270 CRANIA AMERICANA. 



I prepare this memoir without having the advantage of seeing Dr. Morton's 

 descriptions of the natural characters of the different Indian Races. These are 

 not yet printed. The harmony or discord hetvreen his historical delineations, and 

 the phrenological inductions w^hich the reader will be enabled to draw^ by applying 

 the rules now to be laid down, will depend on the degree of approximation of 

 each to nature. Where discrepancies shall appear, one or other of our views must 

 be erroneous. I solicit the reader candidly to investigate both representations, 

 and not to condemn phrenology at once as chargeable exclusively with error. 

 Imperfect historical descriptions have been given of distant nations, and particu- 

 larly of barbarous and savage tribes, whose manners have been imperfectly 

 observed, and whose language has been scarcely at all comprehended ; and it may 

 ultimately be discovered, that the characteristics indicated by the size and forms 

 of their brains have been more correct than the hasty impressions of travellers. 



The favorite opinion with philosophers has been, " That the capacities of the 

 human mind have been, in all ages, the same; and that the diversity of phenomena 

 exhibited by our species, is the result merely of the different circumstances in 

 which men are placed." "This," says Dugald Stewart,* "has long been received 

 as an uncontrovertible logical maxim ; or rather, such is the influence of early 

 instruction, that we are apt to regard it as one of the most obvious suggestions of 

 common sense. And yet, till about the time of Montesquieu, it was by no means 

 so generally recognised by the learned as to have a sensible influence on the 

 fashionable tone of thinking over Europe." 



There is some ambiguity in this passage. The proposition, that the ^' capaci- 

 ties of the human mind have been in all ages the same," does not necessarily 

 imply that they have been alike in all nations. The Hindoo mind may have been 

 the same in the year 100 as in the year 1800, and so may the English and all 

 other national minds; but it does not follow that either in the year 100 or 1800 

 the English and Hindoo minds were constituted by nature equal in all their 

 capacities ; yet this is what I understand Mr. Stewart to mean: for he adds, "that 

 the diversity of phenomena exhibited by our species, is the result merely of the 

 different circumstances in which men are placed ;" embracing, in this proposition, 

 men of every nation as equally gifted in mental power. There is reason to 

 question this doctrine, and to view it as not merely speculatively erroneous, but 

 as laying the foundation of much hurtful practice. 



When we regard the different quarters of the globe, we are struck with the 



* Dissertation prefixed to Encyclop. Britt. p. 53. 



