Pretensions of Phrenology

Pretensions of Phrenology 

PHRENOLOGY, properly speaking, is a physiology of the brain; and as such, an interesting and useful branch of science. Considered solely in this light, we are disposed to think favorably of it,-indeed, to believe it. But phrenologists pretend that it is something more than this. They claim for it the high merit of being a philosophy of the human mind, and the only sound philosophy of the human mind ever set forth. Mr. Combe recommends it on the ground of its throwing a flood of light on the philosophy of mind; and we heard him declare positively, that, if it be not true, mental philosophy cannot be understood. The American Phrenological Journal grounds the utility of phrenology, in part on the assumed fact, that it forms the basis of a more correct system of mental philosophy that has hitherto been embraced. We are, therefore, called upon to examine its pretensions, not merely as an account of the functions of the brain, but as a system of metaphysics; and an examination of it, in this respect, will probably be acceptable to the majority of our readers. 

Phrenology, as defined by its advocates, treats of the manifestations of mind, and of the physiological conditions under which they take place; but it is all embraced in the four following facts or principles: 1. The brain is the organof the mind; 2. The brain is a congeries of organs, and each individual organ serves to manifest a special faculty of the mind; 3. The strength of a faculty, caeteris paribus, is proportioned to the size of the organ; 4. The size of the organ, and therefore, with the above qualification, the strength of the faculty may be ascertained by examining the external head. As these four facts or principles embrace the whole of phrenology, nothing can be claimed as phrenology which does not come within their scope. We accept these four facts or principles, and all that necessarily grows out of them. We, therefore, concede to phrenologists their whole science. We controvert, at present, none of their facts. But though we make thiss concession, which is all that they can in conscience ask of us, we are by no means prepared to admit the inferences by which they erect it into a complete system of mental philosophy. 

Phrenologists offer us an enumeration and classification of the primitive tendencies-faculties, they call them,-of human nature. This enumeration they consider as nearly complete, and this classification as just. In this ground and in this alone, must they found their pretensions as metaphysicians. But we ask them-1st. If their account of the primitive faculties of human nature be the true account? 2d. Admitting it is, does it take in the whole of mental science? and 3d. Admitting it does take in the whole of mental science, is it obtained by means of phrenological principles, instead of the method adopted by metaphysicians in general? These three questions are pertinent, and we regret that we do not find phrenologists giving them that distinct consideration their importance demands. 

We proceed to conider the last question first. Admitting the phrenologist's account of the primitive faculties of human nature is the true one, we ask how has he obtained it. Grant his psychology; how has he constructed it? Has he done it by means of his phrenological facts, or by simply noting the facts he is conscious of in himself?

The simple fact, that a phrenologist is able to give, and does give, us a true account of the faculties of the human sould, is not necessarily a proof that this account is involved in, or that it grows out of the four phrenolgical principles we have enumerated. It is not, then, a proof that this account has any necessary connexion with phrenology. A shoe-maker may chance to construct a true system of astronomy, but it does not follow from this that astronomy is a branch of shoe-making, or that it can be successfully prosecuted by none but shoe-makers. Before the phrenologist can claim his psychology as a part of phrenology, he must show that it can be arrived at only by means of his four phrenological principles; and that, if these be denied, its truth cannot be maintained.

The phrenologist has counted some thirty or forty primitive faculties of human nature, located, named, and described them. We will, for our purposes, take but one of these, that of Benevolence. Two things are to be considered: 1.The faculty of benevolence; 2. The cerebral organ by which it is manifested. We presume the phrenologist does not intend to confound the faculty with the organ. We do not confound the sense of sight with the eye. The faculty of benevolence is psychical-the organ physical. Now does a knowledge of the organ afford any clue to the nature and character of the faculty of benevolence? Certainly not. Knowledge of the fact, then that each special faculty of human nature has its appropriate cerebral organ, together with manipulation of that organ, cannot lead to a knowledge of the faculty. What aid, then, do we derive from phrenology in constructing our psychology?

How, we ask, does the phrenologist come to the knowledge of the fact, that benevolence is one of the primitive faculties of human nature? Will he say, here is a cerebral organ for benevolence, herefore there must be a faculty for benevolence, he assumes the existence of the faculty of benevolence. How can he say this portion of brain is consecrated to benevolence, if he be ignorant of the fact that there is such a faculty as benevolence? Man has an organ for veneration, therefore veneration is the primitive faculty of human nature. But how know that this is an organ of veration before we know that man venerates, and venerates by means of this portion of the cerebrum?

