li<x^tli/tt"It  )

AN
A D D R E S S
DELIVERED AT THE
ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
THE  BIRTH OF  SPURZHEIM,
THE ORGANIZATION OF
BOSTON PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY,
JANUARY 1, 1838.
(
BY ELISHA BARTLETT, M. D.
PUBLISHED BY TH E REaU Ef?T "0 F THE SOCIETY.



          BOSTON-
    marsh, CAPEN AND LYON.
            1838. 
Printed by Wm. A. Hall & Co. 
ADDRESS.
   All true science is of slow growth.  All true knowledge has
ever been, and, from its very nature, must ever continue to be
an attainment, more or  less gradual and progressive, and more
or less difficult of acquisition.   Often  does even the most
elementary knowledge, or the simplest and plainest truth, seem
to us to have been late and tardily acquired or discovered, and
the world wonders how it could happen, that what is now such
manifest and beautiful  and far-darting light, should have re-
mained so long obscure, or altogether hidden.   This is true of
all subjects of investigation, though it is more strictly and re-
markably so of some than of others.  History can be written
only after it has been acted. Nations must have lived and died,
they must have played their parts on this stage of the world,
before their  lives and deaths and doings can become the sub-
jects of recital and commentary.  Great  biographies must be
lived and acted before they can be recorded.  And, furthermore,
it may be, that ages shall elapse after the annalist has registered
his facts, before their relations come to be fully understood, and
the chain, which runs through them all and binds them together,
is rendered visible and luminous by the light of philosophy.
   Especially is this the case with all knowledge which is the
result of experiment and observation.   Through a slow, irregu-
larly  moving and  progressive process, have all the natural
sciences been obliged to pass.  The very art itself of observa- 
4
tion and induction was, until within a  comparatively  recent
period of time, either unknown or  disregarded, almost wholly ;
and, even now, it  is but imperfectly, and in part only,  under-
stood  and practised.  First, after long groping in the dark, or
in a shadowy and uncertain twilight, are  materials collected
and partially examined.  One man finds out the art of polishing
a lens;—another watches the motions of a star;—a third  counts
the stamens of a flower: this smelts an ore in his rude furnace;
—that measures  the ebb and flow of the  ever-moving tides.
And so on, day after day, through ages, perhaps, atom by atom,
is the pile heaped up, heterogeneous and unsifted,  grain and
chaff,  gems and rubbish  together.
  The science of mathematics, even,—that purest abstraction of
the intellect,—independent, as it is, of the senses,  and of all
observation,—far removed, as it is, from the sources of  fallacy
and error, so inseparably connected with observation, has been,
from its first origin up to the present day, slow and irregular in
its advancement, in comprehensiveness, simplicity and power.
  It has generally happened, that the progress  of each of the
sciences depending on  observation and induction,  has been
signalized by  some one or  more remarkable epochs.   These
epochs are  constituted,  not by the  addition to those already
ascertained, of novel or important facts, but by the  establish-
ment  of the  general principles of the science;—by the discovery
of the true laws which govern its phenomena, or in accordance
with  which, its objects  are  arranged.  It has,  also, generally
happened, that, for the  establishment of these  principles and
laws,  we have  been indebted to the extraordinary genius and
sagacity  of some  one, or of some very  few individuals.  An
epoch of this kind  was the discovery of the Fltixionary calculus
in the history of mathematical science.   The labors of Linneus
in Botany, of Haller in Physiology, of Lavoisier and Dalton in
Chemistry, of  Cuvier in Zoology, constituted like remarkable
eras in  each of these  several sciences.  Each  of  these  eras
creates, not  a revolution  merely, but it constitutes a  new birth%
a regeneration of the science in which it occurs.   The uncer- 
5
 tain and indefinite becomes definite and certain.   That which
 was before  meaningless, becomes now significant.  The appa-
 rently trivial and  useless, in consequence of taking its appro-
 priate position, is made important  and valuable.   That which
 was before without form, and void,  assumes shape and arrange-
 ment, and is filled with a new creation.  The spirit has brooded
 over the chaos, transforming it into order, and covering it with
 beauty.  The  breath  of life  is  now breathed into the  body,
 before cold  and inanimate.   The limbs  now  move, the heart
 beats, the eye sees, the tongue  utters.  The science, whatever
 it may be, is no longer barren; it becomes prolific of  new and
 great results ;  it starts on a fresh career ; it spreads its wings
 for  a bolder flight.  Henceforward there is  opened to  it  a
 broader and a clearer pathway.
   It must be obvious  enough, I  think, to any one who has at
 all looked into the subject, that the science of the human  mind
 constitutes no exception to the remarks  already made in rela-
 tion to the slow growth of most of the other sciences.  Certain,
 at any rate, is it, that hitherto, till within a  very short period,
 it has been surrounded  by the same thick obscurity and vague-
 ness which  have  enveloped the other sciences previous to the
 discovery of their true laws,—to  the establishment  of  their
 fundamental principles.  Almost the whole history of  meta-
 physics is a record of absurdities, and inconsistencies, and
 contradictions.  The very name has become, almost by common
 consent,  only another term for intellectual harlequinism and
jugglery.  Never has  the human mind been guilty of playing
 more fantastic tricks, than when attempting by misdirected and
 impotent efforts to  unriddle the  mystery of its own constitution.
 It is certainly unnecessary for  me,  whether  speaking  to  phre-
 nologists or  to anti-phrenologists,  to insist upon this particular
 point, or  to spend any time  in  the supererogatory  labor  of
endeavoring either to prove or to illustrate the almost universal
unsatisfactoriness,  emptiness,  and  unprofitableness  of  those
subtle fancies,—those shadowy  and spectral  visions of the
 human  understanding, which  have been dignified with the 
6
itle of metaphysics,—which have arrogated to themselves the
high distinctions of philosophy.
  Whether  the phrenological  era holds a like  place in the
history of the science of mind, which  the Baconian era holds
in the history of the  art of observation and induction, or the
Newtonian in that of  the sciences of mathematics and astrono-
my, is yet an unsettled and disputed matter.  A large majority
indeed of the scientific and learned world wholly deny the
claims of phrenology to the character of a science.  They treat it
for the most part with contempt; or, at best, they regard it but as
oneamong the many delusions of the age.   There is a question
then.  Are they, its contemners and opposers, right; or are we
so,  its disciples and advocates?  Is Phrenology true, or is it
false?  Is it a sky-rocket  only, shooting up, with  a  transient
and artificial glare, some few hundred feet in the atmosphere of
the earth, or is it indeed a new star, kindled and  set forever in
the depths of the firmament ?
