THE STUDY OF HUMAN NATURE. 333 



grace in the mental system is that in which the human body is in a 

 perfect state of health. That is a question which every man can best 

 settle for himself. Some men under-sleep and some over-sleep ; some 

 eat too much, and some too little. Some men use stimulants who do 

 not need them, while others avoid them who need them and would be 

 better for their use. There is a vast amount of truth relative to the 

 individual that is not studied by the minister, though it ought to be, 

 as to the incoming and the outflow of force. Some clergymen prepare 

 themselves to preach on Sunday by sitting up very late on Saturday 

 nio-ht, and exhausting their vitality, thus compelling themselves to 

 force their overtasked powers to extraordinary exertion to perform 

 their Sabbath duties ; which entails upon them the horrors of Blue 

 Monday, the result of a spasmodic and drastic excitement. It is, and it 

 ought to be, a purgatory to them. You must study yourselves as men. 

 Is there no self-knowledge that can be acquired, so that a man shall 

 know how to be merciful to his beast ? 



You see that whatever relates to the whole organization of the 

 human body and its relations to health and to perfect symmetry must 

 be studied, for all these relations are intimate, and concern both j-our 

 own working powers and the material among men that you will have 

 to work on. 



In studying mental philosophy after this fashion, I would not have 

 you ignore metaphysics. The perceptions of those subtle relations, 

 near and remote, specific and generic, that obtain among spiritual facts 

 of different kinds, I understand to be metaphysics ; and that, I suppose, 

 must be studied. I think it sharpens men and renders them familiar 

 with the operations of the human mind, if not carried too far, and gives 

 them a grasp and penetration that they would not get otherwise. It 

 is favorable to moral insight, when developed in connection with the 

 other sides of human nature. While I say that you ought to study 

 mental philosophy with a strong physiological side to it, I do not wish 

 it to be understood that I decry mental philosophy with a strong meta- 

 physical side to it. 



There is one question beyond that. While studying mental phi- 

 losophy for the sake of religious education, and studying both sides of 

 it, you are doing one thing ; but when the question comes up how to 

 study mental philosophy, I do not know any thing that can compare 

 in facility of usableness with Phrenology. I do not suppose that 

 phrenology is a perfect system of mental philosophy. It hits here and 

 there. It needs revising, as in its present shape it is crude ; but, 

 nevertheless, when it becomes necessary to talk to people about them- 

 selves, I know of no other nomenclature which so nearly expresses 

 what we need, and which is so facile in its use, as phrenology. Noth- 

 ing can give you the formulated analysis of mind, as that can. Now 

 let me say, particularly, a few things about this, and personally, too. 

 I suppose I inherited from my father a tendency or intuition to read 



