(A paper read before the New York Phrenological Society, October 29th 1840, by Rev. T. J. SAWYER, A. M.)

The subject to which I invite the attention of the Phrenological Society on the present occasion, is one that, so far as I am acquainted, has hitherto attracted no considerable notice among phrenologists. Or if it has been otherwise which from the nature of the subject is quite probable-still it has occupied, I believe, but a small space in phrenological writings. This circumstance, together with my limited acquaintance with the minutiae of phrenological science, and also the almost infinite variety of facts to which my subject relates, and on which the true doctrine must rest, will justify only very moderate expectations on your part from my present undertaking. My subject is, The influence of cerebral organization on religious opinions and belief.

I begin by saying, what almost every philosopher, and certainly every phrenologist, must acknowledge, that man is a religious being. That he is so, all history conspires to prove, all observation and experience concur to establish. Still it has not always been conceded that he is religious by nature. This important fact it was left to phrenology to demonstrate, by showing that his mental organization, or the developement of the brain, as naturally and necessarily inclines him to religion more or less, as it does to the Love of Young, the exercise of Conscientiousness, or Benevolence, of Destructiveness or Hope, or indeed to the manifestation of any of his mental or moral powers. Man is as much, and in the same way, a religious as he is a rational or social being. He exercises himself in some form of worship, not, as some have imagined, because God has made a revelation of his will, but because the Creator endowed him with the faculties necessary to consti

tute him a religious and devotional being. Hence we find him every where-in all ages and all countries, and in every stage of moral and intellectual developement-breaking away from the visible and temporal by which he has been surrounded, and with which one part of his nature is intimately allied, and fixing his mind on some higher and spiritual power, existing, it may be, in some outward and material form, but still not the less spiritual, and henceforth falling down before that mysterious power and engaging in acts of religious adoration.

It does not militate against the fact that man is a religious being, to say that his homage is frequently stupid and senseless, or that the deities whom he worships are the creatures of his own weak and sickly imagination. This proves not that man is naturally without religion, but that his intellectual and moral faculties are but feebly developed; nay, it rather shows how active the religious organs are in the rudeness and ignorance of savage life. When we contemplate the poor African, bowing down to his fetich, and bearing it about with him, feeling as safe under its magical guardianship as mighty Ilium, or the still mightier Rome, did under the divine protection of their Palladium, we cannot fail, I think, of being impressed with the fact of an original superiority imparted to the religious over perhaps all the other faculties of the human mind. It tramples alike on our intellectual and moral powers, and sometimes exhibits man religious, but leaves him with few other tokens of his humanity.

It has been remarked by Montesquieu, that "that law which, by impressing upon us the idea of a Creator, bears us towards him, is, among natural laws, the first in importance, though not in order. Man," he adds, “in a state of Nature, possesses rather the faculty of knowing than knowledge itself. It is obvious that his first ideas could not be speculative. He would think of his preservation, before he sought for the source of his being." Now, however sound this may appear in theory, it is, I believe, a fact that no people have been found in a state so rude as to be destitute of religious notions; and universal history will, I think, sustain me in the remark that the religious faculty attains as early a developement as any of our faculties. Montesquieu appeals for proof of this theory to a wild man found in the forests of Hanover and exhibited in Great Britain in the reign of George the First. But a wild man, living alone, without language, without any of the influences which modify the human charcter, is little better than an animal, and is by no means a specimen of man in a state of nature. Such a being possesses little, or rather manifests little, that is properly human. Man is a social being, and hence in society he is in a state of nature; but then he is also reli

gious, and in the exercise of his religious faculties, he manifests truly, though in part, his natural state.

This leads me to remark again, that they seem to me to err, who consider man's religious sentiments the result of mere intellectual powers. Washington Irving observes in his "Life of Columbus," that "There are few beings so destitute of reflection, as not to be impressed with the idea of an over-ruling Deity-a nation of Atheists never existed." We meet with the same mode of expression in many authors. They trace religion solely to our reasoning powers. Now if this were the true history of the religious sentiment, we should expect to find it exhibiting a developement, in nations and individuals, corresponding to the developement of their intellect. But is this the fact? Do we find the rude and uncultivated, and those whose cerebral organization presents us with feeble reflective faculties, in a manner strangers to religion and religious exercises? And is it true that the spirit of philosophy is peculiarly the spirit of devotion? We all know that this is not the case. We often see the most ignorant, those who are scarcely able to grapple with the most ordinary processes of reasoning, still very religious; by casting an eye over the mass of the world, and calling to mind the characters of the respective people occupying its surface, we shall soon be convinced that religiousness and intellectual power are by no means inseparable; and that mental and moral degradation are not to be taken as even presumptive proof of irreligion. If this be the fact, it must follow as a necessary consequence, that in strict accordance with the doctrines of phrenology, there is an organ or faculty whose peculiar or appropriate office is to manifest the religious sentiment; and such an organ do we believe Veneration to be.

