himself; and then though his actions may be evil, they cannot be criminal. It is only, therefore, by carefully excluding from the inquiry the very elements which are most essential to it, by reducing him to the level of the beasts who have no reason, or of the maniac who has lost it, that this writer on the "Constitution of Man" contrives to represent the criminal as the mere victim of his "nature," and of external circumstances. The mischievous nonsense on which we have thus commented, is not unconnected with one of the features of this work which is most pleasing, and has, doubtless, much contributed to its popularity, viz., the general benevolence of its views. It occurs in the chapter which is devoted to the investigation of the subject of "Punishment," as conducted under the operation of the natural laws, and of the laws of man. Mr. Combe's opinions on this subject are such as to require that negation of moral responsibility which we have seen him thus attempt to establish. A definition of the sources of "crime" which excludes the idea of criminality, is the natural basis of a rule for the treatment of crime which excludes the idea of punishment. Mr. Combe absolutely objects to the idea of a retributive infliction of suffering. He would shut up the murderer exactly on the same principle on which he would shut up a lunatic,-first of all, for the sake of prevention; and, secondly, for the sake of cure. But the infliction of any suffering not necessarily involved in the effecting of these objects he considers the result of the "yet untamed barbarism of our own minds." Now, it is obvious that the idea of punishment, properly so called, is not recognised at all under this sysPunishment, like crime, is a relative term-relative to the very element which Mr. Combe excludes. Punishment is something more than mere suffering. It is only in a derived and secondary sense that we should apply the word at all to the suffering accidentally incurred, for example, by one of the lower animals; nor does the treatment to which the lunatic is subjected, though involving suffering, more or less, ever receive the name. The essential idea of punishment is, that kind of suffering which the sentiment of justice perceives to be due, retributively, to the infraction of a moral duty, by a responsible agent. Accordingly, in order to forbid this kind of suffering, Mr. Combe finds it necessary to exclude as much as possible, the element of a free moral will: and hence that enumeration of the sources of crime, so carefully framed to keep out of sight the existence of such a will. In conducting this operation, Mr. Combe exhibits a facility of shutting his eyes, for the time being, on every fact which cannot be made to fit neatly in, however certain and obvious, which is very wonderful, although character istic of all extreme theorists. For example, in his first "source" of crime," particular organs being too large, and spontaneously too active"-it never seems to occur to him that, at least, another source of crime-and a more real, because more ultimate source-may be the too great activity of an "organ" which was not spontaneous, but which was voluntarily roused, and thereafter deliberately encouraged. So of his second cause-" great excitement produced by external causes," he forgets that "great excitement" may be produced by causes not external-but internal, to the stimulants administered by a combination of the other faculties voluntarily directed, so as to supply them. Again, it never occurs to him, that even in the case of the excitement really coming from external causes, the criminal is frequently responsible for having voluntarily exposed himself to their influence-perhaps that he failed to avoid them, perhaps that he actually sought them. Again, he forgets that even in the extreme cases in which evil passions or propensities do exercise a power which is almost uncontrollable, this power is generally an acquired one-acquired through a long course of criminal indulgence and wilful cherishing. If these indisputable facts of mental science are incompatible with the phrenological system, it would only prove, that that system is false: if they are beyond the sphere of its cognizance, it would prove that that system is incomplete. But the truth is, that these facts are not only perfectly compatible with those which phrenology undertakes to prove, but, if we are to believe Mr. Combe, in other portions of his book, are facts on which phrenology has cast a new and original light. We cannot allow, indeed, that this science has made it more certain than it was before, that mental capacities, naturally weak, may be strengthened by exercise and legitimate use, or that others naturally overstrong, may be repressed by voluntary discipline: but it is, at least, satisfactory to know, that in Mr. Combe's opinion, phrenology has revealed to us the very mode in which these ends are accomplished. He tells us "The brain partakes of the general qualities of the organized system, and is strengthened by the same means as the other organs. When the muscles are called into vivacious activity, an increased influx of blood and of nervous stimulus takes place in them, and these vessels and fibres become at once larger, firmer, and more susceptible of action. Thought and feeling are to the brain what bodily exercise is to the muscles." When Mr. Combe, therefore, draws up a definition of the sources of crime, which excludes all consideration of the existence of a responsible will, it is not that he is ignorant of its command ing influence over the elements of character, and the results of conduct, for he traces this influence to the operation of a physiological law but it simply is, that this is an inconvenient factinconsistent with the position he is maintaining at the time. The facility with which he narrows his field of view, so as to leave outside of it everything which it is troublesome to include-everything which does not fit easily into the plan of his definitions-is one of the characteristics of the book. The orbits of the heavenly bodies are modified and altered by the attraction of surrounding spheres but there is nothing of which the theories of Mr. Combe shew such an absolute independence as the disturbing influence of an adjacent truth. : We do not mean to accuse Mr. Combe of any conscious dishonesty of argument. There is no artifice whatever. It is merely the common error of extreme enthusiasts, that of dealing in half truths—so easily convertible, as every one knows, into whole untruths. His errors are those of a class: and are inseparable from that idolatry of the physical sciences which places a disproportionate value on their truths, as compared with the higher truths which lie beyond. Passing from morals to religion, in so far as Mr. Combe incidentally refers to it, we shall find the same tendencies of opinion. On one point, indeed, of no small importance, it seems to us that he makes himself out more at variance with received doctrines than he really is. The corruption of human nature is an idea to which he