gard his commands; and the actions of an Atheist must be altogether indifferent. Is this sound philosophy? Let us investigate the conclusions to which it leads. With reverence be it spoken, God is, in this respect, the only Atheist in the universe! He has no deity whose commands he is to obey-no lawgiver whose statutes he has to observe-no sovereign whose will is to be his law. He is original, underived, omnipotent, eternal. Is he the fountain of virtue-the source of truth-the mirror of purity? Is he a moral agent? If Dr. Chalmers and Archdeacon Paley are right, he seems to us not to be so. His actions are not the result of the commands of another, but of his own nature. He is just; not because there is a command to be so, but because it is his essence. His thoughts are pure; not because there is a law of purity, but because it is the very condition of his existence. He is good, without any shadow of cruelty or hatred; not because there is a canon of benevolence, but because benevolence is the very source and centre of his being. Hence that expression, which might alone prove the divine origin of Scripture, not that God has love, but that he is love. What, then, constitutes the frame and staple of his moral character? Simply the scope and tendency of his whole being towards benevolence, justice, purity, and truth, for their own sake, and in their own nature. But what do we mean by these terms when applied to the Deity? What is the import of these words in such a case? Unless, independently of our conceptions of his character and existence even, we had possessed the sentiments which these names denote, there can be nothing more clear, than that to tell us, he was distinguished by such attributes, would only be informing us, that he was regulated by certain cabalistic terms, of which we had no conception, and which it would be impossible, in pursuance of the express Scriptural injunction, to imitate. When we are told, that God so loved the world, that he gave his Son for it, how could we comprehend the meaning of the general term "love," unless we had ourselves experienced the very same feeling. When, in the oracles of the Almighty, we are informed that he is a just God, what sense would there be, with reference to our understandings, in such an epithet, unless it were not new to our sentiments and feelings; but, on the contrary, were a word, the force and effect of which we fully comprehended from the internal sympathies of our own hearts. Why is the Bible not addressed to lions, and tigers, and wolves? Because they do not comprehend the meaning of what it conveys. Why does it appeal to man? Because he understands the precepts contained in it, in exactly the same sense as God who delivered them, except which mutual convention of sense, its appeals to man would be as absurd, because unintelligible, as if presented to a lynx or a hyena. Benevolence, justice, mercy, truth, are, as we all know, abstract terms; and abstract terms, every metaphysician is aware, are made up of the classification of particular emotions, sentiments, actions, or phenomena, which possess a resemblance to each other. Thus, observing that after a certain time the bodies of all men were pulverised, and their minds unconscious, the individual cases wherein they resembled each other in these particulars, were abstracted into the general term, Death-of which we have no other conception than the phenomena presented in the individual examples, whose mutual resemblance suggested the classification. Thus, the term Benevolence, arises out of a collection of single instances, resembling each other in the emotions which produced the corresponding actions-a similarity in wishing well and doing good, for the purpose of promoting happiness. "In nature," says Brown, "there are no classes. There are only particular actions, more or less beneficial or injurious. But we cannot consider these particular actions long, without discovering in them, as in any other number of objects that may be considered by us at the same time, certain relations of analogy, or resemblance of some sort, in consequence of which we class them together, and form for the whole class one comprehensive name. Such are the generic words justice, injustice, benevolence, malevolence. To these generic words, which, if distinguished from the number of separate actions denoted by them, are mere words invented by ourselves, we gradually, from the influence of association in the feelings that have attended the partieular cases to which the same name has been applied, attach one mixed notion, a sort of compound or modified whole, of the various feelings which the actions separately would have excited." The proposition, therefore, so much in favour with modern evangelical divines, that the conceptions which exist in the mind of God, of justice, mercy, or truth, are totally opposed to those entertained by his rational creation, and that what man may think cruel, vindictive, and capricious, He may view as benevolent, impartial, and

