frontis. All the portraits of saints which have been preserved from former ages, afford very instructive examples: and if this character be wanting in any of them it will certainly be destitute of expression. It is excessively developed in religious fanatics, and in men who have become recluse through superstition and re ligious notions. It is the seat of this organ which has taught men to consider their Gods as above them, or in a more elevated part of the heavens; for otherwise there is no more reason for supposing that God exists above the world than below it."

Dr. Spurzheim is not immediately chargeable with the sense or the nonsense which this passage unfolds, for we have not taken it from his pages. It is to Dr. Bojames that we are indebted for this new and unanswerable proof of a deity. God it seems exists and must exist because some men have a bump upon the crown of the head, which these philosophers chuse to call a religious bump. Gall, indeed, contends openly that this organ is the most evident proof of the existence of God; and Spurzheim, that it proves re ligion to be inherent in the nature of man. "These considerations," says he, "prove that the sentiment of religion is inherent in the nature of man, that it is an arrangement of creation, and that mankind will never exist without religion. Gall," continues he, "even maintains that this organ is not only necessary, but that it is also the most evident proof of the existence of God.-Can it be probable that God does not exist while there is an organ of religion? Hence, God exists." (p. 414.) What logic ever presented a more legitimate conclusion?

The next benefit we gain from a discovery of this craniological confutation of atheism is, that it settles the long contended question concerning the nature and extent of the divine residence the locality of the deity. God, it seems, must exist above us, for the religious bump is on the top of the skull, and he cannot exist any where else than above us," because there is no religious bump in any other direction.

-

Dr. Spurzheim is a more cautious writer than Dr. Bojames; yet upon the point before us he is in strict alliance with the other leaders of the school; and in the following passage, in which the name of Jesus is combined with that of Jupiter, shows evidently that the same cast of theosophy is common to all of them.

"Priests," says he, "who have chosen this state from natural propensity or vocation, and those who have become priests by external circumstances or from various other views, religious and irreligious persons, present a different degree of developement in the middle of the upper part of their heads. The pictures of the saints show the very configuration of those pious men whom Gall had first observed. It is also in this respect remarkable, that the head of Christ is always represented as very elevated. Have we the real picture of Christ?

Have artists given to the head of Christ a configuration which they have observed in religious persons; or have they composed this figure from some internal inspiration? Has the same sentiment among mo dern artists given to Christ an elevation of head, as among the ancient it conferred a prominence of the forehead upon Jupiter? At all events the shape of the head of Christ contributes to prove this organ ization." (P. 412, 413.)

In seriousness and sobriety, however, is it not a little extraor dinary not only that folly or absurdity, but that wisdom, hypo crisy, gluttony, drunkenness, mirth, melancholy, and some dozens of other powers and faculties, special as well as general, and of the most common kind, should have no chamber allotted to them, no manifestation or developement, in the hypothesis before us?" It is evident," says Dr. Spurzheim, that no organ should be named according to the abuse of its faculty. Greediness and drunkenness depend on some organization, but it is not said that there are organs of drunkenness and greediness: the abuses of physical love depend on a certain organization, but nobody speaks of an organ of the abuses of this faculty:" that is, as he explains it p. 358, organs of libertinism and adultery. "I shall show below," continues he, "that it is the same with the organs of theft and murder. These functions are abuses which result from the highest degree of activity of certain organs, which are not directed by other faculties." (p. 280.) Now we will not at present inquire whether the organ is best named, as by Dr. Gall, from the more prominent and special action to which it stimulates, or, as by Dr. Spurzheim, from its generic or general tendency. We only mean at present to object to the fact, that there appears to be no organ under any name whatever, whether of gluttony and drunkenness, of eating and drinking, or simply of hunger and thirst, to which we can refer this very general propensity of mankind in all ages and countries, and which might best, perhaps, be denominated the organ of good cheer. Our author tells us it depends on some organization; but his system does not point out to us either what or where: and we are informed that when this objection has been pressed upon him, he has replied that the proper organ is the stomach. But this is rather to evade than to meet the difficulty. The stomach is unquestionably the organ of hunger, as the eye is of sight, and the ear of hearing; but if the painter who derives a pleasure of a peculiar nature from the eye, as in the case of colours; or the mu sician, who derives a pleasure of a peculiar nature from the ear, as in the case of sounds, has each of them an express region or faculty in the brain by which such peculiar pleasure is alone excited, and on which it alone depends, so ought the glutton, the free liver, or man of good cheer, who derives a pleasure of a pe culiar nature from the stomach. While if there be no such

provision in the brain for the manifestation of gluttony, or any of the other feelings or sentiments just glanced at, the system itself, even admitting its general truth, must be miserably imperfect and unavailing: it yields a sickly shoot or two of forced vegetation, surrounded by a wilderness of error; a little doubtful light struggling with a world of palpable darkness.

Our author has candidly admitted that nothing is to be gained in the establishment of the organs of the new physiology from the study of anatomy. In our opinion much is to be gained in refutation of them. Let us confine ourselves to one single fact. The obvious divisions of the brain are three and only three; for we meet with three and only three distinct masses; the cerebrum or brain properly so called, the cerebel or little brain, and the oblongated marrow. The first constitutes the largest and uppermost part; the second lies below and behind; the third level with the second and in front of it, and is immediately connected, either in the way of origin or termination, with the spinal marrow. Now as the brain consists of three and only three very obviously distinct parts, it may be allowable to suppose that each of these parts is allotted to some distinct purpose; as, for example, that of forming the seat of thinking or of the soul; the seat of the local senses of sight, sound, taste, and smell; and the seat of the general feeling diffused over all the body: but as the nice hand of the anatomist has confounded even so rational speculation as this, by proving that many of the nerves productive of different functions communicate with the same division of the brain, while others, limited to a single function, communicate with different divisions of it:-as it has hereby shown that we know nothing of the reason of this manifest conformation, nor the respective share which each of these principal divisions takes in accomplishing the general effect-how fanciful, how presumptuous must it be to partition each of these divisions into a number of imaginary subdivisions, and to guess, for after all it comes to nothing more, at the respective uses and destina tions of all the deep mysterious chambers of the soul's secluded palace.