never refers, except in terms of somewhat scornful rejection. Yet every page of his own writings is one continued groan over the manifold evils which man has brought, and is bringing on himself, by wilful violations of every natural law-not always through simple ignorance, but on the contrary, very often with knowledge ample enough to have required from him more complete obedience. He does, indeed, express his hope, that through the blessings of that new philosophy, whose foundation-stone is a knowledge of the mind's physical " organs," man may yet be found in harmony with himself. But when we turn to his own descriptions of what that "self" has hitherto been, this hope turns out to be but a sorry consolation. He says "In all ages, practical men have dedicated three-fourths of their time to pursuits calculated to gratify the faculties which bear reference to this world alone: but, unfortunately, the remaining fourth has not been devoted to objects related to their higher powers. Ambition has not been directed exclusively to moral objects, but, generally, the reverse. The hours which should have been dedicated to the improvement of their higher faculties have been either devoted to the pursuit of gain, sensual pleasure, or the objects of a vulgar ambition, or spent in mere trifling amusements or relaxations." Phrenology and Religion. 61 Then, has not Mr. Combe to deplore that even now the truths of his phrenological "philosophy of mind" are habitually disregarded, even those of them which are generally admitted? It is as difficult to place Mr. Combe "in harmony with himself, as it is to effect this object, in reference to mankind in general, until we discover that he does admit "corruption," in a certain sense, telling us that it "consists in man's tendency to abuse his faculties." For our own part, we are satisfied with this :-An universal tendency to abuse his faculties, visible, more or less, in all men, and in all ages, from the first moment of his will being able to show itself,-is as much on this head as can be required by the most zealous divine. That kind and degree of corruption which is involved in the subjection of man's nature to the excesses of separate impulsive" organs," without a Will to guide them, is no part of the Christian system, but belongs exclusively to the " philosophy" of Mr. Combe. There is a whole chapter devoted to the "relation between science and scripture," a subject on which the author tells us that he enters rather for the sake of the interest of the subject, than from any feeling of the necessity of a defence. There is a great deal of what we may call the Galileo class of argument in this chapter, which we have no inclination to dispute; and a long array of the cases, certainly numerous enough, in which the bigotry and ignorance of ecclesiastics and religious parties have opposed and impeded the investigation of scientific truth. But unfortunately Mr. Combe, by the manner in which he handles the subject, does much to aggravate the evil. He must remember that though it is the height of folly to oppose religious to scientific truth-or to be jealous of any fact which our faculties enable us to ascertain, it is by no means foolish but very wise, to be exceedingly jealous of the use which may be made of such facts by that strange Being who, as Mr. Combe admits, exhibits an inveterate "tendency to the abuse of his faculties. must also remember that each particular class of mind, and each particular exercise of the faculties, is connected with a tendency to some particular abuse; and that one besetting danger of those who have an active inquiring intellect, much engaged in the search after secondary causes, is to over-estimate the relative value of the little which their knowledge has revealed, as compared with the truths, vast and infinite, which their ignorance conceals. Whenever, then, the facts of science are made the subject of this abuse-when such men look on their "Philosophy" as embracing a very much larger circle than it really does, and are therefore perpetually "intruding into the things which they have not seen" by presumptuous conclusions from what they do see, they are serving the cause of bigotry and ignorance, He by exhibiting as the result of science, what is nothing but the result of their own infirmities. Now we cannot be surprised to find that a writer who, even within the legitimate circle of his own investigations, groups together so unskilfully the facts with which he has to deal, and seems incapable of keeping in mind more than a few even of these at any one time-who regards phrenology as the basis of the philosophy of mind, instead of the philosophy of mind as the basis of phrenological observation -and who omits from among the sources of crime, that one source apart from which it ceases to be a crime at all-is still less capable of estimating fairly the great truths which lie beyond the boundary of his own science; or that when he treats of these at all, he does so in a light which is not their own. Accordingly, his arguments continually tend to explain away all those spiritual influences which are more specially the subjects of religious faith, and which do not easily come under the explanations of the phrenological philosophy of mind. Although the existence of such internal influences is among the deepest intuitions of the human spirit, as well as emphatically declared in Revelation, Mr. Combe surmounts every difficulty by reminding us, that "all existing interpretations of Scripture" have been made by men who were ignorant of phrenology; and as this is, in his opinion, the "most complete system of mental philosophy which has hitherto been taught," he naturally is disposed to doubt any mental phenomena which that system finds it difficult to include. Thus, where the doctrine of God's direct influence on the soul is referred to, Mr. Combe seeks for some form in which he can reconcile it with his own notion of the brain's inalienable functions, and exclude the idea of any external interference: declaring "his inference that the Divine Spirit mentioned in Scripture as a power influencing the human mind, invariably acts in harmony with the laws of organization." Now this may bear a meaning to which no serious objection can be made. Undoubtedly, if God acts on the human spirit, he must have given it faculties and dispositions on which that action can be made to operate. But if no more than this be the import of Mr. Combe's "inference," would he have thought it worth while to express it? Is not the idea he intends to convey something of this sort that the power of operation on the human mind, by the Divine Spirit, is strictly limited by the "size and activity of the cerebral organs with which each man is born? And do we not see in this position-only carried into a higher department of truth-that same narrowness of vision which could not combine into one view the existence of separate faculties, and the existence also of an independent will gifted with the power of regulation and control? We have seen that within the limits |