of righteous action to be virtue, from which all considerations of self are excluded; and which arises from the activity of Conscientiousness, Reverence, and Benevolence, either separately, or conjointly and in harmony. Now it is manifest that the proper tribunal at which to judge of the merit of virtue, or to try the question whether it really possess merit, is not that of those sentiments and feelings, or any of them, which are selfish in their nature; for these are partial, and interested judges. In other words, the inferior sentiments must not be entrusted with the decision of a cause of so great importance;—it can be decided only by the superior ones; Conscientiousness, Veneration, and Benevolence. Now it is obvious that Conscientiousness can see no merit in acting righteously; for such action is merely the gratification of its inclination: and who ever saw merit in seeking gratification? It is equally plain that Veneration perceives no merit in rendering homage to superiority; for, to render such homage is its natural tendency; or, again, the sentiment is itself gratified by so doing. The same is true of Benevolence; for where is the truly benevolent man who could ever see merit in being kind, and compassionate? You only pain him by the allusion to it: he can see nothing, in his benevolent action, but duty; and feels that he would have been guilty, had he not performed it. If it be said that these sentiments are not competent judges of the question in hand, because that question relates to their own actions? we reply, that they are, certainly, unexceptionable judges, since the decision which they pronounce, is against themselves.

It may, perhaps, be said, that, in our zeal to harmonize Phrenology and Revelation, we are in danger of arraying Nature against Phrenology; for, that in fact, we are in the daily practice of conceiving merit, as connected with the operations of Conscientiousness, and Veneration, and Benevolence; and that these conceptions have their foundation in Nature;-they must therefore be accounted for Phrenologically; or Nature and Phrenology will be at issue

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. But 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

'

'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 ex

amples 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