proceeds to say) is entirely wrong." SureÎy he does not mean to make the assertion philologically. He has rightly defined the term, as far as language is concerned. It does mean all this as used in our own tongue, and the corresponding words, we believe, in every language under heaven, will be found to convey the same idea. Vengeance, which is but another word for retributive justice, or the punishment of crime for its intrinsic demerit, enters into them all, although they do also undoubtedly embrace the subordinate ideas of defence and prevention.

Language, then, is admitted to be against him. If he would present his theory of government in its true light, he would have to invent a new vocabulary to suit new ideas. This school cannot well talk in the ordinary dialects of men, without misleading, or more or less disguising their real meaning. But why is this? It is a bad sign for any hypothesis, when its authors are driven to find fault with language. It shows that the doctrine, although plausible on the surface, is found, when more deeply examined, to be at war with what the highest philosophy regards as the innate ideas of the soul, or, according to another muchabused expression, the common sense of mankind. This definition of punishment, thus incidentally stated, shows that error, as well as truth, has its unity, and that there is some correspondence between all parts of a false system. We might have predicted, à priori, that the writer who took such a view of the State must discard the old ideas of punishment. Whether he could state, or not, in express terms, the logical connection between the two positions, yet he could not help feeling subjectively that they belong to one theory.

In another paragraph (page 9) we may trace a similar, yet perhaps unconscious, association of ideas, in an incidental remark respecting the laws of the married state. It is not in the direct argument, but introduced in the course of some observations on Blackstone's definition of natural rights, That learned judge had declared, that the husband's right to the property of his wife has no foundation in nature, but is only created by law for the purposes of civil life." Our author, commenting on this, observes:

If law confers a right which nature has not dained, it robs some one or many of that which fers, and works injustice among men. ance (he proceeds to say) quoted by e, where the law gives the goods of the

wife, instantly on marriage, to the husband, is the most apt illustration of this species of injustice. Here the law creates a right arbitrarily, and without a shadow of any foundation in nature; but this right conferred on the husband implies a right taken from the wife, and hence an actual wrong to her, which the law ought not to inflict."

Perhaps the writer was not himself fully aware how perfectly the above remarks are in unison with the prov rudos, the great and first falsehood of his system. He may not have thought it had any peculiar connection with his doctrine of government, more than with any other, and yet it might have been known, à priori, that the man who holds his view of the State, would also maintain, if it came in his way, this very doctrine respecting husband and wife. It is only carrying the new philosophy into the family. There is nothing divine in the nature, sanction and obligation of the State; there is also nothing divine in the sanction of marriage, or of the family relation. The State is a herd or aggregation of individuals: the family is nothing more. The State is a mere compact: so is the family. Husband and wife are not one, but two. They are but contracting parties, giving up no previous rights, and creating no new ones. They, of course, retain their separate interests, and when they mutually choose to return to their former state of nature, each party should be left in a condition to take back what they severally brought into the concern. The spirit, however, of the English common law on this subject-which even Blackstone misapprehended-manifests its alliance with a far different hypothesis in respect to government, law, rights, and relations. From whatever ancient associations the idea may have been derived, it regards the family as a miniature representation of the State, and the State as an enlarged picture of the family. There is in both an organic, and not merely numerical or aggregated unity. There is in each a divine sanction, introducing relations, duties and obligations which never could have arisen from a mere contract. There is no separate interest, or separate right, as our author calls it, of the wife against her husband. They are one body, of which the man, according to Paul, is the head, and there ought to be no questions of several property to mar the sacredness of this most religious relation.

Whatever may be thought of the intrinsic merit of this book, the topics of which it professes to treat, and especially

