ADDRESS.

We have met together this evening, on the anniversary of the birth day of Dr. Spurzheim, to celebrate the institution of the Phrenological Society of Boston, and the Council of the Society has done me the honor to request me to address you on the occasion. It affords me much gratification to comply with their desire. In addressing an American audience, the speaker enjoys the inestimable advantage of breathing the air of Liberty; and only in such an atmosphere can Phrenology flourish. Napoleon, on his Imperial Throne, sustained by five hundred thousand armed men, and ruling over the prostrate continent of Europe, feared the philosophers who investigated the laws of mind and of morals. He hated metaphysicians, moralists, and even jurists; all, in short, who sought to analyze the nature of man, with a view to discover his rights as well as his duties. He seems to have had an instinctive consciousness that if the human mind were examined in its elements, and the dictates of its highest powers given forth, the conqueror and the tyrant would stand condemned before them. He disliked Phrenology, in particular, and gave significant hints to Cuvier and other men of science, of the French Capital, that they should lend no countenance to its doctrines and pretensions. There was good reason for this conduct. Had the French people been taught the sphere of activity of every faculty, instructed in the great doctrine of the supremacy of the moral sentiments, and enabled to appreciate the unerring certainty of that law of the Creator, which binds misery to all abuses of our faculties, and

enjoyment to their legitimate action, the horrible drama of the Revolution could not have been enacted, and the blood-stained Empire of Napoleon could never have arisen to scourge and to terrify the nations of Europe. Even the milder despots of Austria and Prussia, whose sway is more paternal than that of the military conqueror, sovereigns who walk forth unarmed, unguarded, nay, even unattended among their people, and who by their personal virtues and the halo of a long line of ancestors, secure the willing homage of their subjects,—even they repel the philosophy of mind. They honor the philosophers who investigate matter; but the laws of the material universe tell no tale of human rights: When, however, the mental philosopher speaks of man's intellectual powers, as instruments bestowed on him with the injunction, "Try all things, and hold fast by that which is good;" when he unfolds sentiments of Benevolence, Veneration, Ideality and Justice, under the inspirations of which men feel that they have rights to enjoy, as well as duties to perform; when he proclaims to the political bondsman that kings, emperors, and all terrestrial powers, are themselves bound by the dictates of these heavenly emotions, and that a God of beneficence and justice knows no distinction in moral rights and duties, between the prince and the peasant, then, the philosopher of mind, becomes odious to the despot, whose maxims of government will not sustain the scrutiny of this searching analysis. The Emperor of Austria forbade Dr. Gall to lecture, and virtually banished him from his dominions. To this day, the subjects of Austria and Prussia sigh while they say, "Phrenology is the philosophy of a free country; here, it cannot flourish."

Where, then, should this last and best gift of individual genius to the family of mankind bring forth its blessed fruits, in richer abundance, than in this land of freedom! Let us, then, enjoy this liberty, and let us speak of Dr. Gall's discovery in terms, if they can be found, adequate to its importance. In addressing a miscellaneous audience, a Phrenologist is bound, by the dictates of correct taste, to moderate his language, and veil the pretensions of his science, to such an extent as not to

shock, too rudely, the perhaps unfavorable prepossessions of those before whom he appears. But on this occasion, I regard myself as a Phrenologist (whose opinions are founded on nearly twenty-five years of observation and reflection, in various regions of the globe,) addressing a Society of Phrenologists, whose convictions of the great truths of the science are as firmly rooted as my own. While to them I may present ideas to which the tyro in the study is not prepared to assent, I assure him that I cordially allow him to withhold his approval; but I also very respectfully solicit him to restrain his condemnation, and not to measure the solidity of the foundations on which our convictions are built, by the slender soil on which he yet rests his own.

