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ON THE

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PHRENOLOGY

OF THE

HINDOOS AND NEGROES.

By JAMES MONTGOMERY, Esq.

TOGETHER

WITH STRICTURES THEREON,

BY

CORDEN THOMPSON, M. D.,

Lecturer on Physiology , and on the Nature and Treatment of Diseases, at the Sheffield

School of Anatomy and Medicine.

REDE WAHRHEIT, SCHEUE NIEMAND.”

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR E. LLOYD AND CO., HARLEY-STREET.

MDCCCXXIX.

LONDON

Printed by William Clowes,

Stamford-street.

TO THE READER.

The first part of this pamphlet was read as a public lecture before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Sheffield, and subse¬ quently published in a weekly paper of the same place under the following title: — 66 On the Phrenology of the Hindoos and Ne¬ groes ; showing, that the actual character of nations, as well as of individuals, may be modified by moral, political, and other circum¬ stances, in direct contradiction to their cerebral developements.',,

The author of the Strictures which succeed the Essay was pre¬ sent on the occasion of its delivery, and, how erroneous soever he might deem the lecturer’s opinions, would certainly never have been induced to criticise them, but for the circumstances under which they afterwards appeared in print. Dr. Spurzheim had commenced a course of lectures on Phrenology in Sheffield, and whilst yet on the very threshold of his subject, before his intro¬ ductory details were well completed, the Essay in question was put forth to the public through the medium already mentioned. Some copies also were struck off on separate sheets for private distribution. As one who had actively interested himself in pro¬ moting the presence of Dr. S. at Sheffield, and one, too, who had personally solicited subscriptions for his course, the writer of the Strictures could not view with indifference the publication of an Essay, which, both in his own estimation, and in that of others, directly tended to throw discredit and obloquy on Phrenology, and that even at the very time its celebrated founder was endea¬ vouring to obtain from the public a candid and impartial hearing. The procedure may not have been adopted with a view of throwing

IV

down the gauntlet, however much it wore that aspect ; but, at all events, neither to the doctor, nor his friends, did the style and manner of the composition seem in the least calculated to pro¬ duce a favourable impression on the public mind in regard to the doctrines of Phrenology.

Under these circumstances, the writer did not hesitate to at-

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tempt an exposition of the fallacy of the Essayist’s reasonings. How far this has been effected remains for others to decide. The critic can most conscientiously aver, that on no occasion has he intentionally misrepresented his author ; and the reader is here afforded the best of all possible means of ascertaining whether or not the former, in reference to the latter, has been guilty of partial statements, garbled extracts, or forced and far -sought construc¬ tions.

. Further ; intelligent men very often decry what they do not understand, for the simple reason, that they have paid little at¬ tention to the subject. Others scoff at that which their prejudices will not allow them to investigate ; and if one, who has the credit of being wise , once sets an example, the stupid and the ignorant make haste to follow it. With some it is fashionable to treat Phrenology contemptuously, as a thing that is absurd, ridiculous, and unworthy of serious attention. Pitiable manifestation of pride and ignorance ! Others are timorous and fearful about ulterior consequences. Vain anxiety from fostered prejudices ! He whose study of nature, or, what amounts to the same thing, whose search after truth, has for its object the good of mankind, -—the proper aim of the philosopher, and the sole object worthy of man, — will fear neither the banters of the witling, nor the out¬ cry of a party. Above all, he will not suffer the authority of names to lead his judgment astray. Knowing the moral worth of Mr. Montgomery, his rectitude of aim, and acknowledged poetical talents, many, it was presumed, would be satisfied with his mere

ipse dixit f and on this account his opinions more urgently called for examination. These opinions, then, relating to a sub¬ ject more immediately connected with his own studies and pur¬ suits, the writer has freely canvassed, fearless of professing himself a convert to the new system of mental philosophy, because he con-

ceives it to be founded in nature. And more ; conceiving that ability and virtue ennoble truth, he is proud to be the disciple of one whose talents and acquirements he admires, and whose philosophic amability of character he respects and esteems.

The writer has to add only, that, immediately after the appear¬ ance of the Essay, the Strictures were published in a contemporary journal, preceded by a reprint of the former. Understanding from a highly valued friend in London, that there has been a con¬ siderable call for the Strictures, and requested at the same time to permit their republication, that request has been complied with ; and the Strictures, preceded by the Essay, as they originally ap¬ peared, are again presented to the public in the present form.

Sheffield, June , 1829.

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ON

THE PHRENOLOGY

OF

THE HINDOOS AND NEGROES;

SHOWING,

THAT THE ACTUAL CHARACTER OF NATIONS, AS WELL AS OF INDIVIDUALS, MAY BE MODIFIED BY MORAL, POLITICAL, AND OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION TO THEIR CEREBRAL DEVELOPEMENTS.

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY.

[ Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Sheffield, Feb. 7, 1827.]

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Neither attack nor vindication of that fanciful system, which professes to distinguish natural propensities, moral sentiments, and intellectual faculties, by the multiform organization of the brain, modifying the external shape of the cranium, — is intended in these remarks on two particular nations. Phrenology, as a science, must stand or fall by facts, of which, if there be yet too few to decide its legitimacy, there are far too many, of plausible bearing, to allow it to be laughed out of credit, except by the prejudiced and superficial, with whom it would be no credit to be otherwise treated. The object of the following Essay is to show, that were it established to the utmost claims of its reasonable advocates, it involves no fatality in its issues, because all the primal dispositions which it indicates by their respective signs, may be converted to useful , or perverted to evil purposes ; and that not in individuals only, but in whole nations; nor for a brief period only, but through a succession of ages.

With materialism and immaterialism I have nothing to do. I believe in God, the author and upholder of all things, as he has revealed himself in his Word ; and I believe in the immortality %of the soul, upon the same divine authority, independent of the arguments which may be deduced in support of that doctrine from the nature and capacity of the spirit that is in man, to which the breath of the Almighty hath given understanding. Now the evidence of revealed religion is of a kind so utterly distinct from all the demonstrations of physical science, that no possible dis¬ covery in pursuit of the latter can come in contact with it ; the one being on a subject solely apprehensible by the understanding and the affections ; while the other is the analysis of substantial forms, which may be seen, handled, or otherwise made palpable to the senses, and of which nothing can be surely predicted but what is thus capable of practical proof. Wherefore, till the mind itself can be laid bare by the anatomist’s knife, and the operation of thought exhibited naked to the bodily eye, I cannot be afraid of the appearance of any truth which philosophy may bring from the arcana of the universe. None of these can prove the negative of the question, while the affirmative (without being in contradic¬ tion to one of them) rests on testimony which can never be inva¬ lidated in a dissecting-room, any more than the reality of virtue,

10

justice, truth, knowledge, genius, taste, can be explained there, for want of their visible presence in dead carcasses. Let truth, therefore, be sought wherever God hath hidden her, and wherever she is found she will add to our knowledge of Him.

I shall confine my illustration both of the possibility and the certainty of a counteraction by moral and political agency, which shall almost entirely overcome the original dispositions of whole tribes of the family of man according to the phrenological tests, to two people — the Hindoos and the Negroes.

In the Phrenological Transactions, published at Edinburgh, there is a paper by Dr. Murray Paterson on the Phrenology of Hindostan. His conclusions are said to be “ drawn from the actual examination of three thousand heads, of every tribe and province, and from the careful study of many native crania, which he took the precaution of measuring to prevent mistakes. The result of the whole is, that the average size of the Hindoo’s head does not exceed that of a European at fifteen, consequently the mental energies and capacities are proportionate.” He thence explains the weakness of the Hindoo character taken as a nation, and their subjection to a few thousand Europeans, as well as their stationary state of civilization. “ They were very remarkable as observers, which he found to be uniformly connected with a large developement of Individuality. The mildness and passive softness which characterize them, he found to arise from a deficient com¬ bativeness and destructiveness, and their cunning from a large developement of secretiveness — Phren . Journal , No. Ill, — Essay on Phren. by A. Combe , p. 367.

This, then, is the present phrenological state of Hindoo skulls, and, so far as intellect is concerned, of Hindoo minds also; but to their practice of “ the mildness and passive softness” which are said to characterize them, I must demur, because in reference to the nearest and dearest relationship of life, I shall show hereafter, that, in too many instances, they are more desperately and deli¬ berately cruel than any animal on earth (except men under the influence of fanatic superstition) have the power to be.

The fact is granted, that the Hindoos, generally, are dis¬ tinguished by deplorable mental and bodily imbecility ; but are they not the descendants of ancestors not less conspicuous, on the other hand, for both intellectual and mental power, whatever might have been their stature or the size of their heads ? Learning is said to have flourished in India before it was cultivated in Egypt, and some have assumed, that it was from beyond the Indus that the Nile itself was visited with orient beams of knowledge. The modern Hindoos, in their unutterable degradation, are only careful to preserve the monuments of their ancestors’ glory and intelli¬ gence, in the stupendous ruins, or rather the imperishable skeletons of their temples, and in their sacred and scientific books. The latter, however, being wholly in the hands of the Brahmins, who

11

themselves understand but little of their contents, are impreg- nably sealed from the researches of the multitude. The astrono¬ mical tables of the ancient Indians are yet the admiration of Europeans, and if there were no other discernible traces of learn¬ ing, these alone would mark a high degree of civilization among the people that could calculate them. The sacred books, how¬ ever, which are yet preserved, so far as their authenticity can be deemed probable, and their institutes have been explored, display a corresponding elegance of style, simplicity of thought, and purity of doctrine, in all these respects differing essentially from the monstrous fables, the bloody precepts, and shocking abomina¬ tions with which more modern writings among them abound. The correspondence between the architecture and hieroglyphics of India and Egypt indicate the common origin of both, and almost necessarily implies the senior claims of the former ; for science, like empire, has uniformly travelled westward in its great cycle, whatever occasional retrogradation may have been caused by dis¬ turbing forces. Egypt, with all its wonders, can boast nothing so magnificent as the Caves of Elora, consisting of a series of temples, sixteen in number, a mile and a half in length, and each from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in depth, with heights proportioned ; all sculptured out of the live-rock by labour in¬ calculable, and with skill only equalled by the grandeur of the edifices on which they have been expended. Edifices, however, they are not in the proper sense ; — the men of those days found in the heart of their country a rock of granite that would cover the site of the town in which we dwell ; they excavated the solid mass, not building up, but bringing out, like statue from the marble, the multitudinous design ; shaping sanctuaries with their roofs and walls, and decorating them with gigantic images and shrines, by removing the fragments as they were hewn away, till the whole was presented standing upon enormous and innumerable pillars, left in the places where they had grown in the block ; the range of temples from the flinty floor to the suspended roof being, in fact, of one stone, wrought out of the darkness of its native quarry, and open to the sun, and pervious to the breeze through ail its recesses : as though the master spirits who designed it had caught the sublime idea from their own prolific tree, which casting its boughs on every side, takes fresh root at the extremity of each, when it touches the soil, and multiplies itself into a forest from one stem. Milton from such a tree represents our first parents, after their fall, gathering leaves to cover their shame :

The fig-tree ; not that kind for fruit renown’d,

But such as at this day, to Indians known,

In Malabar or Deccan spreads her arms,

Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother-tree, a pillar’d shade,

12

High over- arch'd, and echoing walks between ;

There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat.

Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds,

At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.

Could the minds that conceived, and the hands that wrought this miracle of art, have been those of men in their second child¬ hood, — not the second childhood of the individuals, but of a people fallen into dotage and decrepitude, under the double curse of tyranny and superstition ? No, — the ancestors of the puny Hin¬ doos were men of mighty bone and mighty intellect, not only according to the existing evidence of these unparalleled relics of their power, but according to the most authentic testimony of those who have described the expedition of Alexander the Great into India. Whence, then, have the descendants of a race so noble become the most debased of human beings ? We find the answer in the history of a series of the most cruel and destructive aggres¬ sions upon India. In the fabulous and heroic ages, first Bacchus and then Sesostris, the Egyptian, are said to have overrun and left trophies of their conquests in all the provinces between the Indus and the Ganges. The invasion of the same by Alexander, and his miscarriage there, are well known : nor can the latter be concealed any more than the former. Whatever were his victories, he saw a boundary there which he was not permitted to pass, and when he left India behind him unsubdued, he had little reason to sigh for other worlds to conquer. The Ganges, to him, was as unfordable as the Styx, except at the certain peril of eventual destruction to himself and his veterans, who never feared, nor refused to follow him before, but who here compelled their insatiable leader to relinquish his unmanageable prey. Nor was he less thwarted by the philosophers of India, than by its warriors and its climate. These exercised such influence over the people, that the tribes rose en masse to repel the enemy, or to perish on the field, or amidst the blazing ruins of their cities, rather than sub¬ mit, and lie under the ban of excommunication from the society of men, and all the plagues which the gods could inflict upon the betrayers of their country to a stranger. Neither combativeness, destructiveness, nor intellectual faculties of a very high order could be wanting among such a race of heroes and sages, what¬ ever might be the phrenological developements of their crania.

In every following age, India has been the theatre of murderous and devastating wars, sometimes intestine, but frequently foreign, especially within the last thousand years, during which it has groaned successively under the yoke of Tartarian, Mahomedan, and European usurpation. Of course, during the whole of that period, the natives have been sinking lower and lower at every re¬ volution, into the apathy and imbecility which the hopelessness of slavery invariably brings, and which are the characteristics of the Hindoos at this day. In the thirteenth century, the Peninsula

13

became subject to the Moguls. In the fourteenth, Tamerlane carried sword and fire through it, plundering and destroying wherever he went. On one occasion, in a single hour, a hundred thousand of his captives were massacred in cold blood. Four hundred years afterwards, Nadir Shaw, the Persian, passed the Indus, and returned not till he had drained the empire of its blood and treasures to an incredible amount, leaving the Mogul too poor and too feeble to maintain his authority against his own viceroys, each of whom became a petty sovereign, who spent his reign in extorting from his slave-subjects the fruits of their labours, and in waging wars of unequal hazard with colonists who called them¬ selves Christians — Portuguese, Dutch, French, Danes, and Eng¬ lish — who first by fair speeches gained settlements for commerce, and afterwards maintained and extended their dominions by vio¬ lence, till throughout the whole of hither-India, since the fall of Tippoo Saib and Holkar, there is not one independent native prince. In all these ferocious conflicts, the population have been the agents and the victims of the ambition, avarice, and injustice of their ultra-marine and tramontane assailants. These are the circumstances under which the Hindoos have degenerated, both in body and mind, from their ancestors. The spirit of the latter, however, is not dead, but sleepeth in the lukewarm ashes of their half-extinct posterity ; nay, its existence is acknowledged by the fears of the present possessors of Hindostan, who — so far as their notions are merely military, commercial, or politic — deprecate the extension of knowledge and freedom among their human herds, lest they should turn upon their drovers and expel them from the pasture. Thus both their warlike and intellectual capacities are dreaded by our Leadenhall monarchs, who (foolishly enough I am persuaded) imagine that their own power depends upon the un¬ natural state of ignorance and degradation under which they hold subjects, who might be unruly were they allowed to become as knowing as their masters. Nobody would make an outcry against attempts by fanatical zealots to teach cows and horses to read and write, but to teach men, to teach slaves such perilous knowledge — that is quite another thing ! Now, it is quite plain, that “ the weakness which characterizes the Hindoos, and their stationary state of civilization,” proceed not, as Dr. Paterson would intimate, from the inveterately deficient organization of their heads, but from the premeditated suppression of their intellectual energies by their past and present governors. Yet in the East India Com¬ pany’s service, there are many regiments of Sepoys, and wher these are properly disciplined, and generously treated, — that is, when they are raised above the debasement of their own system of castes, and our system of brute servility, they make excellent soldiers, and prove that whatever be the phrenological brands of imbecility upon them, they can combat, and they can destroy, as effectually as their European comrades and commanders. Mr.