those which it suggests, are of no ordinary importance: All that we have time for, however, in the present number, is to expose, in a rambling way, some of the absurdities of the work before us, or rather of the theory which it sets forth. The first peculiarity we shall notice appears on the very surface. One cannot open the volume without being struck with it. We refer to its perfect independence of all authority. This might, perhaps, by some, be styled originality, were it not that we generally associate with that word the idea of something profound as well as new. The writer has most evidently spun this treatise out of his own brain, except perhaps as far as concerns its phrenological fore. He owes no thanks to Moses, or Aristotle, or Cicero, or Grotius. He appears to have consulted a few such modern lights as Bentham, and the Democratic Review, and Combe's Constitution of Man, with now and then a reference to Vattel; but in general he seems to despise all aid, except such as may be drawn from his favorite fundamental science, phrenology, and his own craniological developments. We are struck with the cleanness of his margin. Whoever studies the works of those who have heretofore been thought to excel in the investigation of these most important topics, will find this part of their writings presenting a very different appearance. References to authorities crowd the page, almost to disfigurement. They seem to be frequent in proportion to the reputation of the writer, and to the claim he might justly have to repose confidence in his own unaided opinion. In the great works of Grotius and Puffendorf, we find frequent and crowded citations from writers of every description-philosophers, legislators, historians and poets, ancient and modern. This, to superficial readers, might look like pedantry-the vice, as it has been said, of the literature of the age in which they lived. A juster view would regard it as coming from a feeling, which these great men possessed, of the weakness of the individual human reason, and a corresponding desire to collect into one focus all the lights of antiquity, as well as of their own generation, in determining the true nature of the State and of political obligation. They had some proper conception of the immense difficulties attending a thorough investigation of human rights; and hence they not only joyfully accepted aid, however obtained, from the collected wisdom and experience of mankind, but made it one

great object of their books to spread it before their readers. On this account, too, revelation was also deemed not unworthy of their deepest study. It appeared to them, that an inquiry into the domestic, social and political relations of mankind, with the rights, duties and obligations thence resulting, might derive some aid from the volume of divine wisdom.

Mr. Hurlbut, however, seems to write in a spirit of unconscious simplicity, or in total ignorance of the fact that these topics have exercised the keenest powers of the master minds of all ages. The State is with him a very simple affair. Rights are as plain as as a phrenological diagram. Their derivation from the organs, as exhibited on the skull, he regards as "so clearly just that he would not even attempt any further illustration." (p. 13.) He would scorn the very thought of deriving any assistance from Greek, Roman, German, English, ancient or modern wisdom. As for revelation, he tells us with great naïveté (p. 85) that "it is something about which democracy seems to have some difficulty in assigning its true position, and towards which it had better, therefore, assume an air of perfect indifference."

We find the style corresponding to such a view of the matter. It is flippant, egotistical, dogmatic, just in proportion to the fewness of the authorities referred to, and the frequency with which the writer gives his own naked assertions, without a shadow of reasoning, illustration, or even definition, accompanying them.

In taking this course, however, Counsellor Hurlbut has a reason to offer, which did not exist for the great and learned men to whom we have referred. They had no other external lights than the suggestions of those who had been falsely called philosophers and statesmen, the experience of past generations, and the teachings of the Bible. Our author has a new and lately discovered ally, by whose aid this species of assistance is wholly dispensed with. Having the writings of Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe, we may throw away Aristotle and Tully, Bacon and the Bible. The last is but a rush-light, the others are thick darkness in comparison with the brilliant discoveries of that scientia scientiarum, that pass key to all knowledge and all mysteries, by whose invaluable aid our author has been enabled to penetrate so deeply into the arcana of human rights.

In the very first sentence of the book,

our keenest curiosity is excited in respect to some undisclosed authority he is going soon to introduce into the arena of this discussion. He commences like a man conscious that he possesses a power which he needs but to bring out, in order to demolish all previous systems, and to force all men to bow to the truth, which has at length dawned upon our long benighted world. "Since the period of our revolution," he tells us, "scarcely an attempt has been made to show the origin, and to define the extent of human rights." Again he asks-" During the half century now past, what discoveries have been made in the principles of legislation ?" Even the "illustrious Bentham" is spoken of as "a giant groping in darkness,"and all this for the" want of a true mental philosophy." Man, since the creation, "had been utterly unknown to himself." Revelation had never taught him his true character, even were he disposed to learn it. All previous philosophy had been only the blind leading the blind. But we may at length joyfully hail the long desired advent of Truth upon the Earth. That which had so long eluded the keenest investigations of living minds, has at length been discovered amid the phosphorescent light of dead men's skulls. Gall and Spurzheim have interrogated Nature, and the dumb and voiceless goddess has at length broken silence.

"Man now, says Counsellor Hurlbut, is at length demonstrated. The universal man stands forth to modern view, with his mental powers well defined, and well known. Modern discovery has given to each native desire, to each emotion and faculty of the human mind, a local habitation and a name, and presented to the philanthropist and statesman the means of defining human rights, and of conform ing human legislation to the standard of truth and nature. I allude (he proceeds) to the discoveries of the great Gall, and to that system of intellectual and moral philosophy, which has thence resulted, and which one of the greatest of his disciples has justly denominated, THE LAST AND

BEST OF HUMAN SCIENCES."

