The principles of phrenology / By Sidney Smith.

  • Smith, Sid.
Date:
1838
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principles of phrenology / By Sidney Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which was only excusable on the ground of ignorance which could not be enlight- ened, the fixed standard of immutable truth, and that eternal justice which truth alone could ascertain. No man who sincerely loves truth, or cherishes a devotion for science, would have treated the claims of such a system with ridicule without argument, or rejected its pretensions by a disingenuous and affected misrepresenta- tion of many of the statements of its expounders, and by carping at some of the palpable eccentricities which may have accompanied the elucidation of the subject, as if they involved the falsehood of the whole science. A laugh is not an argument, and a philosopher would disdain to cheat the ignorant or vacant mind, which it be- speaks, by seeking to raise the one as a substitute for furnishing the other. Where mere amusement is the object of the critic, satire may be a weapon the use of which may be extenuated if not justified; where refutation is the end, logic and argument are the only legitimate means. . In an age like the present, rejoicing in the practical application of the Baconian philosophy—deriving much of its happiness, and all its enlightenment, from. the adoption of inductive logic—advanced in riches, in power, in virtue, by taking no doctrine for granted—and by assuming nothing, however hallowed by antiquity or specious in appearance, until proved by stubborn facts, are we to be arrested at the threshold of our inquiries into a science professing to be derived altogether from a classification of real phenomena, open to continual observation—when we propose to make these the test of its truth, by the assertion that Phrenology necessarily in- culeates the doctrine of materialism, and cannot therefore be true? If the spiritual essence of mind be not a principle based on nature, it must be false; if it do rest on this foundation, then does it stand on the same evidence as that whereon Phrenology depends; and if that science be established by the same description of proof as that of im-materialism, then is it clear that its tendency is not towards materialism. But if Phrenology be vindicated on the evidence of nature, if that be the only standard whereby the real essence of mind can be substantiated, and the system do infer ma- terialism, then is materialism true. If Phrenology, professing to be purely a deduc- tion from the phenomena of nature, be inconsistent with those very laws upon which it claims to rest its pretensions to credibility, it is refuted, and must be false, whether it lead to materialism or not. But if it can bear an examination by those very principles in which truth alone can centre, then, whatever doctrines it involves, must be true also. Those, therefore, who allege that Phrenology leads to material- ism, are only furnishing a conclusive argument in favour of the very doctrine which they repudiate. While we are perfectly willing to believe that many Phrenologists are immateri- alists, and therefore met the charge, that the science they supported led to material- ism, by pleading the general issue, instead of objecting to the relevancy of the libel, not from cowardice of reputation, but from a conviction of the pertinence of the plea, we are equally well assured that others argued the question on the same ground, while they were materialists at heart, but were afraid to identify their name with an unpopular proposition; and there are none upon whom our suspicions more firmly rest than those who repel the charge of being materialists with rampant fury, as if it inferred in its professors some moral obliquity or mental obtundity. Such men are unworthy of the name of philosophers, because they have not yet learned that love of truth, which would give them courage to brave the malignity which would attempt to affix disreputable imputations on the open profession of what was sin- cerely believed, after calm and dispassionate inquiry. They are only equalled in our pity, by the compassion with which we regard those critics of America, who, in journals singular for their pretensions to a heterodox liberality, yet endeavour, and with success, to crush the free expression of opinion on this subject, by the bigot bawl of spiritualism against what it terms carnality, Atheism, and withering: scepticism. We adopt another, and, as it seems to us, a more logical, as well as a bolder line of argument. We ask at once, and without hesitation, what, although Phre- nology did teach materialism? We have already pointed out the absurdity of an argument @ priori, against a system claiming to be founded on fact. If it be said that materialism leads to infidelity, it would be well for the speaker to consider, whether the admission may not be an argument against Christianity, rather than against Phrenology. Let those who urge the ery of scepticism, examine their hearts, _and gee whether ¢hey be not the true infidels, who cannot depend upon the promises