The ideas obtained from external impressions made upon the senses are as incidental as the impressions themselves, and therefore cannot be innate; for innate beings, and it signifies not of what kind they are, cannot be produced, although they may be brought into operation, by an object or a circumstance that is of an accidental character. The senses, useful and necessary as they are to give us knowledge of the external world in its beautiful and unbounded variety, are nevertheless incapacitated to experience a consciousness and belief of existence. PHRENOLOGIST. They are simply inlets to the conscious faculties, which are internal, and without which there would be no consciousness, no impressions, no ideas, no manifestation of any description, even though the senses existed.* The faculties, says Spurzheim, which perceive the impressions, and conceive the ideas, are not innate. Thus the ideas of a plant, stone, or animal are innate ; but these objects make impressions on our senses, which again produce sensations or ideas in our minds, and both these senses and the faculties of our mind are innate. In the same manner the sensations and ideas of external and accidental events are nowise innate; and in general no determined action of any faculty, but the faculty itself, is innate. The propensity of love, not the subject of love ; the faculty of speaking, not the peculiar language; the faculty of comparing and judging, not the determinate judgment; the faculty of poetry, not the peculiar poem, * In alluding to the senses here, I refer to those of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and organs of touch, and not to the particular acts of consciousness in the mind caused by their instrumentality. are innate. Thus there is a great difference between innate faculties and innate ideas and sensations. The doctrine of innate faculties, of which the early philosophers knew comparatively nothing, and upon which Gall and Spurzheim threw much light, is becoming more generally understood and received. A proper distinction, however, is not made, even in these days, between the faculties and their manifestations. So necessary is this `distinction, that no correct system of mental philosophy can be established without it; and thus it is that the theories of these early writers are far from being satisfactory. In any subject so abstruse as that of this philosophy, great difficulty must be experienced in comprehending a difference between the faculty and its function. Unless this be done unless we duly understand which is cause and which is effect, it is in vain to seek for just conclusions. Spurzheim proved the existence of innate or primary faculties in mankind by the constancy of the human character; by the uniformity of the nature of man at all times and in all countries; by the tendency of natural genius; by the peculiarity of every species; by the determinate character of each of the sexes; by the peculiarities of every individual; by the relation between the organization and the manifestation of the respective faculties; and, finally, by the circumstance that man is a created being. STEWART. Instinctive faculties, and mental faculties which are commonly termed physical, are synonymous. Instinct implies both inclination and action, and is the result of these innate properties. The power that produces voluntary motion-the means whereby instinctive inclination is gratified, is also inbred; and the desire of gratification is so natural, that it must be considered an essential quality also. This power and this desire are perceived through all animal nature: without them animals would not exist. In this power resides that quality which is termed will, another essential quality of the mind. PHRENOLOGIST. The faculties which are common to man, to the inferior animals, or to both, are equally innate, immutable, and inseparable; and it is not because there is superiority of feeling and of understanding in man, that the faculties of neither can be determined and stable. This superiority arises from the superiority of the mental constitution of from the faculties being, for wise and special purman ; poses, ennobled in man; from the higher and more exclusive properties in human nature having power, by their laws of association, which are more complex and dignified, to influence and direct those common to man and brutes. To conclude-Without innate faculties, laws, and powers, nothing could be stable-nothing, in fact, could exist. Such things as chance properties-properties resulting from some accidental circumstance-cannot help to constitute any part of nature; neither are innate properties, subject, as far as their entity is concerned, to the will and caprice of man. Without them, indeed, there would be no will. It is by innateness of faculties, mental and vital, that each kind of animal preserves its nature so unchangeable as it is, notwithstanding the influence and diversity of surrounding events, and the constant succession of supplies and wastes carried on in the system. Every faculty, therefore, the organ of which is found on the phrenological map or bust, is an innate property of the mind, exists in every human being, and was created and assigned to mankind for wise purposes, how much soever the tendency of some of them may seem to contradict the assertion. It is reasonable to conceive, whatever revolution the constitution of man from his original state might have experienced, that not one new faculty, which is of an innate kind, has been added to the mind of man since the fall. We must not suppose that, because evil has been introduced, it is necessarily an essential, an innate faculty of the mind. The evil that springs from the mind, and it certainly cannot spring from any thing except the mind, results from an abuse in the exercise of the mental faculties. It may indeed be shewn, by entering more particularly into this subject, that every organ serves a purpose in the human economy, which is both salutary and necessary to man during his earthly pilgrimage, if at least it be properly directed; which, by the will, the reason, the consciousness of good and evil existing within us, may be the case to a great extent. They must have been created for a good purpose -a purpose calculated to answer an end that shall contribute not merely to the happiness of man here, but to his glory hereafter. (64) COLLOQUY IV. STEWART. It is objected, that the classification of phrenologists contains too many organs, or that there are more faculties enumerated on the map than can be necessary, or even satisfactorily proved to exist. Others, in the meantime, object to there being so few organs, and say that there are not enough to account for the various manifestations which take place. PHRENOLOGIST. In respect to there being too many organs, the phrenologist is prepared with a great number of facts to shew, that all the organs are so well and fully established, as to place the existence of either one of them beyond doubt. As to there not being a sufficient number of organs, we have to consider the fact of Nature having power, by reason of her laws of association, to produce actions as the effects of a connection between different faculties and different objects. It would, moreover, be contracting our ideas of nature to imagine that any one innate faculty had no power to produce more than one action. Admitting the connection, and that different kinds or degrees of action or function may result from either faculty, it is |