We confess we cannot see how the phrenologist obtains his psychology by means of his phrenological principles. He does not pretend that the organs are distinctly marked on the brain. There are no cerebral marks by which he can tell where benevolence ends and veneration begins. The number of the organs cannot be ascertained so as in return to aid in determining the number of faculties. This is evident from the fact that phrenologists do not agree in their enumeration of one or the other; some reckoning more faculties and organs, and others fewer. The portion of brain, which Spurzheim and Combe devote to ideality, others devote to ideality and sublimity,-thus dividing what was regarded as one organ into two, and making two primitive faculties out of what was at first pronounced to be but one. It is evident from this, that the examination of the skull can no more determine the number of our primitive faculties, than it can their nature and character. We ask again, then, what light does phrenology throw on psychology?

The phrenologist must determine the number and character of our primitive faculties independently of his craniology, or not determine them at all. How, then, does he determine their number and charcter? We presume by analyzing his own consciousness. Mr Combe declared in his lectures that a man destitute of conscientiousness would be incapable of conceiving moral distinctions. He differed from Dr. Spurzheim as to a particular faculty, and claimed superior authority for his own opinion, because the organ of the faculty in question was large on his head, and almost totally deficient on Dr. Spurzheim's. Phrenologists, then resort to consciousness. They turn their eyes in upon themselves, and analyze the facts of the mental world. But this is the way all psychologists do, and ever have done. Phrenologists then, as pyschologists, have nothing peculiar in their method. Their psychology, then is not obtained by their phrenological principles, but by the usual process. If any one doubts this, let him ask if a phrenologist would feel himself warranted in denying the existence of a faculty he should be conscious of possessing, and which he should see manifested in the lives of others, merely because he could find no organ for it? We do not believe he would. We conclude this part of the subject, then, by saying that, admitting that the phrenologist has accurately enumerated and rightly classed the faculties of human nature, he has not done it by virtue of his phrenology, but by virtue of his superior psychological analysis.

But we go further. We deny both the completeness and the justness of the phrenological psychology. Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe enumerate and describe thirty-five faculties, and speak of two more which are considered doubtful, or not fully settled. But what they call faculties, are evidently nothing but instinctive laws or tendencies of human nature, and not at all deserving the name of faculty. We accept the number and character of these tendencies, as given by phrenologists, but they by no means exhaust the consciousness.

These tendencies are all instinctive; they are blind cravings, and the causality at work in them is not our personality. We are seperate from them, and either obey them or control them. The faculties proper, those powers by which we control our instincts, are not accounted for by phrenologists. Memory is unquestionably a faculty of the human soul, but the phrenologist has no organ for it. He virtually denies memory. True he says each faculty remembers,-that eventuality remembers events, individuality remembers individual facts, causality remembers causes comparison relations, and so on through the whole list. But does he not see that this is all aside the mark? It is not this or that faculty that remembers, be we remember. What he alleges merely explains why it is that we remember some things rather than others; but it says nothing of why we remember at all. Memory is two-fold. Sometimes the past comes up of its own accord, sometimes it comes up only as we recall it. Now, how, if we have no faculty of memory, are we able to recall the past?

Sensibility is another faculty of which phrenologists give a very unsatisfactory account. The feelings they speak of are merely modes or variations of sensibility, not the capacity of feeling itself. Endowed as I am with the capacity of feeling, I can easily understand that with the brain large in the region of benevolence, I shall have that modification of sensibility strong; or if small in the region devoted to self-esteem, I shall not be proud. But this does not explain the capacity of feeling, nor give it a cerebral organ. There is no organ for sensibility; there are simply organs for its modes. 

The same difficulty occurs in relation to the faculty of knowing, intelligence, or reason. We know well what phrenologists say on this subject; we know that they have devoted to the intellect the anterior lobe of the brain, or at least the larger portion of it; and that they speak of perceptive faculties and reflective faculties; but wherefore we understand not. If true to their own system, they must pronounce the intellectual faculties, as they call them, instincts, desires, cravings, as well the propensities and sentiments. Comparison, in their account of the matter, is nothing but a craving to know relations, causality to know causes, individuality to know individual facts. The cerebral organ of causality, with all deference to George Combe, we must suggest, does not take cognizance of causes; it is merely the organ by which the man manifests his desire to know causes. Similar remarks may be made of all the intellectual faculties, as they are called. They do not constitute the knowing faculty, but are merely its modes, and simply account for the fact that all kinds of knowledge are not acquired by all men with equal facility. To know, is the same, whether it be of causes, relations, facts, tunes, times, colors, or events. It is a general power, which, if we choose, will be directed to an investigation of causes, of ideas, of beauty, of religion, as causality, comparison, ideality, or veneration is the larger organ on the head. But the fact that it is directed to one class of facts rather than another, in consequence of cerebral development, can by no means destroy its unity, or make it not a faculty of the human soul. The phrenologists, in rejecting it, appear to us to make out but a very defective psychology.