14

Russell, who had resided many years in India, gave the following character of the Hindoo soldiery, at a late meeting of East India proprietors : —

“ The great misery of the troops of the native governments in India is, that they are not regularly paid, and are consequently in want of food. This constitutes the great superiority of the British over the native troops ; for the first being assured of re¬ gular pay, act with more steady and determined valour, and more perfect discipline. The same means have been with equal ad¬ vantage provided for the native troops which were applied so well to the British troops of India ; and the result has been, that we have, this day, in our Indian territory, whole regiments, composed of black faces, ready to stand or fall with officers who have white ones. Sir, I know not whether there be now in Court any military officer who served in this campaign with any branch of the Dec- can army, but if there be, to him I confidently appeal, to bear testimony to the services of those troops. I would ask him, whe¬ ther, on every occasion, they did not conduct themselves like brave and active soldiers.”

Colonel Fitzclarence here observed : — “ Mr. Chairman, after the appeal which has been made, I cannot, as an officer who served in India at the period in question, omit this opportunity of stating, that I never, in my life, saw better or braver troops.”

How these unhappy beings are frequently used, even in our own armies, may be known from a letter of Sir Wm. Rumbold, read by Mr. Russell on the same occasion : —

“ An end having been thus put to the Aurungabad contract, Sir C. Metcalfe, of course, pursued that method, in providing for the payment of the troops, which, in his judgment, ought to have been followed originally. He did, no doubt, the best he could for the Nizam’s government and for the troops; yet what was the result of his experiment ? At the expiration of a year and a half, in November, 1823, he himself described it in the following re¬ markable terms : — c The payment of the regular troops has been effected only by incessant attention on our part. At first I trusted to the minister’s positive assurance, that he had actually supplied the requisite funds ; but it, at length, appeared, that a portion of the troops had been for five months without receiving any pay, and that in some instances the recruits had fainted in the ranks from the want of wholesome subsistence.’ ”

Could any troops under the sun, though they had organs of de¬ structiveness like Bellingham and Mary M‘Ginnis, be brave under such circumstances ?

But we turn to another aspect of these organs in Hindoo crania. We are gravely told, that because the skulls of this people are re¬ markably deficient in the external tokens of combativeness and destructiveness, and remarkably prominent in the organ of philo¬ progenitiveness, they are the most harmless and affectionate crea-

15

tures in the world, so unwilling to take life, that they will not kill cattle for food, nor even venomous reptiles in self-defence, and that they revel in the caresses of their children. These, like all such sweeping assertions, must be admitted with due excep¬ tions. When it is recollected that these benevolent beings have upwards of 330,000,000 of gods, a great proportion of which are animals, of one description or another, their tenderness towards these ought to bear a different name, and rather be called piety than humanity. It ought, likewise, to be traced to the develope- ment of a different organ— veneration; the bulk of this is by no means a conspicuous feature on an Hindoo head, though Dr. Pa¬ terson mentions one instance in which it was extraordinary pro¬ trusive, and the individual, under its influence, was incessant in his devotions. It is true, that hospitals are built and endowed in Hindostan for the sacred animals, whether quadrupeds, birds, or reptiles, when sick and diseased ; it is true, that when a cow walks down the streets of Calcutta, a clear way is made for her, and the natives prostrate themselves in the dust till her divinityship is gone by. But there is not the same reverence paid to all the species. In a populous district of India, very recently, when the cholera morbus was desolating the dwellings, the natives (accord¬ ing to the principles of their mythology, which defies every evil power) ranked this plague among their gods, and actually sacri¬ ficed five hundred oxen and ten thousand sheep to appease its wrath. This I state on the testimony of a gentleman of unim¬ peachable veracity, lately returned from India, where he had long- resided. Another, from whose lips I had the fact, mentioned, that he once witnessed a festival, at a particular place, where the image of a red bull is worshipped. Hundreds of Hindoo families were assembled, each sitting apart, and presenting to the common idol its peculiar sacrifice ; the offerings, for the most part, were animals, and the greater number of these were sheep. But, how¬ ever forbearing these people may be with regard to shedding the blood of beasts, there is no people upon the face of the earth so prodigal of human blood in their religious rites and observances ; and that blood is shed remorselessly by the hands of its own kin¬ dred. Parricide, infanticide, and suicide are more frequent, and more revolting in their circumstances, than can be found elsewhere among the most barbarous nations. All these crimes against na¬ ture, wherever it wears the human form, and whatever be its phrenological insignia , are perpetrated in the name of religion, — but where that name is perverted to signify all that is most con¬ trary to the attributes of the true God, no wonder that all is equally contrary to the feelings which he has planted in every creature conscious of life, and capable of enjoyment. The idols of Hindostan, according to their own priests, the Brahmins, have a horrible delight in blood, and indulge themselves in the most abo¬ minable licentiousness. Now, when men make their own gods,

16

they always make them in their own likeness ; tell me, then, the characteristics of the divinities of any nation, (living under the in¬ fluence of its religion , not merely professing it,) and I will tell you the characteristics of the people. By this test the modern Hindoos will be judged to be what their practices prove that they are , rather than what might be predicated of them on inspection of their cerebral phenomena. They are taught that voluntary hu¬ man sacrifices and personal penances are peculiarly acceptable to their gods. Juggernaut’s car, in its course, crushes under its wheels those who are excited by a merciless hierarchy thus to im¬ molate themselves ; but if there were not an unnatural indifference to human sufferings, nay, if there were not a fiendlike pleasure in sanguinary spectacles, the priest would not stimulate devotees thus to commit suicide, in the presence of hundreds of thousands of assembled worshippers, whose shouts of exultation shake the ground beneath them, like the falls of Niagara, as often as a delu¬ ded wretch throws his living limbs in the way of the lumbering ruin, while it is dragged along by an infatuated multitude. An¬ other favourite form of self-destruction among the Hindoos is more lingering, but, in proportion to the number, far more fatal; — this is induced through their shocking penances by fire and water, by abstinence, torture, and long journies, — the pilgrims sometimes tra¬ velling hundreds of miles, by successive prostrations of their bodies along the road, and at other times treading upon spikes at every step, till the blood marks their path to the place where they fall down exhausted, and die in despair, without having accomplished their purpose. An eye-witness of such scenes says, 44 Many bones of these deluded victims have I seen, upon which the jackals were feeding. Twenty thousand perish in this way every year.” Surely there is no c< weakness,” or want of intellectual energy to do or to suffer here, however phrenologically defective these fanatics may be ; there is in fact an excess both of bodily strength, and of men¬ tal courage and perseverance ; most awfully perverted, but the very perversion proves both the existence of the faculties and the possi¬ bility of their being, under more benign circumstances, turned to the best purposes.

Among the atrocities, not merely allowed, but in many cases commanded, to relatives to inflict on the most helpless members of their families, we may state, that aged parents are often exposed on the banks of the Ganges, and other rivers, to be swept away by the rising of the waters, or seized by the monsters of the flood, as the stream rolls to the sea its annual tribute of carcasses, on which the vultures and other obscene birds are preying as they float along. Mothers who, after being long barren, have vowed their first-born to the goddess of parturition, are seen in boats oil the Hooghley, a branch of the Ganges, in the very neighbourhood of Calcutta, on a certain day in February, I believe, casting their infants into the jaws of alligators, that contend for their bodies,

17

and crimson the waves with their innocent blood in the sight of their strange parents. Children, indeed, are sacrificed in many ways to the demons of Hindoo worship ; they are cast out into the woods to be devoured by wild beasts, buried in the loose sand on the sea side to be washed away by the coming tide, and hung up in wicker cages upon trees, to be stung to death by venomous in¬ sects, or torn to pieces by ravening kites. The self-sacrifice of Hindoo widows on the funeral piles of their dead husbands has been often mentioned, sometimes with insane admiration of such heroic martyrdom, but oftener, since this mystery of iniquity has been better understood, with righteous abhorrence. These sui¬ cides can no more be deemed voluntary than the acts of lunatics, sleep-walkers, or persons otherwise under the influence of tempo¬ rary derangement are voluntary. It is under an irrational impulse that the most deliberate of them are done ; but in many cases it is the effect of the most diabolical arts practised upon the miserable women, by the Brahmins and the mercenary relatives, who wish to quit themselves of the burthen of maintaining the widow. To make the outrage more shocking, and to make it seem more natural, the children of the dead father and the living mother lead the vic¬ tim to her execution, and give flame to the fuel in which she is consumed, amidst the noise of voices and instruments to drown her cries, like an offering to Moloch. Nay, the suckling child, when she has no other, is plucked from the breast of the devoted mother, the lighted brand is placed within its unconscious grasp, and its little hand is guided by the Brahmins to set fire to the pile that shall make him an orphan. I remember an authenticated instance, when, at one of these suttees, the woman in her agony broke loose from the stake, and ran to hide herself among the wood in a timber yard adjacent ; her son, a vigorous young man, pursued her, drag¬ ged his imploring mother from her momentary refuge, and forced her headlong into the midst of the flames, — which, more merciful than he, soon put an end to her sufferings.

The Jareyah tribe, inhabiting the provinces of Cutch and Guze- rat, from time immemorial had been in the habit of murdering their female infants as soon as born ; this the mothers generally did with their own hands, though persons of rank employed servants as their proxies. The custom is said to have originated in the reigning family, from fear of the fulfilment of a prophecy, that, by means of a female, the crown would go out of their line. The subjects were gradually induced to follow the royal example, till no girl was suffered to live among them. Their sons took wives from the tribe next in rank to theirs. On one occasion a father spared his daughter, and brought her up in secret till she was of the age at which girls may be married in India. None of the nation, however, would look upon her, except with rage and abhorrence, so that she must have become a vagabond or a prostitute, had not the af¬ fectionate father, in a fit of frenzy, put an end to her existence.

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About thirty years ago, Colonel Walker, the British resident in the adjacent district, having much official intercourse with this tribe, used all his influence to persuade them to suffer the female children to live. At length he accomplished his benevolent object, and many families, if not the whole tribe, abandoned the practice. Having occasion to visit them afterwards, fathers, mothers, and nurses thronged around him, with their new-born daughters, which they put into his arms, and entreated him to fondle them, because they were his children. The triumph of nature over inveterate su¬ perstition was brief; since Colonel Walker returned to Europe, the Jareyahs have returned to their diabolical custom, and infanti¬ cide in and around Benares is frightfully common.

Here I must again refer to the peculiar structure of the Hindoo crania. Phrenologists have observed, that among infanticide mo¬ thers in Europe, there is generally a deficient developement of the organ of philoprogenitiveness, and an excessive enlargement of those of combativeness and destructiveness. In India, however, where this crime is probably a thousand times more familiar than in England, — in India, where there are whole tribes that perpe¬ trate it on half their progeny, — an organization the very reverse of this, we are told, is so nearly uniform, that out of three thousand skulls actually examined, and many measured by Dr. Paterson, there was scarcely an exception from very large philoprogenitive¬ ness, and very depressed combativeness and destructiveness !

Now, I infer from these facts, — which might be multiplied an hundredfold, and which no ignorance of military, commercial, or speculative adventurers in Hindostan can invalidate,— -that Hindoo character, in some most important respects, stands in absolute con¬ tradiction to the phrenological indications of Hindoo crania ; and that, whatever be the primitive propensities of such a people, their gentleness and tenderness of affection (if radically pre-eminent) have been so completely counteracted by a bloody and sensual su¬ perstition, as to make them the antipodes in practice of what they would have been by nature, under happier auspices of government and religion. But this anomaly has been their misfortune through a long succession of ages, during which they have been the actors and sufferers in innumerable wars, of the most atrocious character, the slaves of foreign and domestic tyrants, the dupes of a crafty, cruel, and licentious priesthood, and the victims of an infernal su¬ perstition. To these evils may be added, — as the consummation of their miseries, and that which will render those miseries irreme¬ diable till it shall be itself annihilated, — they have been fettered from every possibility of raising themselves above their personal or national degradation by the system of caste, unknown to their better ancestors, and introduced when idolatrous rites of the Brah¬ mins, nearly three thousand years ago, superseded or corrupted the simpler faith of Buddism, which, in comparison with the prostitu¬ tion of reason and violation of nature involved in the doctrines of

19

Brahma, Veeshnoo, and Seeva, is a scheme of abstract morals, merciful, pure, and good. Before the Hindoo can be exalted to the dignity of man, that chain of caste must be broken, and liberty proclaimed to the captives, who have been spell- bound to the spot, and to the occupation of their fathers, from generation to genera¬ tion, — rendering it impossible for them, in any case whatever, to x*ise above their birth, because every infraction of caste threw them at once out of the fellowship of kindred and friends, yea of all re¬ spectable society, and condemned them to be vagabonds and outlaws to the end of their lives. Such artificial distinctions, paralyzing the energies, circumscribing the affections, blasting the hopes, and prohibiting the exertions of every class of men — where females are scarcely accounted human beings— reminds us of the quaint but expressive language of Thomas Paine respecting the privileged orders in ancient governments. Alluding to those on whom ti¬ tles of dignity impose restraints from free intercourse with their fellow-subjects, and companionship in the ordinary blessings and enjoyments of life, he says, Cc They live immured within the bastile of a word, and survey at a distance the envied felicity of man¬ kind.”