Here, then, we have the mystery fully explained. We now know why mankind have for so many ages groped their way in darkness-why they have never known their rights-why they have so blindly obeyed "kings, and others in authority," under the foolish doctrine that established governments, whatever might be their forms, were "powers ordained of God"-why they have had such a superstitious reverence for law, as though,

when legitimate, it could be anything more than the expression of their own wills, made in any way they might choose to will. Above all, we now understand how it was, that this famous modern doctrine of the inalienable and indefeasible right of majorities to rule minorities, so utterly escaped the notice of all philosophers, legislators, and theologians, during all previous ages of the world's history. Phrenology had not been discovered-Combe and Fowler had not lectured-Dorr had not fought for human rights, and Counsellor Hurlbut had not written.

It is astonishing with what ease this wondrous science decides the darkest questions connected with the nature of man; and not only of man individually, but as viewed in all his moral, social, and political relations. How the errors and absurdities of past times vanish before it. The Bible told us, that human nature was depraved, that the "thoughts and imaginations of men were evil continually," that " "they loved darkness more than light," and that "the heart was deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Who can know it, despondingly asks the prophet of the Most High God; but phrenology declares, and Counsellor Hurlbut repeats the declaration-Man is at length demonstrated. The Scriptures spoke of a disease so desperate, a condition so utterly lost, that nothing could cure and redeem it, but the life blood of incarnate Deity. It told of "a world lying in wickedness." The greatest legislators, in forming their political constitutions, had, in their extreme blindness, deemed it necessary to take into their account this disclosure of revelation, so strange in itself, but which had been so wonderfully confirmed by the concurring testimonies of all history, ancient and modern, sacred or profane. It now appears, however, that this was all a delusion-a totally wrong verdict, which mankind had pronounced against themselves, and into which they had been foolishly led by really depraved priests, and that blundering book they had so long been taught to regard as the Word of God. It was a cognovit which had been given under gross mental darkness, or, in other words, when the subject was under age, and, therefore, Counsellor Hurlbut, in behalf of mankind, arrived at length at their majority, moves in arrest of judgment, on the ground of the new discoveries of this last and best of human sciences." "When the constitution of man, says

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We shall not attempt the superfluous work of settling a question of veracity between Moses, Christ, and Paul on the one hand, and Mr. George Combe and Counsellor Hurlbut on the other, but will only here advert to one very singular consequence of his own theory, of which, from some intimations, he seems himself to have been somewhat aware. He admits that man has indeed exhibited a very sad history. His organs, although all very good, have somehow been very strangely perverted to evil. Alimentiveness, combativeness, self-esteem, destructiveness, and acquisitiveness, have always, in the main, and in some unaccountable manner, got the better of conscientiousness and veneration. Man has been very ignorant, very stupid, very much imposed upon, and generally very fond of the imposition. Demagogues have made a fool of him: priests have stupified his understanding, taken advantage of his sins, and alarmed his superstitious fears. Somebody, (the author does not say who-but can it possibly be man himself!-) has been ever trampling on his sacred and inalienable rights. "His noblest powers, (to use the very language of the writer,) have been prostituted to the most degrading and vicious pursuits," but "all this, (he continues,) proves nothing against the excellent nature of man, nor that the good exercise of that nature can tend to evil."

Now without controverting the profound truth asserted in the concluding sentence-namely, that if man should be good he would not be evil-we think there results one very strange consequence from these very strange statements. If man has never suffered a fall-as the Bible has been always understood to teach-from an originally pure and holy state; if, as our author says, he has never been better than now; if he has been ever progressing, and if, notwithstanding that progression, he has exhibited that sad history which it is admitted the world presents so that even his worst known periods have ever been an improvement upon all that preceded-and if, as we

should strongly infer from the rest of his philosophy, (since they are all parts of a system which are almost always found to go together,) our author should reject the Mosaic account of the origin of the human race, and adopt that of the popular The Vestiges of Creation," writer of "

namely, that mankind have been for an immense and unknown period upon the earth-then are we driven to inquire, on this theory, what a beast or devil, or both combined, must he have been at the beginning of his existence. At how exceedingly low a point must he have commenced, if, after incalculable ages of progressive improvement, without any fall from a higher state, but a continual ascent, he has, notwithstanding, exhibited himself as in the last six, or the last two thousand years? If it is maintained that he was a development out of the mud and slime of an unformed worldwell and good; the author is welcome to the noble employment of investigating the inalienable rights of so exalted a being; but if, after taking such a view of the results of his moral progression, he asserts him to have been thus created by his Maker in a state so low, and dark, and full of evil, it does not seem to us, easily reconcilable, (to use his own language,) with a proper reverence for the Deity."

