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try the science, once for all, upon the ground of its alleged induction. Here the parties cannot fail to meet, and stand confronted. If our induction can be shown to be incorrect or defective, the science is subverted from its founda+ tion; if our induction shall appear to be accurate and com plete, the science is impregnable, and ought at once to be received as the truth and reality of nature.

But while we thus keep to our induction as forming the stronghold and fortress of our science, there is no reason why we should not go forth occasionally, to meet our enemies wherever we can find them. If the system is founded in nature, as we believe it to be, there can be no province of nature or of truth which is not in harmony and alliance with us. Go where we will we can meet with no real or actual collision, and it is an animating and invigor ating exercise of our faculties to prove and demonstrate that there is none.

So far as I have gone in investigating the objections which have been urged against Phrenology, I can safely say that I have found no collision. On the contrary, all these objections appear to me, when investigated, to resolve into unequivocal corroborations of its truth. The object of the following remarks is to prove, that such is the character of the objection which has been drawn from the scripture doctrine of regeneration. I intend to show that that doctrine of revealed religion is in entire and perfect accordance with the doctrines of Phrenology.

The first step of our investigation must be to state dis tinctly what the several doctrines in question are; if they are once understood it will not, I think, be difficult to make their consistency apparent.

The following, then, I take to be a correct statement of the respective doctrines:

The doctrine of Phrenology is, that the strength of the different propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties with which any individual is endowed by nature, bears a relation to the size of different portions of his brain; and VOL. I.-No. IV.

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may be ascertained by examining the configuration and di mensions of his cranium.

The doctrine of Christianity is, that all men, whatever be their natural character, are called upon to repent, to believe in the Saviour, and to turn from sin to God and holi

ness.

Now, the objection drawn from these doctrines has been twofold:

1st, In the first place, there is an inconsistency said to lie in this, that if a man is proved by Phrenology to have a bad natural character, it is impossible for that man to obey the gospel-call, to turn from his evil ways, and to walk in the paths of righteousness.

To the objection, when thus stated, the answer is extremely obvious; and it is this, that, if it be an objection to any thing at all, it is an objection, not to Phrenology, but to Christianity. Phrenology does not pretend to make men's minds, but simply to know them as they have been formed by the hand of Nature. That there are great natural diver sities in human character, and that there are some men naturally very bad, no person will deny; and if any one chooses to say that this undoubted fact militates against Christianity, we refer him to the divines for an answer to his objection. But to impute the objection to Phrenology, which merely asserts, and proceeds upon this fact, already known and allowed by all, is very short-sighted, or very perverse. Every body knows that there are some men by nature extremely wicked. Such characters may be discovered by common observation. Phrenology furnishes another mode of observation by which they may be discovered. But as to their capacity of embracing Christianity, we leave that as we found it. If their having bad natural characters does indeed incapacitate them from embracing Christianity, the incapacity arises from their character, and not from our becoming acquainted with it, either by one means or another. ›

2d, But the objection has been put in another shape, which will require somewhat more attention. It has been

said, if the characters of all men are fixed down, by the boundaries of their crania, in the determinate way which Phrenology represents, how is it possible that they should undergo that total revolution which Christianity requires ? When a man is converted, is his whole cranium new modelled? Certainly not; and what I now proceed to show is, not only that the doctrine of regeneration, as laid down in scripture, does not imply any change of the original powers and qualities of a man's mind, but that scripture most distinctly and expressly declares, that no such change does take place, either at conversion, or at any future period of the Christian's course, and that the native elements and constitution of the Christian's mind remain unaltered till his dying day.. In order that the full import of the proposition now an nounced may be understood, and that its effect in reconciling the doctrines of Phrenology and Christianity may be distinctly perceived, it will be necessary to expound at somewhat greater length the doctrines of the two systems which have been briefly stated above.