equitable, is a plain absurdity. As the idea of benevolence or justice in the Deity, is the idea of abstract terms-and as they have no existence in nature, but are invented by ourselves, our conceptions of their meaning being derived altogether from a classification of individual examples of certain similar emotions, and resembling actions in men, any act of the Creator, whose features bear no similarity to actions in the creature, which we have characterised by ascribing to them such terms, or which is opposed to them-or any emotion or sentiment in our Maker, which is contradictory of that to which we have applied the same abstract epithets in us, may be what emotion or sentiment shall so happen, but certainly cannot be what we mean by the same feeling in us; and, therefore, if it be not benevolent or just, according to our conceptions of these abstractions, it is not, in point of fact, so far as we know, either the one or the other.

If, then, our ideas of the attributes of justice or mercy in the Deity, be simply that he possesses, in an infinite degree, the moral sentiments of benevolence or conscientiousness, as they exist in man; and if they inhere in the nature of this highest moral agent in the universe, not in obedience to any law, but simply as impulses of his essence, is it to be gravely maintained, that if these attributes exist in the creature, actions proceeding from them are vicious or impure, because they are prompted by his nature, and not by the motive of obedience to the Divine commandments? If so, the Deity, who acts in conformity with no behest of a superior, must possess no moral qualities; for surely that is not to be expected of the creature, which is not to be found in the Creator. If, too, man be the image of God, he must possess, independently of the idea of the Almighty, a moral self-emotion and action; because virtue inheres in the character of Divinity, and must do so, of course, in his image, or counterpart, although in a degree less, in proportion to the distance betwixt the creature and Creator. All this, however, has been, and would continue to be, a mere matter for argument, in which the combatants, having no real gauge of victory, would both claim the triumph. But Phrenology settles the controversy, by a confident appeal to indisputable facts. It points out separate organs the brain, independent of each other, competent to the discharge of the moral duties which severally relate to them, the handiwork of God, and therefore fitted for the special purposes to which he designed their application. It exhibits in the human brain, organs of Wonder and Veneration, competent to the production of religious obedience, but to nothing more. It lays its finger on the faculties of Benevolence, Conscientiousness, and Adhesiveness, capable of existing in activity with dormant piety, and involving those innate and supreme sentiments of love of truth, of our fellow-men, and of the subjects of our social relations, which form the prominent features in the moral injunctions of God to man; without which, Veneration, which produces subjection, would be unable to obey; and with which, even where piety is absent, other virtues may be sedulously cultivated and strictly observed.

Metaphysicians have as many theories of the prime motives of human action, as there are books on moral philosophy. Some solve the mystery, by illustrating the power of the love of fame; others, by the action of selfishness; many, by the idea of the perception of the fitness of things; and not a few declare for the existence of a moral sense, which is as confidently exploded by persons of equal acuteness. Phrenology alone is competent to arbitrate among the litigants, and shows them that there are organs which produce the love of glory-feeble in some, and powerful in many-selfish desires, and benevolent impulses, variously developed, and variously manifested; making human nature, not the uniform principle, for which all of them contended, and the web of life of such a "mingled yarn-good and ill togetherthat our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues."

But the science of which we treat, is not merely confined in its advantages to the solution of questions of speculative metaphysics or theology. By pointing out the physical causes of vice and crime, it promotes greater charity in the interpretation of actions, and more pity and kindness towards the vicious and criminal. Applied to judicial purposes, it would determine cases of insanity, and take many out of the catalogue of crime, and place them in the lists of lunacy, who are now punished as villains, but who should be treated as patients. It has the testimony of many physicians, to its efficacy in discovering the causes and cure of madness; and by showing that man's opinions are framed by his developement, and his belief or scepticism,

are the result of his cerebral conformation, it will prove the injustice of punishing non-conformity with civil disabilities, or inferring his dispositions from his intellectual perceptions.