  It will be the object of this Address, to exhibit some of the
reasons  which we have  for  believing that Phrenology  does
constitute a great era, analogous  to those  of which I  have
spoken;—that it is, what it claims to be, the true science of the
human mind ;—that its laws are the laws of the human mind;
—that it has interpreted, truly, that revelation of God written in
the constitution of man's spiritual nature.
  Phrenology, in so far as it claims to have demonstrated the
existence of a multiplicity of cerebral  organs, each concerned
in the manifestation  of a primary and  elemental faculty or
power of the mind, must rest for support, singly and exclusive-
ly, on observation.  The  truth of this fundamental proposition
of the science, we believe, has  been so  established.   It is not
my  purpose,  at the present time,  to  go into this  part of the
subject,  for  the good reason, among others, that  I have not
qualified myself sufficiently, by practical study, to do so; , and I
pass from it with the  single remark, that the science, so far as
its organology, so called, is concerned, appeals to this only and
ultimate  test of its pretensions  to  truth,  and that by  this test 
7
 alone can it be fairly tried and judged.  I may say, also, that
 the opposers of phrenology have, for the most part, overlooked
 or misapprehended  this fact;  and  that they have, instead of
 endeavoring to controvert the alleged results of observation, in
 the only way in which such results  can be controverted, by
 counter observation, resorted to  reasoning  or  to speculation,
 based  only upon certain gratuitous and assumed premises, or,
 as has been more commonly the case, to misrepresentation and
 ridicule.
   Leaving this topic, then, I proceed to say, that the true sci-
 ence of the human  mind ought to  issue in human good;—it
 ought to be  productive of beneficent  results.   Such has been
 the case with all the  other sciences ;—such ought, also, to be the
 case with this.  Astronomy, mathematics, geology,  chemistry,
 physiology, have all proved  themselves not merely subjects of
 abstract intellectual  interest and curiosity, but matters of great
 practical usefulness.   They have acted upon man's  daily life.
 They have aided in improving his  spiritual nature, and they
 minister to his commonest wants.   They enlarge and elevate
 his mind ; they clothe and nourish and protect his body.  They
 make the elements his servants to do his bidding.  They make
 his time-keepers, for seconds, or for ages, the stars on the dial-
 plate of the sky.  They carry him over the land,—they guide
 him across the sea,—his pillar of cloud by day, and of fire by
 night.   Unfolding to  him the  mysteries of the visible world,
 they bring him nearer to its author, God.  If Phrenology, I
 repeat,  is what it pretends  to be, it must also, like its  sister
 sciences,  show itself  directly  instrumental  in  promoting the
 best interests of the human race.   And if it does so show itself,
 we have a right to see herein another evidence of its truth.  I
 shall, therefore, after these  preliminary  observations,  endeavor
 to apply this test of the  claims of Phrenology, derived from
some few of its leading tendencies  and results, both practical
and philosophical—from  the natural and inevitable issues of
its principles and laws.
  The  first general result of the  Phrenological  doctrines of 
8
which I shall speak, is the separation which they make of our
true humanity from those accidental and factitious circumstan-
ces with which it is interwoven and overlaid.   By revealing to
us the essential nature of humanity,  in  its complex physical
and spiritual constitution, it exposes, also, the manifold illusions,
which this humanity  has always  and everywhere worn.  In
the clear light of Phrenology, man, for the first time, stands be-
fore us as man,—whatever,  and however unlike  and diverse
may be the accidents of his  environment.  If there is any one
moral truth, which can claim to be a central truth,—the truth of
truths,—it is that of the entire, essential,  absolute oneness and
equality of human  nature.   All right rests upon  this, its only
immutable basis ; all order flows from this, its sole inexhausti-
ble fountain.  I do not claim for Phrenology the merit of hav-
ing first asserted or promulgated this  truth.   Always, through-
out all time, and in every  country, have there been Seers, who
have  read  the sublime record written on their own hearts ;—
always, too, have there been Prophets  and Teachers, who
have  uttered it.  It is a doctrine,  also, of inspiration.  It was
proclaimed by Moses,  and it  runs  through all the  teachings of
Christ.  I do not claim for Phrenology, I  say, the merit of hav-
ing first asserted and promulgated this truth ; but I do claim for
it the next highest  merit  of  having given to that  which was,
before, only matter of  argument or speculation, or of dogmatic
statement, merely, the fixed  and  positive  and everlasting attri-
butes  of science.  What was precept became law, unchangea-
ble and eternal, and universally binding in its obligations.
  In spite of all the teachings of sages and philosophers and
prophets, blind to the light of wisdom, and deaf to the oracles
of Revelation, men, generally, have never believed this truth.
They do not yet believe it.   At least they  do  not feel it, and
they  never have felt  it.  The feeling,—and in this case the
feeling is equivalent to the belief,—is almost universal, that the
circumstances, by which each man and woman is accidentally
surrounded, have wrought a change  in that man's or woman's
nature, and rendered it unlike that of an individual surrounded 
9
 by wholly  different  circumstances.  I am sure that I do not
 state this too strongly.   Phrenology not only asserts, what  has
 always been  nominally asserted, that this is not the case, but  it
 shows the reasons why it is  not.  Phrenology not only teaches
 the great opposite truth, but it makes plainly visible the founda-
 tion  on which the truth rests ;  it developes  its principles,—it
 unfolds and establishes its laws and sanctions.  We see, by its
 light, not  only that  every  man is the equal  brother of every
 other man, but we see,  also, why he is so, and how he is so, and
 wherein he is so.