And, first, with regard to the doctrine of Phrenology,-, I have stated, that the phrenological doctrine is, "that the

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strength of the different propensities, sentiments, and faculties "with which nature has endowed any individual, may be ascer"tained by examining the configuration and dimensions of his "cranium.” It is the primary elements of intellectual and moral character conferred by nature which Phrenology proposes to discover, and nothing else. It does not pretend that the cranium gives information as to the actual attainments which any individual has made either in intellectual or moral pur-suits. It reveals a man's capabilities and tendencies, but not the extent and manner in which these may have been fostered, controlled, and regulated, or neglected, crushed, and perverted.

Circumstances and education have an extensive power in modifying human character, Both the intellectual powers and the moral qualities are alike subject to their influence; the good may be cherished, or it may be thwarted; the evil may be checked, or it may be pampered

and nursed into unnatural activity. The mode in which these causes operate upon the human mind is not very material to my present inquiry. It is obvious however to remark, that every mental power and disposition has certain external circumstances which are adapted to its nature, which excite it into activity, and form, as it were, the element in which it naturally moves and acts. By placing any individual, there. fore, carefully and constantly, in circumstances which exercise one set of his faculties or dispositions, and by removing and separating him from those circumstances which would exercise a different set of his natural faculties or disposi tions, the one class of exercises becomes familiar andhabitual, while the individual remains unacquainted with or becomes estranged from the other class of exercises. It is moreover possible, indeed it is what is done every day, to fix in the mind itself certain maxims, rules, and motives of conduct, which propel and stimulate in one direction, while they restrain or form, as it were, a barrier in another direction. One course may be made to appear to the mind as fit or hoaourable, or as profitable and satisfactory in the long run; while another course is made to appear unworthy, degrading, unsatisfying, and in the end ruinous. This may be regarded as only a different modification of the influence of circumstances over the mental functions. It is the bringing of future and distant circumstances, of indirect and remote consequences into view, representing these vividly, and impres sing them strongly upon the mind. Whether the representations thus made to the mind be true or false, they are taken by the mind to be true,-as true as existing realities; and it is this impression of their reality which gives them their control over the workings and habits of the mind. But without stopping to illustrate this subject farther, I observe that the fact, that circumstances and training have an extensive sway over the human mind, is beyond all dispute. Now, Phrenology does not stand opposed to this plain truth; nor does it pretend that a man's whole circumstances, education, and history, are stamped in the

shape of his skull. It does not pretend to gather one iota of these from an examination of the cranium; and the whole effects which they are capable of producing upon the character are, and are acknowledged to be, utterly beyond its ken. What it has to do with, are the natural endowments of the mind.*

But, the natural endowments of men's minds are as various as are the natural dimensions and proportions of their bodies. The influence which circumstances and training exercise over body and mind is great; but it is still limited. It will never make either mind or body anew. A pigmý cannot be converted into a giant; a puny and sickly constitution cannot put on the strength and be nerved with the power of a Hercules; a clumsy and deformed man will never be made a model of grace, or the champion in athletic exercises. And as it is with the body, so it is with the mind. There are pigmy minds, and there are gigantic minds; minds puny and morbidly weak, and minds of Herculean nerve and prowess; clumsy minds and awkward minds, cripples and deformed; and the variety of these natural. mental frames and constitutions is, at the least, as great and as conspicuous and undeniable as are the diversities of corporeal form and power.

This then is the province of Phrenology; and a wide and legitimate province it is, and one which it is easy enough to distinguish from the province of circumstances, education, and habit, with which it has been too often ignorantly or de signedly confounded. The Phrenologists do not pretend to tell whether a man actually speaks Greek, or writes poems, or commits murders. What they undertake to do, is to tell how far a man possesses the natural powers which, under

• To speak more correctly, Phrenology affords external indications by which we can estimate the relative strength of the different powers of the mind as bestowed by nature, and it thus furnishes a key to the discovery of the effects likely to be produced by any combination of circumstances on the characters and dispositions of different individuals; but it affords no indication by the observation of which we can tell in what circumstances an individual has been placed, or which of the faculties possessed by him have been most cultivated and excited.-EDITOR.

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