ANALYSIS OP combe's '^SYSTEM OF PHRENOLOGY." 267 



After giving a concise, but exceedingly instructive, sketch in evi- 

 dence of the perfect adaptation of the external world to the intellec- 

 tual faculties of man, Mr. Combe proceeds to explain the modes of 

 action of the different mental powers. All the faculties tend to ac- 

 tion, and when active in a due degree they produce actions good, 

 proper, and necessary. It is excess of their activity and its ill di- 

 rection that occasion abuse. Every one of them, when in action, 

 from whatever cause, excites the kind of feeling, or forms the kind 

 of ideas, which result from its natural constitution. Hence, it is 

 clear that there must be a legitimate sphere of action for them all. 

 Not one of them is or can be necessarily and inherently bad ; other- 

 wise God must have deliberately created faculties with their organs 

 for no other purpose than to lead us into sin ; an impious notion, 

 which, if cherished, would inevitably be vented in the expression of 

 blasphemy. 



According to Mr. C.'s System, the propensities and sentiments can- 

 not be excited to action directly by a mere command of the will : we 

 cannot conjure up the emotions of fear, compassion, and veneration, 

 by simply willing to experience them ; hence, we are not account- 

 able for the absence of any emotion at a particular time. These 

 affective faculties, however, may enter into action, from an internal 

 excitement ; and then the desire or emotion which each produces, 

 will be felt whether we will to experience it or not : in such cases 

 it is man's duty to manage the emotion, under the guidance of rea- 

 son, and the government of conscience over-ruling the other moral 

 sentiments. Again ; these faculties may be called into action, in- 

 dependently of the will, by the presentation of the external objects 

 fitted by nature to excite them. In such instances, the power of 

 acting or of not acting, is dependent on the will ; but the power of 

 feeling or not feeling is not so ; the mind cannot will not to see a 

 tree or a mountain, when this is the object of vision. Once more ; 

 the propensities and sentiments may be prompted into action or re- 

 pressed, indirectly J by an effort of the will : thus, if the perceptive 

 faculties be employed in conceiving objects naturally adapted to in- 

 cite the affective faculties, the latter will start into action in the 

 same manner, though with less intensity than if their appropriate 

 objects were externally present ; and, on such occasions, the vivaci- 

 ty of the feeling will be in proportion to the strength of the intel- 

 lectual conception united to the energy of the propensities and sen- 

 timents. 



As the propensities and sentiments do not form ideas, and as it is 

 impossible to excite or recall, directly, by an act of the will, the 