The will, or personality, is also denied by phrenologists. We mean not to say that they have banished the word, but the thing. Benevolence does this, causality does that, is their way of speaking. The man, the person, does nothing. There is no unity. Phrenologists even labor to disprove all unity of consciousness; and Dr. Spurzheim introduces a man crazy on one side of his head, but sane on the other, to prove the fact of double consciousness. One can hardly refrain from adding that a man resorting to such testimony for such a purpose must needs be crazy, not on one side of his head only, but on both sides. 

One while, the phrenologists confound will with desire; another while, with a decision of the understanding, and generally, with the circumstances which influence it. Each faculty is said to will its apporopriate objects. Here by will they mean desire. When the intellect perceives that a certain group of organs ought to be obeyed, there is a will to obey them. Here will is taken for a decision of the understanding. If a group of the organs giving a determinate character be predominant, there is a will to follow them. Here will is confounded with both desire and the circumstances which influence us. Are men, who can commit mistakes like thses, philosophers?

The will, we have shown elsewhere, is the ME, the personality, the power of acting, not the mere capacity of receiving an action. The causality at work in the will is always the person, the ME, myself. It is the power of self-determination. Take away the will, and you destroy personality. The will is always free. Indeed it is identical with freedom. A necessary will, or a will that is not free, is a solecism. But desire is not free. It does not spring up because I will it. It takes place independently of my personality. The causality at work in it, then, is not mine. If, then, there be no will but desire, there is no will at all; then there is no personality, then we re-enter into nature and necessity, and fatalism is truth. The same remarks may be made on the decision of the understanding. I cannot control the decisions of my understanding. I see as I can, not as I will. THe decisions of the understanding are controlled by a power which I am not. They are necessary, not free. If we confound the will with them, we destroy it, efface personality, and reduce man to a thing, at best, to an animal. We reside eminently in our power of acting, and this power of acting is what we mean by the whill as a faculty of human nature. 

Now, we are not conscious of possessing this power. We do not seek to prove it, for we know it as immediately and as positively as we know that we exist. Our judgments may decide one way, but we can resolve to go another. Desire may prompt us to one deed, but we can will to do another. Every man knkows this, for every man repeats the experiment every day of his life. It is true, I may be overpowered by my appetite, my desires, my passions, and led into sin; nevertheless I retain ever the power of willing to resist. This power may not always manifest itself in outward acts, but it exists and manifests itself, internally, in the sphere of consciousness. A strong man may hold me to the ground, so that I cannot rise; but though I cannot rise, I can will to rise. Here, then, is a faculty or power which I unquestionably possess, or rather which is myself, of which phrenologists take no account. We can find no recognition of it in their psychology. By what authority, then, do they say that they have constructed a complete psychology? Here is the man himself, of which they take no account, and for which they find no place.

"The knowing and reflecting faculties," says Mr. Combe, p. 467, "are subject to the will, or rather constitute will themselves." In his lectures he told us repeatedly that will is seated in the anterior lobe of the brain, and is identical with intelect. Consequently the power of preceiving is identical with the power of willing, and to know is simply to resolve! This may be true philosophy, and deserving the vote of thanks and piece of plate from Bostonians, which Mr. Combe received for it; but we confess that it is a philosophy which we are not yet prepared to embrace. We pretend not, however, to refute it; for he who can see no difference between knowing a thing, and resolving to do or not to do a thing, though he win not conviction, must needs be unanswerable. 

What, again, do phrenologists mean by calling causality and comparison reflective faculties? Have they analyzed reflection? In reflection there is both intelligence and will. We will to reflect. In every act of reflection we turn the mind in upon itself. But phrenologists deny will, they deny activity, freedom; how, then, can they admit reflection? And moreover, what are causality and comparison  but simple tendencies to inquire into causes and relations? They do not, of themselves, take cognizance of causes and relations, otherwise every man who has them large would be sure to have an extensive knowledge of causes and relations, without having ever inquired, which is not the fact. But suppose causality knows causes, and comparison knows relations, we should like to know if they reflect in knowing these, any more than individuality does in knowing facts, or time in knowing dates?  Admit they do, how does the phrenologist know the fact? How does he learn that causality is a reflective faculty, and individuality a simple knowing faculty?

