LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC. 441 



murder, which is incorrect, inasmuch as it denominates the effect only of 

 a morbidly developed organization excited to its most powerful action. Wc 

 should endeavour to name faculties from their fundamental operations, and not 

 from their excessive excitement. It is unnecessary to dwell longer on the 

 existence or exigency of this incentive to destroy." * • » 



** Many objections to phrenology have been founded on the organ of destruc* 

 tiveness, or murder, as it was formerly called. The objectors say, if you shew 

 me a disposition innate to commit murder, we are fatalists, and no longer free 

 agents, hence the doctrine of rewards and punishments cannot be valid. Such 

 arguments are the results of short-sightedness, and of a paucity of reflection. — 

 Is there not within us an innate disposition to benevolence ? are we then by the 

 exercise of this faculty to wrong ourselves to do good to others — do we not feel 

 the impulse to worship a Supreme Being ; are we then obliged to carve image* 

 to gratify this ? Do we not feel the impulse of love for children ; are we then 

 obliged to injure them by indulgence for its sake ? Cannot most of the 

 ferocious animals be tamed and subdued by education — the lion to live with the 

 dog, and to allow his keeper to pass unmolested through his den ? — cannot we 

 tame cats, mice, rats, dogs, weasles, pigeons, birds, to a certain extent, so that 

 they shall all live together in one cage ? Those who have frequently passed 

 London bridge, or the bridges in Paris, must have witnessed such exhibitions 

 as these. Why then must a man having the desire to destroy, and who rears, 

 feeds, and preserves game for his sport to kill — why must he be obliged to kill 

 his neighbour, against all reason, religion, and conscientiousness, because 

 he has the desire to kill implanted in his nature for a good purpose. — Man 

 in a moral state, with an educated and well-regulated mind, will not destroy his 

 fellow — but insanity and idiotcy may, by reducing these ties, allow the faculty 

 to kill to act uncontrolled. We have seen the cat broken of her propensity to 

 kill by providing her with food, and producing by discipline a fear of punish- 

 ment for destroying, — Will not education and religion alike restrain man in this 

 desire ? The objections on this score are very frivolous. The question is, was 

 man sometimes disposed to commit murder before the doctrines of phrenology 

 were promulgated ? if so, phrenology cannot have produced this disposition. — 

 But phrenology may tend to lessen murder in the world by inculcating a 

 proper education and a knowledge of the aberrations of mind. Public execu- 

 tions have not deterred people from murder, for it has taken place during the 

 spectacle, even near to the gallows." 



The room was crowded to excess ; and at the conclusion of his lecture Mr. 

 Turley received the most flattering testimonials of the gratification which his 

 eloquent discourse imparted. 



At a former lecture a copy of the following aphorisms were presented by Mr. 

 T. to each of his auditors : — 



1st. Plirenolojrists rejjard the brain and nervous apparatus of animals as the sole 

 seat of their vegetative, affective, and intellectual faculties. 



2dly. They divide and subdivide the nervous system into parts according to tlieir 

 offices : — first the nerves of the vegetative functions ; secondly the nerves of tlie 

 external senses, feeling and locomotion; thirdly, the cerebral parts which are 

 endowed with the affective and intellectual faculties, and these they subdivide 

 according to their characteristic manifestations. 



3rdly. Phrenologists believe that the brain receives all its impressions by means 

 of the organs of the senses through the medium of their respective nerves. 



4thly. Man and the superior animals possess two distinct symmetrical nervous 

 apparatus, which, nevertheless, perform their functions simultaneously, and when 

 one part is rendered inert, either by disease or accident, the corresponding part on 

 the opposite side acts alone. 



5thly. They consider that every nerve belonging to either half of the nervous 

 system differs from every other nerve on the same side, both in its anatomical 

 structure and in its functions, and that that part of the brain with which each distinct 

 nerve communicates must be endowed with a different function. 



6thly. Hence tlie brain is an assemblage of parts, each part performing its office 

 separately, yet all combining to constitute that unity of operation which is known by 

 the name of mind in man, or instinct in brute. 