In every phrenological reference to Hindoo character which I have seen, the principal stress has been laid upon the testimony of Dr. Murray Paterson, the result of his observations on more than three thousand crania, and his personal knowledge of the natives by residence in Hindostan. It is very remarkable, however, that Dr. Paterson should never have thought of explaining the anomaly of such a heinous combination as their natural gentleness with their habitual cruelty. He cannot be ignorant of the sanguinary superstition of the Brahmins, and the desperate devotedness of the inferior castes to the spiritual tyranny of fiends, at whose in¬ stigation suicide, parricide, and infanticide (the three most un¬ natural forms of the most unnatural crime that can be committed by man) are daily deeds of piety from one end of India to the other. It is in vain to say, that these are exceptions from the general rule of Hindoo character, because all widows do not burn themselves on the funeral piles of their dead husbands, all children do not expose their parents on the banks of the Ganges or in forests, and all parents do not murder their offspring ; — of course they do not, or the whole race would soon be exterminated, — but hundreds, and thousands, and tens of thousands of widows and children, and parents, do these things, which proves not only that original character (if gentleness be that character) is outraged in these infatuated beings, but that original character (again if gen¬ tleness be that character) is proportionally perverted throughout the whole community, which not only tolerates but rejoices in the exhibition of such atrocities on the most solemn as well as festive occasions. The late Mr. Ward of Serampcre states, that in one instance sixteen females, in perfect health, drowned themselves at

c 2

20

once in a social fit of fanaticism. They proceeded in boats to the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, both sacred rivers. Each had a large earthen pan slung over either shoulder. With these she descended from the boat into the water, and was there buoyed up by the priest till she had filled both vessels from the stream, when the priest let go his hold, and the weight of the pans dragged her to the bottom. This was done amidst the loud applauses of multitudes of spectators, under the persuasion that they were going to heaven. The Brahmins, especially, enjoyed the scene, and spoke of it as a pleasant morning’s diversion. And Oh! shame ! shame! it was done on British territory, in the presence of a British officer ! When the Mahomedans were masters of India, they made female immolation murder, by which the practice be¬ came extinct in many provinces, and was only perpetrated in others in secret, or by the corrupt connivance of inferior officers; but under our Christian government these things are done by authority, and, what is stranger still, they are done though contrary to “ the law and constitution of British India,” which is professedly Mahomedan ; (that is, what we found it ;) the practice, therefore, is illegal at this day, and the dormant powers of the constitution need only be revived and enforced to abolish such abominations for ever.

The custom prevalent in some places, of burying widows alive, instead of burning them, has seldom been noticed, but is a truth not less certain, and more horrible than the other. The living woman, holding the dead man upon her lap, is placed in a pit, dug for their common grave. The earth is then thrown in by the relatives, two of whom, during the operation, descend into the hole and tread down the rubbish about the two bodies, till both are covered up. As soon as her head is hidden, her inhuman kindred mount upon the heap and trample the suffocating creature to death.

To return to the phrenological view of Hindoo character. I observe, in a late number of the Phrenological Journal, (Vol. ii. No. VI.,) a very ingenious essay on iC the Code of Gentoo Laws,” rendered into English by the late N. B. Halhed, from the Persian translation out of the original Shanscrit, 1776. It he writer re¬ marks, <c Of the sentiments exhibited in these laws, the most con¬ spicuous, perhaps, is veneration. Dr. Paterson says, that a large veneration is not a national peculiarity, and the developement of this organ in the Hindoo head is, in general, moderate. In this we suspect Dr. P. is mistaken ; at least, in the Hindoo skulls which we have seen, veneration is generally full, or large. Dr. Paterson admits, however, that the Brahmins have it more fully developed than the inferior castes ; and as this compilation is the work of the Brahmins, the sentiment here manifested is sufficiently accounted for.” Thus far the commentator. I have alx*eady re¬ marked, that the want of a large veneration was a singular defect

21

in a Hindoo skull, if phrenology be a correct criterion of character. The writer from whom I have just quoted, appears to have felt this awkward imperfection, and with great dexterity he has con¬ trived to supply it. Whether his observations on a dozen Hindoo crania in the Edinburgh Society’s Museum are to invalidate Dr. Paterson’s on more than three thousand in India itself, it is not for me to determine ; but the writer adds very appropriately, “ While these legislators seem to wish the people at large to pay great veneration to the magistrate, they pay him but little them¬ selves, when they declare that if he happens to defraud them of their customary emoluments, he shall remain in hell for the alarm¬ ing space of a thousand years !” If I wanted but a single fact to determine in my favour the point for which I am contending, this would be decisive, — with depressed destructiveness and large vene¬ ration, the Brahmin can be thus remorseless, when his petty per¬ sonal interest is involved.

But the Brahmin, on the most unexceptionable testimony, is indeed the most remorseless of human kind. The Abbe Dubois, who resided many years in India, and found it impossible to con¬ vert one sinner there from the error of his way by his missionary labours, says, “ A Hindoo, and above all a Brahmin , by his insti¬ tutions, his usages, his education, and customs, must be considered a kind of moral monster ; as an individual placed in a state of con¬ tinual variance and opposition with the rest of mankind, with whom he is forbidden all free and confidential intercourse, nay, whom he is obliged to shun, to scorn, and to hate.”

Captain Seeley, who, in visiting the Hindoo temples, was al¬ most persuaded to become a worshipper there, says of the poor Hindoos themselves, ts They are idolaters, and can neither read nor write, unsophistical and untaught, yet possessing the highest moral attributes. These are the same women who cheerfully burn themselves alive with the bodies of their dead husbands. Their life is that of pure innocence and chaste love ! It is a pity that such a virtuous, docile, affectionate, sober, mild, and good tem¬ pered people should be calumniated by ignorance and hypocrisy ; but a truce to moralizing.” The Captain goes on, after describing the females of Capooly, to say, c< To these beauties of person we may add the sweetest of dispositions, and most fervent affection to parents and relatives.” This is all very well, and perfectly ac¬ cords with my argument so far as phrenology is implicated ; but if it be possible to understand to what class of Hindoos the gallant officer alludes, we presume it must be to the lowest , the Kuaytrees or soldiers, the Byzees or husbandmen, and the Soudras or crafts¬ men, there being only one higher , namely, the Brahmins, who are therefore necessarily included in the following portentous denun¬ ciation : — (( The poor wretched people among themselves are mild, charitable, and affectionate, while their superiors, for ty¬ ranny, avarice, and treachery, are unparalleled by any order of

men on the known earth, without one qualifying virtue; their iron rule, indeed, would demoralize the most virtuous and enlightened nation.” Now this brings all that can be said on the subject to the point at which I have been all the while aiming, namely, that the native Hindoos, however harmless or amiable their original dispositions may be, have been most awfully demoralized by “ the tyranny, avarice, and treachery” of 44 their superiors,” whether princes or priests ; and let Captain Seeley or other superficial ob¬ servers say what they will about Hindoo lives of 44 pure innocence and chaste love,” such monsters of iniquity, whose 44 iron rule,1’ to use his own language, 44 would demoralize the most virtuous and enlightened nation,” cannot have failed to degrade the most credulous, if not the most ignorant of human beings, as the lower classes of Hindoos certainly are.

Of the depth of their moral degradation, there cannot be a more unquestionable proof than that trait in their character which ac¬ curately coincides with one of their phrenological symbols, — secretiveness , in the worst acceptation of the word. Their habitual cunning, deceitfulness, and falsehood are notorious ; one who had resided long among them, and had the best opportunities of study¬ ing their character in all its obliquities, lately affirmed in public* 54 No dependence can be placed on their actions or speeches ; I never met with a Hindoo who told the truth , or thought it neces¬ sary to do so.” Now, will any man in his right mind assert, that because the modern Hindoos may be all liars, their progenitors, therefore, were always such, and their posterity will always be the same P Was truth never told in India, and cannot the Hindoo be taught to know the truth, — the truth which shall make him free indeed, — free from ignorant error, and free from wilful falsehood P Yes, if God be true, then may all his human offspring, down to the meanest Soudra, be restored in this respect to his image.

And yet, beneath this 44 lowest deep” of brute humanity* we si find a lower still,” — even in India. I have lately received some very curious information respecting a race of savages, the Yedas or Wedas, of Ceylon, from two persons who long had resided on the island, where they collected the following scanty notices con¬ cerning them, from the most authentic sources ; nothing of the kind, I believe, has ever been published by travellers or geogra¬ phers. — The probable number of these wild inhabitants of Ceylon has not been ascertained. They haunt a considerable range of country, extending from the north far into the interior of the island, and have never been brought under any civil rule or government, either by the Kings of Candy or the European colo¬ nists, who have occupied the coast for more than three hundred years. Their language is supposed to be a broken jargon of the Ceylonese, suited to the few purposes of mere animal life. They build no houses, consequently form no village communities, and pursue none of the common employments of life; arts, agriculture,

23

and manufactures, of course, are quite unknown among them. They subsist partly upon the spontaneous fruits of the trees throughout their district, which is overrun with forests and jun¬ gles, the abodes of serpents and beasts of prey. But they are also expert in killing the wild deer that abound there. These they shoot with iron-pointed arrows, which they procure by a singular mode of barter from their more civilized neighbours. The pattern of an arrow-head, and a symbol of the number wanted, is laid in the night at the door of some blacksmith, with whom they are in the habit of trafficking, and also a certain portion of deer’s flesh of the estimated value of the purchase. The artisan (instructed by former examples of the terrible vengeance which the barba¬ rians would take were their orders neglected) prepares the arti¬ cles and deposits them by night in the same place, near his shop ; from which they are as secretly removed, no personal intercourse being on any account allowed. They are accustomed, it has been ascertained, to kill a large quantity of deer at a proper season, beyond their immediate necessity for food. The flesh of these they preserve in hollow trees, filling up the interstices with wild honey, of which great quantities are found in the woods, and covering the deposit closely up with bees’ -wax, which is plentiful in pro¬ portion. This clearly argues intelligence, which might be wrought upon to raise them from utter savageness ; indeed, the circum¬ stance connected with their little commerce, shows a true sense of justice between man and man, and implies one step of actual pro¬ gress in civilization in their preference of iron-headed arrows to such rude weapons of their own as they probably used before they discovered the superiority of the latter. Perhaps the most out of the way fact concerning them is their custom of lodging in trees, on the large branches of which they construct a slight cover of broad leaves, like an inverted bird’s nest, to shelter them from storms, while they sleep on the boughs secure from the elephants, tigers, and other ferocious animals that prowl beneath in the thickets. This, by the by, is a common method of watching corn by night amongst the neighbouring Kandeans ; a man takes his station in a tree, beneath which he kindles a fire, and when the elephants or buffaloes approach the planted ground, he discharges a gun to scare them away.

I have been able to learn but one matter of record in the blank existence of this tribe of human ciphers. At low water,- the pas¬ sage from the Indian continent to the island is easily forded, on one point, where there is a very ancient temple, held in the highest veneration by the Hindoos, though adjoining to what may be called the territory of these Vedas. A Hindoo family, some years ago, went over to worship in this temple. There were a father, and mother, and daughter. Just as they landed, one of the savages darted from the woods, but being instantly smitten with the beauty of the young woman, he paused, and made signs

sufficiently intelligible, that he wished to make her his companion* The party disregarded his motions, as he did not venture to draw near, and hastened towards the temple ; whereupon the disap¬ pointed lover bent his bow, and sent an arrow through the back into the heart of her whom he could not win by his rude courting. Now, whatever phrenological phenomena the heads of these self¬ outcasts of humanity may discover, that man is neither philosopher nor philanthropist, who can believe them incapable of both moral and mental cultivation, which shall immeasurably exalt them above their present nonentity among social beings.

I have at length done with the Hindoos, and proceed to make a few cursory remarks on the Negroes, a numerous class of the human species, with whom the most civilized nations of Christendom have long had a very intimate kind of intercourse, by which the former, instead of being enlightened and improved, have been rendered more hopelessly degraded than they are ever found by stray tra¬ vellers in their own obscurest regions. The experiment is yet to be made, which shall determine whether the Negro is capable or not of equalling the European, in all that adorns and elevates the man above the brute, the free man above the bond-slave. The Negro has no memorials of remote antiquity, like the Hindoos, to show the grandeur of his origin amidst the desolation of his fall under rapacious tyrants at home, and remorseless task-masters abroad. The history of Mid- Africa is as blank as its geography appears in the maps.

The state of arts and agriculture, such as they are, among those larger tribesof Negroes which may be considered asunder something like regular government, proves that opportunities alone are wanted to cause them to advance rapidly and permanently to improvement in both. Among the Ashantees and Timbuctoons, especially, it appears, by the most authentic accounts, that wealth and magnifi¬ cence, in no mean proportion, though of most barbaric form, dis¬ tinguish the courts of the aboriginal princes; and the occasional wars which European colonists are compelled to wage against such powers as border upon their usurpations, show that in arms the heretofore undisciplined natives may hereafter become formi¬ dable, and, like the Russians in the age of Peter the Great, learn to conquer by lessons of defeat. Yet while the slave trade con¬ tinues to exist, the amelioration of Negro government and Negro society, in Negro lands, may be pronounced all impossible.

The cranium of the Negro is of a very grotesque order. It is nearly as imperfect in front, where the intellectual organs are placed by phrenologists, as the Hindoo’s, if not actually more so, from the recession of the forehead ; but then, instead of being like the Hindoo’s, deficient in the indications of cruel and brute pro¬ pensities, there is an enormous excess of these, and the whole skull (according to our ideas of symmetry) is so unhappily modelled, that upon the cursory view of it — if a Negro had never before been

25

seen ih Europe, and such creatures were only just now discovered to inhabit this planet — even a skilful phrenologist might be tempted to pronounce it the head of some nondescript animal, approaching to humanity, but far inferior, not to the European only, but to any other species of genuine men. A skilful phreno¬ logist, however, on more accurate examination, would form a very different judgment, and declare it not only superior to the castes of several known barbarian tribes, but he would find it difficult — I believe he would find it impossible — to say, that a being with such a cranium, however rude in shape, was not capable of rising to the height of intellectual dignity. The mercenary herd of slave- drivers, for centuries past, have doomed the Negro to incorrigible stupidity and unimprovable viciousness, that they themselves might justify their inhuman usage of wretches whom, by their cruelty, they have indeed made the lowest of human beings — except them¬ selves. But slave-drivers are neither phrenologists nor philoso¬ phers, much less philanthropists. With them, therefore, and their plantation-logic, I hold no controversy here ; I might as well pretend to refute the lashes of a cart-whip, or reason against the wrenchings of a thumb-screw, as argue with them.

