This demand we acknowledge to be righteous; and we feel no disposition to evade it. We admit, then, the existence of the conception of merit, as connected with the practice of virtue; but we contend that that conception. arises from the activity of the inferior sentiments, and selfish feelings. The proof of this position we shall present, in an illustration or two, derived from the volume of Inspiration. We all, as it were, instinctively, ascribe merit to the martyr constancy with which Daniel's three worthies awaited, and endured, the infliction of the sentence uttered against them, for refusing to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden image. But it is not Conscientiousness, or Reverence, or Benevolence, which ascribes it. It is Love of Approbation, contemplating them reduced from the post of honor in which they were set over the affairs of the Province of Babylon,' to that condition of ignominy, in which they stood as criminals before their king, and as violators of his commands; and Cautiousness, which tells us of the fearful onsets which Conscientiousness and Veneration must have endured, when the thoughts of the burning fiery furnace were presented; and when 'Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against them; and he commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated; and that the most mighty men in his army should bind' the victims of his rage, and cast them into it: these selfish sentiments can understand the nature of the assaults which the superior ones sustained; and it is for this reason that we attach the idea of merit to their supremacy.

We will take another illustration from the same sacred volume;-that of the patriarch Job. What are the particulars in his history, a contemplation of which suggests to our minds the idea of the merit of his enduring and inviolate piety? In other words, what are those sentiments and feelings in us, which invest the virtue of that patriarch with the attribute of merit? Our higher sentiments highly approve of his exclamation, when messenger after messenger arrived, each deepening the affliction of the holy man,

until he was cast from the pinnacle of earthly greatness, into the depths of desolation and distress: 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;''shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?' 'Blessed be the name of the Lord!' But the very fact that this is the language of the superior sentiments, prevents any perception, by these sentiments, of the merit of their predominance. When we see merit in the piety of Job, we look at him spoiled of his possessions, bereft of his children, degraded from rank to wretchedness, from honor to disesteem; and, moreover, anticipating, occasionally, deeper and more terrible calamities for the future. But these are the visions of the inferior sentiments, and the propensities; and the conception of merit is theirs also. By sympathy, our Acquisitiveness is wounded by the loss. of his flocks, and herds, and camels, and asses, and servants; and our Philoprogenitiveness and Adhesiveness, in the bereavement of his children; and our Self-Esteem, under the loss of station, and influence, and importance; and its substitution, by degradation, and wretchedness; and our Love of Approbation, which sees those younger than he having him in derision, making him their song, and their by-word; and not sparing to spit in his face;' and remembers that 'Unto him men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at his counsel. After his words they spake not again, and his speech distilled upon them; he chose out their way, and sat chief; and dwelt as a king in the army.' It is the activity of these, together with that of a morbid Cautiousness, foreboding still further trials, which invests the virtue of Job with the attribute of merit. these are all, either animal propensities, or inferior sentiments; and, of course, their decision, on the merit of virtue is inadmissible. Nature, then, in her blind impulses, or as her voice is heard in the suggestions of the inferior sentiments, proclaims the merit of virtue, and Phrenology accounts for her error; but at the same time declares that it is an error; and that the higher sentiments correspond, in their decision, with the sentence of inspiration;-that

But

'when we have done all those things which are commanded us, we are unprofitable servants; and have done only what was our duty to do:' and that, consequently, 'the reward will be of grace, and not of debt.' And it must be so; for if the merit of the most virtuous actions is perceived solely by the operation of the lower and selfish part of our nature of those feelings and desires, in a word, which are opposed to virtue, these actions must necessarily appear devoid of all merit to that Infinite Mind, in which such feelings and desires are necessarily unknown.** He views things exactly as they are; and he views virtue, even when perfect, as without merit; therefore it is without merit; and much more the virtue, so called, of imperfect beings.

