THE CONSTITUTION OF MA N. BY GEORGE COMBE, ESQ. ESSAYS ON DECISION OF CHARACTER, &c. BY JOHN FOSTER, ESQ. PHILOSOPHY OF SLEEP, AND ANATOMY BY ROBERT MACNISH, ESQ. INFLUENCE OF LITERATURE UPON BY MADAME DE STAEL. A TREATISE ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE. BY JOHN MASON, A. M. HARTFORD: PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON. THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO EXTERNAL OBJECTS. BY GEORGE COMBE. Vain is the ridicule with which one sees some persons will divert themselves, "ALEXANDRIAN EDITION." HARTFORD: PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON. PREFACE TO THE EDINBURGH EDITION. THIS Essay would not have been presented to the public, had I not believed that it contains views of the | constitution, condition, and prospects of Man, which deserve attention; but these, I trust, are not ushered forth with any thing approaching to a presumptuous spirit. I lay no claim to originality of conception. My first notion of the natural laws were derived from an unpublished manuscript of Dr SPURZHEIM, with the perusal of which I was honoured some years ago; and all my inquiries and meditations since have impressed me more and more with a conviction of their importance. The materials employed lie open to all. Taken separately, I would hardly say that a new truth has been presented in the following work. The parts have all been admitted and employed again and again, by writers on morals, from SOCRATES down to the present day. In this respect, there is nothing new under the sun. The only novelty in this Essay respects the relations which acknowledged truths hold to each other. Physical laws of nature, affecting our physical condition, as well as regulating the whole material system of the universe, are universally acknowledged, and constitute the elements of natural philosophy and chemical science. Physiologists, medical practitioners, and all who take medical aid, admit the existence of organic laws; and the science of government, legislation, education, indeed our whole train of conduct through life, proceed upon the admission of laws in morals. Accordingly, the laws of nature have formed an interesting subject of inquiry to philosophers of all ages; but, so far as I am aware, no author has hitherto attempted to point out, in a combined and systematic form, the relations between these laws and the constitution of Man; which must, nevertheless, be done, before our knowledge of them can be beneficially applied. The great object of the following Essay is to exhibit these relations, with a view to the improvement of education, and the regulation of individual conduct. EDINBURGH, 9th June, 1828 But, although my purpose is practical, a theory of Mind forms an essential element in the execution of the plan. Without it, no comparison can be instituted between the natural constitution of man and external objects. Phrenology appears to me to be the clearest, most complete, and best supported system of Human Nature, which has hitherto been taught; and I have assumed it as the basis of this Essay. But the practical value of the views now to be unfolded does not depend on Phrenology. This theory of Mind itself is valuable, only in so far as it is a just cxposition of what previously existed in human nature. We are physical, organic, and moral beings, acting under the sanction of general laws, let the merits of Phrenology be what they may. Individuals will, under the impulse of pas sion, or by the direction of intellect, hope, fear, wonder, perceive, and act, whether the degree in which they habitually do so, be ascertainable on phrenological principles or not. In so far, therefore, as this Essay treats of the known qualities of Man, it may be instructive even to those who contemn Phrenology as unfounded; while it can prove useful to no one, if it shall depart from the true elements of mental philosophy, by whatever system these may be expounded. I have endeavoured to avoid all religious controversy. The object of Moral Philosophy,' says Mr STEWART, 'is to ascertain the general rules of a wise and virtuous conduct in life, in so far as these rules may be discovered by the unassisted light of nature; that is by an examination of the principles of the human constitution, and of the circumstances in which man is placed.'* By following this method of inquiry, Dr HUTCHESON, Dr ADAM SMITH, Dr REID, Mr STEWART, and Dr THOMAS BROWN, have, in succession, produced highly interesting and instructive works on Moral Science; and the present Essay is a humble attempt to pursue the same plan, with the aid of the new lights afforded by phrenology. * Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 1. ESSAY ON THE CONSTITUTION OF MAN AND ITS RELATIONS TO EXTERNAL OBJECTS. CHAPTER I. ON NATURAL LAWS. A STATEMENT of the evidence of a great intelligent First Cause is given in the Phrenological Journal,' and in the 'System of Phrenology. I hold this existence as capable of demonstration. By NATURE, I mean the workmanship of this great Being, such as it is revealed to our minds by our senses and faculties. In natural science, three subjects of inquiry may be distinguished. 1st. What exists? 