I learn from various phrenological papers, that the skull of the Negro evidently rises in the scale of developement of the moral and intellectual organs, so as to set it decidedly above that of the New Hollander and North-American Indian. The latter I question exceedingly, if there be any truth in phrenology itself ; for in all reference to this extraordinary people, in the Society’s publications, I observe an almost unpardonable ignorance, not of the capacity only of the North-American Indians, but of the actual exemplification of their capacity as it has been displayed on no contemptible scale, during a period of ninety years’ residence among them, by persons well qualified both to civilize and Chris¬ tianize this noble but outraged race of barbarians. I must not, however, digress, but return to the Negro and the manifestations of his mind on the exterior of his cranium. We are told, that the forehead is higher, and the organs of the sentiments bear a larger proportion to those of the propensities than in many other savage specimens. Philoprogenitiveness and concentrativeness (the former indicating the purest feelings of our nature, and the latter favourable to settled and sedentary occupations) are largely exhibited. Hope, veneration , and wonder are also prominent, whence we are assured that they are very superstitious ; while consciousness , cautiousness, ideality, and reflection are compara¬ tively deficient . : -

Be it so ; but if Negro individuals, under every disadvantage both at home and abroad, subjected to despotism and personal suffering unknown to any savages under the sun except themselves, have frequently given proof of every excellence in art, science, morals, and even politics, (as we shall presently show,) what may

26

be expected from Negro nations when they shall become indepen¬ dent and enlightened, — an era which may be far off as to the majority, but which, in one instance at least, St. Domingo, is con¬ temporary with our own. But let us consult history, to know what the Negro, or (if that will not be allowed) the Negro’s next akin, has performed in ages that are past ; for on such a question as that before us, more false conclusions cannot be drawn than those which are founded solely upon present circumstances and existing men. What should we deem the ancient Greeks and Romans to have been, were we to judge of them by their living descendants in Turkey and the Ecclesiastical States of Italy ? Who built the pyramids, founded the hundred-gated city of Thebes, excavated the catacombs, wrought out of granite the Memnon and the Sphynx, the obelisks, the temples in ruins along the banks of the Nile, of dimensions so vast, that they might be the memorials of those days when there were giants on the earth ? The architects, the sculpturers, the designers, the labourers of these unparalleled monuments of mind, and achievements of skill, were so near akin to Negroes in physiognomy, that it would be difficult for an adept to point out a material distinction, — at least to point out any great distinction in their favour.

Historians inform us, that the ancient Egyptians were so dark- complexioned, as to be called black ; their hair was curly, their noses were flat, their faces broad, their lips tumid. These very characters we discern in the remains of their sculptures, not in rude hieroglyphics only, but in exquisite and masterly spe¬ cimens of statuary, — the head of Memnon, a man, and that of the Sphynx, a woman, are thus represented. Those stupen¬ dous sitting figures at Memphis, which are traced to the age of Sesostris, or earlier, are of the same contour. Nay, though I am not prepared to affirm it, I am as well persuaded of the fact as I can be on evidence which at first may seem infallible, but in reality is very dubious ; — the countenances of existing Egyptian bodies, preserved as mummies to this day, show these to have been the national features. Such witnesses from the dead, such testimony of contemporaries, would be decisive, if we could ascertain when they lived ; but none of the modern keys to the hieroglyphics have yet opened the secrets of the grave so far as to let in more than a ray of evanescent light upon them, which, by its illusive brilliance, only renders the darkness more palpable, and the hope of eventual discovery more forlorn.

The phrenologists, however, tell us, (Phren. Jour. Yol. ii. No. V. p. 17, Article on cerebral developement of nations,) that “ the skulls of ancient mummies are found almost invariably to belong to the same class as Europeans. In the Society’s collection there are casts of the skulls of five mummies, and we have seen and obtained descriptions of the skulls of half a dozen more, and the full size, large developement before the ear, and broad coronal

27

surface, characterize them all.” This I will not dispute ; but where is the proof of the antiquity of these ? The art of embalming was practised in Egypt for ages after the Pharaohs, when the Greeks, and afterwards the Romans, were masters of the country ; and hieroglyphics were used in the same way to decorate the cere-* cloths of the departed, for ages (I am convinced) after the genuine meaning of the original hieroglyphics was lost ; for if that meaning had been known to the Greeks and Romans, it never could have been lost, unless it was not worth preserving, which really is about as much as can be said for such hieroglyphics as they employed, and which have been so ingeniously interpreted by Dr. Young and M. Champollion, in our own day. It is much more probable that the Egyptian statues, of indisputable antiquity, have transmitted to posterity the real features of the people who wrought them, than that a people, with Greek beauty and Roman majesty of countenance, should have represented their heroes and gods with Negro ugliness, as their “ fine ideal” of “ the human face divine.” If the Egyptian mummies, therefore, have visages and crania more exquisitely moulded than those of their statues, I must conclude that they are the relics of later generations than the authors of these magnificent monuments of aboriginal art. It is a very striking illustration of Negro genius, or the genius of men with Negro-heads, that the further the traveller penetrates towards the country where the Nile has its source, and which is literally ^Ethiopia, whose inhabitants have been proverbially black from the earliest records, the more stupendous in bulk, gorgeous in embellishment, and elaborate in workmanship the temples, half buried in sands of centuries, are said to appear, along the banks of the river ; and it could not be believed that such miracles of human power over inert and refractory matter, could have been wrought by such feeble tribes of men as those that live around them, if these structures themselves did not body forth, in the numerous images, men of like features with their puny descendants, but who must, of course, have flourished in ages of happier auspices than those who find inglorious graves where their ancestors left trophies which time cannot destroy.

In the fourth century of Christianity, when questions of theology exercised the understanding of men more than any other topics, the polemical heroes of the African churches were not less distin¬ guished than their European and Asiatic brethren, either for violence or subtlety in these logomachies ; and Negro bishops (if I am not greatly mistaken) were wont to rear their mitred heads in general council beside Greek and Roman pontiffs. I mention these things as proof of intelligence of no inferior order, which such honour allowed to them indicates. With the merits of the controversies on either side of the Mediterranean, I have nothing to do. To come to the present age, I acknowledge that there is only one degree of degradation, either in morals or intellect, below

28

that of the Negro in many parts of his native continent, and that is the degradation of the Negro in the West Indies, — an exile, a slave, a sufferer, trampled into mire beneath the asinine hoof of oppression, braying and kicking over its victim, who, in that situation, is necessarily incapable of showing to advantage any small faculties which he may possess. But even here we have instances — thousands and tens of thousands of instances — of Negroes re¬ claimed from all the vices of paganism, and exemplifying all the virtues of Christianity. We have also not a few instances — many they may be called, considering the obstructions to improvement — of Negroes excelling in arts, in manufactures, in science, in poetry, and even in languages. In the year 1801, died at a very advanced age, in the Danish island of St. Thomas, a Negro named Cornelius, where he had received Christian baptism. He was originally a sla re on the royal estate, and having been brought up a mason, had the appointment of overseer of all the king’s buildings, an office of trust and credit, which he discharged with signal ability and uprightness. He erected no less than six chapels for public worship in the course of his life, besides many other very considerable structures in the island. He was able to write and speak the Creole, Dutch, Danish, German, and English languages, which raised him high in estimation and usefulness above the Negroes and among the whites. Being permitted to save some little property, he first purchased the freedom of his wife, — mark the delicacy of that ; he then laboured hard to gain his own liberty, but his market value being exorbitant according to his real worth, it was only after much entreaty, and the payment of a great ransom, dearly earned, that he accomplished his object, — mark the wisdom of that ; for thus (by having the whole pro¬ duce of his toil and talents at his own disposal) he was enabled, much earlier than he could otherwise have done it, had he delayed his own freedom till the last of all, to redeem, one by one, his six children. His conduct through life, and his language in the hour of death, worthy of a patriarch blessing his children before his departure, were irrefutable evidences of the capability of the Negro, rising out of the baseness of bondage, to attain all the glory of intelligence and the beauty of holiness.

I have already named St. Domingo, and alluded to the new experiment in civil policy which is carrying on there, (amidst innumerable but not insuperable obstructions,) with every reason¬ able prospect of final and triumphant success. I shall not expatiate here on a theme, to do justice to which would occupy as much space on my paper, and trespass as much on your time, as these rambling remarks have already done. I shall offer only one illus¬ tration more of Negro talent. This is a very curious and interest¬ ing document, but it must be heard with some indulgence, and if there be a place on earth where it ought to be heard with more indulgence than any other, that place is Sheffield.

29

SANDANEE S DREAM.

Some years ago, two Negro youths were taken out of a vessel in the London docks, and brought to Sheffield by a benevolent lady belonging to the Society of Friends. They were placed under the care of Mr. William Singleton, who resided at a small village in the neighbourhood. By him they were instructed in reading writing, and other branches of useful learning ; but above all, in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and the doctrines of Christianity, as held by the Friends, to qualify them to become teachers of their countrymen at some future time. Their conduct was credit¬ able, and their improvement satisfactory during the time of their schooling. About five years ago, they accompanied their kind patroness on a visit to West Africa, and by her were left among their kindred, with a fair prospect of fulfilling the hopes and expectations of their benefactors.

The following was received from Mr. Wm. Singleton above- mentioned. The accounts of the Day of Judgment, which are to be found in various parts of the Scriptures, evidently suggested the scenery and circumstances of this dream. The personage styled “ the Minister,” no doubt, represents “the Judge of the quick and dead.” The form in which He appears, and the part which He and the Bible may be said to act in the tremendous drama, have not been exceeded in splended imagery, or sublime conception, by any thing in the writings of uninspired man ; nor are they in the smallest degree degraded, but rather heightened, by the inimitable simplicity, and the beautifully broken English, in which the narration is given from the lips of the poor Negro lad.

t /

“8th Month, 7th, 1820.

“ Last night Sandanee had a dream, which he related in language nearly as follows : —

“ ‘ O Fader, when I sleep last night, I hear something like as it call me here, ( laying his hand on his breast ,) ‘ Sandanee! Sanda- mee ! look at this.’

“ ‘ Then I look, and see a great star there, (pointing backward.) O, I never saw such great star in all my life. When I look at him, I cry water from my eyes — I cannot look he so bright.

“ ‘ Then the star go that way, (forward,) O so quick. And when the star go quick, the clouds all go away — some on this side, some on that side, and no sky left — but all fire in the middle, and very light with the star. And the star has great tail, and the tail go every way, and turn about, and when he go so very quick to the west, then he fall and make very great fire, and burn the trees, and burn every thing. And the fire make very great noise, and go over me, from the west to the east — and the clouds very red, and the ground all red. . ...

30

“ ‘ And I saw the Minister, very, very tall : He stand very great height upon a beautiful stone, very high ; I no see his face, He stand so high. And then I see the Bible open of itself, no man open it, and all the black print turn red.

“ ‘ Then I see plenty of people, black and white, men and children, and babies, come out of the graves — O great many ! If I take great many sheep, and drive them, they go very close together ; so the people go very close, some fall down, some go over them ; they all come very quick by the Minister, where He stand, and they run to the east, away from the fire. Some say to the Minister — ‘What must we do? What this star?’ Then the Minister say very loud, in English, and all could hear Him : —

“ * I been told you all these things, many times before, and you no believe ; but now there is the day for you to believe these things.’

“‘Then the Bible speak like a man, and it say the same as the Minister : — ‘ I been told you all these things many times before, and you no believe ; but now there is the day for you to believe these things.’

“ ‘ And the people cry very much, and they have no clothes. And I very much afraid, and I awake. Then I sleep again and dream the same, and when I awake again, I very much frightened — and I sit up in bed — and I shake the bed very much, O very much ! I never saw such dream in all my life ! I no dare go sleep again. I never forgot him till I die.

“ * Then I tell Mahamadee, and he say, ‘ I never saw such dream !’

“ ‘ Then I look through the window, to see if it be so ; but I see the moon, and the stars, and the clouds, all there.’ ”

( If phrenology were like Hindooism, a system of castes , and every tribe of mankind, by a fatality of organization, were doomed to be, through all changes of society, savage, semi-barbarian, or civilized, the same as their fathers had been in one or other of these stages, — if phrenology were such a system of castes, I, for one, would abjure it without requiring any further evidence of its utter absurdity and point-blank contradiction to all the records of history, the testimony of living experience, and the whole result of man’s knowledge of himself and his species. A science of such anomalous consequences could not be of God, and would not stand. His works are perfect, however slowly their issues may be produced ; — they are perfect, because they include in their very rudiments the principles by which they must go on to perfection, if not unnaturally obstructed ; and even then the interrupt ion can be only temporary, while their power and tendency to progression revive an undiminished activity the moment the hinderance is removed. If this be the case in all inferior subjects of the animal and even of the vegetable creation, is it possible

31

that the masterpiece of the Almighty should be the only incorri¬ gibly defective work of his hand ? No ; let science search out every secret of the universe, she has nothing to fear except error, — error in the guise of truth, or truth adulterated with error ; — every pure truth that she can discover must be a new revelation of God in his invisible universe, and a new confirmation of the authenticity of that word which reveals the things that are unseen and eternal ; — things absolutely undiscovered by physical investi¬ gation, and necessarily irrefutable by that which could not have found them out. Let, then, phrenology be established (if it can be) by plain positive facts, and the Christian need not tremble for his religion, nor the philanthropist for his hope of the ultimate civilization of every class of the human race, whatever be their present darkness of mind, depravity of manners, or preposterous aevelopements of skull.

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5

STRICTURES

MR. MONTGOMERY’S ESSAY ON THE PHRENOLOGY

OP THE

HINDOOS AND NEGROES.

BY CORDON THOMPSON, M. D.

Lecturer on Physiology, and on the Nature and Treatment of Diseases, at the Sheffield School of Anatomy and Medicine.

D

STRICTURES, 8fc.

We rejoice that Mr. Montgomery has published his Essay on the Phrenology of the Hindoos ; we are lovers of truth, by whom¬ soever taught, but at the same time frankly confess, that we respect no man’s opinions any further than they appear to us con¬ sonant with truth. Whatever deference, therefore, may be due to the author, he cannot be offended if we follow his example, and use our reason on the occasion. He has not spared phrenology, nor shall we spare his opinions ; indeed, their publication at this period* seems to imply a wish that they should be freely canvassed. Mr. Montgomery is a poet, but it does not follow that he is a phrenologist ; and we are greatly at a loss to know by which of those licenses usually granted to the soaring genius of his class, he has thought himself justified in commencing his Essay on Phreno¬ logy, by stating that he intends neither to attack nor vindicate its doctrines. We frankly confess that we should imagine a very curious organization in the brain of an individual, who could throw together on any particular theme, as many observations as would require pretty nearly two hours for their perusal, without adducing something either in corroboration or refutation of his subject. But some may object that we are fastidious ; our author’s language, however, proves that we are not, for the very first line contains a most direct attack on phrenology. He styles it a fanciful system. 46 Neither attack nor vindication of that fanciful system is intended,” is the phraseology which he employs. Now, we ask, can words be more inaptly chosen, or meaning more un¬ happily obscured ? In our notice of Dr. Spurzheim’s Lectures, p we have again and again repeated, that phrenology is based on facts, — that to nature, and her alone, it appeals. On the other hand, Mr. Montgomery, throughout the series of his observations, has recourse simply to reasonings ; the nature of which we shall presently inquire into, and then the reader will be able to judge for himself whether phrenology or the poet deals most in fancy. Still greater, however, appears the inconsistency of denominating phrenology a fanciful system, when we find even the writer himself

* See advertisement to the reader.

+ For the same journal in which these strictures appeared, the writer drew up an account of the doctor’s introductory lectures.