Again, phrenologists boast much of phrenology as a harmonizing with Christianity. Now, one of the plainest injunctions of Christianity is that of self-denial. We should like to see he phrenologist explain, on his principles, the doctrine of self denial. He recognises no self, no ME, but some thirty or forty faculties having no common spiritual centre. What to him, then, will be self-denial? To deny one's self, we presume he will say, is to give predominance to the moral and religious sentiments over the lower or animal propensities. But two questions in reference to this answer: 1. What is that which gives the predominance to the moral and religious sentiments? and 2. Is this predominance really a self-denial? Are not the moral and religious sentiments as much parts of self, in the view of phrenologists, as the propensities themselves? Why is it, then, any more self-denial to bring the propensities into subjection to the sentiments, than it would be to bring the sentiments into subjection to the propensities?

But what is it that brings the one into subjection to the other? What is this which exerts this power? Is it the ME, the personality, activity, liberty, which is not the tendencies, but their subject, their common centre? Is it, in a word, the will? Why have phrenologists then neglected to describe it,  to give us an account of it? and why do they give us such an account of the will as necessarily excludes it? Will they say, as George Combe does, that it is the intellect? Well, what directs the intellect to that end? A power which we are, or which is objective to us? If objective to us, as they imply in all they say, then it is not we that subject our propensities to our moral and religious sentiment, but something else. Then we do not deny ourselves, and cannot. Then the Christian duty of self-denial is impracticable.

Once more.-Christianity teaches the doctrine of accountability; how will the phrenologist make this doctrine harmonize with his philosophy? Mr. Combe took up this subject in his lectures; but his mode of treating it struck us at the time as peculiarly vague and inconclusive. Christianity represents man as placed under a law which he is morally obliged to obey, and which he has the power to obey or not to obey. We believe every yman's conscience bears witness to the truth of this Christian doctrine; all languages imply it, and all systems of morality and jurisprudence are based upon it. But if a man be the slave of his instincts, if he be not free to control them, to will the right, though they would lead him to pursue the wrong, it is obvious  that he is not accountable for his actions, and therefore is not a subject of moral discipline. Phrenologists say the character of the man will be good, if the moral and religious sentiments and intellect predominate, and bad if the animal propensities predominate. The question which naturally arises is has a man with large organs for the animal propensities, and small organs for the moral and religious sentiments and intellect, the power to be a strictly moral and upright man? Or has a man with an organization the reverse of this, the power to be a bad man? If not, then the man is controlled by an exterior force; his acts are not, strictly speaking, his acts, but the acts of the force at work in his instinctive tendencies. If then you make him accountable, you make his accountable for deeds not his own. I am respnsible only for my own deeds. What is done in me, but not by me, is no more my doing than what is done in a man of whom I never heard, and with whom I have no relation. How then can I be responsible? Indeed does not phrenolical psychology destroy all responsiblity?

This is a grave question, and as such Mr. Combe gave it a grave, but we are sorry to say, not an explicit answer. The cautiousness so characteristic of his nation, seemed all the while to be predominant. He did not say, man has the power in question, nor that he has it not. He evaded the real question at issue, and introduced another, which was but remotely related to it. He asked, What do we mean by responsibility? Responsibility to whom? To God? Do we mean by the question to ask whether God will have a right to punish us or not? Phrenology has nothing to do with such questions. Phrenology does not profess to answer theological questions,-although one of its chief recommendations in the minds of many is, the aid it brings to scriptural exegesis. We leave the question of responsibleness to God, and ask again, to whom are wer responsible? To society? But the question he should have asked, was not, to whome we are responsible, nor to what we are responsible, but, if our characters are determined by our cerebral development, can we be accountable at all? Yet this question, for reasons best known to himself, he did not choose to ask or answer. He considered merely our responsibleness to society, that is, the right of society to punish us. He placed before us the casts of three heads, one decidedly bad, one middling, and one decidedly good. The first question is to determine who are responsible. Now, persons with heads like this,-showing us the cast of the villain,-are not responsible. You see here are large propensities, feeble sentiments, and deficeient intellect. Such a man should be treated as a moral patient, and asylums should be built, in which all persons with heads organized in this way, should be confined. Then again,-shouing us the mniddle head,-is this man responsible? You see the propensities are large, the moral and religious sentiments rather small, though the intellect is considerable. Persons with heads organized in this manner will do very well, if kept out of the way of temptation; but if tempted, they will assuredly fall. But here is a different head. Persons with heads like this are proof against temptation, and maintain their integrity amidst all circumstances. Persons of this class are responsible. You see here moderate propensities, large moral and religious sentiments to perceive the right, and large intellect to will it. If such a person does not do right, he has no excuse. 

