-to purify his affections, and exert his moral nature, when he discovers that, upon his own measure of virtue, depends the happiness of those future pledges of love, which are, and ought to be, the dearest objects of his heart!-nay, what an inducement is it to every member of the social polity, to educate and improve his fellow men-to advance their sense of justice and of duty-to promote knowledge and good order, when he is aware, that while there remains in the state a single bad father, or bad mother, there is a hot-bed of rapid growing crime and calamity, and a cruel infliction of the penalties of hoary guilt upon infantine and uncomplaining and helpless innocence! This same law of human nature, proves that man was created upright, and that it is himself who has sought out many inventions. It shows that the mental and moral, is the result of the physical, constitution-that a vicious corporeal, or cerebral, produces a depraved system of thought and feeling-that this is the certain cause of sorrow and misery-and that it is faithfully transmitted from sire to son, by the operation of physical nature. To allege that God made man imperfect, savage, or ignorant, is, in truth, simply to say, that God made misery not an accident inseparably contingent upon the noble attribute of freedom of human will, but a designed and necessary condition of the existence of his whole rational creation. The beasts of the field live under the guidance of a blind instinct, which renders their constitution uniform, immutable, perfect. They always act right, because they cannot help it; their conduct is invariable, and consistent, because their actions are necessary, and their motives always the same, and always irresistible. They are mere animated machines, little above the turf on which they browse, or the stones of the rock in which is their den. In addition to these brutal propensities, man is in possession of a variety of moral sentiments and reasoning powers, which take him out of the catalogue of creation, and the class of instinct, and place him in a temple of his own, where the sway of passion is divided with a new dynasty, which reigns in the conversion, regulation, and direction of it, by a thousand free suggesting influences, and a power of perception and reflection, which enables him at least to know what is good and evil. If it be contended, that man should have been also made infallible, that he should have been irresistibly good, and instinctively virtuous, it is plain that he would have been thus a mere moral machine-that the very scheme argues an immutability of nature, and, therefore, a total destitution of the faculty of inward progression that however exalted the externality of his actions might have been, irresistible motives, incontrollable impulses, and deeds dictated by instinct without reason, left him in a state no higher in dignity than the beasts over which he was set. Freedom of choice is the very essence of moral greatness. Were it impossible for man to choose the highway of vice, there would be no more excellence in selecting the path of virtue, than in fish swimming, or in birds flying. Non virtus est non posse peccare. Posse peccare datum est primo homini, non ut proinde peccaret, sed ut gloriosior appararet, si non peccaret quum peccare posset." If then, to be a moral agent, be a high and exalted privilege, and its necessary condition be freedom of choice, action, and will, we can see at a glance, that moral evil is the mere accident of moral liberty-and that it is not necessary to, but a contingent of, that possible fallibility, which gives to man the sole dignity of his character, the trust in his own keeping of the management of his moral and intellectual faculties. Moral evil becomes, thus, not the law of God, but the abuse by man of powers which made him capable of shunning vice, had they been properly exercised. To say that Adam should have been infallible, involves one of two alternatives, either that he was a necessary or a perfect agent. Had his actions been inevitable and necessary, he could not have been a moral, an intelligent, a progressive being. He would thus have been adapted, not for eternity, but merely for time-for the period in which he existed, not for an age to come, where necessity involved permanence of condition and absence of improvement. To be a perfect agent is, in fact, to be God alone;

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because, wherever there is not omniscience, there must be a limit to knowledge, or, in other words, ignorance; and wherever there is not omnipotence, there must be a circumscription of power, or weakness. To contend that imperfection of power or knowledge, is an evil is to maintain that sentient existence and the capacity of enjoyment are evils; because there must have been a graduated scale of being, to have produced progression and moral subordination. For man to complain that he suffers under the want of omniscience and omnipotence, would be to grumble that man existed, or that there was any thing in the universe but God alone. The angels, to have existence, must have been less than their Creator; and had they lamented their inferiority, they must have mourned that they were in being-for, not to be inferior, was to be equal to Deity, and to be equal to omnipresence and eternity, was to be the everlasting One; because, two eternals are a contradiction. Man, to have existence, must have been a little lower than the angels, although crowned with glory and honour; and, had he not been lower, he, of course, would not have been man. Gradations in the scale of intelligence and being, we thus see, must have become a law of the creation by inevitable necessity, whenever the benevolence of the Deity resolved that he should not be alone in the universe, but should fill it with happiness; because, to make creatures other than himself, they must have been less than himself. The angels could not complain of not being God-men of not being angelic -nor one mortal of not being equal to another; because he could not be so in all particulars, without losing his own identity. And of this law of graduation, is the subordination of the condition of the child to the moral and physical state of the parent. God deals not with men as individuals, but as a species. It is to the human race he has given the formation of its destiny, not to each creature for his own part only. If they suffer by mutual vice, they are made happy by combined virtue—in either case bearing the penalty, or reaping the benefit, of co-operated good or evil. That law of our nature whereby the happiness of each is made to depend on the happiness of all-ay, to make even angels weep when they see our fantastic tricks, and to produce a greater joy in heaven itself over one sinner that repenteth, is the most benevolent as well as the most beautiful feature of the moral government of the world. What a motive is it for the exercise and universal diffusion of philanthropy, to know, that it is a law of the warm heart, that its satisfaction is imperfect, so long as it beholds a single fellow-creature miserable. How wise is that system of mutual dependency, whereby selfishness is assured, that it cannot secure its own happiness, until it ceases to be selfish; and that statute, which, while it renders all the happiness, reason, and genius of man, the result solely of living in a state of society, or human alliance, makes it impossible that it can be a really peaceful existence to any, until each has made it a condition of unmixed felicity to all. In this world man is only comfortable when he is civilised-only civilised when he is social-social only when his enjoyment is dependent upon that of others; and, therefore, only truly happy, when happiness is all around him. The Lord of earth is the Lord of heaven, and the moral law of this world, will not be changed in the next.

The same evidence which proves that man was made upright, and that, too, by the very circumstances from which his perfectibility is inferred, that although a perfect stock may degenerate, an originally vicious stock will never become improved, leads to the deduction that he fell. An upright man, in Phrenological language, is one with a large brain—an exactly equal endowment of every organ, an absolute balance of the temperaments, and a corporeal constitution without flaw or blemish. But this very description of a perfect man, is just that of a fallible man-the slave of circumstances. As there is now no such being, degeneracy is demonstrated.

Metaphysicians have been at open and interminable war as to the nature and constitution of virtuous action; and although many, and ingenious, arguments, have been used, on as many sides, the controversy remains, like all other matters of argument, exactly where the combatants found it. Paley has defined virtue to be the performance of actions by the command and will of God, for the sake of future happiness: and Dr. Chalmers, adopting the same principle, maintains that justice, charity, benevolence, perseverance, frugality, practised for their own sake, are not virtuous, and must be, therefore, either vicious or indifferent; and that the sole virtue of every action, consists in its performance being the result of a desire to obey the command of God. But if that only is virtue, which is done in order to observe the Divine will, nothing is vicious which is not done with the express intention to disre