D 2

admitting that it is grounded on facts, — of which there are too many, he acknowledges, to allow it to be laughed out of credit by the prejudiced and superficial.

The object of Mr. Montgomery’s Essay is to show, “ that the actual character of nations, as well as individuals, may be modified by moral, political, and other circumstances, in direct contradic¬ tion to their cerebral developements.” The meaning of the above language, it is clear, can only be this— that the principles of phrenology, as commonly professed, are contradicted by the actual character of existing nations. And yet no attack on phrenology is intended ! To be sure, if we meet an individual, and, without further ceremony, batter his sconce well, we may assert, and perhaps truly, that we do not intend to knock him down ; but we should have some difficulty in persuading him that we do not wish the blows to take effect.

The fact is granted, says Mr. Montgomery, that the Hindoos generally are distinguished by deplorable mental and bodily imbecility. But, he proceeds, are they not the descendants of an¬ cestors not less conspicuous, on the other hand, both for intellectual and manual power, whatever may have been their stature or the size of their heads ? Now, observe the singular defect of this reasoning. If the writer wished to insinuate, that, when applied to the Hindoos, the principles of phrenology do not explain their past and present state, he ought to have shown that the heads of modern Hindoos are of the same size and shape, their tempera¬ ments, too, the same as those of their ancestors. No phrenologist can, for a moment, admit, without some direct or ocular proof, some irrefragable demonstration, that nations distinguished by their intellectual powers, and others remarkable for their ‘c unutterable degradation” and “ deplorable mental imbecility,” have the same developement of the anterior lobes of the brain. To affirm, then, that the present Hindoos are descended from ancestors renowned for acumen and dexterity, whatever the size of their heads , is a mere petitio principii — a simple begging of the question — an assumption of that which ought to be demonstrated in the very first instance.

The physical and mental degeneration of the Hindoos, Mr. Montgomery attributes to moral and political circumstances. We need not hesitate to grant the influence of these causes ; but, we demand, does not the brain belong to the body? And if the latter degenerate, may not the former also undergo a similar degenera¬ tion ; or rather, can it escape the general change? And is not, we ask, the brain the organ of the mind ; and is not its full integrity and developement necessary to perfection of the mental faculties ? Let our asylums, our hospitals, our unhealthy manufactories, our crowded and thickly populated towns, answer these questions. Moreover, it is a common observation, and worthy of remark, that the degenerated offspring of illustrious progenitors have very dif-

37

ferently shaped foreheads from those who were once the pride, the honour, and the dignity of their families. Phrenology, again, on the other side, teaches that the organs or instruments of the mental powers, when properly called into action and kept in exercise, are susceptible of increase in size, as well as of a higher degree of activity.

From the preceding considerations, we see that there is nothing at variance with the principles of the new science of mind, in sup¬ posing that various moral, political, and physical causes may have contributed to diminish the brains of the Hindoos. However, neither Mr. Montgomery, nor yet the phrenologist, can ascertain, by positive facts , the precise characters of the organization or cere¬ bral developement of the supposed ancient Hindoos, so that these people can afford no direct evidence either against or in support of the doctrines of phrenology. Yet the advocates of the latter, it should be remembered, have a very strong analogy in their favour in respect to another ancient nation, the most illustrious and re¬ nowned of antiquity. We allude to the Greeks, whose cele¬ brated artists have left behind them numerous specimens of their talents which are highly confirmatory of the phrenological system. We are quite assured, in regard to this great people, that they possessed the anterior lobes of the brain well developed. And further, independent of the above observations, which perfectly re¬ concile the present state of the Hindoos, in reference to degenera¬ tion, with the principles maintained by phrenologists, we have still to remark, that neither Mr. Montgomery nor any other person has yet proved satisfactorily that the modern Hindoos are the lineal descendants of the celebrated nations of antiquity already men¬ tioned. But setting this point altogether aside, it is an indispu¬ table fact that the brain may and does degenerate as well as any other part of the human frame. It would be surprisingly strange, indeed, if this were not the case.

Mr. Montgomery traces the degradation of the Hindoos to cer¬ tain causes already enumerated ; he then asserts that the spirit of their ancestors is not dead, but sleepeth ; he hints that they still possess warlike and intellectual capacities much dreaded by the Leadenhall monarchs ; boldly affirms their imbecility and sta¬ tionary civilization not to proceed, as Dr. Paterson would intimate, from the inveterately deficient organization of their heads, but from the premeditated suppression of their intellectual energies by their past and present governors. Had the Essayist been acquainted with the natural laws of organized beings, — had he understood any thing of physiology, or even the common fundamental principles of the very science which he labours to overthrow, — he would cer¬ tainly have been less dogmatical on the occasion. The Hindoos are mentally imbecile. N ow, according to the doctrines of phrenology, this may depend on a lymphatic constitution, a defective cerebral organization, or on both causes operating at once. The skulls of

these people, which are met \Vith in European collections, are re¬ markable for their smallness ; and we fearlessly maintain, that if such be common to the nation at large, the majority of individuals will not fail to betray great weakness of mind. We admit that de¬ fective organization may be improved in proportion as proper means are adopted to advance civilization. A fuller and better developed state or condition of the cerebral organs imparts a higher degree of power and activity to the mind. The organs may be im¬ proved or deteriorated by various causes ; but in all cases, a corre¬ spondence betwixt the mental dispositions and cerebral develope- ments will most indubitably be observed.

The author seems to have forgotten that mind was dependent on brain for its manifestation ; that in proportion as the state of the latter is perfect, the former will be more active and powerful. He confesses the Indian to be degenerated in body , yet speaks as if cerebral organization had nothing to do with that body , and did not, with its other parts, suffer change. It is in vain to personify sleeping intellect ; if the energy, if the capacity existed, not all the tyrants of Europe would be able to subjugate its workings. Our author talks prolixly about the degradation brought upon the Hindoos by a long series of devastating wars, more especially during the last thousand years. He must, however, be well aware that their religious and political institutions — their division into tribes and castes — their entire moral and civil machinery — in fact, has existed the same for more than two thousand years. When he speaks of a perpetually increasing degeneracy from the time of Alexander downwards, he forgets, surely, that a century prior to the existence of this great personage, Herodotus had described the Indians exactly as we now find them. Alexander, too, was not, as Mr. Montgomery seems to insinuate, repulsed by Indian prowess ; he \yas merely obliged to relinquish his object, because his soldiers refused to march further on account of the rainy season. Seleucus obtained the Indian conquests at the death of Alexander ; and Megasthenes, whom he sent as ambassador to the Court of Pale- bothra, gives the same account of the Indians as Herodotus had previously done. Still more, Arrian, who wrote the history of Alexander’s expedition, distinctly mentions their division into castes, their vegetable diet, the burning of the widows, and, what is of yet greater moment here, describes the Hindoos as of slender and delicate make. So that it is evident they were already dege¬ nerated at this period, if they have degenerated ; and if there has been a progressively augmenting degeneration for so long a space of time, we wonder that at present they are better than Lilli¬ putians. Even the Brahmins themselves possess simply a bor¬ rowed knowledge, as Mr. Bailly has demonstrated; for as to the astronomical tables spoken of, they have no idea whatever how they were calculated, nor have they in any way improved a single branch of science. They have not advanced knowledge one step ;

39

such as they received it, they retain it, even without understanding it ‘y and as they found it, they are likely to leave it.

Again, Mr. Montgomery inveighs bitterly against the system of castes, to which he and many others attribute the stationary state of the Hindoos. But Mr. Rikards, even on the authority of Colebrooke, has made it manifest that this is a European error, — that those of one trade, or caste, may, if circumstances render it expedient, exercise that of another, — -that, moreover, this is a very common practice , there being no strictness whatever in this respect. Hence he very shrewdly infers, that the cause of the present state of the Hindoos must be sought for in other circumstances besides those of caste and religion. And where shall we find these cir¬ cumstances P In premeditated suppression of intellect by past and present governors ? That suppression existed before any of the oppressors enumerated by our author. We refer him, then, once more to their brains — to their “ inveterate organization ,” as he is pleased to style it. And, we would ask, is not the poet himself an example of the futility of attempts to repress existing mental energy ?

So much, then, for the first doubts raised by our author against the new science ; and the discussion, as it relates to the Hindoos, may, we think, be now very fairly reduced to a consideration of their actual state — that is to say, to a comparison of their mental dispositions with their cerebral developement, both generally and specially.

In conformity with his notions of sleeping powers , Mr. Mont¬ gomery proceeds to tell us what excellent soldiers may be made of some of these Indians. We say some , because, after all, their number is comparatively small; and even the valour of this rem¬ nant is only relative to their own country, it should be remem¬ bered. A phrenologist can readily conceive that some tribes, when generously fed, well disciplined, and ably conducted, will form pretty excellent soldiers compared to others of the same race ; but he can never admit, without witnessing the fact, that individuals possessed of skulls similar to those of the Hindoos preserved in European Museums, are capable, by any efforts of discipline or treatment, of becoming soldiers or officers equal to those on whose shoulders a British head is placed ; nor do we think if the most ex¬ cellent Hindoo troops were pitched against Europeans, that Mr. Montgomery would wish to see the liberties of his country depend¬ ing on the issue of the contest, though the Indians greatly ex¬ ceeded in numerical force. We wonder that our author should trust so much to flattering speeches made by one or two individuals in the presence of East India proprietors. We would advertise him that there are ways and means of causing even cowards to fight, and that, too, courageously ; that when an enemy appears in front, and a friend spurs kindly on with a bayonet behind , there are few who cannot combat and destroy, how peaceable soever at other times. As to genuine courage, or their capacity to lead the

40

van of battle, let our author consult generally such as have lived amongst them, and he will find that they do not contradict in these respects their phrenological indications, or, as he is pleased to style them, brands. But does he not himself brand them with degene¬ racy of frame, with bodily imbecility ? How comes it then, that he all at once converts them into such admirable soldiers ? such brave and active troops ? Doubtless the spirit of their ancestors awaketh in the Sepoys ; like a giant refreshed, it will walk forth and accomplish prodigies ! Hitherto, nevertheless, it hath done no great things. After stating that, in some instances, there had been an irregular supply of food, and that, on this account, some recruits had even been observed to faint in the ranks, he demands, with an air of triumph, whether any troops under the sun, though they had organs of destructiveness like Bellingham and Mary M‘Ginnis, could be brave under such circumstances? We reply yes, that Europeans have evinced the utmost bravery and fortitude under circumstances still more aggravated and appalling. Moreover, if Mr. Montgomery supposes destructiveness to constitute the organ of bravery, we trust he will not be offended if we say that he is entirely ignorant of the matter. Like many other persons who have railed against this science, our Essayist has manifested a de¬ plorable want of acquaintance with the subject of which he treats. — And yet, assuming an apparent neutrality, he has impugned the truth of its doctrines in the most unequivocal and unhesitating manner. To recur, however, to the Hindoo soldiery. How easy it seems, by the aid of a little fancy , and one or two flourishing citations, to make out a plausible statement. — But has our Essayist forgotten the Burmese war ? — Is he aware that these latter people, who are very differently organized , do themselves laugh at a Hin¬ doo army, except when led by British officers and mixed with Bri¬ tish regiments ? And do they ever combat otherwise, or can the least confidence be placed in their valour when left to themselves ? Certainly not ; a handful of Europeans is sufficient to rout an in¬ finitely superior Hindoo force. This is a notorious fact, in spite of Leadenhall speeches, or the advantage to which they may be cited.

Moreover, the profession of arms is confined to a particular caste, the members of which are born and bred warriors ; they are brought up from their earliest infancy in the cradle of martial glory ; yet, notwithstanding the benefits of youthful discipline, their desire for applause and their native ambition, they were never famed for their military exploits, always preferring the cunning of stratagem to feats of valour. And why ? They are deficient in courage ; combativeness is small, and hence character and organization are conformable. No doubt, urged on by British bayonets — pressed by a danger still nearer and more certain than that which an enemy presents — then they will fight, and so will all cowards. This natural disinclination to combat is very strik¬ ingly illustrated by the Gentoo Laws. They forbid war to be entered upon at once; pacific overtures are to be first made ; they

41

are to be repealed ; and failing, bribery is then to be resorted to, — stratagem is to be practised, — division is to be excited amongst the enemy; but, if no artifice succeeds, then war is the only alter¬ native. How admirably characteristic ! — And any one who will seek for information respecting this point in the Hindoo character, will invariably find it represented as mild and peaceable ; indeed, to their harmless and quiet dispositions, all historians ascribe the circumstance of their becoming an easy prey to foreign invaders. And is not this in perfect accordance with their phrenological in¬ dications ? “ The general expression of the countenance,” says

Mr. Ward, the pious Missionary, te reminds you that the Hindoo is mild and kind , and rather disposed to melancholy and effeminate pleasures.” Now, it is a positive fact that this description pre¬ cisely agrees with their cerebral organization. Mr. Montgomery may dream away his hours as long as he pleases in speculations on ancient Hindoo heads ; we have here facts , and they are sufficient for our homely minds. The Hindoo is notoriously effeminate, amativeness is large ; he is peaceable, combativeness is defective ; he is timid, cautiousness is large ; he is cunning and artful, secre¬ tiveness is full ; he is melancholy, hope is deficient.

But let us follow our author. “ We are gravely told that be¬ cause the external tokens of combativeness and destructiveness are remarkably deficient, and philoprogenitiveness large, the Hindoos are the most harmless and affectionate creatures in the world.” The peculiarly contemptuous wording of this sentence cannot escape notice ; and considering that the writer expressly disclaims all intention of attacking phrenology, is certainly not a little cu¬ rious. This harmlessness and affection, Mr. Montgomery con¬ tends, is flatly contradicted by the cruelty of their religious rites. Now, our first inquiry here, of course, is, whether the Indians are by nature cruel or not, independent of any religious or super¬ stitious notions which may interfere with natural disposition. Into whatever work we look, we shall find them represented as humane — as sparing of animal life. Millions of Gentoos, we read, from mere feelings of humanity, never eat flesh, nor any thing that has lived. This is a fact. And if we recur to their laws, we shall see this feeling still more decidedly expressed. The magis¬ trate or governor is forbidden to make war with any deceitful machine , or with poisoned weapons, or with cannon and guns , or with any other ki?id of fire-arms ; nor shall he slay in war any person who, putting his hands together , supplicates quarter ; nor any person who has no means of escape ; nor any one who is sit¬ ting down ; nor any person who says, I become of your party ; nor any one who is asleep , or is naked, or not employed in war, or who is a looker-on, or who \% fighting with another, or whose wea¬ pons are broken, or who is wounded, or who is fearful of the fight , or is running away !

* Can language better indicate native dispositions than this?