It also lends powerful aid to the elucidation of the truth of history, to the testing of biography, and gauging the internal evidence of narrative. Thus, for example, upon reading the history of Saint Paul, prior to his conversion, the Phrenologist observes, that his character denotes a large developement of Destructiveness, Combativeness, Concentrativeness, Veneration, and Wonder. Had his biography been fictitious, a spurious conversion would have been made to change his whole character to meekness-to a stingless forbearance-to what modern saints are destitute of— energy, zeal, boldness, and power. An ordinary reader could not detect the imposture; because, possessing no knowledge of innate faculties, he would not see why both features of the conduct might not be the result of change of circumstances. Having no idea of the number or nature of the primitive dispositions of mankind, he could not detect the leading features of the character, or separate accidental traits of feeling, from those circumstances which indicated the predominance of certain original powers. But a Phrenologist, who is aware that events may change the direction, but cannot eradicate the manifestation of ruling passions, or that accident may call dormant feelings into action, but cannot prostrate those which already prevail, sees conversion turning the Destructiveness of the persecutor, into tremendous force of character-the Combativeness of the contentious bigot, into controversial polemics "hard to be understood"-the Wonder which trusted implicitly to the Prophecies of the Patriarchs, reposing in faith on the Cross of Christ-and the same excess of Concentrativeness and Veneration, which maintained the traditions of the Pharisees "after the most straitest sect," persecuted a setter forth of strange doctrines, and hated innovation-now absorbing his whole soul in the task of reconciling the venerated antiquities of ancestral tradition, with his new faith, and prostrating him in profound devotion, before the God and Father of his Lord Jesus Christ.

Dramatic talent, in acting or sketching character, it has been reserved for Phrenology to discover, requires a large endowment of Secretiveness, the spirit of delitescency. It bears undesigned testimony, therefore, to the truth of the statement of Bolingbroke, that Pope could not take his tea without a stratagem-sees the cause of Scott's playing at bo-peep with the public-of the misery of Cowper and Addison, on being brought out from the dark retreat of their own concealment—and explains the masterly duplicity of Kean's letters to a notorious Alderman. Men die. The facts which form their life are distorted, lost, or misinterpreted, to suit the theory of their trumpeters or traducers. "The evil they do, lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." But Phrenology exhumes the bones, and the good is made manifest. The lapse of many ages has not consumed the skull, and, therefore, has not lost the character of King Robert Bruce-left Hampden's greatness and goodness without a witness or Newton's intellect without a voucher. Burns, Swift, Scott, Sheridan, Napoleon, Fox, Pitt, the mighty spirits of the mighty dead, it still preserves to the calm judgment of posterity; and a mere accident has deprived us of that skull of Shakspeare, which would have told us more of the chief of immortals, than the fables of all his biographers.

It was the boast of Cuvier, that if he were furnished with a single joint, he could, from that alone, predicate the structure and habits of the animal to which it belonged. Phrenology can do no more than this; for, from dead men's bones, it can tell their living thoughts. Two thousand years have rolled over the skulls of ancient Egypt, and yet there are men who could read the fortunes of its satraps, as easily as Cleopatra. How long is it since Athens ostracised Aristides, and laughed over the farces of Aristophanes? Yet have we the power to touch, with our curious fingers, the brow of a denizen of the Acropolis, and a skill that enables us to tell what resided within this palace of the soul, with more absolute accuracy, than the orators whose greatness depended upon their art in moving all its hidden springs to the purposes of their busy hour. Nay, their very complexion is not hidden from us, but we are able to know somewhat of the swarthy visage, or the fair and rosy countenance. We also see the evidence of Paul's complaint, that they were too superstitious, and ran about the city, exclaiming, What news? and can view the very effects of his labours, in contrasting the skulls of early Gentiles, with what 1800 years of Christianity has done to those of British civilisation. In its efficacy towards