But he wished Mr. Combe to tell us wheter this man, with the good head, had the power to neglect his duty,-whether he did right by the force of instinct, or by coluntary striving. We wished to knwo wheter there be in man a power or faculty, by which he controls his instinctive tendencies, and directs them to the fulfilment of the moral law, or by which he can, if he choose, direct them to the breach of the moral law. If man has not this power, he is not a moral being, and the accountability spoken of in the Christian revelation is unfounded. Phrenology, then, instead of being in harmony with Christianity, would be directly opposed to it. If there be such a power, phrenologists have not given us a true philosophy of man, because they have failed to recognize and describe it.

If the phrenological psychology be admitted, virture is indeed, as Brutus said, "an empty name." In none of the phrenological lectures we have heard, in none of the phrenological books we have read, have we found any thing on which virtue can be based. We can conceive how a man on phrenological principles, may be good or bad, in the sense in which we say a good or bad knife, but we cannot concieve it possible for one to be virtuous or sinful. Virtue is my own act; it springs from my will, and can spring from no other. No power can compel me to be virtuous; for the deeds I do through compulsion, I do not, but the power that compels me, and therefore they are not mine, and however good they may be, they are not virtuous.

Now, in hte primitive instincts of my nature, I do not act. In relation to these primitive tendencies, which the phrenologists call faculties, I am passive, and hence they are termed passions. The active force in them is not my ME, my personality, but a force foreign to it. Admitting, then, that all these tendencies are good, and that all which is done thorough their impulsive force is in harmony with the law of God, it does not follow that I am virtuous. The sun and starts obey God's law, but are they virtuous? Not at all. Because they are not persons, are not active but passive, and revolve in obedience to God's law only because a power foreign to them makes them to revolve. The analogy holds good in man. When I find myself in harmony with the law of God, by the force of my instinctive tendencies, I am there by no act of mine, and consequently have no claim to virtue. This distinction between virtue and goodness, our phrenologists seem not to have made. Goodness is conformity to the will of the Creator; virtue is the voluntary striving that conformity. I may be forced to conform and therefore forced into goodness; but I cannot be forced to will to conform, therefore cannot be forced into virtue. Now, what I do in obedience to my instinctive tendencies, I am forced to do as much as if the impelling power were outside of my body; consequently, though forced to conform by my instincts, I am only good, not virtuous, unless I have also willed to conform. Phrenologists seem always satisfied when the conformity is obtained, although in obtaining it, they annihilate the man. They do not regard it as essential that we should will that conformity, therefore do not regard virtue itself as essential; and as they do not give us this power of willing, they represent virtue as impossible. 

But waiving all this, we must tell our phrenological friends, that psychology does not embrace the whole of philosophy. Their views of mental science are low and narrow, and make them physicians rather than metaphysicians. They seem to imagine that mental philosophy  is merely a sort of natural history of the mind,-that when they have enumerated and described the primitive tendencies, or laws, of human nature, their work is done. But we must assure them that the mental philosopher has other and more important matters than thse to settle, and which, in our judgment, phrenology does not in the least aid him to settle. There is the somewhat important question of the criterion of truth, or ground of certainty. We should like to know what light phrenology throws on this question. Does it give us any clue to its answer? Phrenologists assert many things as true; how do they know that what they assert is true? How do they know that the authority on which they rely, and to which they appeal, is legitimate and safe? How do they determine that all human knowledge is not dream, or that our faculties are to be trusted? They may tell us that phrenology does not ask these questions, and that it should not be called upon to answer them. Be it so. But these are philosophical questions, and if they do no bring them within the scope of phrenology, what right have they to call phrenology a system of mental philosophy? Does it afford the basis of an answer to these questions? Not at all. Then it does not embrace the whole of philosophy.

Men generally believe in something existing outside of them; but some philosophers contend that we cannot pass, by any legitimate process, from the world within us to a world outside of us. We do not expect our phrenolgical readers, generally, will comprehend the problem here implid, for they do not seem to possess the capacity of distinguishing between the ME and the NOT-ME; but still, we trust some of them will understand what we mean, when we say that a few men have questioned the existence of an external world; have, like Berkeley, regarded it as a picture stamped by God on the retina of the mind, or, like Fichte, as the ME projected, taken as the object of itself. Now what light has the phrenologist to throw on this question? Are these philosophers right; or shall we continue to believe, with the great mass of mankind, that there is a real world existing outside of us, and independent of us? How out of the four phrenolgical principles we have enumerated, shall we extract an answer to this question? If phrenology cannot answer it, how can its friends call it a system, or the basis of a system, of mental philosophy?