Can terms be more merciful ? instructions more humane ? or a military code less sanguinary? These are facts ; and they demon¬ strate that the Hindoos are not naturally cruel or bloodthirsty — • that they do not delight in taking away life, either in man or animals. On all hands, in short, a timid, mild, and peaceable character is assigned to them. Can, then, we ask once more, mental manifestation more exactly correspond to cerebral organi¬ zation ? But, replies our author, these beings possess a system of horrid religious cruelty. Is, then, natural cruelty of disposition and cruelty from superstition the same thing ? or does the latter necessarily suppose the former ? We are sorry for the discriminat¬ ing powers of that man who thinks so. — Leaving phrenology out of the question, can Mr. Montgomery, can any one, designate as cruel and sanguinary, a nation, the uniform tenour of whose con¬ duct is mild and humane, except when under the influence of a particular exciting cause ? No ; passion, it would be said, (jets the better of reason , and all are ready to grant the assertion.

“ - Different passions more or less inflame

As strong or weak the organs of the frame ;

And hence one MASTER PASSION in the breast,

Like Aaron’s serpent, swallows up the rest.”

Indeed 1 And can passion prevail so much over reason according to a system which makes even that reason strong , and shall it not much more predominate when that reason is weak ? This is the secret which phrenology reveals, and which at once satisfactorily clears up a seeming contradiction of character. The Hindoos, it is well known, are both cruel and benevolent in their religious ceremonies and practices ; they are, moreover, superstitious and stupid. Now, the skulls of these people present the organs of combativeness, destructiveness, hope, and those of the entire mass of the anterior lobes of the brain, small ; whilst amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, cautiousness, approbativeness, benevolence, veneration, and marvellousness, are large. The point at issue, then, is simply this — whether their religious rites contradict this cerebral developement. In the first place, the whole of the ante¬ rior lobes of the cerebral mass is very defective. This is a fact ; and it corresponds with their acknowledged mental imbecility .

Now, on the other hand, it is a fundamental principle in the new doctrine of mind, that the feelings are in themselves blind , — that they act without understanding , from the spur or impulsion given to them at the moment. It is reserved for the intellectual powers to guide and direct their tendencies — to curb and restrain the effects of their excitement. But where individuals have these powers weak — where the anterior lobes, in short, are defective — feeling gets the better of reason as we have said ; such persons give way to blind impulses ; they are the victims of emotion, and the slaves of passion. Their blood and judgment are not well com¬ mingled ; they are a pipe for fortune’s finger to sound what stop

43

she please. Such cannot be calm spectators of events that deeply interest the affective faculties. Mr. Montgomery commits the com- mon error of judging character from actual size instead of relative preponderance of organs, a simple consideration which might have saved him much unnecessary wrath against phrenology. Is it, then, matter of surprise that the Hindoo should easily become a prey to his feelings, and should blindly obey their natural impulse when once strongly excited ? Does not this account for the excesses into which he runs from religious motives P Our author views the Hindoos simply in their superstitions, and thence directly infers that they are cruel. His mode of arguing is somewhat specious. “ When men make their own gods, they always make them in their own likeness,” &c. &c.

By the latter part of the passage here referred to, a person would imagine that the Hindoos had been merely predicated to be harmless, from their “ phrenological insignia;” no one ignorant of the fact would suppose that they really were mild and peaceable. But wherefore is this truth kept back ? Why is the common character of the Hindoo, in all other relations of life, sedulously withheld from view ? Is this an ingenuous procedure ? or did Mr. Montgomery find greater difficulty in explaining the fact on common principles, than on those adopted by phrenologists, and therefore wished to deny it altogether ? Men make their gods in their own likeness. Certainly, when it is permitted them to make their own gods. But we must not forget how the cunning of a few takes advantage of the stupidity of the multitude. In all nations men have existed who understood how to rule and domi¬ neer over others — to lead them, in short, by the nose, to use a vulgar phrase. We daily see this practised in common life ; the cunning man knows well how to take advantage of his neighbour’s weakness. Those who affect sovereignty, deliberately survey the characters they wish to control; this we can learn at home. Where intellect is slender, timidity and marvellousness at the same time strong, very efficacious motives of action will soon be discovered. “ The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom the priests could easily find this out. Take, now, a people like the Hindoos, timid, fearful, mild, harmless, credulous, and stupid withal ; instruct them in what superstitious nonsense so ever you please, and they will quickly obey to the praise and glory of the gods. They will build and endow hospitals to diseased animals ; they will purify them¬ selves with the dung and urine of a cow, and consider as pollution the touch of a heretic l They will sacrifice their children, which, nevertheless, they love ardently, — their parents, ay, and even their own lives, in order to appease the anger of a malevolent Deity. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the merit. They do not act thus because they delight in blood , or are pleased with the deeds of destruction. No: their uniform character contradicts such a notion. It is from fear — from a desire to propitiate their

44

deities by performing a meritorious sacrifice in order to obtain future happiness — that their conduct proceeds. Nor can there be a better proof of this than the fact recited by our author himself of the extent to which self-immolation is carried. This is a pro¬ minent feature in their superstitious rites. But do sanguinary nations manifest their delight in blood by acts of self-destruction ? Ridiculous ! — they butcher each other. If the Indians, then, are so cruel and sanguinary, why do they not the same ? In truth, they are so far from being naturally cruel, that they require the peculiarly strong incitement of religious notions to urge them to the acts now mentioned. Even the cry or shriek of an expiring victim they do not like to hear; they deaden it with shouts. Mr. Ward is an honourable and pious witness; he tells us the Hindoos are melancholy, and actually the organ of hope is small ; their timidity is great ; and we find cautiousness very much developed, an organization which, even in this country, combined with defec¬ tive intellect, often leads to suicide. We cannot be surprised, therefore, that they should have devised self-immolation as the most meritorious way of appeasing divine wrath, especially when we consider their love of the supernatural, and their veneration. The magistrate or governor, according to the Gentoo laws, must not be looked upon as a mere man ; and though an infant, he is still to be regarded as the Dewtah (God) in human form, born in this world. This is what we should expect from men organized as they are. In affirming that he would tell the characteristics of a nation living under the influence of religion from the characteristics of its divinities, Mr. Montgomery has taken a flying leap to arrive at his conclusion. We have shown how falsely he has reasoned in reference to the Hindoos, and we are quite sure that he would never divine the character of the Chinese from that of their gods. Moreover, we are equally confident, from the mild, meek, and lowly character of the teacher of Christianity, he could never have inferred the sanguinary dispositions of those who have lived under its influence. Witness the Reformers ; witness Protestants and Catholics ; witness our own sanguinary penal code !

Mr. Montgomery is not less unfortunate at the close than at the commencement of his argumentation. After designating the Hindoos as a puny race — after being obliged to admit 44 their de¬ plorable mental and bodily imbecility,” our author arrives at the strange conclusion, that there exists , in fact , an excess both of bodily strength and mental courage .” And whence does he infer that there is “ no want of intellectual energy to do and to suffer From their various modes of self-torture and self-destruction ! Weep, reason ! for, alas ! the latter end of the argument is worse than the first. — Does it, then, indicate intellectual energy to walk on spikes, — to writhe in torment suspended betwixt heaven and earth on tenter- hooks, — to measure vast distances with the length of the body, or to throw the head under the wheels of Juggernaut ?

i

We should exclaim— STUPIDITY ! STUPIDITY! ALL IS STUPIDITY ! !

At one time our author maintains the poor creatures to be puny and weakly because they are ill fed and nourished ; here we find they possess an excess of bodily strength, and yet they are not half so well fed or cared for as the military caste of which he then spoke. At the opening of his discourse, he pronounces them mentally imbecile, and now they are introduced to us without lack of intellectual energy. This sudden conversion may seem nothing strange to one who is “of imagination all compact;” but to ourselves it appears most, startling and unaccountable. There is, however, we beg to observe, a slight mistake committed ; firmness or fortitude is confounded with intellect ; and if our author be ignorant of this distinction he can learn it from phre¬ nology.

It is really surprising, that throughout the entire course of his observations, our author should so grossly mistake the effects of a superstitious terror operating on a weak intellect for the charac¬ teristics of a naturally cruel disposition. We should have given him credit for being a more philosophic observer of human nature. If a poor, timid, imbecile creature, credulous of all that is strange or supernatural, be induced, in a fit of fanaticism, to sacrifice its own or the life of its offspring, in order to obtain eternal blessed¬ ness, or avert some dire impending evil, is that a proof of a natu¬ rally ferocious temper ? Does such an act evince a mind callous to every feeling that is gentle or humane ? Does not rather the self-deluded individual feel satisfied that he is performing an act of piety, meritorious in itself, pleasing to the Deity, and indis¬ pensable to salvation ? Does not. his conduct, in short, proceed from mistaken motives of humanity ? And shall the very deed committed from false notions of tenderness be brought forward as the sure index of a cruel heart? But what better refutation need we of the opinions of the Essayist, than that which he has himself advanced ? His own express words are, that these suicides can no more he deemed voluntary than the acts of lunatics, sleep-walkers , or of any person under the influence of temporary derangement ; it is under an irrational impulse that they are committed. And are, then, such irrational acts, resulting from the blind impulse of feeling — -such occasional effects of a fanatical phrensy — to be con¬ sidered as proofs of a bloody and sanguinary mind? Are these the only facts whence the character of the Hindoos is asserted to stand in contradiction with their organization ? If so, one might possibly explain why the author intended no attack on phrenology ; for arguments of this kind must fall pointless to the ground. In the passage now cited, he has unwittingly solved all the difficulties which the subject presented, — spoken truth, in brief, “ point blank unaware.” He has advanced, but in other terms, the very position for which we contend. The deeds in question, he informs

46

us, result from feelings highly wrought upon and blindly obeyed. And we further maintain, that Hindoos are the more prone to yield themselves an easy prey to feelings and emotions, because they possess little reason to control or restrain them. How this came, is another question entirely ; that it is so, we know to be a fact. And in regard to one particular instance dwelt upon by the Essayist, we wish to inquire whether there be any proof of intel¬ lect or native ferocity in sixteen harmless females drowning them¬ selves, in a “ social fit of fanaticism,” pretty much as we should drown so many puppies or kittens? It is always in some such fanatical mood, or at some stated period of their religious festivals, that the acts complained of occur ; and then they are perpetrated by some individuals only, more eminently superstitious or devout than the rest. For granting that hundreds, yea, and even thou¬ sands, commit these crimes, what proportion, after all, do they bear to the immense mass of Hindoo population ? — Let us for a moment rate the number who thus perish annually at 10,000, and this must be confessed to be a very liberal allowance ; we shall then find that the proportion of persons thus sacrificed is only about 1 in 4,000. Indeed, Mr. Ward himself, who has made a rough computation of the amount of individual lives yearly lost from superstitious motives of all kinds, embracing, therefore, the destruction of widows, pilgrims, drowned children, and sick, does not exceed 10,500 in his estimate; and he has doubtless gone to the very outside. Now, on the other hand, look at Europeans. They, from causes of much less intense operation, and with an in* finitely superior endowment of reason to control and direct the lower feelings, can nevertheless destroy themselves in far greater number than this. In the refined and polished capital of France, for example, to say nothing of the every-day, cool, deliberate, throat-cutting, throttling work of Englishmen, — in Paris, accord¬ ing to a late memoir of M. Falret, the ratio of suicides alone will be found to be about 1 in 3,000 annually! Now, we shall not attempt to mention the various other cruelties in the destructive line which reason is unable to restrain amongst us, for without further details, European, compared with Hindoo humanity, does not appear, we imagine, to any great advantage. Moreover, it should be recollected, that in Europe suicide is an act held up to utter abhorrence ; whilst, in the case of the poor Hindoos, it is laudable, honourable, and meritorious !

All the facts adduced by our author prove the very reverse of what he sought to establish. We wish to convict him out of his own mouth. A particular tribe, from fear, caused by a certain ominous prophecy, take it into their heads to destroy all their female offspring. Fear and marvellousness, we know, are largely developed ; and it is a phrenological principle, that the organs which are most full take the lead of the other powers, and display greatest energy. With little intellect to counteract the sugges-

47

lions of fear and the workings of credulity, they readily yield to a blind impulse. Colonel Walker, however, residing in an adjacent district, eventually succeeds in removing this fear ; and immediately they cease to immolate the innocent victims of their stupidity. On a subsequent visit to them, nurses and mothers flock around and beseech him to fondle the children, which through his means had been spared, betraying in this manner their native affection. Now, mark the result. Colonel Walker returns to Europe — their fears again revive — and they recur to their former custom of infanticide. Thus, exclaims the writer, the triumph of nature over inveterate superstition was brief! A confession this, that naturally the poor misguided creatures were not cruel, but induced to act thus from superstitious motives strongly operating on the mind. And we are of the same opinion. But now our author hoists his true colours. The paragraph succeeding the anecdote just related of Colonel Walker deals forth a dead-doing thrust at phrenology. In Europe, he continues, infanticide mothers are stated to have little philoprogenitiveness, and excessive enlargement of comba¬ tiveness and destructiveness; but in these Indians the very reverse is the case ; ergo , Hindoo character stands in absolute contradiction to phrenological indications ! This, of course, is not attacking phrenology ; it is overwhelming or crushing it to death at once ; it is making a complete destruction of it ; committing, in fine, an act of infanticide on a new-born science ! We regret, however, that he is so little imbued with the true principles of that science. An infanticide mother might have the organization mentioned ; but this is by no means requisite in every case. Mothers kill under the influence of various powers becoming active ; different combinations of organs effect this ; and one who is tender of her offspring may, nevertheless, sacrifice it from a sense of duty, or from motives which appear of an order superior to her attach¬ ment. Many examples of this nature might be produced even in our reasoning country ; and we beg to ask, was Abraham cruel or sanguinary because he offered up Isaac? Under feelings of a pre¬ cisely similar nature does the poor Indian immolate himself or his children. Let it never be said, then, from such deeds, that he has a savage delight in blood, or rejoices to satiate his feelings with scenes of slaughter and destruction. When the sixteen deluded victims of whom we have spoken sunk for ever beneath the waters of the Ganges, did the spectators shout from feelings of savage enjoyment at the deed of death ? Did their fierce souls revel in the pleasing sight of wanton self-destruction ? Let our author speak. “ It was under the firm persuasion that the victims were going to heaven /” To bring the matter still nearer home — to show how the mildest of religions may be converted to the worst of pur¬ poses, even in a people possessed of superior reason — we need only recur to the primitive Christians. It is acknowledged that they courted martyrdom — that they were emulously anxious for the baptism of blood, as they styled it — that they voluntarily sought to

48

affix a seal to their faith by the sacrifice of their lives . Shall we, therefore, designate them as cruel, bloody-minded, and ferocious? No. Then why shall we be guilty of this inconsistency in respect to the poor superstitious Indian, who so much needs the directing influence of those reflective faculties, which, whilst they are so • proudly vaunted amongst us, are yet so lamentably neglected and perverted? Let us be charitable at least; phrenology prac¬ tically demonstrates the necessity of this virtue. The Indian may be deserving of pity, but not of accusation.