   Let us develope this  thought  a little, in reference to its bear-
 ing on the distribution of human  happiness, and so far as  it
 relates to man's  spiritual being.  Phrenology shows, that this
 spiritual nature of man consists, like his body, of one harmoni-
 ous whole, composed of many parts or faculties, all tending to
 one end,—all conspiring to form a perfect one.  It teaches, that
 the various powers of the mind have each its independent law,
 as  well as such  as  grow out  of their  mutual relations.   It
 teaches, that in the healthy energy and rational activity of each
 individual  faculty consists the  pleasure which this faculty is
 capable of imparling,—the good of which it was intended to be
 productive.  It teaches, that  the pleasure and the good depends,
 exclusively, upon this  energy and  activity in each particular
 instance.   It  also teaches, that  a certain appropriate form of
 suffering is the pre-ordained and inevitable  consequence of a
 want of this activity, or of an excess of it, in each faculty.  All
 of happiness and all of misery, all of good  and all of evil, which
 we here  enjoy or suffer, excepting such  as comes from mere
 animal indulgence, or mere bodily pain, is exclusively depend-
 ent on the condition  of these powers.   The proper cultivation
 and use of all these powers, the lower acting ever in subordina-
 tion to the higher, the selfish and the animal subject always to
 the disinterested, the  intellectual and  the moral, is happiness
 and good.   Every departure from  this rule is suffering and
evil.
  We thus see where it is that ^the primal Law of Equality
                    2 
10
rests.   The same powers which constituted the mighty intellect
of Isaac Newton, constitute, also, the intellects of all other men.
That  same light  which made his mind luminous with  a sun-
like brightness, has enlightened, also, every man that  cometh
into the world.  I am not speaking, of course, of the amount
of acquired knowledge, or  of the relative capacities for acquisi-
tion.  Herein, as  in many other respects, do the minds of men
so differ, that no two probably ever existed, or ever will exist,
precisely alike.  This  kind  of  original likeness  is not that
which I speak of.   Indeed, Phrenology first fully exhibited  the
error  and absurdity of this notion.  I only mean to say, that as
God  has given to every soundly-constituted body eyes to see,
and feet to walk, and lips  to utter, so has he given to every
soundly-constituted mind  the  powers, in kind, though  not in
degree, of every other mind, and that he has made them subject,
in every individual of the race, to the same laws.   The differ-
ences between different minds are  like the differences between
different bodies.  Some are stronger than others in their origin-
al constitution;  others are  rendered  strong and  effective by
active training, and each one has its own peculiar combination
of endowments, as each face has of features.   But the  kind of
pleasure derived from the use of each intellectual power  is the
same  in every mind, and the amount of individual gratification,
flowing from the action  of a limited power, may often be  but
little  less  than that resulting from the  action of the highest.
The  single essential  point, so far as  individual happiness is
concerned, is  the cultivation and employment of the power
itself; its appropriation to the purposes for which it was be-
stowed.   I  may  remark here,  that the  acquired differences
among men, depending upon the purely intellectual  powers,
correspond  more  nearly  to  differences of outward  condition,
than  those  depending upon the other portions of his spiritual
nature.  High intellectual culture presupposes exemption from
the necessity of constant bodily toil, and the means of full  and
free  communion  with  cultivated cotemporary  intellect  and
with  the intellect, also, of accumulated ages.  This exemption 
11
 has never yet been made the common lot, and hence has arisen
 the great inequality  in the  intellectual  condition of different
 classes of men.
   The truth which I am endeavoring to exhibit finds a more
 striking illustration in the moral  and instinctive powers of our
 complex nature.  One of the strongest of these innate feelings
 is the  desire for acquisition,—the love of gain.   Now, the de-
 gree of pleasure which results from the gratification of this
 desire, and  of pain which follows its disappointment, is not at
 all dependent upon the magnitude and importance of the object
 of desire.   The selfish exultation, with which the miser in his
 rags gloats at his little heap of hoarded gold, is the same feeling
 that fills  the mind of the lordly banker  who counts his yearly
 gain by millions, and  it may be equally intense.  And so is the
 arrow  tipped with  the same poison, and sent from the  same
 bow-string, which strikes with a pang the heart of the sordid
 wretch from whose desperate clutch is torn a single dollar, and
 that of the merchant-prince when his palace  is wrapped  in
 flames, or when his richest  argosy goes down  at sea.   The
 pleasure is the  same in nature, and it may not differ in degree,
so far as this particular faculty is concerned, in the two cases ;
 and so is also the pain.  The pleasure consists in the activity
 and gratification of the faculty; the  pain consists in  its disap-
 pointment, independent of the importance of the object upon
 which it is exerted, and independent of circumstances affecting
 other portions of our nature.
   The same thing is true of all those capacities and feelings
 upon  which almost the whole  of life's weal and wo depend.
 Ever ready are we  to  magnify the happiness of exalted station,
 and high  honor, and great riches.  But the hope  of a coming
 good lights up an ecstacy in the peasant's heart as warm as  in
 the prince's.  What though, in the one case,  it be the hope only
of some common thing,—a village festival, or a day of rest from
labor,—and in the other, the high and palmy hope of empire  or
renown—it matters not, for in each case'the feeling is the same;
the joy which overspreads each heart  issues out from the same 
12
 fountain.   Does not  maternal love—that deepest instinct-
 yearn with as passionate a tenderness over its object, when this
 object is  cradled in poverty  and nursed by pining want,  as
 when it rests on the lap of affluence and ease ?  Wherever the
 darling object is, there is the delight;—wherever the passion  is,
 there  is there  woven  by it,  over the future,  its tissue, many
 colored, of hopes and  forebodings, of sadness and  joy.  Little
 matters it, nothing matters it, to the  darkness of the shade  in
 this picture, or the  brightness of the light, whether it be hung
 under the thatched roof of a cabin, or the golden and frescoed
 ceiling of a royal saloon.
   So is it with every thing that adorns and blesses  and sancti-
 fies and humanizes the soul.   So is it with all kindly sympa-
 thies,—so is it with all merriment and all sadness,—so is it with
 piety and  reverence,—so is  it with  all the sweet  charities  of
 life,—so is it with the memories of the  past,  garnered in the
 heart and embalmed,—so is it with the hopes of the future, ever
 springing in our path, flowers of like fragrance and beauty,
 whether this path be along the cool-sequestered vale of life, or
 over the broad highway of nations, and in sight of the world.
   It is certainly  true,  that our conviction and feeling of the
 universal likeness  of human  nature, in  its elements and rela-
 tions, is strengthened, and made distinct and vivid, by the view
 of this nature which Phrenology presents to us.  The kindred
 truth, that all human well-being and all human ill,—excepting
 so far as the body is concerned,—has been linked, indissolubly,
 with certain states and  conditions of the several  elementary
 principles of our  spiritual being, is also more clearly compre-
hended , and more practically realized, by the aid of Phrenology.
