608 PLURALITY OF THE 



" kings of thought and song," who in the midst 

 of adversity, affliction, and persecution, became 

 immortal lights in the firmament of mind, that 

 shall shine brighter and brighter, until know- 

 ledge shall become the universal inheritance of 

 mankind, and banish innumerable evils that 

 now exist in the world, the greater portion of 

 which are owing to ignorance in regard to the 

 physical and moral laws of the universe. But 

 alas ! how many brave spirits have perished in 

 the conflict with prejudice and blind custom ! 



The most important discovery of the 1 9th cen- 

 tury, was the plurality of the cerebral functions 

 by Dr. Gall and his disciples, who have demon- 

 strated that the perceptive, reasoning, and moral 

 faculties in man, depend on the anterior and su- 

 perior portions of the brain ; and the propensities 

 or passions, as they have been called by metaphy- 

 sicians, on the lateral, inferior, and posterior divi- 

 sions of the sensorium. Whether the numerous 

 subdivisions of these more general ones have been 

 accurately ascertained, must be determined by a 

 more extended induction from facts. When phy- 

 siologists shall have traced the connexion be- 

 tween the nervous organization of all animals in 

 which it exists, with the various degrees of their 

 intelligence, passion, and instinct, the mysteries 

 of the nervous system will be resolved, and the 

 physiology of mind be transferred from the hy- 

 perphysical, to its appropriate rank among the 

 exact sciences. 