Moreover, there are other impressions, besides those of a reli¬ gious nature, which can mightily operate on the mind, so as to cause even the most amiable characters to rush at once on death, in defiance of all natural affection and the endearments which chain them to life. Look at the patriot ! Is the bond sweet which unites the husband to his wife ? Is the tie dear which links the fond sire to a prattling babe ? Is the love tender which warms the bosom of the generous youth ? Are all the social charities of life, filial attachment, parental love, brotherly affection, the sacred wreaths of friendship, the soft ties of kindred souls, — are these all dear? Not

- “ Half so dear, so potent to control

The generous workings of the patriot soul.

As is that holy voice that cancels all Those ties , and bids him for his country fall

The individual instances of patriotic devotion are far too nume¬ rous to be particularized ; perhaps there are few more noble in modern days than that of Eustace Saint Pierre and his family, who cheer¬ fully gave themselves up as victims to ransom the town of Calais. Nothing can more finely illustrate the effect of certain powers, when strongly excited, calling others less active into operation, and thus producing actions of an unusual and often unexpected description, than the magic influence of patriotic feelings. It does not confine itself to individuals alone, but occasionally embraces the mass of the nation, so that even the naturally timid and delL cate will offer themselves up on the altar of their country’s liberty, And how often is that liberty a word — a name — a shadow. In like manner, a panic will sometimes throw the bravest veterans into precipitate flight. Yet the enthusiasm manifested by the former, by no means indicates habitual bravery, any more than the fear of the latter evinces them to be naturally cowards. Just so it is with the Hindoos in respect to their suicides, which show, it is true, a want of intellect, combined with excessive credulity, but not a native ferocity of character. There is nothing in the cir¬ cumstances under which these people put their children to death, which contradicts, but every thing that confirms phrenology. Why does not the writer attempt to show that, in reality, these people have no affection for their children ; that they are indif¬ ferent about them ; that they abuse, neglect, or otherwise ill-treat

them ? This would have been something to the purpose. But their proverbial attachment to their progeny could not indeed be unknown to him. Did he never read of their repeated and ardent embraces, — of their predilection for domestic quiet, — of the plea¬ sure they manifest when surrounded by their families, — or of the tender spirit of their lullabies? Yes; and he has even quoted Captain Seeley’s description of them as leading a life of innocent love ; as being docile , affectionate, sober, mild, and good tem¬ pered ! Possibly it was this knowledge, which, in another part of the Essay, has caused him, after all his efforts to prove them cruel, to waver a little ; for we find him dubious and vacillating, less peremptory and dogmatical in his style. If says our author, if their tenderness and gentleness be radically pre-eminent. Oh ! then “ it is counteracted by a bloody and sensual superstition ; it is an anomaly ; it results from their being the dupes of a cunning, cruel, and licentious priesthood.” But we can assure the writer that he is totally mistaken, if he means that a naturally mild cha¬ racter is converted into a ferocious and sanguinary one. The same feelings must and do exist ; we see it, in fact, in all their social relations ; but here those feelings are turned into a different channel ; they are made subservient to a purpose to which the individual is not naturally inclined. Many affectionate mothers in Europe have murdered their children from motives of pure kindness , believing that they were launching them into the regions of future happiness. Our author seems to have little idea how one power calls another into action. The Hindoos, like all other people, have organs of combativeness and destructiveness ; but they are relatively less developed than others, and therefore do not give their predominating bias to the character, which we know to be mild and humane. They are, however, susceptible of being excited and called into action, in order to accomplish the ends to which other highly excited powers lead them. Mr. Montgomery brands the Hindoos as the most credulous , if not the most ignorant , of human beings ; and yet he does not see how that credulity, accom¬ panied as it is with so much ignorance, should give rise to then- committing cruelties, and mistaking them for acts required at then- hands by their deities. All the instances of cruelty related by the writer are confessedly perpetrated in the name of religion ; they result from the high excitement of certain energetic powers, un¬ restrained by the force of intellect, which in this case is remarkably weak. Nothing can better harmonize with the new doctrine of mind. Mr. Montgomery does not pretend to cite instances of common and wanton cruelty ; no ! wherever life is destroyed, it is always with a view to some high end or aim. It is not to gratify sanguinary feelings, to satiate revenge, or glut the eyes with the reeking blood of an expiring victim. On the contrary, it is to avert eternal damnation, — to enjoy everlasting happiness, — to rush at once into the mansions of bliss and glory. Compare

with that of these deluded Indians the character of the sanguinary and ferocious savage, and every one must at once distinguish the wide difference which exists betwixt them. Look, for example, at the American tribes of Canada, the Iroquois, the Natchez, the Algonquins, the Hurons, waging with each other perpetual and bloody wars ; roasting their prisoners alive, and then feasting on the delicious morsel. These are the men who chant as they march, “ I am going to battle to avenge the death of my brethren ; I will kill, I will exterminate, I will plunder, 1 will burn up my enemies ; I will lead away captives ; I will devour their hearts, and prepare their flesh for food; I will suck their blood, I will strip off their scalps, and of their skulls will I make cups” — (Al¬ gonquin war song.)

Now let me request the reader to contrast for a moment the feelings which predominate in this song with those which are portrayed in the Gentoo laws, an extract from which has already been given. The difference betwixt the two is not less striking than the different organization of the heads of the two nations in question ; and in each case phrenology is justified of her children.

We beg the reader’s pardon for insisting so long upon a point which to most, probably, will appear sufficiently plain. We have done so, because on this trait in the Hindoo character the author rests the main force of his objections against phrenology, and we were anxious to expose the fallacy of his reasoning, and, at the same time, to illustrate how one or two powers in an individual, in order to gratify their tendencies, may excite others much less active into full operation. Daily life offers abundant examples of this nature ; and many are candid enough to confess that they have a ruling feeling or passion to which they are apt to make all others subservient. — Men venture necks to gain a fortune.

“ Your pettifoggers damn their souls,

To share with knaves in cheating fools ;

And merchants vent'ring through the main,

Slight pirates, rocks, and horns, for gain."

The Essayist sets out with taking for granted that the heads of the people whom ancient history celebrates in India, were pre¬ cisely similar to those of the modern Hindoos. In accordance with his notions, he next attempts to show that the mental powers also, in each case, run parallel with each other, except that in respect to the present Indians, they are momentarily dormant , asleep , or, for aught we know, gone a wool-gathering . He then goes on to state, that, because the silly, credulous people occasionally destroy themselves or their offspring for the sake of purchasing happiness, they are therefore naturally ferocious. Accordingly, fully satisfied of the soundness of this reasoning in his own mind, he presumes the reader to be so likewise; and, without further preamble, assumes his inference as a fact , and at once pronounces them to be habitually cruel . “ It is remarkable,” he exclaims, “ that Dr.

51

Paterson should never have thought of explaining the anomaly of such a heinous combination as their natural gentleness with their habitual cruelty.” This species of phraseology admirably accords with the author’s anti-phrenological views ; and after a long string* of desultory remarks, the word habitual is no doubt very dex¬ terously introduced. But then, it is at the expense of a monstrous perversion of reason. To be sure, a man convinced against his will “ is of the same opinion still.” Even the uncontradicted and decisive testimony of Captain Seeley, who states the Hindoos to be mild, peaceable, and affectionate, is no obstruction in our author’s way. Yet to stigmatize as habitually cruel a people, the uniform tenour of whose conduct is confessedly mild and peaceable in their civil and social relations, except when under the influence of superstitious fears, is to us infinitely more surprising than Dr. Paterson’s neglected explanation of what could not, we conceive, appear to him an anomaly. If such a trait in character be ano¬ malous, then the entire mental constitution of man is an anomaly ; nature herself an anomaly ; and anomalies may'- be found every where. Our author himself, in particular, has been guilty of an anomalous procedure in not running his parallel betwixt ancient and modern Hindoos still finer, and demonstrating, that as they possess like energies of mind, so also do they resemble each other in cruelty. But enough ! we shall leave the author to vent his spleen on tyrants and oppressors ; to accuse the present governors of the Hindoos as the sole obstacle in the way of their improve¬ ment ; to indulge in vehement tirades against cunning priests and blasting castes ; yet, with all this, he can never prove natural character to have been permanently and habitually changed with¬ out a corresponding change in cerebral developement.

We have, however, still another topic on which the author manifestly looks upon his objections as peculiarly felicitous. He seems, like many others, to think that veneration has a great deal to do with faith and credulity ; and hence he considers the want of a large veneration as a singular defect in Hindoo phrenology. But the truth is, when we bear in mind the great credulity, exces¬ sive timidity, and feeble understanding of these people, a moderate degree of veneration will be amply sufficient ; we shall see no occasion for its being large. Almost all possess it well developed, and in numerous instances it is even large, since this is the case with all the skulls in the Edinburgh collection ; and this perfectly accords, we are of opinion, with what we observe in the Hindoos. They are generally remarkable for respect to their deities, but some much more so than others ; and the variety observable in individual organization quite explains this. Besides, a higher degree of fear and marvellousness will excite even a very moderate veneration into great activity on certain occasions. Our oppo¬ nent’s argument proceeds on the supposition that all the people fall under the wheels of Juggernaut, — that all Hindoos are

e 2

52

Faquirs, — in short, that all are equally devout and full of respect. We have already shown, however, that a very high degree of energy in this feeling is only manifested in a comparatively small number. There is, therefore, here no awkward imperfection which required to be dexterously supplied ; but there is a very singular want of acquaintance with the principles of phrenology exhibited by the writer. On this, as on every other occasion, he has taken organs separately and individually , without any refer¬ ence to their combinations in producing characters or actions. Because combativeness and destructiveness are not large, he ar¬ gues as if no such organs existed, or, at least, could not be made to act. Yet if he will consider the forehead of the Hindoo, he may rest assured, that when these organs are highly excited by fear and marvellousness, there is little reason to control their operation. So, again, veneration is spoken of in an isolated manner, as if there were no other powers which might strongly call it into ope¬ ration. Besides ; the very circumstance of all the Edinburgh skulls exhibiting veneration full, compared with the language of Dr. Paterson, ought to have evinced, that although large venera¬ tion is not so common as to constitute it a national peculiarity , it is nevertheless very frequently to be met with.

But now we have to notice some very cogent argumentation ; at least, if we may judge from the writer’s language, it appears so to himself. The priests wish the people to be very respectful to the magistrate, and wisely so ; but lest the said magistrate should be deficient in respect to the priests — lest he should deprive them of their accustomed emoluments — he is threatened , in case of such a crime, with a thousandyears of purgatory. — <cNow,” exclaims the Essayist, with emphasis, tC if I wanted but a single fact to determine in my favour the point for which I am contending, this would be decisive, — with depressed destructiveness and large ve¬ neration, the Brahmin can be thus remorseless when his petty per¬ sonal interest is involved.” And so this single fact is to decide the point at issue ! — Because a Brahmin has veneration, must he neces¬ sarily venerate the creature whom he has himself set up for the people to respect ? And does a cunning priest betray very de¬ structive propensities, because he threatens so many years’ purgatory to one that withholds from him his meat and drink ? Why, there are religions that would send a poor wretch headlong to the bottomless pit for all eternity, for crimes not greater than this. But such like denunciations do not cost much trouble. If the Brahmin had threatened the magistrate with the stocks for the rest of his natural life, or some punishment which he could ac¬ tually inflict, the matter would have appeared in a stronger light. Has now, in sober reality, such a menace much reference to san¬ guinary propensities or want of respect ? Has it not a much closer connection with the priest’s gods — their bellies ? And would not cunning readily be inclined to hold forth such a denun-

53

ciation in terrorem , as very likely to operate on a weak and timid mind ? Is it not, too, an easy method of providing sustenance ? and does it not testify great respect to their own order at least ? and are not all priests very notorious in this way ? To have per¬ fect dominion both over sold and body ,

“ Is the most perfect discipline Of Church rule and by right divine.”

If, after all, any one is touched with the supposed piquancy or pertinency of the Essayist’s remarks on Hindoo phrenology, we leave him to enjoy his way of thinking, honestly confessing that our brains are made of other stuff. As to the digression relating to the Vedas, there is nothing which demands notice except the concluding insinuation ; but as no phrenologist denies the capa¬ bility of improvement under proper treatment, we forbear any further remarks.

We come now to the Negroes, about whom, however, our author does not occupy himself long. The crania of these people he styles of a {C very grotesque order and the forehead, 44 where the intellectual organs are placed by phrenologists ,” he states to be nearly as imperfect as that of the Hindoos, if not actually more so. And then there is an “ enormous excess of the cruel and brute propensities ; and the entire skull, according to our ideas of symmetry, is so unhappily modelled, that even a skilful phrenolo¬ gist might, at first sight, be tempted to pronounce it the head of some nondescript animal approaching to humanity, but far inferior not only to the European, but to any other accredited species of genuine men.” Yet the same phrenologist, it is further added, would, on closer examination, find it difficult or impossible to say that a being with such a cranium, however rude in shape , was not capable of rising to the height of intellectual dignity. We are sorry that the Essayist can find no better way of convincing his reader that phrenology is unfounded, than by the substitution of declamation for reason. We have here abundant evidence, if, indeed, further evidence were required, that Mr. Montgomery is no phrenologist. In this place, as in other passages of his dis¬ course, he roundly maintains, in defiance of the very fundamental principles of the new doctrine, that whatever the cerebral de- velopement, whatever the configuration of the head, no matter how defective, the individual still possesses powers as extensive and capacious as the rest of mankind, provided circumstances did but concur to awaken their sleeping energy.

