Phrenology. 7*1 



It certainly does not become one who has not made phrenology 

 a particular study, to say much of his own impressions, nor to 

 claim for them great consideration. Without presuming to dic- 

 tate, I beg leave, however, to enquire for a few moments, whether 

 there is any thing in its claims and pursuits which is absurd, un- 

 philosophical, or of irreligious tendency. 



We have, each for ourselves, no better means of judging, than 

 by the effects which the evidence and the discussions produce on 

 our own minds ; nor can we, understand, why some persons of 

 great intelligence and worth, treat phrenology as if it were, on 

 its very front, ridiculous and absurd, and therefore to be dismissed 

 with contempt and ridicule, as the dream of an enthusiast — or to 

 be spurned as the invention of an impostor — while some disci- 

 phned minds regard the investigation as unphilosophical, and still 

 greater numbers shrink from it with dread, as tending to impair 

 moral responsibility, or to bind us in the fatal folds of material- 

 ism. 



It appears to me, sir, that phrenology involves no absurdity, nor 

 any antecedent improbability. The very word means the science 

 or knowledge of the mind, which all admit to be a pursuit of the 

 highest dignity and importance, both for this life and the life to 

 come, and the appropriate enquiry of the phrenologist is, whether 

 the mind, with its peculiar powers, affections and propensities, is 

 manifested by particular organs corresponding with the conforma- 

 tion of the cranium, that defensive armor by which the brain is 

 protected from external injury. 



In what part of our frames is the mind manifested by any vis- 

 ible appearance ? 



All will answer, in the features, in the human face divine, 

 through whose beautiful and impressive lineaments, the mind 

 shines forth as through windov/s, placed there on purpose, by the 

 Creator. In this all are agreed ; we read there, in language which 

 is often quite intelligible, the decisions of the will and the judg- 

 ment, and the fluctuations of the affections. Even the inferior 

 animals both manifest to us, and understand from us, this visible 

 language, figured and shadowed forth by the form and move- 

 ments of the muscles of the face, and especially by the efful- 

 gence of the eye. 



But whence comes the intellectual and moral light that beams 

 forth from the eye and from the features ? 