2dly. What is the purpose or design of what exists; and, 3dly. Why was what exists designed for such uses as it evidently subserves? For example,-It is a matter of fact that arctic regions and torrid zones exist, that a certain kind of moss is most abundant in Lapland in mid-winter,—that the rein-deer feeds on it, and enjoys high health and vigor in situations where most other animals would die; farther, it is a matter of fact that camels exist in Africa; that they have broad hoofs, and stomachs fitted to retain water for a length of time, and that they flourish amid arid tracts of sand, where the rein-deer would not live for a day. All this falls under the inquiry, What exists? But in contemplating the foregoing facts, it is impossible not to infer that one object of the Lapland moss is to feed the rein-deer, and one purpose of the deer is to assist man: and that, in like manner, broad feet have been given to the camel to enable it to walk on sand, and a retentive stomach to fit it for arid places in which water is not found except at wide intervals. These are inquiries into the use or purpose of what exists. In like manner, we may inquire, What purpose do sandy deserts and desolate heaths subserve in the economy of nature? In short, an inquiry into the use or purpose of any object that exists, is merely an examination of its relations to other objects and beings, and of the modes in which it affects them; and this is quite a legitimate exercise of the human intellect. But, 3dly, we may ask, why were the physical elements of nature created such as they are? Why were summer, autumn, spring, and winter introduced? Why were animals formed of organized matter? These are inquiries why what exists was made such as it is, or into the will of the Deity in creation. Now, man's perceptive faculties are adequate to the first inquiry, and his reflective faculties to the second; but it may well be doubted whether he has powers suited to the third. My investigations are confined to the first and second, and I do not discuss the third. A law, in the common acceptation, denotes a rule of action; its existence indicates an established and constant mode, or process, according to which phenomena take place; and this is the sense in which I shall use it, when treating of physical substances and beings. For example, water and heat are substances; and water presents different appearances, and manifests certain qualities, according to the altitude of its situation, and the degree of heat with which it is combined. When at the level of the sea, and combined with that portion of heat indicated by 320 of Fahrenheit's thermometer, it freezes os becomes solid; when | combined with the portion denoted by 2120 of that instrument, it rises into vapour or steam. Here water and heat are the substances, the freezing and rising in vapour are the appearances or phenomena presented by them; and when we say that these take place according to a Law of Nature, we mean only that these modes of action appear, to our intellects, to be established in the very constitution of the water and heat, and in their natural relationship to each other; and that the processes of freezing and rising in vapour are their constant appearances, when combined in these proportions, other conditions being the same. ter. The ideas chiefly to be kept in view are, 1st. That all substances and beings have received a definite natural constitution; 2dly. That every mode of action, which is said to take place according to a natural law, is inherent in the constitution of the substance, or being, that acts; and, 3dly. That the mode of action described is universal and invariable, wherever and whenever the substances, or beings, are found in the same condition. For example, water, at the level of the sea, freezes and boils, at the same temperature, in China and in France, in Peru and in England; and there is no exception to the regularity with which it exhibits these appearances, when all its conditions are the same: For cæteris paribus is a condition which pervades all departments of science, phrenology included. If water be carried to the top of a mountain 20,000 feet high, it boils at a lower temperature than 2120, but this again depends on its relationship to the air, and takes place also according to fixed and invariable principles. The air exerts a great pressure on the waAt the level of the sea the pressure is nearly the same in all quarters of the globe, and in that situation the freezing points and boiling points correspond all over the world; but on the top of a high mountain the pressure is much less, and the vapour not being held down by so great a power of resistance, rises at a lower degree of heat than 212o. But this change of appearances does not indicate a change in the constitution of the water and the heat, but only a variation of the circumstances in which they are placed; and hence it is not correct to say, that water boiling on the tops of high mountains, at a lower temperature than 212o, is an exception to the general law of nature: there never are exceptions to the laws of nature; for the Creator is too wise and too powerful to make imperfect or inconsistent arrangements. The error is in the human mind inferring the law to be, that water boils at 212o in all altitudes; when the real law is only that it boils at that temperature, at the level of the sea, in all countries; and that it boils at a lower temperature, the higher it is carried, because there the pressure of the atmosphere is diminished. Intelligent beings exist, and are capable of modify ing their actions. By means of their faculties, the laws impressed by the Creator on physical substances become known to them; and, when perceived, constitute laws to them, by which to regulate their conduct. For example, it is a physical law, that boiling water destroys the muscular and nervous systems of man. This is the result purely of the constitution of the |