the training of youth, the discovery of the tendencies of genius, and the knowledge of ourselves, the blessings of this admirable system are no less conspicuous. The vain, who pique themselves upon the possession of those very qualities in which they are deficient, will be undeceived by Nature herself, instead of through the suspicious medium of fellow-creatures, whose candour will be ascribed to jealousy or impertinence. The proud man, who mistakes superciliousness for becoming dignity, and pompous rudeness for the spirit of independence, will lower his tone to truth, although he may hold the judgment of his fellow-mortal in contempt. The benevolent and affectionate, but combative and passionate man, is, above all, the blindest to his own defects. The whole world is at war with him; but he, forsooth, is as peaceable as the lamb. He is never the aggressor. Some one else began first. His spirit of disputation, he mistakes for a purely intellectual perception of the fallacy of the opinions he combats; tell him that he is inveterately controversial, and he will make that an apology for a renewal of the interminable argument; hint that he is passionate, he will call you a liar, or knock you down; and when you prove your insinuation, by an appeal to your prostrate condition, he grumbles a justification, in which all that you hear is something about the patience of Job. This man may, in his own closet, be told of his failings, by a friend to whom he is more ready to listenhis own head-the only combatant with whom he could be induced to decline the encounter, and by his own developement, which will incite him at last to eschew all battles except one, in which he will be enabled to gain that noblest of triumphs, a victory over himself.

The great tendencies of human nature towards virtue, or towards vice, would, by this process, be ascertained with an accuracy which precluded discussion; and while the testimony of the blind traveller, who traversed the whole world, and declared that every where his helplessness was a passport to kindness-and of Wilderspin, who, knowing the inmost hearts of the twenty thousand children whom he taught, found much more of good than of evil-would be equally disregarded: the infallible standard of the heads of all nations, open to inspection, where mistake is impossible, would give the average of good or evil with unfailing precision.

The universal diffusion and recognition of Phrenology, would enable legislation to adapt itself to man, and to the peculiar state of society to which it fell to be applied, in a manner which is impracticable by a system which proceeds on no fixed principle. It would watch and test every criminal code, not by state expediency, but by the exigencies of frail humanity; and by a deep sense of the irresponsible weakness which produces much of its wickedness; speaking trumpet-tongued to that awful national injustice, which, finding subjects so much dependent upon the accident of birth and circumstances, takes no care that their constitution shall be improved, their moral education secured, and bad example removed; but, after having brought them into the world, condemns them to the torture or to death, for committing those crimes, which their persecutors took no pains to enable them to avoid.

Phrenology likewise enables us to analyse, with infallible exactness, the nature of actions, and to discriminate betwixt genuine morality and spurious honour. The love of glory, which men have conspired to deify, it shows to be a sentiment held by us in common with the brutes; and it conduces to humble our opinion of that species of dignity which it has discovered to exist in a turkey-cock, as well as in Coriolanus. The fame which all nations have thrown around the warrior, it has been the first to blast, by demonstrating that it is produced altogether by a predominance of the lowest and most animal principles of our nature; it tells the circle of the central orders of society, that duelling is no test of honour, but of the activity of tiger instincts; and that cowardice is perfectly compatible with the most exalted virtue, because the product of a fortuitous absence of what too often produces vice and crime. It shows that the greatest man is he whose feeling heart and able head have increased the comforts and elevated the minds of society, by proving that the faculties necessary for the production of such a character, are those which alone man possesses in a superior degree to the brutes; his competition with them in the respect of all those other qualities in which greatness has been hitherto supposed to consist, being simply in their relative endowment of those instincts in which a hero is at the best very inferior to a horse.