Mr Combe touches, in his book (pp. 453, 454), upon this question, but unfortunately he does not give it that direct and explicit answer which its importance seems to demand. He says Berkeley denied the external world, because he could see no necessary connexion between the conception or idea of it, which is a mental affection, and its existence. But instead of informing us whether Berkeley was right or not, or showing us how phrenology enables us to solve the problem, he merely undertakes to tell us how he can explain, on phrenological principles, the fact that Berkeley denied an external world, and also the fact that Reid asserted it. "Individuality, aided by the other perspective powers, in virtue of its constitution, perceives the external world, and produces an intuitive belief in its existence. But Berkeley employed the faculty of causality to discover why this perception is followed by beleif; and as causality could give no account of the matter, and could see no necssary connexion between the mental affection, called perception, and the existence of external nature, he denied the latter.: This translated into the language of mortals, means, we suppose that Berkeley denied tthe existence of external nature, because he could discover no reason for asserting it. This is a very satisfactory reason, no doubt, why Berekely denied the existence of an external world, but Mr. Combe must pardon us, if we cannot accept it as a satisfactory answer to the question, whether Berkeley was justified in his denial or not.

There are two other points in this answer deserving attention. "Individuality, aided by the other perceptive powers, in virtue of its constitution, perceives the external world, and produces an intuitive belief in its existence." Translated, as we have said, into the language of mortals, this means, we suppose, that we perceive an external world, or by the constitution of our nature, are led irresistibly  to believe in its existence. This is the doctrine of Reid, advanced in reply to Hume and Berkeley. It is not, then, necessarily, a phrenological doctrine. But this is of no consequence. Does phrenology throw any additional light on it, or give to it any addition certainty? Is out belief in an external world made more rational or philosophical, by saying that "individuality, by virtue of its constitution, perceives the external world, and produces an intuitive belief in its existence," than it was when we said with Reid, we are irresistibly led, by the constitution of our nature, to believe in an external world? 

Again,-how does Mr. Combe know that individuality does actually perceive an external world? The perception, we suppose he will admit with Berkely, is a mental affection; how, then, by the aid of phrenology, pass from the mental affection, the idea, to the object? We wish he would tell us what principle or fact phrenology has disclosed, which enable him to do this. We cannot see that he has advanced at all on Berkeley, or obtained any means of legitimating our faith in an external world. Phrenology appears to us to leave this question where it found it. 

This answer of his also implies that we cannot legitimate belief in the objective. He says that causality can assign no reason why we should believe in the existence of external nature,-that is, we have no other ground for asserting that existence, than that we believe it because it is our nature to believe it. Hume and Berkeley both said as much. Phrenology, then, so far from legitimating the universal belief of mankind in an external world, either leaves that matter untouched, or, according to its greatest living expounder, tells us that we cannot legitimate it. We should like to know wherein phrenology decides that we can not pass legitimately from the subjective to the objective?

The friends of phrenology boast its value in settling the great problems of natural theology. Some of them go so far as to say that it puts the question of the existence of God at rest. If it be a complete system of mental philosophy, it ought to do this. Let us see, then, if it does. Mr. Combe attempts, in his book, to show that it does; but he merely shows us why some men believe in God, and why others do not. Men on whose heads the organ of causality is large, believe in God,-those on whose heads it is small, do not. Now this, in point of fact, is not true. Abner Kneeland has large causality, and the Abbe Paris was almost entirely deficient in it. Hume had large causality, and Reid, according to Mr. Combe, had small causality. But let this pass. Suppose mr. Combe is right, his remark no more proves the legitimacy of theism than it does of atheism; and the argument which he introduces after this remark, and which he represents as always silencing atheists, is nothing but the old argument from Design, which is inconclusive, unless we have first established the existence of a Designer. But be it ever so conclusive, it derives no additional force from phrenology. 

But phrenologists profess, also, to find a proof of the existence of God in the sentiment of veneration. "Destructiveness is implanted in the mind,and animals exist around us to be killed for our nourishment; adhesiveness and philoprogenitivesness are given, and friends and children are provided, on whom they may be exercised; benevolence is conferred on us, and the poor and unhappy, on whom it may shed its soft influence, are everywhere present with us; in like manner, the instinctive tendency to worship is implanted in the mind, and, conformably to these analogies of nature, we may reasonably infer that a God exists whom we may adore." (p.261) That is, man is disposed to venerate, therefore there is a God for him to venerate. Supposing you had first proved a God, who has implanted in us the tendency to venerate, you might then take the existence of the tendency as a proof that it is God's will that we should venerate him; but that the tendency, of itself, supposes God, is more than we can conceive. The logic, by which we conclude from the existence of the tendency to the object, is, we presume, peculiarly phrenological.

