gists, as to give way to the popular clamour of the day, and assume the system to be absurd without inquiry, and upon this most flimsy and unstable foundation to enter religion on the field against it. Did it not occur to the reverend advocate, that if, peradventure, phrenology were true, he was subjecting his own cause to a most unnecessary embarrassment? Imagine phrenology to be admitted, which must speedily be the case, the enemies of religion may then turn round and maintain that the Christian Revelation must be a fable, because Mr Rennell, its advocate, has testified, that a science subsequently established on incontestable evidence, stands directly opposed to its doctrines! It will be impossible to demolish phrenology, if it rest, as it does, on physical facts; and as religion also is impregnable, some future advocate will be constrained to sacrifice Mr Rennell at the shrine of the two to reconcile them ;-and this has always been the case. The indiscreet votary has uniformly been discovered to have been the only real enemy to the sacred cause; and the discredit which ultimately overtakes him, is nothing more than a just retribution for his retarding the progress of truth, and setting philosophy and religion, which God has conjoined, in hostile array against each other. We make these observations in the most serious and candid spirit; and if there be any Christian whom this controversy may excite to publish his sentiments, we warn him, as he values the progress of the faith to which he is attached, not slightly to represent it as standing in opposition to the system which we defend; for we assure him, (and we, at least, have experience and knowledge on our side,) that phrenology is an irresistible and impregnable body of truth, and that all opinions which really stand opposed to it must, in time, be levelled in the dust. The Christian religion, in our humble apprehension, is strongly supported by it, so far as philosophy is capable at all of bearing upon its doctrines; and we shall take a subsequent opportunity of shewing this; but, in the meantime, we repeat, that whoever shall indiscreetly attempt to represent the two as inconsistent, will do a temporary injury to both,

and ultimately bring lasting discredit upon himself. Phrenology, indeed, and we speak advisedly, will, in time, be perceived to be an instrument of analysis in morals, ethics, and political economy, of so vast a power, that the scoffing fribbles of the day are incapable of conceiving its magnitude; and after it is firmly established, there are few opinions against which it will not be directed as a mighty engine of expiscation, and while all which are true will come forth from the ordeal shining with redoubled brilliancy and beauty, those which are false will be melted away under its application.

To Philostratus we now address a few words. We perceive that he is a phrenologist, fairly initiated in the doctrine, and aware, at least, of its truth, if not of all its importance; but we regret to be obliged to add, that, in the present publication, he has acted uncandidly towards religion, and not quite fairly towards phrenology. We agree with him in holding, that physiology affords no proper basis on which to found the doctrines of Christianity, and that those who joined in the clamour against Mr Lawrence manifested more zeal for religion than knowledge of its true interests; but we reprobate as not only irrelevant and puerile, but as positively mischievous, the author's identification of the dogmas, as he calls them, of any church, more especially of the church of Rome, with the truths of Revelation. If he had avowed himself a Roman Catholic, he would have been more excuseable, but clearly he is not of this persuasion, and therefore can be held only to sneer at the foundations of the Christian faith, when he places them emphatically within the pale of the Romish church. He blames the authors against whom he writes, theologians and physiologists, for trespassing on each other's department, hinc inde; and what does he do when he presumes to embody the Christian Revelation in the perversions of it by the church of Rome? Had he been wise, he would have seen that this very course impairs the moral effect of his whole argument. If he had confined himself to the simple and sublime truth of the Christian Revelation, that the soul is immortal, and argued that no physio

logical facts either add to the evidence of Revelation on this point, or shake its validity, he would have been unanswerable. We have followed this course, putting churches, with all their peculiarities, out of the question, and we are not afraid of a refutation of our argument.

In the next place, the author travels quite out of his way to make a silly and irrelevant, and apparently spiteful attack upon Paley, who, for any thing physiology or phrenology shews to the contrary, might have been "a great eater," and "sound reasoner" at the same time. He says,

"The anatomical theologian, Paley, was another writer who "tried to establish spiritual things on the basis of physical proof. "I shall let his bad anatomy alone, and proceed to take a single "instance of the character of his reasoning from his proof of a "God. He says something to the following effect:- If I find a watch, and examine its curious workmanship, I infer a "watchmaker, and that he was an ingenious mechanic. In like manner, in contemplating the wonderful mechanism of the “universe, I am led to believe in an Omnipotent Artificer.' To "me this appears false reasoning,-for, when I infer the ex"istence of a watchmaker from the appearance of a watch, it is "because I have beforehand found by experience that such in"struments were made by watchmakers. But by what previous experiment can I have discovered that the worlds were made by God?"