By the same aid are we enabled to see more distinctly than
without it, how, independent of the accidents of outward condi-
tion, has the distribution of human happiness been made.
   How important it is that these truths should be,—not  merely
 granted with a cold and unfelt assent,—but embraced  by  the
 intellect and the sentiments,  and  infused  through   the whole
thinking and  feeling soul, it is unnecessary for me to say.   T 
13
 have already observed that they lie at the foundation of all civil
 right, that they are the root of all social order.  They are, also,
 the nurse of all  true philanthropy.   They give not only life,
 but   sacredness  to  the common  brotherhood  of  humanity.
 They bring all men nearer to  each other.  They warm and
 deepen the currents of human sympathy.  They strengthen the
 bonds of human fellowship.
   By dispelling the illusions of a  spurious  philosophy,  by
 stripping off from the soul of humanity the false guises  in
 which it has been clad, the meretricious finery, the masquerade
 dresses and the counterfeit visors in which old custom, and
 society,—so  called,—has  tricked it out, they  show  us our
 fellow-men  in  a new aspect,  in the  light and in the position
 where God  has placed  them; and in this light how much that
 is called low is exalted; how much that is called high is abased !
   Phrenology  cannot be true, it is not  what it pretends to be,
 the veritable science of the human mind, unless it sheds new
 light on the subject of education. If it enables us to understand,
 better than we have  hitherto done, the  constitution of the
 mind, it ought  also to assist us in the management and train-
 ing of the mind.   The high merit of  having done this, no one,
 I believe, acquainted with the history and character of Phren-
 ology, will  deny.  It has done this in many ways.  For my
 present purpose, however, it will be sufficient to mention one or
 two only.  Phrenology first fully unfolded and established this
 great and elementary principle of education,—that each and
 every power of the mind,—intellectual, moral, and  instinctive,
 —can be  strengthened and  developed only by its own activity,
 and that this activity can be excited only by placing the power
in relation to its appropriate  objects  or phenomena.   It took
this truth, as it did  other truths relating to the  mind, out  of
the domain of vague  generalities, of common sense  sagacity,
and gave  to  it  the absoluteness, and certainty, and  simplicity
of a demonstrable law.  And it is the  primal law of education;
its very seminal principle.  Disregarded has it always been, in
all systems  of  education; disregarded it still is, for the most 
14
part, both in theory and in  practice.   The higher  powers of
the mind, for instance,  such as  reverence,  conscientiousness
and  benevolence, have been  generally appealed to, through the
exclusive medium of the  knowing faculties ; and how universal-
ly unanswered  has been the appeal!   Men have asked of the
mind, bread,  and it has given them a stone, and why should it
not, since the boon  was not rightly asked ?  I know very  well,
that, within a short period, many persons, not professed disci-
ples of Phrenology, have begun to see this truth, and to vindi-
cate, ably  and  zealously,  its  immense practical  importance.
None the  less true is it, also, that for whatever of genuine in-
sight these  persons  have obtained of this fundamental doctrine,
are they more or less indebted to the principles and develop-
ments of Phrenology.
   Most of my  hearers,  I suppose,  are so far acquainted  with
these principles, as  to understand my meaning without further
explanation.  But as this pretension in behalf of Phrenology,
so far as its practical results are concerned, is one of the very
highest that can be made, I  will take the liberty, in order to
render myself intelligible to those who are not familiar with  its
principles, to state, as briefly and  explicitly  as  I  am able to
do, what I mean.
   The  truth which I claim  to have been first authoritatively
asserted and demonstrated  by Phrenology, as  a law  of the
mental constitution, is this ;—that  every  separate power and
capacity of the human mind can be developed and strengthen-
ed only by developing and exciting its own, peculiar, individual
activity; and that, therefore,  the  education of each and every
faculty is  dependent wholly  upon those means and  influences
which increase, or diminish, or control this activity andstrength.
That power  of the mind which takes cognizance of the  rela-
tions of numbers, can be educated only through its own instru-
mentality ; it can acquire skill  and facility in calculating these
relations, only by calculating them ; and just in proportion to
the amount of its  original vigor and of its educated activity,
will be its strength and capabilities.   This is strictly true of 
15
every intellectual power, and it is as true of the animal instincts
as it is of the knowing faculties.   The love of children is made
strong and fervent by loving children.  Hate becomes a  burn-
ing and  ferocious passion only by hating.   And, furthermore,
as strictly true as this  is of the  intellect and the instincts, is it
of all the higher sentiments.  Hope can be nourished only by
its own ambrosial food,—the bright colors, the ever-blossoming
flowers, the fairy enchantments  of the future.  Conscientious-
ness, that deep-seated sentiment of right and wrong, that stern
monitor  within us, can be crowned with the supremacy which
it was designed to possess, only by our being just.  Ideality,—
that versatile power,—constituting, as it may be said to do, the
wings of the spirit, can acquire  strength and freedom only by
soaring aloft into a pure and celestial atmosphere, and by visit-
ing, in the  heavens and on  the earth, those scenes of beauty
and sublimity and order, those manifestations of the perfect, the
excellent and the fair, which have been created for its gratifica-
tion.  Benevolence can be quickened into a divine and soothing
sentiment only by our being compassionate and humane.
   The bearing of this principle must be perfectly manifest.  It
is easy to see, that all education hinges upon it; and you would
almost as soon  tolerate me in consuming your time  with  a
formal argument in favor  of education itself, as in any more
elaborate effort to show the  importance of the truth which I
have stated.
   There is another great  elementary truth,  bearing directly
upon the subject of education, which, like the one already spok-
en of,  was first clearly demonstrated, as a natural law of man's
spiritual being, by Phrenology. I mean that of the absolute rule
and superiority, which the  Author of the mind has conferred on
the  religious and disinterested  sentiments,  over  all the other
powers.   Phrenology has not merely pointed out the only effec-
tive method of educating these sentiments, but it has vindicated
for  them their  inalienable  supremacy.  Far be it from me, I
say again, as I  have said in another connection, to arrogate, for
Phrenology, the merit of having discovered, or of having first 
16
promulgated the truth of which I now speak.   No one, I trust,
will suppose me guilty of such  ignorance, or of such presump-
tion.  Always has it been taught, by  the  wise and  the good,
everywhere, and throughout all time, eloquently in  their  pre-
cepts, and more  eloquently still in their  happy and  beneficent
lives, and in their deaths of serenity and triumphant hope.   It
is the declaration of prophets and apostles,—it is the  song of
the seraphim, it is the great lesson of Christ, it is the voice of
God.  Nevertheless, it is true,  that to  Phrenology belongs the
high distinction of having placed this doctrine on the firm basis
of demonstration, of having fixed it, immutably, in the very or-
ganization of humanity, one of its central and everlasting laws.