But Veneration, like all the other organs of the brain, seldom or never acts alone. Its manifestations will be modified more or less by the simultaneous action of other faculties, exciting, restraining, guiding and controlling this. If this organ be fully developed, we may expect to see it manifesting itself and producing a religious character under whatever circumstances the individual possessing it may be placed. But, as Mr. Combe has well observed, it "produces merely an emotion, and does not form ideas of the object to which it ought to be directed." In Africa it would engage in the worship of a Fetich; in Hindostan, of Vishnoo; in ancient Persia, of the Sun, and in Christendom, of the God of Revelation. In all these cases it is the same faculty directed to different objects, as it happens to be guided by other faculties, or by the circumstances by which it is surrounded.

It is a question of some importance, whether religion is properly speaking the result of one faculty, Veneration for instance, or of several.

Spurzheim seems inclined to the latter hypothesis. "In my opinion," says he, "the religious phenomena are the result of several faculties. Causality searches for a cause of every thing and every event. Individuality personifies the supreme cause it arrives at; another faculty inspires admiration and wonder, and believes in some relationship between God and man; a third feeling inspires respect and reverence, and religion exists. It is strengthened by the feelings of Hope, Conscientiousness. and Cautiousness." By this it would appear that Spurzheim traced religion ultimately to Causality. But how happens it then, that we meet with great religion where there is but little Causality? For my own part, I cannot avoid the conclusion, that we are all stimulated to worship, and perhaps at first even to believe in, a superior power, more by a conscious want of such a being or a feeling of dependence which drives us out of ourselves, than by any deductions of cool and logical reasoning. Indeed, it may generally be observed that man has believed and worshipped first, and afterwards attempted, as best he might, to support his faith by argument, Faith has preceded speculation, and Veneration has often been fully developed and active while the reflective faculties have slumbered on in the feebleness of infancy. Besides, might not a similar analysis to that adopted by Spurzheim, be applied to several other of our mental phenomena? And could it not be shown with equal success that they also are the result of several faculties?

I entertain no doubt that several faculties, even more than those enumerated by Spurzheim, exercise their influence, and a mighty influence too, over man's religious feelings and opinions. Causality aids us in looking "through nature up to Nature's God," and combined with Individuality perhaps, presents us with a personal Supreme Being. Wonder, or Marvellousness, one of whose functions seems to be to bring within our grasp all that is supernatural, greatly aids in reconciling our other faculties to faith and religion. Hope also springs up to throw its magic power over the future, and to gild even "the valley and shadow of death." Ideality refines the gross objects of adoration and imparts an unseen ideal beauty to the being or beings whom we worship. Conscientiousness tends to invest the recipients of our homage with equity and justice, and to make them morally venerable in our estimation; while Cautiousness awakes the sense of reverence or torturing fear by pointing us to him with whom we stand thus connected, and to whose mighty power we must submit. Benevolence, too, and Combativeness and Destructiveness, and perhaps some or all of our other faculties, sentiments and propensities contribute their portions in forming our religious faith and guiding us in our religious services.

But the several great families of the human race possess widely

different cerebral organizations, and also the various nations of the same family, and the various individuals of the same nation. In the midst of a general sameness there is an almost infinite diversity; and the consequence is as the phrenologist could anticipate, there exists a corresponding diversity of religious opinions and belief. We observe that the object or objects of religious worship may be properly considered under several tolerably distinct classes corresponding generally, with the degree of mental and moral culture which their devotees have attained, or rather, perhaps, to the cerebral organization which they actually possess. All men are religious, even in a higher degree than they are intellectual; and hence it happens that they are not equally capable of conceiving the character of God, and they body forth to their weak minds beings in many respects like themselves.

It is a doctrine of phrenology that Size, other things being equal, is the measure of power. If one organ in the brain be proportionally larger than the others, its manifestations will not only predominate, but the individual possessing it will exhibit a superior faculty, a facility for observing, comprehending and explaining whatever belongs to its appropriate functions. He is, so to speak more at home, more the master of himself in that peculiar field, and it will exert a predominant influence over all the manifestations of his mind. It is so in matters of religion as well as in every other subject. Whenever an individual comes to contemplate an object of worship as a personal being, he must conceive that being as posesssed of a character more or less distinctly marked. Now this conception is necessarily formed by the action of his various organs, and will be to some extent colored by them. All true religion must be in some measure anthropomorphic, i. e. modelled after man's own nature, for the simple reason that we cannot conceive of any personal being who is in all respects unlike ourselves, who has no community with human nature. The blind man can form no conception of colors, the deaf, none of sounds; and you discourse to them in vain, however eloquent your language or scientific your terms, of "the pomp and garniture of the fields," of the "charms and power of music." It would be equally so in relation to any intellectual or moral attribute. We cannot conceive what that might be in another of whose existence we are not conscious in ourselves. Take away from man all Conscientiousness, all sense of justice, of right and wrong, and it is impossible to give him the slightest conception of the thing in the abstract or of the feeling in the bosom of his fellow being. In like manner if he possess the organ of Conscientiousness, and yet but feebly developed, his own sentiments will be proportionally feeble, and it will be difficult for him to conceive that