Thus we have seen that Revelation and Phrenology harmonize,—that some mysterious truths of the one are analogically illustrated by the other;-that both teach the supremacy of man's moral nature;— that Revelation addresses the individual powers and faculties, which Phrenology ascribes to man;-that Revelation and Phrenology, alike, suppose man designed, by his Creator, to believe mysterious truths;-and capable of believing them;-and guilty in disbelieving them;-and righteously punished if this disbelief be persevered in;—that both agree in declaring human nature in a fallen condition;-and requiring a change, which is really radical;- that both recognise a moral conflict in the breast of a good man, between antagonist principles;-that both acknowledge a diversity of endowment, and consequent responsibility;—that both demand candor and charity in judging of others;—that both agree in their estimate of virtue; and in exploding the doctrine of human merit. Truth and Error cannot have so many points of harmony.

* Phrenological Journal, Vol. III. No. XII. p. 509.

APPENDIX.

NATURAL LAWS.-Text, p. 27.

In the text it is mentioned, that many philosophers have treated of the Laws of Nature. The following are examples

:

Mr. Stewart says, 'To examine the economy of nature in the phenomena of the lower animals, and to compare their instincts with the physical circumstances of their external situation, forms one of the finest speculations of Natural History; and yet it is a speculation to which the attention of the natural historian has seldom been directed. Not only Buffon, but Ray and Derham, have passed it over slightly; nor, indeed, do I know of any one who has made it the object of a particular consideration but Lord Kames, in a short Appendix to one of his Sketches.'-Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. iii. p. 368.

Mr. Stewart also uses the following words :- Numberless examples show that Nature has done no more for man than was necessary for his preservation, leaving him to make many acquisitions for himself, which she has imparted immediately to the brutes.

'My own idea is, as I have said on a different occasion, that both - instinct and experience are here concerned, and that the share which belongs to each in producing the result, can be ascertained by an appeal to facts alone.'-Vol. iii. ch. 338.

Montesquieu introduces his Spirit of Laws by the following observations: Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations derived from the nature of things. In this sense, all beings have their laws; the Deity has his laws; the material world its laws; the intelligences superior to man have their laws; the beasts their laws; man his laws.

'Those who assert that a blind fatality produced the various effects we behold in this world, are guilty of a very great absurdity; for can any thing be more absurd than to pretend that a blind fatality could be productive of intelligent beings?

‘There is, then, a primitive reason; and laws are the relations which subsist between it and different beings, and the relations of these beings among themselves.

'God is related to the universe as Creator and preserver; the laws by which he has created all things are those by which he preserves them. He acts according to these rules, because he knows them: he

knows them because he has made them; and he made them because they are relative to his wisdom and power, &c.

'Man, as a physical being, is, like other bodies, governed by invariable laws.'-Spirit of Laws, b. i. c. i.

Justice Blackstone observes, that 'Law, in its most general and comprehensive sense, signifies a rule of action; and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational or irrational. Thus we say, the laws of motion, of gravitation, of optics, or mechanics, as well as the laws of nature and of nations. Thus, when the Supreme Being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all movable bodies must conform.' If we farther advance from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, WE SHALL FIND THEM STILL GOVERNED BY LAWS; more numerous, indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progress of plants, from the seed to the root, and from thence to the seed again;—the method of animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and all other branches of vital economy ;—are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down by the great Creator. This, then, is the general signification of law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being; and in those creatures that have neither power to think, nor the will, such laws must be invariably obeyed, so long as the creature itself subsists; for its existence depends on that obedience.'-Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, vol. i. sect. 2.

'The word law,' says Mr. Erskine, 'is frequently made use of, both by divines and philosophers, in a large acceptation, to express the settled method of God's providence, by which he preserves the order of the MATERIAL WORLD in such a manner, that nothing in it may deviate from that uniform course which he has appointed for it. And as brute matter is merely passive, without the least degree of choice upon its part, these laws are INVIOLABLY OBSERVED in the material creation, every part of which continues to act, immutably, according to the rules that were from the beginning prescribed to it by Infinite Wisdom. Thus philosophers have given the appellation of law to that motion which incessantly pervades and agitates the universe, and is ever changing the form and substance of things, dissolving some, and raising others, as from their ashes, to fill up the void: Yet so, that amidst all the fluctuations by which particular things are affected, the universe is still preserved without dim