SOCRATES IN BOSTON.

No. 1.

Ir any reader of the American Monthly, taking up this number, should start to hear of Socrates in Boston, and exclaim, anachronism! we would respectfully inform him that this article is not in`tended for him, or for any one else who thinks that Socrates would ever die. Socrates die! Who hath ever read that divine dialogue of Plato, in which is recorded the Swan-like Song, which has fixed in immortal music the eternity of all that is intellectual, pure, and beautiful in human nature; which has sculptured for everlasting that sublime group, in which the embodied spirit of Philosophy stands calmly with the cup that purged away the conquered dust; and knows not that Socrates, in that very act, made himself the denizen of all time? that Death, then for the first time smiled upon and welcomed, bowed himself at his feet, nor dared to lift his sceptre over him?

Wherever Science and Art hold their schools, wherever Philosophy is sought and worshipped, there always is Socrates! gentle, modest, granting to every one the attention that he claims; calm, and even playful in the immortal power of reason; keen to detect words that darken counsel, but ever carefully listening for some notes of the sphere music from all who essay to touch Apollo's lute! Still-prescient as ever of the vast unknown-he is more disposed to learn than to teach; and though he has long found knowledge little else than an accumulation of the proofs of human error, yet with a patience which is man's moral image of God's eternity, he listens ever to hear the voice of Wisdom cry.

And why should not Socrates be in Boston? As in his own Athens, the Bostonians, and "the strangers that are there, spend their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing." The greatest difficulty he finds, is in selecting a place to meet the various modern sophists in fait discussion. It is altogether too cold to sit in the open air and talk, as they used to do in Greece. And Socrates has never entirely liked the Athenæum. He finds it difficult to breathe within those brick walls. There is an unclassic guardianship round the doors that prevents free entrance. Within a few years, however, there has been a room opened for the ac

commodation of such persons as wish to draw from the books of prints collected there. Here is a rather better atmosphere; it only needs that the door should be opened a little wider, and it would be invigorating; and here Socrates may sometimes be found by those who are very earnest to find him. But so etherial are the robes in which he has arrayed himself, ever since the day he eluded the eyes of poor Crito, that it is not every one who can see him, even when he is present. But with the philosopher's stone and elixir of life, wonders may be worked; and so I found it the other day, when, by means of the one having unlocked the door, and by a draught of the other having opened my eyes, I saw him glide in upon Phrenologon and Espiriton, who had just sat down looking upon each other with no very benign aspect. It was in a voice that seemed to me to involve all harmonies in every tone, that his first words came upon mine ear.

SOCRATES. Phrenologon and Espiriton in philosophic converse! This is just what I have wished to see and hear. Now I hope to hear something; for surely the one will say all that can be said for the new science, and the other all that can be said against it!

ESPIRITON. Does Socrates call by the respectable name of science these new-fangled notions of the superficies of a human being, which have taken the name of Phrenology?—a name, by the way, to which it has no right, it being at best but Craniology, since it resolves the mind itself into the substance brain, or else leaves it to have so much substantial existence as there may be in a strain of music!

SOCRATES. Ah, Espiriton! I know too little of science to say, before I have examined it in detail, that any system involves none ! Nature is vast, and the avenues it opens up to the divinity we seek, are so numerous, that I have not had time even to number them. There may be a science, even of the superficies of a human being: for there is a law to every swell of matter. Is not Form the language of the Divinity to man?

ESPIRITON. But this system does not keep in the place assigned it by its subject. It claims to be an intellectual philosophy; and on its multifarious and heterogeneous foundation of thirty-five different stones, as it were, it has raised an artificial structure, which is to take the place of all metaphysical speculation.

PHRENOLOGON. Metaphysical Speculation! Metaphysicians have been inquiring for centuries upon the human mind, yet have they not yet established their true philosophy. What has been gained by all this waste of genius and time?

ESPIRITON. What has been gained! Such minds have been gained to the race of humanity, as Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle,

and the rest of that constellation of philosophers, whose instructions inspired the schools of Grecian Sculpture and Painting. These very arts may be said to have been gained by metaphysics: for it is well-known that the great artists of antiquity were in habits of constant communion with the Philosophers; and that Pericles, their first and most munificent patron, was the pupil of Anaxagoras. What has been gained? Go to Rome, and see what the Scipios, and Plutarch, and Cicero, and Cato, and even Cæsar will tell you. Their greatness was found in the study of the philosophy of the mind. In every country the Fine Arts, at least, have followed the fortunes of Philosophy, and of Spiritual Philosophy. What have Metaphysics done for us? The whole classic world of literature and art is the growth of those sublime inquiries into first principles, which evermore remand the soul to contemplation of itself in consciousness. It was reserved for modern sophists, who examine the mind with the anatomist's scalpel, to scoff at the immortal seeds whence has sprung all the humanity of our race, and to undervalue the Promethean planters as idle dreamers; because, having planted, they waited in sublime retirement for their radiant harvest. Not an expression of contempt for metaphysical studies can be found among the classic authors of antiquity.

PHRENOLOGON. If you go back to antiquity, I will meet you there with my science. There is not a great piece of sculpture that has come down to us which does not answer to the facts of Phrenology. The Gladiator is distinguished by his combativeness and deficiency of benevolence; and Phidias's Jupiter is the ideal of phrenology as well as of art.