But the evidence of a God, to be derived from this source is taken away by the very persons who adduce it. "Man," says Dr. Gall, "adores every thing, fire fire, water, earth, thunder, lightning, meteors, grasshoppers, crickets.: The existence of the fact, that man worships, is, then, according to phrenolgists themselves, no better evidence of the existence of God, than it is that God, if he exists, is a cricket or a grasshopper. After this, we hope they will cease to boast of the new light their science throws on the fundamental truths of natural theology.

But passing over this;-phrenologists have only told us what we knew before, that men have a disposition to venerate, to adore. All have admitted this. The only question in dispute is, Is there a God to adored? This question phrenologists leave where it was before. They have merely, by pointing out an organ of veneration, led people to reflect, perhaps, more on the fact that man is naturally religious, than they otherwise would have done; but whether religion is grounded in truth, or wether it be an illusion, is a question they have not answered, nor increased our means of answering.

One great object of philosophy is to deonstrate the fact, that man is a moral being,-that there is above a him a law he ought to obey, and that he is in the way of his duty when he obeys it, and sinful when he disobeys. That man is under such a law, is the universal sentiment of the race, as the universal presence of conscience testifies. But some men have questioned this law, in fact denied its reality. This has led others to seek to establish it. Now, if phrenology be a complete system of philosophy, it must settle this question. Does it do it? So say the phrenologists. How does it do it? Why, there is on man's head an organ of conscientiousness, and those who have it large are disposed to be honest, upright, moral; and those who have it very small, are incapable of perceiving moral distinctions. We shall not laugh at this answer, for we suppose it is given in good faith; but, taking it in its most favorable light, we must ask what it amounts to? Simply to the fact, that men are so organized, or so constituted, that they do believe in moral distinctions. Is this belief well founded? Is there that moral would actually existing, which it implies? Here is a question our phrenological friends do not answer. Can they answer it?

The immortality of the soul is another philosophical question, and one which philosophy ought to settle. Does phrenology throw any light on this question? Not at all. It professes to leave this, and all similar questions, by the way. Very well. We do not ask it to answer them, only we say, if it does not, it takes in but a small part of what we understand by the philosophy of the human mind; and therefore its friends should not claim for it the high merit of being the foundation of all correct mental science. We do not complain of phrenology, because it does not do more, but of its friends for representing it as being more than it is. 

Mr. Combe speaks of phrenology as exalting the dignity of human nature. It teaches, he said, in his lectures, that all our faculties are in themselves good, and given by our Creator for useful purposes, and that they become the occasion of evil only when abused. Phrenologists teach this, we admit, and perhaps to recommend their science; but how they deduce this from their phrenolgical principles, is to us a mystery. It is a conclusion to which they doubtless arrive by reasoning from certain notions of justice which they entertain; but do they derive those notions from phrenological facts, or from sources in no sense dependent on the truth or falsity of phrenology?

Phrenologists speak of the moral and religious sentiments as the higher nature of man. Is this because their organs are located on the upper part of the head? They say the moral and religious sentiments ought to govern the propensities. We admit it; but will they tell us how they veify this fact by phrenology? Is there any thing to be discovered by manipulation to establish it? Or do they establish it by consulting the revelations of consciousness, just as all philosophers do? But Mr. Combe ridicules the idea of knowing any thing of the mind, by the study of consciousness, just as all philosophers do? But Mr. Combe ridicules the idea of knowing any thing of the mind, by the study of consciousness. "The human mind," he says, "in this world, cannot, by itself, be an object of philosophical investigation." The mind, then cannot investigate itself,-thought cannot be an object of thought, and we can never turn our minds in upon themselves, and study the facts of consciousness! This we confess, is a novel view of the matter, and one which, we presume, no mental philosopher ever suspected before Gall, Spurzheim, and George Combe.

But enough. We wish our readers distinctly to understand that we make no war upon phrenology, when restricted to its legitimate sphere. As a physiological account of the brain, a treatise on its functions, and as enabling us to explain the causes of the differences we meet with in individual character, we believe it and value it. Within these limits, within which Gall usually confined it, it is, as we have said, a useful and interesting branch of science. The mischief of it lies in attempting, as Spurzheim and Combe do, to make it a system of mental philosophy, which it is not, and never can be. The fundamental principles of phrenology are easily reconcilable with a sound spiritual philosophy, and on some future occasion we may attempt to show this. The objections we have brought forward, do not bear against those principles, but against the doctrines phrenologists profess to derive from them. We war, then, not against the science, but against what its friends have superinduced upon it, or alleged it to be.