  This truth, like the other of which I have spoken, is almost
universally disregarded.  In all systems of education, the intel-
lectual powers are almost exclusively considered;  a  very sub-
ordinate place is assigned to the higher sentiments, and herein
consists one of the  most melancholy and  disastrous errors of
these systems.  Almost the whole surface of the civilized world
is spread over with  school-houses  for the nurture  of the infant
intellect,  and universities are built, and  professorships  are en-
dowed, to aid it in  its maturer training.  I do not complain
that this  has been done,  but that  the other  has been left un-
done.  One of the highest ends, even of intellectual culture, is
almost entirely overlooked and neglected,—that of promoting
the development and regulating the action of  the moral and
religious feelings, and of ministering, directly or indirectly,  to
their good.
  It is not my purpose, in this address,  to attempt any thing
farther,  than to state some of the general tendencies and results
of the Phrenological doctrines, accompanied with such illustra-
tions as may be necessary to render them intelligible.   I cannot,
of course, go very fully into the details  of their  practical opera-
tion.  I wish, however, here, to be indulged in a  few remarks
of this latter character.  Free  and  liberal governments have
thought it their safety as well as their duty, to provide forr and
encourage general education.   The axiom is,  that popular  in- 
17
telligence is the only sure support and safe guardian of popular
government.  All political institutions, resting, to any consider-
able extent, on the popular  or  democratic principle, recognize
this relation ;—they profess to  rely upon it  for their stability,
and efficiency for good.   What I wish to say,is this :—If the ed-
ucation, on which popular government  is to rest, be the educa-
tion of the intellect  merely, then  it leans on a broken reed —
How is it here, at home, in this Federal Republic ?  Will in-
tellectual culture, alone, perfect and universal  as it can be  made,
secure to us the permanency and the purity of our institutions ?
Will it keep inviolate the spirit of rational liberty,  which per-
vades and consecrates the written charter of our rights ?   Will
it hold, unbroken, the links of that  chain, which binds these
states together ?  Will it prove a sufficient security for national
peace, prosperity and  happiness ?  Can we confide to  it the
keeping of our hearth-stones, and our altars ?   Will it guard us
in the business of the day ?   Will it be round about us—a tu-
telary presence—in the  watches of the night?  No !  never, nev-
er, never !   Unless the sense of right and wrong between man
and man be  ripened to a hardier growth  amongst us, than it
has ever yet attained,—unless the true and great relation, which
every man sustains to all other men, be better understood, and
felt more warmly than it ever yet has been,—unless reverence
and love for whatever is exalted above us in genuine excellence
and glory be more cherished than it now is,—unless, in  short,
the moral, social and religious  sentiments are made to receive
that regular,  systematic and general culture, which is now be-
stowed, almost entirely,  upon the  intellect;—then, as  surely
as there is certainty in science, or truth  in revelation, shall we
come short of our true greatness; nay, more,—then  is there, for
our institutions, no safety in the present,  and no security in the
future.  What  are these institutions?   Have  they,  in  them-
selves, any principle of preservation or  of perpetuity?   What
is this  written charter,  which we  are taught so much to prize
and venerate ? Is it any thing but ink and parchment ?   Noth-
ing.   You may raise the naked intellect of this  whole nation 
18
to its highest attainable point, and  you only prepare and accu-
mulate the elements, in whose fiery collision this  charter shall
be consumed like tow.  You may surround it with a whole co-
hort of gallant champions, whose  hearts shall be as large, and
whose arms  shall be as strong, as  those of your own great de-
fender of its integrity and its worth,—all in vain.
   The elements  of  individual good and of universal good  are
identical.   What is best for me is  best also for all  other men.
If in me evil, confusion, misery and disaster  are the fruits of a
predominance either of the intellect merely, or of the selfish and
animal propensities, or of both, over the higher powers,  the
same is true of a community, of a people, of the race.  All his-
tory is a running commentary on  this truth.   I have no time
to dwell, at length, on this great topic,  but  I  cannot  forbear
a short  and passing allusion to  the  age  of Louis XV. of
France, and to the following revolution.   Then, on the largest
scale, since the days of the Roman emperors and their  succes-
sors, the Alarics and Attilas, was the experiment tried, whether
a nation could reach and keep any considerable height and  de-
gree of social and civil good, by the unaided intellect.  That
age  in France  was, emphatically, the  age  of intellect,—the
grand, culminating  epoch  of cyclopedias and philosophers.
But, in that aggregate of mind, then in the ascendant, there was
no reverence, there  was little ideality, there was no conscien-
tiousness, there was  no benevolence, there was  no  recognition
of the disinterested and self-sacrificing  in humanity.    The
order, which God has ordained as an indispensable condition of
individual, and so of general greatness and good, was reversed;
the understanding, which was then called reason, was  placed
above the  true kingly powers of the mind, and the issue was
what it was, what it always has  been, and ever will  be, under
like circumstances.  Here, too, let  it be  remembered, that the
antagonist powers, in the mind, of the animal appetites and the
selfish passions,  are the higher and  essentially  disinterested
feelings, and  not the understanding.  And so  in Paris, under
Louis XV. and XVI., and  in Rome, under Augustus, with the 
19
 highest cultivation of the mere intellect, there was  linked the
 foulest corruption.  In  the broad blaze of that cold  enlighten-
 ment,  stood,—unblushing  and unreproved,—nay, worshipped
 rather,—crowned  with garlands as true gods,  every possible
 form  and manifestation of sensualism, selfishness  and crime.