Paley's reasoning appears to us to be perfectly just, and this author's to be erroneous; and, as he is a phrenologist, we shall give him an example of the application of the science to this present question, both to maintain our own views and to illustrate the value of the system as an instrument of moral analysis and reasoning.

The author speaks of "our inability to penetrate, by the "light of human science, beyond the objects of our senses in "their various relations;" and maintains, that "in contem

plating this constant order of appearances (in nature), as "the links of the great chain pass before us, we lose sight "of the great cause of the whole; and we should inevitably "be lulled into a belief that the material atoms of the uni"verse contained within themselves the necessary causes of "their own phenomena, were it not for the doctrine taught

"us from our infancy, that there existed a spiritual being "who had caused and who maintained the whole." The notion, that the human mind can form no ideas except what are referable to the external senses as their immediate origin, is of French extraction, and as Mr Stewart has shewn in the preliminary dissertation to the Encyclopedia, is generally founded on a misapprehension of the doctrine of Locke.— Phrenology demonstrates its untruth: for while it shews, that by the aid of the external senses, and the knowing faculties and organs, the mind perceives existing objects and events, it demonstrates farther, that by means of a higher order of powers, those of Causality and Comparison, it obtains ideas of causation, and infers the existence of causes from contem plating their effects; acquiring, in this manner, an important class of notions, of which the senses are totally unfit to take cognizance, and of which they are not the immediate source. Phrenology farther reveals, that individuals who possess the former organs largely developed, and are deficient in the latter, perceive sequence in events, but do not at all, or at least very imperfectly, perceive causation. Hence such persons speak constantly of the evidence of their senses, as the ultimate source of all their knowledge; and because they cannot see causes with their eyes, disbelieve in causation and a God; and, taking their own minds as standards. of those of the human race, they absurdly imagine that all the higher perceptions familiar to those who possess a greater development of Causality and Comparison are pure imaginations. They thus erect themselves into great philosophers on the strength of their natural deficiency in intellectual power, and imagine themselves to be profound when they are only silly. We make these remarks from observation; for we have observed persons who are liable to scepticism in regard to the existence of a God to be commonly deficient in the organs of Causality, and equally incapable of tracing abstract relations in general, as in perceiving causation in this particular instance. If, then, a watch, or the stupendous operations of nature in the universe, were presented to such

persons, they would indeed see a succession of phenomena : but from the weakness of Causality they would be unable to infer any thing farther. Hence, independently of experience, such persons cannot mount a single step in the chain of causation. It is quite true, therefore, that it is only "because "they have beforehand found by experience that time-pieces "are made by watchmakers" that they infer, on seeing such an instrument, that an intelligent being made it. But their error consists in supposing, that no other minds could accomplish more. The faculty of Causality perceives intuitively the relation of cause and effect just as Individuality intuitively perceives existence; and experience is no more requisite to enable the former to infer intelligence and design from the survey of contrivance, than to enable the latter to apprehend the presence of external objects from perceiving them. An individual possessing Causality in a high degree, could not fail, independently of all experience of the existence of watchmakers, to infer, after comprehending the object of a watch, and understanding the contrivances and adaptation of parts, by which it is fitted to accomplish its ends, that it was the production of an intelligent being. He could not indeed, without such experience, infer that it was made by the particular class of tradesmen named by society watchmakers, because this trade is artificial; but he would unquestionably be led, by the intuitive operation of Causality, to conclude, that the machine was the product of a mind willing to attain the end in view, and possessing the power to accomplish it. In like manner, after comprehending the constitution of the universe, a mind sufficiently endowed with this faculty, by its natural instinct alone, would infer the existence of an intelligent cause, willing the production of the results, and possessing power to bring them about.

This is the doctrine also of that excellent metaphysician, Dr Thomas Brown. "Those," says he, "whom a single "organized being, or even a single organ, such as the eye, "the ear, the hand, does not convince of the being of a

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God,-who do not see him, not more in the social order of