Few words will suffice in answer to these observations. Such critics greatly overrate the extent of my ability; for my strength lies in the goodness of my cause. I have studied Phrenology, and read its doctrines directly in the page of nature. What I assert in point of fact, I have seen and handled; and what I maintain in argument, I have found confirmed by practical results. Those who have attacked the doctrines, on the other hand, have not studied them as science; they have not read the facts, on which they found their objections, in the book of nature; and they have not tried how their arguments would harmonize with other ascertained truths, nor how they would issue if carried into practical effect. Full of confidence in themselves, and of contempt for their adversary, each has come to the combat without arms and without armour; and if in some instances the assailant has reeled back from the shock of the encounter, the result must be ascribed to the inherent weakness of his cause, which deprived him of the advantages of his talents, while truth added to the strength of him whom he assailed. I plead guilty of being known to the world only as a Phrenologist. Believing, as I do, that the same Divine Wisdom which ordained the universe, presided also at the endowment of the brain with its functions; that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that mind is the noblest work of GOD; convinced, also, that this discovery carries in its train the most valuable improvements in education, morals, and in civil and religious institutions,-I cannot conceive a nobler employment than that of vindicating its claims to consideration, and stemming, to the extent of my feeble ability, the mighty flood of prejudice and injustice with which, like all other important discoveries, it has been deluged. These sentiments are not the ebullitions of mere excited enthusiasm. They are stated in sober calmness in the work on the Constitution of Man above referred to. To be recognised, hereafter, by impartial and enlightened men, as having been in any degree instrumental in braving the storm of popular derision with which Phrenology was at first assailed, will more than satisfy all the ambition for posthumous fame which ever fired my bosom; and I never was so extravagant as to expect, while alive, any reward from "the great in science and philosophy" except ridicule and dislike. They have chosen their part, and I have chosen mine: the long day will do justice to all. CONTENTS. Page |