 And what was the end ? Let the dying wail of the seven-hilled
 city, mingled with the crash of falling temples,  the  gusty roar
 of conflagration, and  the fierce clamor of Vandal  armies an-
 swer.   Let that gay capital of intellectual and philosophic
 France, when her gambling-rooms and her houses of infamous
 pleasure became the murky gathering  places of conspiracy and
 murder, when her halls of science and  legislation were convert-
 ed into  camps and citadels of civil  war, when  ferocity  itself
 went  reeling through her streets, satiate and  drunk with car-
 nage, when the  guillotine  was running, day and night,  with
 the blood of the  high-born, the learned, and the  beautiful,—as
 the fountain  in her Palais  Royal now flows with water,—let
 her, also, answer.
   Milton, with the intuitive insight of genius, has not shorn, in
 the slightest  degree,  the fallen archangel of his intellectual
 strength.  There was art, too, not less wonderful and perfect in
 hell than in heaven. Witness that " fabric huge " of Mulciber's,
 which,
                              " out of the earth,
               Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
               Of dulcet symphonies, and voices sweet;
               Built like a temple, where pilasters round
               Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
               With golden architrave:"

and it may  not be out of place  to observe, that after  the disso-
lution of the " Stygian Council," which had been held in this
famous Pandemonium,  and the disbanding of  the  " ranged
powers," while most of these endeavored to "entertain  the irk-
some  hours " with various frivolous sports and idle occupations,
there  were others, evidently enough a coterie of  the old school
metaphysicians, who, as has since been their wont  on earth, 
20
                     " Apart, sat on a hill retired,
              In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
              Of providenee, foreknowledge, will, and fate;
              Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
              And found no end in wandering mazes lost.
              —Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy."

   Phrenology, by demonstrating the  primary faculties of the
mind, and their relations, first rendered intelligible the infinite
variety of thought and action in  individuals.   Extending the
same principles from the individual to the race,—from the one
person,  thinking  and acting to-day, to the many hundreds or
millions of like persons, thinking and acting at any  time, and at
all times, in the past, it solves the riddle of history,  it interprets
the great  events  of time.   Beautifully unfolding itself in the
process of this interpretation,  shall we find, everywhere, Law.
Chance disappears, and we see that, throughout all that multi-
tudinous thought and action of humanity, constituting its his-
tory,—in  all  its  fightings, from the first fratricide down  to the
battle of Waterloo,—in all  its  art,—in all its literature,—in its
religion,—in its laws,—in its politics,—in its love, and in its hate,
—in its  wisdom, and in  its perversity,—in its  migrations, in
its  conquests, in  its discoveries,—in the  mutations  of empires,
as truly  as in the phases of individual life,—is there nothing
fortuitous, nothing accidental, nothing anomalous.  We have
only to  apply to  all this  the true principles of human nature,
as they are now expounded by Phrenology, and its  obscurity is
dissipated, its  apparent contradictions are reconciled, the seem-
ingly inextricable confusion in which its elements are mingled
is cleared up.   As the sea,—alike in its vast aggregate, and its
every atom,—alike in its rest and in its wrath,—is  still subject
to the  laws of gravity and motion, so is the great tide,—as it
has been called.—of human affairs,—in its ebb, and in its flow,—
in its agitation, and  in its  repose,—obedient, ever, to the few
and simple laics which God has impressed upon it.
  One result of this method of investigating the past will  be a
conviction, clearer and stronger than we can, in any other way,
attain, that all Form is created and moulded by Spirit /—that 
21
all the multiform  institutions of men,—that all  the  complex
machinery of life  and society,—that all the aggregate act of
humanity existed first in the mind ; thafall these are but  the
emanations, in distinct and visible shape,  of the pre-existing
and pre-acting human soul.   Without denying the reaction of
these institutions,  and of  this external  machinery, as instru-
ments of that general mind of which they are the product, upon
the interests and condition of our race, we shall  be satisfied, I
think,  that  their influence has been exaggerated.  We shall
thus be led, not only to a more correct philosophy, but to  the
adoption of more rational and efficient means of  acting on  the
condition  of our race,—of promoting its well-being.  Strangely
and widely do we mistake in the estimate which we form of the
greatest personages, and the most important influences, judged
merely in their relationship to civil and social institutions, and
to the form and administration of government.  We are accus-
tomed to regard the statesmen and politicians of a  country,—its
kings, its presidents, its secretaries, and diplomatists, and sena-
tors, and representatives, as the great guardians and conserva-
tors of its liberty and its interests.   This is too much  the case
with ourselves.  But neither in these, nor yet in that other
misnamed rock of safety,—the democracy of numbers,—the
mere preponderance, ever changing, of numerical  strength, does
any abiding security  lie.  True hearts are there,  undoubtedly,
many of  them, among  the first, warm  with a patriot's love;
and eloquent lips, touched  with fire from the true altar, to vin-
dicate for our wide commonwealth its best good, and to warn it
against threatened ills.  But from the high  arena  of the capitol
at Washington, and  from the ten thousand  other  rostrums
scattered through the land, are there ever issuing  discordant as
well as angry voices.  Lo here ! says one, and lo there! says
another.   That democracy of numbers, too,  can  pull  down as
easily, more easily perhaps, than it can build up, and it undoes
to-day its most solemn acts of yesterday.  Not in the speculative
doctrines  of  consolidation  or of nullification,  of sub-treasury
systems,  or  of banks, nor yet in  the  pendulum-swinging of 
22
 counted majorities,  whether  federal or  democratic,  whether
 whig or tory, is the genuine good, the enduring and high glory
 of this nation bound up.  Not Jefferson,  nor Hamilton,—not
 Webster, nor Hayne,—useful,  indispensable  as their functions
 may have been, and may still be, worthy as their names may be
 of that high honor and renown which they wear,—not they are
 the anointed High  Priests of our  social temple,—not on their
 shoulders does the ark of our safety rest.
   "Who, then," it may be asked,  "are the great among us, if
 not these ? "   They are those who are most successful in giving
 to human nature that development, relative and absolute, which
 its Author has so evidently made the indispensable condition of
 its well-being.  They are those who are doing most for the di-
 rection of the intellect to  its best uses, and especially for that
 subordination of the animal appetites and selfish desires to  the
 moral and religious powers, which Revelation and  Phrenology
 agree in declaring to be the best and  highest good of man.
 They are  the teachers in our schools, and academies, and
 colleges, although the relative importance of these has been
 overrated.  They are the ministers at the altar of religion, so
 far, and  so far only, as these  fill the soul with  reverence, and
 humility, and good will, and duty,—warming  the heart with
 love and devotion, instead of crowding the head with theology.
