REMARKS ON MR. COMBE's " CONSTITUTION OF MAN." 205 



construction of any system of mental philosophy susceptible of com- 

 bining harmoniously with religion, and promoting the improvement 

 of the human race. It is his decided anticipation, however, that 

 phrenology will enable our instructors hereafter to acquire this desi- 

 rable attainment. In surveying the world itself, this new science 

 guides the honest inquirer to perceive that the Creator has bestowed 

 definite qualities on the mind of man, and on external objects, and 

 also established determinate relations between them. From the 

 beginning, the mental faculties have been incessantly operating ac- 

 cording to their inherent tendencies ; generally aiming at good, 

 always desiring it, often missing it through ignorance and blindness, 

 but capable of advancing towards the acquisition of it when en- 

 lightened and properly directed. Most of the mental faculties have 

 direct reference to this world, and in their functions exhibit no in- 

 telligible relation to another : the rest display, in their agencies, a 

 connexion at once with this life and a higher state of existence. 

 Philosophers and divines should study human nature as it exists, 

 and accommodate their views to its actual qualities and relations. 

 To guide and successfully exercise the inferior faculties to the promo- 

 tion of true happiness, it is indispensable that we should know these 

 faculties themselves, together with the physical conditions on which 

 their strength and weakness, inertness and vivacity, depend, as well 

 as the relations established between them and the external world, 

 which is the grand theatre of their action : and, finally, we ought 

 also to be conversant with the relations that exist between these and 

 the superior faculties which are destined to direct their operations. If, 

 then, the faculties of mind, which are common to man and the lower 

 animals, possess exclusive reference to this world alone, much useful 

 knowledge for their guidance will be afforded by the philosophy of 

 this world : and the wisdom which is to reduce them to order will 

 receive important aid from studying the constitution which the 

 Creator has bestowed on them, and from ascertaining the relations 

 which he has instituted between them and the other departments of 

 his works. God has bestowed on us the endowments of intellect to 

 discover his will, and moral sentiments for disposing us to obey it, 

 in whatever record, natural or revealed, its existence is inscribed. 

 Philosophy and revelation can never be at variance : all real philo- 

 sophy and all true religion necessarily harmonize. There must, 

 therefore, be a manifest advantage,: in cultivating each by itself, till 

 its full dimensions, limits, and amplications, shall be brought clearly 

 to light ; and then we may advantageously compare them, and use 

 the one as a means of elucidating or correcting our views of the 