The causes which produce in men different principles of religious belief, are proved by this science to be innate, and to a certain extent inevitable. It explains to one

man why another cannot, let him be ever so solicitous, think and feel as he does; it shows him exactly why it is that he adopts one theory of theology, and his neighbour an opposing system; and by satisfying each that they discord by a dissimilarity of perception and understanding, not by antagonist hearts and opposing wills, it will make them agree to differ, and create, instead of the pernicious sentiment of toleration, which assumes a title to theological superiority, the better principle of a charitable equality. By making coming talents or dispositions, cast their cerebral shadows before, it forms a powerful aid to education, and enables both parents and teachers to see future greatness through apparent present obtundity, or to provide against a pronation towards some besetting sin, by careful instruction, and by convincing the pupil himself of his danger, the first and most important step in his progress towards safety.

In the choice of a pastor, it is not to be deceived by a first sermon, which may not be his own; or by an appearance of mild and amiable sanctity, which may be assumed to suit the occasion. It is capable of detecting the clerical jackdaw, and of plucking from him his borrowed feathers-seeing through a less promising appearance those solid abilities and sterling qualities, which wear well and last long-and preferring the man of real piety and fair talents, to the flash of that orator whose pretensions, however great, cover a capacity, which, like Slender's love, was small at the first, and which the deluded flock who chose him, will, by bitter experience, find to "decrease upon better acquaintance."

In selecting individuals to fill important public offices for life, the election will be no longer, as it has been, a mere lottery.* That lawyer will not be appointed the judge of the land, who is merely distinguished for the extent of a practice founded upon his talents in making the worse appear the better reason, and on his success in obliterating all those sure and certain land-marks, which distinguish truth and honour from falsehood and villany. Nor will the rulers of a realm dare then to insult the people, by placing upon the sacred seat of impartial justice, which ought to be far removed from all odour of party prejudice, an incompetent officer, only because he has been the unscrupulous political partisan of the men whom a chance of the dice has placed for the time at the helm of state power. He will still be left to his "quiddits, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks," and reduced to plead, not before his predecessor or his former rival in the weaving of the mazy net-work of litigation, but in the august presence of that man in whom the discoveries of this science have enabled the people to detect that moral worth and sound sense, which his very honesty would not permit him to blazon in the public eye-too proud in his patient merit to descend to competition for general applause, with those whose forward arrogance scrupled at the use of no means which would compass the ends of their unprincipled ambition. The professions of the demagogue will not pass current with a constituency which can perceive through his liberal promises of the extension of popular rights, the haughty contumescence of concealed despotism. And if war must still be, the leader of armies and the chief of navies, will be chosen by

* Dr. Millingen expresses an argument, which we have often heard advanced and exploded in conversation, but never expected to see in print. "Let us for one moment conceive the possibility of our resolves and actions being dictated by a supposed Phrenological knowledgea knowledge earnestly recommended to statesmen, and, indeed, to mankind in general. What would be the result? A diplomatic bungler would be sent on an embassy, because a minister or a sovereign, with a Phrenological map before him, may fancy that he displays the faculty of circumspection, or the sense of things; and a Chancellor of Exchequer be found in some needy adventurer, who possessed the organ of relation of numbers."-Vol. II. p. 209. Now, any man, with a tea-spoonful of brains, can see that this is either a miserable truism, or a logical blunder, which a mere school-boy ought to be whipped for perpetrating. If Phrenology be false, or those who practise it be ignorant of its philosophy, it is extremely clear, that to reduce its principles to application in the business of life, must prove injurious, just as false doctrines in medicine, or an ignorant use of true doctrines, must produce harm. This is a truism, a palpable mare's nest. But if Phrenology be true, and "a minister or a sovereign" be possessed of a competent knowledge of its practical details, neither "the diplomatic bungler," with "the sense of things," (?) nor "the needy adventurer" (who, by the way, might be a very good Chancellor of Exchequer after all) who possessed the organ of the relation of numbers," could ever be the object of their choice. Dr. Millingen must possess a very circumscribed notion of the duties of a Chancellor of Exchequer at any rate, if he supposes that his excellence depends on his acquaintance with the multiplication table, or his power of beating the dux of a mercantile academy, in solving questions in the rule of three.