REMARKS ON MR. COMBE's " CONSTITUTION OF MAN." 203 



a general discussion, Mr. C. sent them forth to the world on the 

 9th of June, 1828, in the first edition of his work. Since that 

 time, upwards of sixteen thousand copies have been sold in this 

 country, besides three large editions in America, and translations into 

 the French and Swedish languages. From these facts, the deduc- 

 tion stands self-evident — that Mr. Combe's volume, which is an ex- 

 traordinary production, has succeeded completely in creating a very 

 considerable degree of attention to the study of that system of 

 mental science on which the elements of his positions and inductions 

 rest their foundations. 



When the late Earl of Bridgewater died, in February, 1829, 

 Mr. Combe's '' Cojistitution of Man" had already taken a conspic- 

 uous position among ethical systems, and the wisdom as well as 

 the philanthropy of his work were acknowledged with increasing 

 favour, for several years before the appearance of those "Bridge- 

 water Treatises j" which embrace the same subject and profess a 

 similar aim, but which might have proved more practically useful 

 if they had been similarly constructed on a definite arrangement of 

 primitive mental principles. One object of these treatises appears to 

 have been to ascertain what the character of external nature and 

 the capacities of the human mind really are, and what is the adap- 

 tation of the latter to the external world. Now, these are questions 

 of vast importance in themselves, and they manifestly can be solved 

 only by direct, bold, and unbiassed appeals to nature herself. Be- 

 fore we can successfully trace the adaptation of two objects to each 

 other we must be acquainted with each by itself; the first inquiry, 

 therefore, that ought naturally to be pursued in the execution of the 

 proposed object is— "What is the constitution of the human mind?" 

 This branch of inquiry however is entirely neglected in the fore- 

 mentioned essays: in them, no system whatever of mental 

 philosophy is propounded : in them, indeed, there is no attempt to 

 assign to human nature any definite or intelligible constitution : and 

 consequently, as is felt generally, they have thrown very little new 

 light on the moral government of the world. Mr. Combe had long 

 previously endeavoured to avoid this inconsistency. Having been 

 convinced, after minute and long continued observation, that 

 Phrenology is the true science of mind, he assumes this as the basis 

 of his reasoning ; and as, in this inquiry, it is indispensably neces- 

 sary to admit some system of mental philosophy in order to obtain 

 one of the elements of the comparison, he recommends the student, 

 if he chooses, in the mean time either to regard the phrenolgical 

 views as hypothetical and to judge of them by the result, or to 



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