It is seven years since this Society was instituted (Dec. 31, 1832) for the cultivation and diffusion of a knowledge of Phrenology; but after some vigorous exertions, displaying zeal and talent in its members, its active existence has ceased. In its splendid but brief career, it does not stand forth a monument of that youthful passion for novelty, and that lack of perseverance, amidst obstacles and difficulties, which is said to characterize the people of this young and ardent nation; but it has yielded to the operation of causes which have equally, and in the same manner, paralyzed several of the Phrenological Societies of Europe. It may be interesting to trace the nature of these adverse influences, whose effects we deplore.

I observe, then, that many Phrenological Societies have perished from having prescribed to themselves objects of too limited a nature. They have undertaken chiefly the duty of verifying the observations of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, and other Phrenologists, in regard to the organs of the mind, and their functions; and have too seldom embraced, intheir sphere of action, the application of this knowledge to their physical, moral, and intellectual improvement of themselves and their fellow men; or, if this aim have found a place in the constitution and laws, it has not practically been carried into effect.

A knowledge of the organs and their functions, and of the

effects of their combinations, is indispensable as a foundation for the useful application of phrenological science; and I have long been convinced by observation, that the confidence of each disciple in the power of his principles, and also his capacity of applying them to advantage, bears a relation, ceteris paribus, to his minute acquaintance with organology. Far from undervaluing, therefore, the importance of an extensive series of observations in organology, I emphatically declare my experience to be, that it is the first step towards the formation of a true Phrenologist: it is the second step: and it is the third step towards the formation of a true Phrenologist. If any cause has contributed more than another to the distinction acquired by Edinburgh, as a school of this science, it has been the rule established in our Society, from its foundation, that the cerebral development of every member should be taken by a committee of the Society, and recorded; and that extensive observation of living heads and casts should be practised. The Phrenological Society of Aberdeen has travelled in the same path; and it also has been eminently successful. Again, therefore, I say that I place the highest value on the practical department of the science.

But experience induces me to add that this department is comparatively narrow. In a few years, an individual of ordinary powers of observation may attain to a full knowledge of organology, and a thorough conviction of its truth; and if he stop there, he will resemble a geometrician, who, after having mastered all the demonstrations of Euclid, shrinks from applying them. He would find the constant repetition of them uninteresting, because they had become familiar, and led to no practical results. The same rule holds good in Phrenology. To sustain our interest, we must proceed to apply our principles; and here our difficulties commence. The most timid mind may employ itself, in the secret recesses of its own study, in observing casts, or in manipulating living heads, and suffer no inconvenience, except perhaps a passing smile of derision from some good-natured friend, who esteems his own ignorance more excellent than our knowledge. But when the Phrenol

ogist advances openly to the application of the principles of his science, then the din of conflict arises. He invades other men's prejudices, and sometimes assails what they conceive to be their privileges; for there are persons who claim as a privilege the profits which they may make by public errors. He is then opposed, misrepresented and abused; and as he is conscious that his object is one of beneficence, he is unwilling to accept a reformer's recompense; discontinues his exertions, and the Society becomes dormant. This fate has overtaken several Phrenological Associations in Britain. They have shrunk from the practical application of their principles, and consequently sleep.

The time is not yet, but will probably soon arrive, for resuscitating them into active existence, as Societies for physiological, moral, and intellectual reform; and I venture to prophecy, that whenever they shall embody a reasonable number of members pledged to the application of the principles of Phrenology in these great fields of usefulness, their success will be conspicuous and cheering.

The human mind is regulated by uniform laws, and the same events happen, in similar circumstances, in the United States and in Britain. In several of the cities of this country which I have visited, I have found that Phrenological Societies have existed, flourished, for a brief season, and then fallen into decay; and in general, the cause appears to me to have been the same. The members soon became satisfied that the great principles of Phrenology are true; but they were not prepared to proceed to the practical application of them in any department of usefulness. They saw a public that was either hostile or indifferent to them, and they did not feel in themselves sufficient power to cope with these adverse feelings. The consequence has been that Phrenology has seemed to fall asleep. Its enemies have thought that it was dead. But when did any great truth, fraught with blessings to the human race, perish? The ignorant and despotic priesthood which sent Galileo to a dungeon, congratulated themselves that they had