ponents wish it to be believed, that they find them because they imagine or feign them. Certainly, with some persons, imagination may go a great way; but will imagination alter the stubborn facts of measurements made by a pair of calliper compasses? Will imagination reduce the distance from ear to ear, which in one individual is six inches and a half, to a little more than five inches, as it is found in another? Will imagination stretch the Ideality of Haggart the murderer, which is 44 inches, to be equal to that of Dr Chalmers, which is upwards of six? There are facts which imagination can neither add to nor diminish:

And by an experienced phrenologist all the other principal organs may be ascertained with equal certainty, many of them being capable of being so by actual measurement. So much with regard to single organs. With regard again to combinations, the effect of these is not in each individual case invented by phrenologists, for the nonce. Many hundreds of these combinations, and the effect of them, and the principle upon which these effects depend, are recorded in the books, circulated every where, and in the hands of every one who chooses to examine. When therefore a phrenologist predicates a certain effect to be the result of a certain combination-if he is inventing for the purpose, he must be a prodigiously clever inventor to do so consistently with all that has been stated and recorded of similar combinations previously; and in making such statements, the phrenologists could not have proceeded three steps without miring themselves irrecoverably, unless they really had proceeded upon principles which are founded on truth and nature. it be supposed that these combinations and their multiplied effects are the sole invention of the founders of Phrenology, such is the simplicity of the elements, the consistency of the principles on which they are combined, and the certainty in their application, that we must conclude the inventors to be

If

possessed of talents nothing short of miraculous. If, on the other hand, we adopt the very simple supposition that the principles are true, then Gall and Spurzheim are reduced to the rank of ordinary men, and are entitled only to the merit, (a very great one certainly,) of being exceedingly acute and accurate observers of nature.

The principle, that the faculties vary the mode of their manifestation, according to the combinations with which they are united, in place of affording an objection to Phrenology, forms the chief beauty and excellence of the science. It is this which makes it applicable to explaining the varieties of human character. To those who look upon the mind and its manifestations, en masse, they appear to be made up of contradictions and inconsistencies; the varieties of human nature are endless, and we are inclined to resign in despair the task of explaining and reconciling them. But when we find that by the few simple elemental qualities, disclosed to us by the aid of Phrenology, all these contradictions are explained, and all the anomalies and apparent inconsistencies are reconciled to reason and to one another; this surely affords one of the most convincing proofs that could be offered that the system is true; and we cannot sufficiently admire, though we may be able in some degree to account for, that obliquity of mental perception which converts it into an objection.

It would doubtless afford an objection, a formidable one to Phrenology, if the faculties therein assumed as elementary were stated to be so fixed as always to manifest themselves in the same way. It would then be impossible to reconcile the system with nature. The modifying influence of circumstances and combinations is admitted in regard to every thing else, and why not here? In astronomy the planets are observed to perform their motions in orbits, approaching more or less nearly to circles or ellipses; but they all exercise on one another certain disturbing forces, which modify more or less the direction and velocity with which they

move.

In chemistry, the gaseous and earthy constituents into which different portions of matter have been resolved, are known to assume very different forms, (without any alteration in their substance,) according to the different substances or the different proportions of these substances to which they may be united. In these cases, instead of any objection being founded on the admission of the modifying influence of circumstances and combination to account for the production of any given effect, it is perfectly understood that it is the study of these combinations which constitutes the science itself. It is the calculation and resolution of opposing, modifying, and disturbing forces, which constitutes the science of astronomy. It is the observation of the effect of different combinations of matter which constitutes the science of chemistry. So it is here, in the observation and explanation of the effect of different combinations of the simple powers, that the science of Phrenology properly consists. The organology, or the discovery and observation of the simple powers themselves, as connected with and indicated by the presence of their organs, is no doubt highly important, as forming the foundation upon which the whole rests; but this is rather allied to the department of natural history. The study of the combinations is the philosophy of the mind, and without this the mere knowledge of the facts is of comparatively little interest, and can hardly be applied to any practically useful purpose.

The effect of the combinations will be best illustrated by examples; and in order to afford a specimen of this species of study, we shall select a single organ and power, and endeavour to shew what will be its effect in its combination with all the other powers and faculties, taking these separately and seriatim. In one respect, all the combinations exist in every sane individual, as every such individual possesses all the organs and their correspondent faculties more or less developed. In what follows, however, it is to be understood that we are considering what will be the effect

when such and such faculties are not merely present, but when they are greatly predominant in the character, as they will be when the organs of them are found to be large or very large, and the others which might control or modify their influence to be small or moderate. We think it sufficient to mention this once for all, and that we need not in each individual instance repeat that the faculties we are describing are predominant in the character. As our present example, we shall select for consideration the different combinations of Self-esteem, which in itself merely leads to magnify the importance of self and all that belongs to it, but varies in the manner of its manifestation, according to the development with which it is found to be combined. Some of the most remarkable of these variations are now to be stated:

A great Self-esteem, when combined with a considerable amative propensity, will shew itself in a selfishness with regard to sensual gratification. An individual so constituted, (unless Conscientiousness, Benevolence, and Adhesiveness, be also large,) will regard woman as the mere instrument of his pleasures, and as a plaything for the amusement of his idle hours. Her feelings, her happiness, will not be the object of his care; but as soon as his own selfish appetite is sated, he will turn away and leave her perhaps to pine in want and misery. While the appetite continues, however, he will be desirous of engrossing this toy to himself; and though he feels no love for her independently of his own selfish gratification, he will be jealous of any encroachment upon what he considers his own peculiar property. He will take no delight in a common creature whose favours are open to all; but if he can succeed in overcoming the resistance of one who has not yielded but to him, the exploit will be gloried in as a high victory; though the conquest, after it is made, may soon be despised and forsaken.

Great Self-esteem, joined to Philoprogenitiveness, and not modified by the superior sentiments, renders the in

dividual fond of his children because they are his, and for no other reason. He feels towards them as if they were a part of himself, and it makes little difference that this part is extended beyond the limits of his own body. To use à common expression, "all his geese are swans." He is proud of them, and considers them superior to all other children; they are infinitely handsomer, and cleverer, and wittier, than the children of any other person. He loves to descant on this superiority; and if they are tractable and obedient, he conceives that it is all owing to his wonderful management, and to the superior excellence of his plan of education. He tells you that it is people's own fault if their children do not behave as they would have them; that it just requires steadiness and a proper method of management, which method he never doubts that he possesses, though he cannot very well explain in what it consists. If you tell him that children differ in their natural tempers, and that his children are perhaps naturally more manageable than yours, he smiles upon you with the most ineffable disdain. The idea that their easy government is owing to any thing except his own merit never enters his mind. If, on the other hand, when you go to his house, you find the children waspish, petulant, and troublesome, he prides himself in their spirit, wit, cleverness, and independence. He never checks them in their amusements, their sweet innocent gambols. But when, in the course of these innocent gambols, they interfere with some of his selfish propensities, as by breaking a china vase, or throwing down his ink-stand on a handsome carpet, his Self-esteem takes another direction, and brings his Combativeness and Destructiveness into play. He drives them out of the room in a fury, swears they are the torment of his life, and that there never were such a set of ill-tempered, disobedient, awkward, stupid, intolerable brats; that all children are a pest, and that those persons are happy who have none. You need not remind him of the account formerly given of the admirable order and management in