ally determined by the influence of external circumstances. The life of Sheridan shows, that while he possessed high mental qualities, he was also the slave of degrading and discreditable vices.

The head of the celebrated Philip Melancthon the reformer and associate of Luther, furnishes an example of the decided predominance of the moral and intellectual regions over that of the animal propensities. The drawing is copied from a portrait by Albert Durer.

The following description of the head is given in Dr. Spurzheim's work, Phrenology in Connection with the Study of Physiognomy.' It is the brain of an extraordinary man. The organs of the moral and religious feelings predominate greatly, and will disapprove of all violence, irreverence, and injustice. The forehead betokens a vast and comprehensive understanding; and the ensemble a mind the noblest, the most amiable, and the most intellectual that can be conceived.' He was born in 1495, and rendered great services to the cause of the reformation by his admi

rable abilities and great moderation. He was humane, gentle, and readily won upon by mild and generous treatment; but when his adversaries made use of imperious and menacing language, he rose superior to his general meekness of disposition, and showed a spirit of ardor, independence, nay, of intrepidity-looking down with contempt upon the threats of power, and the prospect even of death.'

The demarcations in the figures are not arbitrary. The space before AA corresponds to the anterior lobe of the brain; and the space above B includes all the convolutions that lie on the upper surface of the brain, and rise higher than the organs of Cautiousness, corresponding to nearly the middle of the parietal bones, and of Causality, situated in the upper part of the forehead. It is not difficult to distinguish these regions; and a comparison of their relative proportions with the talents and dispositions of individuals, will convince any intelligent, honest, and accurate observer, of the truth of the foregoing statements. I have examined the heads, or casts of the heads or skulls of several hundred criminals, in various countries, an found them all to belong to the classes represented by the figures of the heads of Hare or of Sheridan, and never saw one of them with a brain like that of Melancthon. Neither have I ever seen a man distinguished by moral and intellectual qualities like those of Melancthon, presenting a brain like that of Hare. The figures represent Nature, not a casual appearance, but forms which are found constantly in combination with the qualities here named: and I ask why Nature, when she speaks to a geologist or chemist, should be listened to with profound attention, and her revelations treasured for human improvement, but scouted and despised when she speaks to and is interpreted by phrenologists? It is God who speaks from Nature in all her departments: and the brain is as assuredly his workmanship as the Milky-way, with all its myriads of suns. If the doctrine before expounded

be true, that every faculty is good in itself, that the folly and crime which disgrace human society spring from abuses of the faculties, and that the tendency to abuse them originates in the disproportion of certain parts of the brain to each other, and in moral and intellectual ignorance of the proper mode of manifesting them, how completely do these considerations go to the root of theology and morals! At present the influence of organization in determining the natural dispositions is altogether neglected or denied by the common school of divines, moralists, and philosophers; yet it is of an importance exceeding all other terrestrial influences and considerations.

If we imagine an individual endowed with the splendid cerebral development of Melancthon, under the influence of youthful passion and inexperience, uniting himself for life to a female possessing a head like that of Hare or Bishop, the effects could not fail to be most disastrous, with respect both to his own happiness, and to the qualities of his offspring. In the first place, after the animal feelings were gratified, and their ardor had subsided, the two minds could not by any possibility sympathize. Many marriages are unhappy in consequence of an instinctive discord between the modes of feeling and thinking of the husband and wife; the cause of which they themselves cannot explain. The mental differences will be found to arise from different developments of brain. If the husband be deficient in the organ of Conscientiousness, and the wife possess it in a high degree, she will be secretly disgusted with the dishonesty and inherent falsehood of his character, which she will have many opportunities of observing, even when they are unknown to the world. 'What,' says Dr. Johnson, 'can be expected but disappointment and repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of youth, in the ardor of desire, without judgment, without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, or purity of sentiment? Such is the common process of

marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or to diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness before had concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.'

Until Phrenology was discovered, no natural index to mental qualities, that could be practically relied on, was possessed, and each individual, in directing his conduct, was left to the guidance of his own sagacity; but the natural law never bended one iota to accommodate itself to that state of ignorance. Men suffered from unsuitable alliances, and they will continue to do so, until they shall avail themselves of the means of judging afforded by Phrenology, and act in accordance with its dictates. In the play of the Gamester, Mrs. Beverly is represented as a most excellent wife, acting habitually under the guidance of the moral sentiments and intellect; but married to a being who, while he adores her, reduces her to beggary and misery. His sister utters an exclamation to this effect: Why did just Heaven unite such an angel to so heartless a thing! The parallel of this case occurs too often in real life; only it is not 'just Heaven' that makes such matches, but ignorant and thoughtless human beings, who imagine themselves absolved from all obligation to study and obey the laws of Heaven, as announced in the general arrangement of the universe.

The justice and benevolence of rendering the individuals themselves unhappy who neglect this great institution of the Creator, become more striking when, in the next place, we consider the effects, by the organic law, of such conduct on the children of these ill-assorted unions.

Physiologists, in general, are agreed, that a vigorous and healthy constitution of body in the parents, communi

cates existence in the most perfect state to the offspring *, and vice versa.

The following instances of the transmission of defects are given in the Athenæum:-'Many persons who have never known any, or perhaps not more than one, deaf and dumb individual in the immediate circle in which they lived, would be astonished to read the lists of applications circulated by the committee for the asylum in the Kent Road, so ably conducted by Mr. Watson, which usually contain nearly a hundred names. The most remarkable fact, however, which these lists present, is the number of deaf and dumb children frequently found in the same families, evidently in consequence of the continued operation of some unknown cause connected with the parents. Three, four, and five, deaf and dumb children are not uncommonly met with in one family, and in some instances there have been as many as seven. In the family of Martain, a laborer, out of ten children seven were deaf and dumb; in the family of Kelley, a porter, seven out of eight were deaf and dumb; and in the family of Aldum, a weaver, six out of twelve were deaf and dumb. The result of a table of twenty families, given in the 'Historical Sketch of the Asylum,' published by Powell, Dowgate-hill, is ninety deaf and dumb out of one hundred and fifty-nine children.†'

Many observers of mankind, as well as medical authors, have remarked also the transmission, by hereditary descent, of mental talents and dispositions.

Dr. King, in speaking of the fatality which attended the House of Stuart, says, 'If I were to ascribe their calamities to another cause (than an evil fate), or endeavor to account for them by any natural means, I should think they were chiefly owing to a certain obstinacy of temper, which appears to have been hereditary and inherent in all the Stuarts, except Charles II.'

It is well known that the caste of the Brahmins is the * See Appendix, No. II.

+Athenæum, 28th May 1828, p. 489.