 They are mothers, at the fire-side, and in the  nursery, guiding
 the feet  of childhood in  the  right  way, moulding its plastic
 mind to a correspondence with the good, the just, the beautiful
 and the true.   They are that mighty host,—of the dead and the
 living,—by whom,  in  their lives, and in their writings,—in
 their works, and in  their words, Truth and Wisdom are ever
 speaking to all who are willing to listen.   Even now, a woman,
 by the subtle magic of her  pen, seated in her  quiet parlor near
 the banks of  the Housatonic, may be doing more, although of
these things she may not utter a word, for the preservation and
improvement of our political fabric, for the strengthening of the
bonds of our political union, and for the promotion of our truest
and highest national  glory,  than all the  senators and represent-
atives of the twenty-six states in Congress assembled. 
23
  Among the other errors which Phrenology will  one day, I
trust, be instrumental in removing, is that of excluding religious
instruction from our public schools.   Speculative theology has
been confounded with religious feeling and duty, and, under a
government  like our own, where there is perfect freedom of
belief, and where there is no established religion,—it would be
better to say  no established form of theology,—the introduction
of religious  culture  into  public  seminaries  of education is
thought to be impracticable.  It is supposed to be incompatible
with the equality of right, and liberty of conscience  in matters
of faith, so much vaunted amongst us.  I think the true science
of mind shows this to be all wrong.   There are many systems
of theology,—those of Christian theology are  nearly as nume-
rous as are the saints in the Catholic's calendar,—but there is
only one  religion.  Whatever  be  the form which this  Angel
Spirit may assume,—-whatever be the drapery which it wears,
—still is it the  same celestial  visitant, fitting  the  soul of man
alike for the  performance of its duties on the  earth, and for the
fruition of its hopes in heaven,—its  strength, its solace and its
ornament.  And this religion  ought to be made a matter of
universal and efficient culture.  Could  the religious and moral
powers,—could benevolence, conscientiousness, marvellousness,
hope, veneration, and ideality, be only so far systematically
and  generally  educated, as  is  the intellect of this  nation, an
advancement would be  made  in public order,  happiness, and
prosperity, such as  the wildest dreamers about human perfecti-
bility have hardly imagined.
  A great deal  of that philosophy,—so lofty, and beautiful, and
pUre.—called, oftentimes tauntingly and with a sneer, transcen-
dentalism, or mysticism,—so much of it, at least, as is destined
to live,—is no more nor less than true philosophical Phrenology.
And,  although the  assertion may seem strange enough, it is,
nevertheless, I  believe, strictly  true, that this very philosophy,
so mystical  and transcendental, is a matter of easiest compre-
hension.  Its essence consists  simply in giving to the higher
sentiments of which I have  been speaking that rightful su- 
24
premacy  which  they were designed  to occupy.   Perhaps it
would be nearer the exact truth to say, that this philosophy, in
its modern form,  consists in the absolute supremacy of spiritual
good over all conventional and material good;  and  then in the
subordination of  all intellectual power and attainment, and of
all the selfish desires  to the higher sentiments.*  The chief er-
ror of the philosophy lies in its partial and one-sided view of
human nature.  Its  mysticism  arises, mostly,  from the same
causes which have always rendered  metaphysics so unintelligi-
ble to the great mass even of educated and thinking men.  In
the first place,  the expounders of this philosophy have not ac-
quired  that clear and distinct conception of the number, and na-
ture, and relations of the primary faculties, in whose development
and ascendency their  system consists, which the true science of
mind would  enable them to attain ; and, in the second place,
there is a  corresponding want of definiteness in the language in
which  many of their opinions and principles are set forth.
  Phrenology has, long ago, recorded its conviction of the im-
portance  of the principle, thus forming, as it seems  to me, the
basis of  transcendentalism.   These disinterested sentiments,
whose  high sovereignty it advocates, constitute,  more than the
understanding,  the loftiest  grade  of character.   These it is
which  have made the true heroes of history; these it is which
have made the martyrs of religion and liberty; these it is which
lie at the bottom of all earnestness,—they are  the fountain of
all enthusiasm.   Immensely, unspeakably as a  powerful  intel-
lect  may benefit,  by its researches and discoveries, the human
race, adding to its comforts and increasing its knowledge, it can
never,  by its own unaided strength, infuse itself into the univer-
sal consciousness  of humanity.   Art may, indeed, inscribe the
name of its possessor on marble and adamant; science may write
it across  the  sky, so  that the world cannot help but read it,
and  the reading, nevertheless, shall  not  warm,  in any degree,

  * Nowhere, in the professed works on Phrenology, can there be found a truer
definition of the nature of veneration, or a  more powerful vindication of its
worth, than in the commencement of M. Carlyle's third article on Gotehe, in the
Foreign  Quarterly Review for August, 1832. 
25
 the world's  heart,  or quicken its beatings.   It may  make
 him lord of the earth,  but it  has  no  strength to carry him
 into  the empyrean, and to unveil to  his vision its ineffable
 splendors.  They are the great men of the  earth, who have
 lived the most, and lived with their highest  faculties.   They
 too are the  good, the truly noble, the royal priesthood,  the
 crowned and sceptred hierarchy of humanity.   And so shall
 they, one day, come to be regarded;  so shall be judged  the
 living, and so too shall yet be judged all the historic names of
 the past.  They must all go through this new ordeal, and fiery,
 indeed, will it prove to  most of them,  for by it  shall they  be
 utterly  consumed.  Many of the demi-gods of the earth will be
 found to be idols of clay only, and they will crumble in pieces.
 " The world  knows little of its greatest men."
   He who has this development of the transcendental powers
 is always girt about with an invulnerable panoply.  Ever is he
 enveloped in an atmosphere of transparent light.   Angels stand
 beside him, and watch over him, and minister unto him.
   " He hath a daily beauty in  his life," which goes  with him
 into all  suffering, into ail drudgery, into all trial,  and the low-
 liest office of humanity becomes to him instinct with the high-
 est dignity, and the purest pleasure of the immortal soul.