SOCRATES. I detect a chord! Espiriton truly says that the ancient artists fed at the hives of Philosophy and the streams of Helicon. And Phrenologon says that their ideal forms corre. spond to the inductions of his science; and supposing these inductions true, and the forms truly expressive, it is something in favor of Spiritual Philosophy, that those who have cultivated, under its influence, that larger proportion of the creative spirit with which the artist is endowed, should instinctively find them. For there can be no doubt that forms are the expression of the creativeness of the creator. Is it not Form which awakens the activity of all that is purest and deepest in the spirit of man?

ESPIRITON. I return to my first position. The intellectual philosophy of Phrenology, if it can be called so even by courtesy, says, We are, not I AM. But Intellectual Philosophy is not an arti ficial structure, it is an organized growth from the single root of consciousness, whose discriminating characteristic among the other growths of nature is, that it is undying in all time; and that its

own renewing forms, instead of repeating themselves, constantly approximate that Divine Being, of whom man is said to be the image. The spirit that inquires into the cause, is the sap that never dies. What is this spirit but the I am? And Phrenology denies its existence, by not even referring to it while it pretends by its name to be the science of mind.

PHRENOLOGON. Phrenology is the science inducted from the manifestations of mind. And there is this in its favor, that in the most enlightened age which the world has ever seen, it counts more disciples, even in this most enlightened city, than Metaphysics can count over the civilized globe.

ESPIRITON. Its popularity is the very best argument against it. The true science of mind is the deepest of all sciences. To begin upon it requires a contemplation of its subject in consciousness; and the very condition of this contemplation is a complete abstraction from outward things, only to be attained by the few who will submit to the condition of a rigid self-denial from the indulgence of animal passions and worldly views. For it is not a narrow Individualism, which, generalized and reasoned upon, gives birth to an empirical metaphysics, and ethics, that is to be the object of thought: but it is the universal soul of human nature. Nor is the knowledge of some elements of the science of mind, gained on this hard condition, all that is necessary in order to make a philosopher. When these are attained it requires effort, no less abstracted from earthly and worldly influences, that the fountain may not cease to flow.

The human soul is a perennial spring, and the only one in the known creation, where every thing else individual is measurable. Now, since true science requires virtue as its condition, it necessarily cannot be popular. But the reverse of all this applies to Phrenology. Nothing is necessary to the phrenologist, but to lay his hand on a head and become possessed of the number of curves on its surface, and he knows immediately what are the elements of human nature; at least if he has a phrenological dictionary to give names to these various compartments. With a pair of compasses or a measuring eye, he may then look at the proportion of size, and, with a few other physiological considerations, behold he is in possession of the foundations of power! He knows men, whatever may be his moral character. The greatest rascal, the most sordid or worldly-minded knave, the grossest sensualist, not to say the most muddy-headed dolt, may thus by his senses become ac quainted with divine philosophy, that we have ever believed to descend from heaven, and only to make itself visible to pure eyes and holy hearts. Any thing is popular that produces equality by the process of levelling, and nothing can be popular which is severe on

human weakness. All men have a desire for a commanding point of view on which they may seat themselves and survey the ways of their fellow men, and perchance, get command of the springs by which they are moved, or of the knowledge by which their movements may be calculated. All men, in short, are desirous of being thought wise. But there is a choice few who have no fancy for the companionship of the multitude of vulgar, selfish aspirants for the material rewards that follow Wisdom, rather than for herself; and who suspect the keys to nature, which unwashed hands may turn.

PHRENOLOGON. But there are others of a benevolence more expansive, who are as willing to share the gifts of wisdom with all men, as they are to share the common air and sunshine. They see no objection to Phrenology, in its being adapted to the comprehension of men in general, and thus putting into their hands the means of detecting, before it is beyond their control, the selfishness that, calling itself by some noble name, has more than once bestrid this narrow world like a Colossus. The pupil of Aristotle, Julius Cæsar, Machiavelli, were not phrenologists: but it would have been well if their dupes had been so. I do not know but these ornaments and blessings to their race learnt men through metaphysics. They certainly were very different, in their moral character, from the scientific Gall, the good and gracious Spurzheim, the pure-minded and virtuous Combes, who, amidst opposition and ridicule, pursue their truth-loving way.

SOCRATES. Oh, leave these personalities. They are very modern. We did not allow them in the grove of the Academy. Why make a personal matter of that which, if it be true, belongs to every mind in the universe? It is indeed in favor of Phrenology, if it can elevate all minds. But there is no proof of its truth, in its popularity. Yet, on the other hand, its popularity is not a presumption against it if its utility is obvious. For obvious utility, as we see every day, makes even the Principia of Newton popular. And he who enters the temple of Science for his own sake, may remain there in an involuntary worship of Science itself. Let us hear what the uses of Phrenology are.

PHRENOLOGON. It teaches men to understand themselves, in spite of the presence of self-love and vanity. It teaches them to educate their children, and to legislate for their fellow-citizens. It detects insanity in every degree, and teaches us to make proper allowances for our neighbors. This answer is very general, but it would take me long to enumerate in detail the advantages of Phrenology.

SOCRATES. A system of such benevolent purposes and high pretensions certainly demands attention. Let me try whether I can learn from you what it is. You know I am perfectly ignorant, and