But the most serious objection to this hypothesis is the extraordinary fact, that the different professors of it cannot agree in dividing the brain, or in mapping the scull bone: some of them telling us that a bump or protuberance in a given situation im ports one faculty, and others that it imports another: while one or two of them have at different times assigned different faculties or manifestations to the same bump. The organ which Dr. Gall at first called that of courage, he afterwards denominated that of quarrelsomeness, and afterwards that of self defence; between which qualities and propensities there exists about the same affi nity as between love and the wind-colic. So the organ of the

theatrical talent as it was at first named, and as the name is given by Dr. Bojames, Dr. Gall afterwards discovered to be, and consequently denominated, the organ of poetry. And Dr. Spurzheim I has since found out that even this name, to adopt his own words, "does not indicate the essential faculty of the organ," p. 417; which is rather that of fancy or imagination; and he has hence called it the organ of ideality.

The But what are we to understand by ideality? The Dr. explains it by referring ns to "rapture, inspiration, what is com monly called imagination or fancy," p. 417. Now this faculty is possessed in common by various characters, some holding it in a higher, and others in a lower degree, while

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, basp of silt a Are of imagination all compact.

And hence any one of these, on being summoned before the tribunal of cranioscopic physiology, and being declared to be an idealist, would equally evince the truth and infallibility of the art. But the term ideality, or idealism, has been applied to various 'schools of philosophers as well as to various orders of sentimentalists. The Platonists, the Cartesians, the disciples of Berkeley and Hume, more than half of those who are described by Degerando or opposed by professor Stewart, are open to this imputa tation; some have gone so far as to apply it to the followers of Mr. Locke; and hence the cranioscopical archer, if he prac tise under the system before us, must be sure to hit; for "the the gay, the studious and the severe," all start before him me time, and are equally within the compass of his bow. Again, Gall was unable to find out any particular organ for the passion or affection of hope Spurzheim asserts, on the contrary, that there is such an organ, and that it lies near the tip of the head. The views which this notable discovery lays open to us are too curious to be lost.

at the

"It seems to me," says our author, "that there is a particular sentiment of hope, Gall considers hope as belonging to every organ. think there a

of hop difference between desire or want, and hope. Every

faculty, being active, produces desire; therefore animals desire; and while the respective organ is active, they wish the satisfaction of their desires: but I do not believe they have the sentiment of hope. I consider this sentiment as proper to man. No other faculty can produce hope, therefore I admit a particular organ for the manifestations of this kind. This sentiment is necessary in almost every situation; it gives hope in the present, and of a future life. Im religion it is called FAITH. Persons endowed with it in a higher degree are credulous." (P. 416.).

The scale of comparison is here worthy of all admiration. The positive is simple hope, the comparative is Christian faith, the su5 VOL. VI. NO. XI.

perlative is credulity, which forms the perfection, or completest developement, of the organ; in the same manner as fanaticism forms the completest developement of the organ that presents the fullest proof philosophers and divines have yet hit upon of the existence of a God.

Let us offer one more example of this incongruity of opinion. Gall supposes nature to have furnished us with one region or propensity for assassination or murder, and with two for thieving or stealing-daring, audacious stealing, and cunning, circumspect stealing. In other words, that she has liberally provided us with one faculty for burglary, and with another for petty larceny. Spurzheim is somewhat startled at this double allowance, and more modestly contends that nature has given us no more organs for stealing than assassination, there being but one for each; maintaining with irresistible force of reasoning, that the second stealing bump of Gall manifests nothing more than slyness, dexterity of concealment, clandestine secretion, juggling, and legerdemain: "a propensity to secrete thoughts, words, things, or projects." He takes foxes and cats as examples. We tremble for lawyers, jockeys, and cabinet ministers.

Gall, again, makes the same region or faculty which impels various animals, as the chamois, or wild goat, to prefer lofty situations, indicative of pride or self-love in man. This, in Bojames's table, is denominated "the region of vanity or conceit.”, But as such a term will not cover a fondness for elevated situations, Gall has since called it the region of loftiness or haughtiness and thus the conundrum in the last ladies' pocket-bookwhy is a wild goat like a proud man?-is soonest answered by the best female adept in the mysteries of Dr. Gall. But Dr. Spurzheim has still further confounded this goodly hypothesis by ho nestly confessing, in the first place, that he does not know where the organ that impels us to prefer one place to another resides, though he apprehends there is such an organ in some part or other of the brain: whilst, in the second place, he flatly denies that the faculty of pride or self-love lies in the part of the head assigned to it by his colleague and master, and finds for it, as he thinks, a more appropriate place. We do not wonder that in this crowded scene there should be found some difficulty of accommodation; but we cannot help thinking it rather hard that no corner, not so much as standing room, has been found for lying and swearing, if it were but as appendages to thieving and murder, which stand so much in need of their assistance.

Even upon the subject of the religious bump, upon which we have said so much already, the professors of the new physiognomy cannot altogether agree. For while Dr. Gall and Dr. Bojames. affirm that this protuberance on the top of the head indicates the