   How filled with benevolence  are  all the arrangements  of
 Providence in relation to these disinterested sentiments.  Look,
 for a moment, at the two following:—first, their  susceptibility
 of general and high cultivation; and, second, the means which
 God has provided, in the universal duties and discipline of life,
 to  promote  this  cultivation.  These  high powers constitute,
more than the intellect,  the great common blessing of  men.
Once in  an  age  only, is there raised up a Newton, but the
spiritual elements of the  Howards  and Oberlins are scattered,
plentiful  and broad-cast, over  the world, and need only the
quickening sunshine and dew of proper culture to ripen and
mould them into the brightest and loftiest forms of humanity.
Only one man in a nation can read the works of La Place, but
the gospel addresses itself to all who have ears to hear.   Few
                   4 
26
can imitate  the  lives of Columbus, or Leibnitz, or Napoleon ;
but every man is called to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
  Look now at the difference in the conditions required, and in
the means provided, for the cultivation of the intellect, and of
the higher feelings.  For the first, there must be freedom from
the necessity of labor, long-continued and exclusive devotion to
the several  objects of intellectual pursuit, and the command of
more or less property or wealth.  All this is wholly unnecessa-
ry  for  the  culture  of the  moral  and religious  sentiments.
Its very absence may forward and  secure this  culture.   Like
those flowers that give out their richest fragrance when crushed
by the heel of the traveller, many of the best virtues of the soul
are strengthened and unfolded by what are commonly regarded
as the  adverse circumstances of our lot.   And they are all
chiefly educated amid the common cares and the  common du-
ties, in the  daily and appointed  discipline  of  universal life.
They require no  leisure,—they demand no wealth,—they ask
no  immunity from  toil,—they need neither travel abroad, nor
libraries, nor apparatus, nor universities at home.   The indig-
nant hatred of wrong may swell with its manliest impulse the
breast of the rough mountaineer,—the tear of divinest sympa-
thy for the sufferings of another may dim the eye of the rudest
and most unlettered cottager,—-the rapture of seraphic adora-
tion may fill with its transcendant joy the lowliest dwelling of
the unknown, the neglected, and the poor.
  The last topic that I had intended to speak upon, is the rela-
tionship  which has been established, first, between the powers
of the mind, and the  forms and phenomena of matter, including
the body ; and, secondly, between these powers, and the various
circumstances of life, in the midst of which we are placed.  The
adaptation of the powers of  the human mind, and, also, of the
organization and functions of the human body, to the  physical
constitution of things, to the residence of man on the earth, is
no  new subject, either of study or  of admiration.   It consti-
tutes, as you well know, one of the fairest and richest  fields of
natural theology, and has long  furnished manifold and signifi-
cant evidence of the being and agency of an  Almighty and 
27
benevolent God.  All these varied and  beautiful relationships
and adaptations have been rendered, by the clear and new light
which Phrenology has shed upon  the  faculties of the mind,
more manifest and more wonderful than they had ever before
appeared.  I pass by this theme with reluctance.  Many voices
are calling out to us to stop,—many hands beckon to us to pause
and  to ponder it.   Color holds  to  our eyes  her  prism, and
asks us to look,—Tune touches her harp-strings, and invites
us to listen.  The connexion which the Creator has seen fit to
establish, during the present state of our existence, between the
mental and the physical  constitution of man,—imparting, as
this connexion does, to bodily labor  the dignity of moral action,
—and making, as this connexion so manifestly  does, obedience
to the physiological laws a moral duty;—the relation between
the knowing and reasoning powers, on the  one hand, and the
properties  and  laws of the entire  universe of matter, on the
other,—accurately adapted, as this relation is, to excite and de-
velope the perceptive and reflective faculties,—demonstrating,
as it does, the constantly and inimitably progressive character
of science  and knowledge;—the  delightful  correspondence
which exists between all our social faculties, on the one hand,
and our social relations, and the discipline of life, on the other,
transforming evil  into good, endowing it with a  blessed and
beneficent ministry;—between ideality  and  all forms  and ex-
pressions, in nature  and in art, in spirit and in matter, of the
beautiful;—between  marvellousness, and all that wonder and
mystery  of man's being and environment, which science, in-
stead of dissipating and clearing up,  only deepens and increases;
—between veneration, and whatever is exalted above us,—its
worthiest and truest object being none else than God himself;—
between that supremacy of the moral and religious sentiments,
which the Father of our spirits has instituted, and the continual
advancement in all  happiness and well-being of humanity,—
thus rendering this advancement not probable, but certain,—the
necessary  and  inevitable  result  of  man's  constitution:—all
these, and many other like considerations, are crowding upon 
28  y
 us.  They are all pertinent fcp otfl, argument.   They have all
 received new elucidation, new value, and new interest from
 Phrenology, and they thus tend, in their turn, to establish and
 confirm its truth.   But the hour, which custom and courtesy
 have assigned to lectures and addresses like the present, has, a
 good while ago, expired.

 Gentlemen of the Boston  Phrenological Society,—
   I should disappoint, I an. sure, your feelings, and I should do
 wrong  to my own, were  I now to close this  Address, in  any
 other than a few words of allusion to the  departed sage  and *
 philosopher, the anniversary of whose birth we this night com-
 memorate.   I am not here t„ relate the incidents of his life.  I
 am not  here to delineate his lofty and harmonious character.
 It was not given to me to  be one of that favored company,  that
 " fit  audience, though few," who here drank  in the eloquent
 lessons of truth and wisdom, and good will to men, which fell
 from his living lips.  But, in common with you, did I hail his
 arrival on our shores with no ordinary emotions of gratification
 and  delight;—in common with you, did I feel as though a
 friend had been laid in the grave, when I heard of his sudden
 death.    Worthy was his  life of that  divine philosophy whose
 disciple and expositor he was.  Worthily did he fulfil the great
 mission upon which he came,—to reveal to humanity its true
 nature,—to vindicate its true  nobleness,—to  clear away  its
 blindness,—to rebuke its waywardness and folly,—to teach it
 its best good,—to call it to its highest happiness,—to reclaim it
 from its wanderings,—to lead it into paths of pleasantness and
 peace,—to enlighten it,  to elevate, and adorn.  Single-hearted
seeker after truth,—Lover of all human excellence and £X>od,—
 Compassionate  mourner over  all human perversity and ill,__
 Friend and benefactor of men,—Peace be to thy ashes!  They
have spread  a new and perpetual sanctity over that beautiful
place of the dead, where they rest.