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But whatever may have been the origin of man, phrenology has revealed him to himself. Henceforth we are told, there is to be no doubt or difficulty in respect to human rights. "The duty of the legislator is most plain." "It is simply to conform to natural truth"-simply this, and nothing more. Most easy task for all future ages! "He is but the minister and expositor of nature," that is all. Any man may now be qualified for a legislator, and this confirms the author's doctrine, that every man has a right to be a legislator; for he says (page 37), that "every man has the same right to be a king that he has to be a man-for what is a king but a man." And if so, (we extend the inference to our own side of the Atlantic) why has not any man a right to be a president or a member of congress; so that, by good rights, every democrat in the land should take turns in holding those offices five minutes each one, until the rotation is accomplished.

Should any, however, ask-what do you mean by natural truth? How is the great question which Christ left unanswered, when interrogated by Pilate, rendered more easy by the insertion of

the word, natural? In reply to all such queries the simple inquirer is referred at once to the map of the skull. There you have it all marked out in black and white, and as plain as the boundaries of Texas. There you may see, at a glance, all the animal instincts, all the propensities, all the sentiments, &c., in short, the whole of man, in this democratic collection of passions and desires, all equally good, all having an equal "right to that gratification, indulgence and exercise, which nature designed for them respectively," (page 13). The legislator has only to allot to every one his natural rights, and the work is done. "Wherever nature has ordained desire, she has spread before it the means of gratification, and hence the rights of man."

There is a harmony in truth, and there is also, as we have observed, a unity and an affinity in error. We could have known, without the least doubt, that a man who held the theory of government maintained in this book, would be just the one to be delighted with all the fooleries of phrenology, and all the puerile and quackish reasoning of such a man as George Combe. This is not accidental; and yet the association between the two systems is not at first view obvious. A little examination, however, shows those points of mutual attraction, which lead minds of a certain cast, unconsciously perhaps, and without being exactly aware of the secret sympathy by which they are drawn, to adopt both. The radical theory of politics regards the state as nothing more than a collection of individuals without any permanent pervading idea, or any abiding spirit of law distinct from a majority of their present wills; so also this pretended science of phrenology views the soul as a mere bundle of faculties, with no other bond of unity but the phosphoric fat of the local brain in which they are situated.

Since we cannot, in the present number, do justice to all the topics suggested by this book, we would here dwell, for a while, on this phrenological department of the scheme. And it really deserves some considerable attention, if the book itself is worthy of review, because it is the very foundation of the whole stucture, and is evidently regarded by the author as constituting the main merit of his performance. Now we do not at all find fault with him for grounding his political system on a theory of mental philosophy. We also think that in attempting to deduce government from the essen

tial constitution of man, however low may be his view of that constitution, and in founding it upon certain innate sentiments, he is in advance of those who make it wholly a system of self-defence against foreign violence; although the author often falls down to this very scheme, for the want of a proper appreciation of those truths that belong to a more spiritual philosophy. Neither are we going to controvert all or many of the positions laid down by phrenologists. In regard to what may be styled its external organology as developed on the skull, we have no faith whatever, and care nothing about it. This, however, has but little bearing on the theoretical, whatever it may have to do with the practical carrying out and adaptation of the author's political system. It is only with it as a theory of mental philosophy, irrespective of its external manifestations, or as a division of the mental powers and states, that we are principally concerned. Viewed in this light, it abounds in positions which are not only true, but the veriest truisms. Man undoubtedly has a propensity to eat and support life, and these functions of the stomach may have some connection with certain parts of the cerebellum. He is inclined to indulge in amatory pleasures, and in respect to this, too, it is a very ancient opinion, that it has a similar connection, through the spinal marrow, with the region of the occiput. He is also fond of children, and the world has furnished sad evidence that he is fond of fighting. These must be admitted to be among his propensities, whatever we may think of calling them mental faculties,-making the only difference between them and reasoning, or the exercise of the higher moral feelings, to consist in a few inches distance, this way or that, in the location of a piece of brain.

In a word, it has been said of phrenology, and it is, perhaps, the best description that could be given of it, that what is true in it is not new, and that what is new is not true. Let any one, who has but a general acquaintance with the history of ethical opinions, read the works of Combe and Spurzheim, and he must be wearied ad nauseam, to find whatever correct sentiments are contained to be but the stale repetition of trite old truths, attempted to be disguised in some of their peculiar technicalities. But we care little about this. We might even admit its division of the faculties to be tolerably correct; which, however,