AND CRANIOGNOMY. 443 



avows that the Creator has given an express sanction and countenance to 

 robbery and murder by the construction both of the body and mind ; by natural 

 organs and propensities for the commission of these crimes. It cannot, in- 

 deed, be denied, that God has willed them, for nothing can take place con- 

 trary to his will. But there is a little logical nicety or special pleading in 

 this assertion, and it is necessary to recall to our recollection what I endea- 

 voured to prove in a late lecture,* that the WILL and the the DESIRE are two 

 distinct attributes ; though in ordinary language confounded and used synony- 

 mously. It is true, then, that God has willed robbery and murder ; but it is 

 equally true that he has not desired them : it is equally true, that he has most 

 positively expressed his desire upon the subject, and has forbidden them 

 under the severest threats. Our duty, therefore, is to attend to the prohibi- 

 tion': our moral conduct is to be collected from his desire, and not liom his 

 will, excepting where the word will is employed in its popular sense, and 

 synonymously with desire. The professors of this new physiognomy, how- 

 ever, having thus advanced their peculiar doctrine upon the subject before us, 

 endeavour to illustrate it by copious examples of persons, who, from being 

 endowed with the stealing bump and stealing organ, had a peculiar and irre- 

 sistible propensity to rob and plunder. Among these, Dr. Spurzheim intro- 

 duces various characters whom we should not very readily have suspected 

 of belonging to a gang of thieves.- He tells us of a chaplain in a Prussian 

 regiment, a man of great intelligence and ability, who could not avoid (for 

 these are his words) steal ing handkerchiefs from the officers at the parade. He 

 informs us, that Victor Amadeus I., king of Sardinia, took every where ob- 

 jects of little importance ; and, what will still more astonish the audience be- 

 fore me, that M. Saurin, the Genevese pastor, though acquainted with the best 

 principles of reason and religion, was overcome continually by this propensity 

 to steal. He has given us, however* no authority for this last assertion ; and 

 no such calumny should be believed without full proof. 



There is, indeed, an endeavour, on the part of Dr. Spurzheim, though I do 

 not find he is supported by any of his colleagues, to let down, in some degree, 

 this charge against nature and the Author of nature, by telling us, that though 

 the organs exist that bear these names and produce a specific propensity, 

 they do not urge on the individual to the actual commission of great crimes 

 of this kind till they are very largely developed, and the developement has 

 not been controlled by other faculties, which he seems to intimate may have 

 an influence upon them. " These functions," say s he, " are ABUSES, which result 

 from the highest degree of activity of certain organs, which are not directed by 

 other faculties." Now, in the first place, it should seem, by his own examples, 

 that other faculties have very little control over the master-organ or propensity 

 at any time : for even admitting the truth of his extraordinary anecdote con- 

 cerning M. de Saurin, there can be no doubt that all his faculties of morality 

 and religion were habitually at work in repugnancy to his faculty of thieving, 

 and yet, according to Dr. Spurzheim, to no purpose. But, secondly, the learned 

 writer exhibits a strange inconsistency, in regarding the full developement of 

 a function " as the abuse of a function." The function is a natural power ; 

 its growth is a natural power; and hence its full developement, or "the 

 highest activity of the organ," instead of being an ABUSE of such organ or 

 function, ought only to be regarded as its NATURAL PERFECTION. And, lastly, 

 let the matter be how it may, the man, even in his moral character, .is passive 

 under every stage of its progress; or, in the more tangible and explicit lan- 

 guage of M. Magendie, " II est impossible de se changer a cet egard. Nous 



RESTONS TELS QUE LA NATUKE NOUS A FAITS."f 



Not a few persons will, perhaps, be surprised at finding, that nature has 

 likewise kindly provided us with an impulsory organ for theatrical amuse- 

 ments ; and that she thus seems satisfactorily to have settled the lawfulness 

 and expediency, so eloquently and forcibly controverted by the learned Bos- 

 suet, about a century ago, of frequenting theatres arid encouraging the drama, 



* Series in. Lecture viii. | Pi6cis Eteinentaire, 2 toms. 8vo Paris, 1816, 1817 



