84 Phrenology. 



the holiest and happiest influences of piety may be exerted and 

 made efFectiial. 



Phrenology then, is not a substitute for revealed religion — it 

 does not present itself as a rival or an enemy, but as an ally or 

 ministering servant. It is obvious that if all which is claimed 

 for it be true, it is capable of exerting a most important influ- 

 ence on the faculties and moral powers of our race, and with 

 experience for its interpreter, it must form the basis of intellec- 

 tual philosophy. 



The development which it makes of the faculties as connect- 

 ed with the organization of the brain, illustrates the wisdom of 

 the Creator in common with the wonderful structure of the rest 

 of the frame, and indeed it has still higher claims to our admira- 

 tion, in as much as the faculties of the mind are more- elevated 

 in dignity than those of the inferior members. If it should be 

 objected, that we ought not to attribute to God a structure in 

 which evil propensiiies are included, we answer that they cease 

 to be evil if they are controlled by the superior powers, and after 

 all, the introduction of moral and physical evil into this world 

 must be referred to the will of God, nor does it at all change the 

 conditions of the problem., whether our moral errors arise from 

 our organization or from external influences, or from both. In 

 either case, we are responsible, because power, either inherent in 

 our constitution, or imparted through the influence of religion, is 

 given to us, sufficient to resist moral evil and to perform our duty. 

 It appears then, that phrenology is neither an unreasonable, an 

 unphilosophical, nor an immoral or irreligious pursuit. 



The connection which it proves between the brain and the 

 mind, is founded upon our personal experience and daily obser- 

 vation. There is nothing in the nature of the brain which can 

 enable us to understand how it is miide the residence or instru- 

 ment of the mind, nor can we in the least comprehend, in what 

 way the mind will subsist after the death of the body, or in what 

 the intellectual essence consists. We are indeed instructed, from 

 the highest authority, (and the thought, with its illustration, is 

 equally beautiful and sublime, in a philosophical as in a moral 

 view,) that "the seed which we sow* is not quickened unless it 

 die; that we do not sow the body that shall be, but that God giv- 



* " Bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain." 



