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82 : Phrenology. 
from its abuse, on the contrary, spring some of the most flagitious 
crimes and most poignant sufferings. Still, no court permitsa 
criminal to plead against his condemnation, the strength of his 
evil propensities which have led him to the commission of crime. 
The temptations of cupidity will not excuse the felon from trans- 
portation ; nor the fierceness of anger or the delusions of inebriety 
avert the sentence of death from a murderer. Phrenology does not, 
in the least, alter the case ; for, independently of this science or of 
any other relating to our frames—as, for instance, anatomy and 
- physiology—we are quite sure of the existence of our faculties, 
our affections, and our propensities, and. we know that we are re- 
sponsible for their proper use and for their abuse. Their manifes- 
tation through the brain does not affect our moral responsibility, 
any more than if they were associated with any other parts of 
our frame, or diffused through the whole of it, without any par- 
ticular locality. - : ree 
It is our duty to regulate and control all our powers, affections 
and propensities, and nothing but the impotency or subversion of 
our reason can excuse us from moral responsibility. We will 
suppose, for instance, that according to the language of phrenol- 
ogy, 4 man may have small intellectual powers, little conscien- 
tiousness and benevolence, and large acquisitiveness, destructive- 
hess and ‘combativeness. Will he therefore stand excused for theft 
or murder? Certainly not. It was his duty to obey his con- 
science, and to resist his animal propensities when they would 
lead him to evil. Feeble faculties and dispositions may become 
strong by cultivation and encouragement, and strong propensities 
may be controlled and subjected by vigilant discipline. We seein 
life, many examples of self-government producing, by the force of 
a voluntary discipline, fine characters, formed as it may be out of 
very imperfect or bad materials, while brilliant intellectual powers 
and elevated moral feelings are, unhappily, too often subdued by 
the lower propensities, the animal powers ; in these cases, the latter 
were not governed, and thus the intellect which should have been 
the master, became a miserable and ruined slave to the propensi- 
ties. “If the case of the feebler powers and stronger propensities 
admits of no justification, the opposite case presents no palliation ; 
for with a strong intellect and a conscience quick to distinguish 
right from wrong, the propensities ought to be subjected to the most 
perfect control... Phrenology, therefore, stands not in the way of 
