that, so far as mind is concerned, phrenology never can teach anything new. It can only assign certain ascertained mental qualities and propensities to what are conceived to be their appropriate organs on the skull. But by the supposition, these mental qualities are already ascertained. They must be ascer tained, every one of them. And we must come to the knowledge of them in the ordinary way, that is, by reflection and consciousness, before the phrenologist can get hold of them, and assign them to their material organs.

Our next objection to phrenology grows out of its bearings and teachings on the subject of education. Much credit is claimed for it, by its advocates, on the score of education. Parents have been earnestly advised to obtain charts of their children's heads, that they may know early their dispositions and propensities, and thus be able to conduct their education in the wisest manner. And, if any accurate, reliable knowledge could be obtained in this way, we allow that it might be of some importance. But suppose (what is undoubtedly the fact) that no such reliable knowledge can be obtained. Suppose the parent, instead of getting any true ideas concerning his children, gets the opposite; instead of being instructed, he is deceived. The influence of phrenology, in this view, can only be hurtful, both to parents and children. There is a natural method in which parents are to learn the particular genius, the aptitudes, the propensities, and dispositions of their children; and this is by close observation and watchfulness. But the parent has no time, or no heart for this. He must come to his conclusions by a shorter cut. And so he applies to the phrenologist, and gets a chart. But his chart is no better than white paper. In fact, it is a great deal worse. White paper would not deceive him; whereas his chart, if he relies upon it, will be very likely to lead him astray.

Nor is the effect of the process any better upon children and young persons. They are led to believe that they have got the truth, respecting their talents, their genius, their disposition, their destiny; and they follow it out as such, until they find, too late, that they have been deluded. More than one case we have ourselves known, in which young men have been completely baffled, turned aside from their appropriate pursuits, and in effect almost ruined, by trusting to their phrenological advisers.

But this is not the only way in which phrenology bears disastrously on the cause of education. Its doctrine of distinct, inde、

pendent organs and faculties, is not only false in fact, but injurious in its influence. The doctrine is, as we have before remarked, that these numerous mental faculties are so distinct, that the exercise and improvement of one, has no tendency to improve any other. "It would be as unreasonable," says Mr. Simpson, "to attempt to sharpen hearing by exercising the eyes," as to improve one mental faculty, by working another. Now we all know that this statement is not true. Almost any sort of mental application imparts strength and vigor to the whole mind; just as exercising the arms, the legs, the chest, diffuses strength and elasticity through the entire frame.

And not only is this position false in fact, it is of hurtful influence. It is this which has led phrenologists to oppose the study of the ancient languages, and the regular, grammatical study of all languages. "By such study," says Mr. Levison, "the mind. is cramped; many of the most useful faculties remain in a state of inactivity; while verbal memory, like an especial favorite, engrosses all attention to itself." This writer admits "that a knowledge of our vernacular tongue is of great importance," yet this, he thinks, may be better acquired "without the usual drudgery of poring over a grammar. Let a child know the names of all things it sees, and how we express their qualities and modes of existence, and this plan, combined with a free intercourse with intelligent adults, will practically point out," without a grammar, "the natural mode of arranging words to give the order of our ideas."

Nor are languages the only study which phrenology proscribes. Listen to the following edifying passage from the Rev. George Blackburn: "What has the study of mathematics to do with giving success to one in the clerical profession, or to one who is occupied with the study of moral philosophy? Or what has Greek or Latin to do with a successful prosecution of the science of astronomy, or of chemistry? Oh, it will be said, the study of mathematics is essential to the clergyman and moral philosopher, because it tends wonderfully to discipline and strengthen the understanding; and that of the Greek and Latin, because they make us better acquainted with our vernacular language, and tend likewise to elevate and expand the mind. Now phrenology demonstrates that there is no sort of relation between mathematical and moral reasoning; that they depend upon different and distinct faculties; and that, by necessary consequence, the former may

be exercised forever, without in the least disciplining or improving the latter. And as to languages, it shows that a knowledge of them is obtained through the medium of a single faculty, which may be powerfully active even in the semi-idiot, who is wellnigh incapable of combining two ideas and inferring from them a third."

This remarkable passage is in harmony with the general strain of phrenological teaching on the same subject. Its positions are justly deducible from the doctrine of numerous distinct faculties and organs-so distinct, that the exercise of one tends not at all to the improvement of any other. And yet these positions are so palpably false, and of so evidently destructive bearing upon all the interests of education, that they might be sufficient alone to refute and demolish the whole phrenological theory. "Phrenology demonstrates that there is no sort of relation between mathematical and moral reasoning! that they depend upon different and distinct faculties! and that, by necessary consequence, the former may be exercised forever, without in the least disciplining or improving the latter!" It demonstrates, that " a knowledge of languages is obtained through the medium of a single faculty, which may be powerfully active, even in the semi-idiot!" If phrenology demonstrates all this, we have only to say that it demonstrates a tissue of gross falsehoods; and thus proves itself untrue. And not only so, it lays its axe at the root of all sound and reliable systems of education. Carried consistently out, it would overturn all our higher institutions of learning, and reduce us quickly to a semi-savage and uncultivated state.