They, who oppose phrenology by controverting its physiological facts, do not seem to us to act very wisely. Mr. Combe's Lectures, we confess, tended to weaken our faith in the reality of those facts, and to induce us to class phrenology with the other humbugs of the day; but out own observations have been somewhat extended, and we are satisfied that phrenologists have really made some physiological discoveries not altogether worthless; and their assertion of a connexion between the instinctive tendencies of our natures, and cerebral organization, has led to a kind of observation on the different traits of individual character, which has enlarged our stock of materials for a Natural History of Man. They have, also, made many valuable observations of education, and the means of preserving a sound mind in a sound body; and induced many to turn their attention to the study of mental science, who, but for them, might never have done it. This is considerable; enough to give them an honorable rank among the benefactors of their race,-and a rank they should be permitted peaceably to enjoy, unless they claim one altogether higher, and to which no man of any tolerable acquaintance with mental science can believe them entitled. 

Admitting all the facts phrenologists allege, all that legitmately belongs to their science, we contend that it throws no light on the great problems of mental philosoply. In relation to all those problems, we stand unaffected by the discoveries of Gall and Spurzheim; and had phrenologists clearly preceived the nature of these problems, they would never have dared to put forth the claims they have, and which we have contested. Phrenology is a physical, not a metaphysical science, and all it can, with any propriety, pretend to do, is to point out and describe the physiological conditions to which, in this mode of being, the mental affections are subjected. This it has, to some extent, done; but this does not amount to so much as they imagine. In doing this does not amount to so much as they imagine. In doing it, they do not approach the boundaries of metaphysical science, and therefore we have felt it necessary to show them what they claim for it more than it is or can be.

We are greateful to all laborers in the field of science, and to every man who discovers a new law or a new fact. But we confess we are a little impatient with arrogant pretensions. Let the discoverer of the new law or the new  fact, describe it to us, and claim the merit that is his due; but let him not fancy his merit must needs be so great as to sink out of sight the merit of everybody else. We could bear with our phrenolgical friends altogether better, were they not perpetually addressing us, as if all the wisdom was born with Gall and Spurzheim. To believe them, before thses two German epricics Plato and Aristotle, Back and Descartes, Leibnitz and Locke, Reid and Kant, sink into insignifigance. Now, this is mroe than we can bear. "Great men lived before Afamemnon,"-and we believe there were philosophers, before Gall and Spurzheim set out with a cabinet of skulls on their wanderings from Vienna. It is because phrenologists lose sight of this fact, and would fain make it believed that nothing can be known of the human mind, but the means of their four principles, that we have deemed it necessary to rebuke them. We hope they will bear our reproof with the meekness of philosophers.

We honor the man who has theo courage to proclaim a new doctrine, one which he honestly believes, and which he knows is in opposition to the habitual faith of his age and country; but we always distrust both the capacity and the attainments of him, who can see nothing to venerate in his forefathers, and who bows not before the wisdom of antiquity. Progress there may be, and there is; but no man can advance far on his predecessors,-never so far that they shall sensibly diminish in the distance. These arrogant reformers with the tithe of an idea, who speak to us as if they had outgrown all the past, and grasped and made present the whole future, are generally persons who, having advanced on their own infancy, imagine therefore, that they have advanced on the whole world. But the more we do really advance, the more shall we be struck with the greatness of those who went before us, and the more sincere and deep will be our reverence for antiquity. The darkness we ascribe to remote ages is often the darkness of our own minds, and the ignorance we complain of in others may be only the reflex of our own. Progress we should labor for, progress we should delight in, but we should beware of  underrating those who have placed us in the world. "There were giants in those days."

Phrenologists must attribute the ridicule and opposition they have encountered  to themselves. Their method of propagating their sceince, their character of itinerant lectures and their habit of manipulating heads, likening their science so much, in its usages and effects, to the science of palmistry, together with their uncouth terminology, and the absurd statements which they are continually making, betraying at once their ignorance and simplicity, can hardly be expected not to excite a smile of pleasantry, or of contempt, in every man of ordinary discernment and information. But if they will betake themselves to their cabinets, and study their science in the modest, unpretending manner, physiologists in general do, instead of perambulating the country, manipulating skulls at so much a-piece, or treating their science in a way that encourages the ignorant and designing to do it, they will find the public ceasing to oppose them, and gratefully accepting the fruits of their labors. Let them lay aside their pretensions as system-makers, reformers, revolutionists, and throw into the common mass the facts or principles they discover, and suffer them to go for what they are worth, and, in common with all studious men, they will contribute something to the well-being of the race, and deserve well of humanity.