But we have a more serious charge against phrenology, than either of those which have been noticed. We are constrained to regard it as of a dangerous moral and religious tendency; and that in several ways.

In the first place, its tendencies are to materialism. We do not say that it absolutely and necessarily leads to this; much less would we say that all phrenologists are materialists. And yet the tendency is obviously and strongly in that direction. We hear so much of the brain, and the numerous organs of the brain, and are told so confidently that everything depends upon the size and shape of the organs, that we come naturally to the conclusion that the man is all organs; that he has no mind, no soul besides. So much is made to depend upon the material in man, that the spiritual is overlooked, if not discarded.

With regard to this question of materialism, phrenologists may be divided into three classes. First, those who are not mate⚫rialists. These hold that man has a soul distinct, in nature, from the body, and that the brain is but the material organ through which the spirit acts; just as the external senses are organs through which we become acquainted with the outer world. This is altogether the better class of phrenologists; and yet, to their more advanced brethren, they are objects of suspicion, if not contempt. They are regarded as the slaves of an early prejudice, and as afraid to carry out a new and noble science to its best results.

The second class of phrenologists are in doubt, whether man has any soul distinct from the body, or not, and believe the question to be quite insolvable and unimportant. Thus Mr. Combe says: "The solution of this question," as to the material or immaterial nature of the soul," is not only unimportant but impossible." A writer in the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal says: "We know nothing whatever concerning the substance of the mind," whether it be material, or not. A writer in the " Annals of Phre nology,” an American publication, echoes the same sentiment: "No one knows whether the human mind is material, or not."

But the third class of phrenologists, the more advanced class, those who think themselves the most faithful expounders of the doctrine, have no doubt at all on the subject. They believe the whole man to be constituted of matter, and that there is no proper distinction between the body and the soul. Thus one tells us: "A spirit is no immaterial substance. On the contrary, the spiritual organization is composed of matter, in a very high state of refinement and attenuation." Another says: "Immaterial substance or essence is a mere abstraction of the human imagination, altogether unknown to our senses or understanding. Everything we see, hear and feel, is material, and our own minds are unknown to us, except as incorporated with matter." Still another says: As we never become acquainted with either the living or the intelligent principle, unconnected with material organization, so we have no philosophical reason to regard them as separate existences. They may be properties of peculiarly constructed matter." A philosopher of this class once said to us, that "the brain generates ideas as really and truly as the liver does bile," and that "it is nonsense to think or speak of anything pertaining to us, which is not matter."

VOL. XI. No. 41.

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We trust that nothing further need be said as to the tendencies of phrenology. They are naturally and obviously to a gross materialism. Thither its bolder and more consistent advocates speedily arrive; and those who are restrained from it are held back, not by anything in the system itself, but by other and better influences.

By its bearings towards materialism, phrenology tends, of necessity, to futalism; a denial of the proper free agency of man, and his responsibility for his actions. Materialism always ends in fatalism. Not an instance, we presume, can be found, from the times of the old Greek philosophers to the present, of an individual, who regarded the whole man as material, who denied the proper distinction between body and soul, without also denying free agency and human accountability. Why should it not be so? How can it be otherwise? Material atoms cannot make a will. a free will. Material atoms cannot choose, refuse, desire, resolve, and act, and feel responsible for their actions. Material atoms cannot move, except as they are moved, and that, too, by physical causes; and there is no more voluntariness in their motions, than there is in the motions of a clock, or a mill.

But phrenology tends to fatalism, not only as it tends to mate. rialism, but because it entirely and confessedly takes away the human will. It destroys not only free will, but the will itself. The will has no organ assigned to it on the cranium; it is not once mentioned among our faculties; and in place of it we have only a congeries of instincts and impulses, which move as they are moved, and control the man. Thus one writer says: "Man is not less a bundle of instincts, than were the fasces which were carried before the Roman consuls a bundle of twigs." And Spurzheim says: "Will is no more a fundamental power, than is the instinct of animals. It is only the effect of every primitive faculty of the mind. Each faculty being active, produces an inclination, a desire, a kind of will.”

But in taking away the human will, and substituting instinets and impulses in its place, phrenology must, of course, destroy human freedom. There can be no free agency without a will, any more than there can be thought or reason without an intellect. And when free agency is gone, moral character and responsibility, and the sense of good and ill desert, are gone with it; and nothing is left to guide the actions of men but blind instincts and impulses,