The writer might have learnt from the common physiologist that this is downright nonsense ; that a full developement of the brain is absolutely necessary for that of the mental faculties ; and that whatever instruction be imparted to a poor idiot with a defective forehead, or, if the language please, with an unhappily modelled and grotesque skull, he will not be found as capable of improve-

54

merit as another whose cranium is better and differently formed. In many of the larger receptacles for insane persons, the majority of the inmates are permanently idiotic, and the most superficial observer can scarcely avoid noticing the smallness of the anterior cerebral lobes. Hundreds are born with defective brains in Europe, and such are irrevocably doomed to a pitiable weakness of intel¬ lect. In those nations, however, remarkable for the vicious con¬ formation of the head, it has never yet been proved anatomically, so far as we know, that any portions or organs of the encephalon are wanting ; and it is therefore presumable, that they are simply at a low degree of developement, and this may be promoted by certain means, but these means must be of a proper kind, not such as are too frequently adopted by those who are ignorant of the natural laws of organization. For our part, we are at a loss to imagine, what purpose the declamatory language just quoted can answer, except that of ridiculing or exciting disgust against phre¬ nology. No propensities were ever given to man to make him either cruel or a brute. No doubt, even in civilized life, he is too frequently both ; the powers which were bestowed for wise and necessary ends man is apt to abuse ; but let not this be laid to the charge of phrenology. Those who view the science in this light, should remember that if certain propensities do actually exist in human naturae, as an infinity of facts demonstrates, then to laugh or be scornful at the idea of their presence, is not to treat phre¬ nology with contempt, but the wisdom of Him who made all things well. Mr. Montgomery speaks of Africa as if its inhabitants con¬ sisted entirely of Negroes ; and of these again he has selected one of the lowest grade, as though the rest were all similarly formed. Mankind in general may, indeed, entertain such false notions ; but surely he cannot be ignorant that there are three very distinct classes of African races. In the first place, there are tribes which in other physical characters resemble the people of Southern Eu¬ rope, but which, as to the colour of their skin, are in some cases nearly black. In the second, there are red or copper-coloured tribes ; and thirdly, the woolly-haired. In Northern Africa alone, there are at least forty different nations , each of which has a peculiar and distinct language. Not to mention the supposed remains of the ancient Lybians, the Afri of the Latins, nor yet the Shilhas and Kabyles, there are especially two great nations scat¬ tered over the desert, which very materially differ from each other. One of these, the Tuarics, have by some been termed white; that is to say, comparatively ; their skin being of a dark brown instead of a black. They are described as a handsome people, with fea¬ tures approaching to those of the European. The second nation, the Tibboos, on the other hand, are nearly black ; indeed, quite so, if we are to credit Captain Lyon’s statement. Their lips are thick, but the nose is not large nor turned up ; nor is the hair so curly as that of the Negro. If we go to the South of Zahara, or

55

the great desert, we find three distinct nations in the north tract of Guinea. — Of these, the Yolofifs are said to be well made , to have a noble stature, and, in some degree , the flat nose and thick lips of the Negro ; and there are many with tolerably regular features. The features of the Mandingos, again, are said by Golbery to resemble those of the natives of India. They have longer faces and smaller lineaments than other Negroes. Then we have the tawny Foulahs, with soft silky hair, small features, and without the thick lips of the Negro. These people are more intelligent and industrious than their neighbours, upon whom they look as something inferior. They possess artificers in iron, silver, leather, and so forth ; a proof that where powers exist, they manifest them¬ selves under the most unfavourable circumstances. Proceeding southward, we meet with the Feloops, who still do not possess the perfect Negro character; and on arriving at the Negro nations themselves, we find very considerable difference. Those from Benin, are styled Eboes in the West Indies, and are said to be very baboon-like. — All these various nations, which differ both in physical make and mental capacity, are perpetually at war with each other, and the sale of their prisoners forms a lucrative branch of the profession of arms. We have said nothing of the Hottentots inhabiting the southern extreme of Africa, and who are still more deplorably degraded ; nor yet have we mentioned the Caffres, their neighbours, who constitute a comparatively civilized and intelligent people ; because it must be sufficiently manifest from what has preceded, how diversified the character of slaves must be, and how palpably erroneous it is, from instances of individual excellence, to judge of the powers or capacities of Africans at large. It may suit the Essayist’s purpose very well to parade forth examples of Negro bishops, as illustrative of the capacities of Ne¬ groes ; but it would have corresponded infinitely better with the usual language of history, as well as with propriety, to have denominated them African bishops. Whether or not he has here confounded all Africans with Negroes we shall leave for others to determine ; but if he wished to imply, as his language seems to indicate, that an individual grotesquely organized, as described at the outset, be capable of rising to the dignity of a bishop, we deny the possibility of the thing ; or at any rate, we heartily pity the church to which he belongs, and the people committed to his charge. Our author was probably not aware, that a person may have a dark skin, comparatively thick lips, frizzy hair, and yet be no Negro , but possess withal a good forehead. Let him look, for example, at the portrait of Abbas Gregorius, the Abbyssine ; or let him survey the cast of Toussaint. In brief, the heads of all such as have risen to eminence or distinction, will be found to differ toto ccelo from those of the common Negro; a fact which strikingly illustrates the correspondence betwixt mental manifes¬ tations and cerebral developement. For ourselves, we should

56

rejoice to see every Negro elevated in the scale of intelligence as high as the degree manifested by the Africans whom the author cites. At the same time, we are quite satisfied a better organization would develope itself, unless, indeed, it were the will of the Creator to work a miracle. Further, we must be careful not to confound intellectual capacity, that is to say, in common language, the reasoning faculties , with cunning, cautious wariness, and manual dexterity. This is very commonly done in respect to un¬ civilized nations, which, because they are practically and experi¬ mentally wise in many respects, men think to be so theoretically and on all points, or at least capable of becoming so.

Let us take a cursory glance at the Negroes in their native country, enjoying the liberty of their respective governments and religions. There, at any rate, they have no slave-drivers to doom them to “ incorrigible stupidity and unimprovable vicious - ness /” As though flagellation or work could render men stupid and vicious ! Neither are there any causes, moral or political, im¬ posed by a foreign yoke to restrain or suppress the natural energy of the woolly-haired nations, and yet they remain far behind others. Again, there are plenty of fine, stout, healthy, robust, and hardy Negroes, their bodies are well fed and nourished ; in this respect we cannot say they are degenerated from better con¬ ditioned ancestors. Moreover, the failure of experiments made in the education of Negroes is notorious; they have been found inca¬ pable of the same degree of intelligence as the European. Our first object ought to be the improvement of their cerebral organi¬ zation ; till this be effected, it is in vain to teach them what they cannot possibly understand. Consult the anatomist and physiolo¬ gist ; he will tell you that in the Negro, the brain, compared to the rest of the nervous system, is less than in the European ; that in the former the organs of sense are much more developed, and that he is in consequence more addicted to corporeal pleasures. The celebrated Soemmering, and also his countryman Ebel, have sub¬ stantiated the facts here mentioned. The African traveller, Palisot de Beauvois, and Virey, the well-known Anthropologist, compared the capacities of Negro and European skulls by filling them with fluids, and the latter exceeded the former sometimes even by nine ounces. The convolutions of the brain itself too, are less deep, and Virey also states they are not so numerous. The hemispheres are smaller, and the cerebellum is proportion¬ ately larger, as well also as the spinal cord. These and other pe¬ culiarities, which we pass over here, “ are all signs,” says one who is not a phrenologist, and therefore affords a less questionable testimony, ‘‘of a higher degree of animality in the Negro.” We mention these circumstances to show how their character and con¬ formation correspond. The Essayist, it is true, has not contro¬ verted this point ; he simply confines himself to the announcement of what Negroes may be supposed capable of effecting in the way

57

of intellect. This he has done in the most loose and vague man¬ ner ; he has made no distinction betwixt the capacities of the various nations inhabiting Africa, which is of the most striking and obvious kind ; he has produced no example of a genuine Negro with a forehead villanously low, displaying intellectual talents of a superior order ; — had he effected this, then there would be an end to all strife. In speaking of nations at large, moreover, no one is so blind as not to perceive that isolated and rare instances of superiority can never form any objection to the truth of phrenology, without it can be made clear and palpable that the heads of such individuals are in no respect different from those of the rest of the population. Consider for a moment what varieties of talent and organization are observable even in this country ! How erroneous would be the inference, because a few individuals have attained considerable elevation in mental pursuits, that every one of the same nation is equally capable of reaching a similar height ; or, in short, that any man, in whatever region, clime, or part of the habitable globe he dwells, is just as suscep¬ tible of improvement and intellectual attainments as any other person, provided he enjoys the same means of education, and ap¬ plies himself with equal ardour to his studies. This, in a word, is the common philosophy of the schools, which the daily testimony of our senses contradicts, and upon which 'practically no man thinks of acting. Yet, if there be one end, aim, or view, in the tenour of our author’s argument, more decidedly prominent than another, it is the establishment of this point ; the entire tendency of the Essay manifestly leads to it. The writer still clings with prejudiced fondness to this darling position of an antiquated system ; he hugs himself round in the comfortable and self-complacent mantle of ancestorial wisdom, which even the effulgent beams of truth cannot prevail upon him to throw aside. His adherence to the school philosophy has caused him to be peculiarly unfortunate in his observations on the Negroes. C( They have no memorials,” he informs us, u of remote antiquity like the Hindoos, to show the grandeur of their origin amidst the desolation of their fall.” Consequently, the reader expects the author about to commence an immediate examination of the present character of the Negro, compared with his cerebral developement. No such thing ! Anti¬ quity has too many charms ; it affords too much scope for the delightful uncertainty of conjecture ; presents too much that is wonderful and mysterious ; yields too ample a field for ideal imaginings, to be passed over in silence. But a few sentences escape from the writer’s pen, before we find him ruminating over the Egyptians. He endeavours to lead the reader directly to infer, that all the various Egyptian works of art, the stupendous magnitude of which, both history and present remains testify, were, in fact, executed by Negroes ! Now, in the name of patience and common sense, how can our author be guilty of this inconsis-

58

tency ? How can any one so far forget himself in the space of a few lines? Yet, there is a certain degree of tact exhibited in the general mode of handling the subject. The writer every now and then takes a leap to some vantage ground on which he makes a stand ; thus he conveniently passes difficult chasms that obstruct his path. He neglects intervening links in the chain of reasoning, and by the aid of a few gratuitous assumptions, very dexterously arrives at wished for conclusions. Let us examine his manage¬ ment in the present case. 66 To know what the Negro, or if that will not be allowed , the Negro’s next akin, has done in ages past,” we must consult history. We certainly cannot sufficiently admire the judicious intercalation of the words 44 if that will not be allowed,” considering the writer previously affirms that the Negro actually never had accomplished any thing grand. And yet, to understand his capacity, we are to look at his works in remote ages ! No ; not his exactly , but those of his next akin! Now, who are these kindred people? We may call ourselves so, if we choose ; or we may style so a man with a black or dark-coloured skin, and much thicker lips than ours, but still with a good head, and that will never militate against phrenology. But no ; the Negroes’ next akin are here said to be so positively like himself, that even an adept could with difficulty point out any material distinction. If there be any meaning in language, or any utility in employing it, we must conclude both the one and the other to be simple, plain, and unsophisticated Negroes, such as he first re¬ presented these. Such were the people, he tells us, who built the pyramids, and accomplished whatever else is prodigious in Egypt ! And we are gravely told all this, after being assured that the Negroes left no memorials of grandeur behind them ! But these, probably, he discovered later, as well as the reason why it was at all necessary to consult history upon the present subject. This reason we cannot withhold, because it appears to us quite unique in its way. On a question like that before us (what the Negro has done) “ more false conclusions cannot be drawn, than those which are founded solely upon present circumstances and existing men.” Unhappily, we were told that they had never effected any thing, and whether they have, or have not, the question is, what can they now accomplish and does it accord with their cerebral organization ? Upon this, however, our author does not so much as touch. His object is to convert the Egyptians into Negroes ; and although this does not affect the truth of phrenology, we shall for once indulge in a work of supererogation, and follow the Essayist to the close of his remarks.

At the very threshold of his argument to demonstrate that the ancient Egyptians were nothing but Negroes, he met with a stum¬ bling-block, and this required to be got rid of. All the skulls of mummies hitherto examined exhibit the European , and not the Negro character ; this fact might have puzzled less ingenious

59

brains than those of the Essayist, to nullify its worth ; but by a stroke of his pen, he has for ever annihilated the embalmed remains of Egyptians. “ Where is the proof of the antiquity of these?” he demands. Singular dilemma ! This is indeed escaping Scylla to fall into Charybdis ! For if the mummies be not Egyptian, to what nation do they belong ? Possibly the writer might not think of this question. The art of embalming, he remarks, was prac¬ tised for ages after the Pharaohs, when the Greeks, and subse¬ quently the Romans, became masters of the country. But who were the persons that embalmed their dead ? Greeks and Romans, or the natives of the country ? Or were the Egyptians, in the time of these latter empires, no longer Egyptians? Yet all the correct early information which we possess relating to them, is derived principally from the Greeks, who wrote from 'personal observation. To be brief, are we acquainted with any other nation who thus generally embalmed their dead, and as carefully preserved them? Did the Persians follow this practice? They once and again invaded Egypt. Did the Greeks? Did the Romans? Did the Arabs? for they also conquered Egypt. Did the Turks? Finally, are the heads now found precisely similar to any of these nations? No ; they are of European formation, but they are peculiar. The writer, however, seems little versed either in phrenology or craniology. Not even in the remains of antiquity do we find the Negro character stamped, however differently he may think on the occasion ; for neither a tumid lip, nor curly hair, nor yet a dark complexion, constitute a Negro. Indeed, it is impossible to suppose, had the Egyptians possessed the genuine character of the latter, that the ancients would have passed it over in silence. The Hebrews do not mention the slightest circum¬ stance regarding it, not even on the occasion of Solomon’s mar¬ riage to the daughter of Pharaoh. Besides, we do not think that Solomon could ever have fallen in love with a Negress. The Greeks and the Romans are also silent on this point ; they simply speak of the dark skin. Again, we have the testimony of Mr. Lawrence in our favour, and he, it is presumed, will be allowed to be a competent witness. Neither in the delineations of the Copts, given by Denon, says this author, nor in the costumes and portraits of the grand Descriptio?i de l’Egypte, do I find the Negro charac¬ ter expressed. Neither have I succeeded in discovering repre¬ sentations of Negroes among the almost numberless sculptures of the ancient buildings, represented in both these works ; the human figures are marked by traits of a form altogether different. And hence we may safely conclude with him, that if among the myriads of mummies and figures bearing the stamp of the Caucasian model , a few should occur with something of the Negro character in them, the individuals who furnished the pattern of the latter were in Egypt, as they have been every where, slaves. But in reference to the mummies themselves, these witnesses, which, though dead.

60

still speak, there is one circumstance clearly indicating the nation to which they belong. In the same dormitories with them, we also find mummies of the animals worshipped by the Egyptians, and by them alone. Surely our author will not question their antiquity ; and why, then, for a moment, doubt that of their com¬ panions in eternal repose ? It is manifest that the remains of both must have been deposited there by the same people. Can we for a moment believe the Egyptians would erect immense pyramids, or construct vast catacombs, for the sole purpose of preserving the dead, and yet leave them to be tenanted by strangers ? Or shall we suppose the latter, who never embalmed their dead, suddenly took it into their heads to turn the former out of their peaceful abodes? Enough, however, of antiquity ; if we turn our atten¬ tion to the facts now exhibited by nature, if we attend to the osteological character of the crania of different nations, we may spare ourselves the trouble of refuting conjectures.

“ It is now clearly proved,” says the illustrious Cuvier, 44 yet it is necessary to repeat the truth, because the contrary error is found in the newest works, that neither the Gallas (who bordered on Abyssinia) nor the Bosjesmen, nor any race of Negroes, produced that celebrated people who gave birth to the civilization of ancient Egypt.” And again, in speaking of the Egyptians, he observes, 44 that they formed no exception to that cruel law which seems to have doomed to eternal inferiority, all the tribes of our species which are unfortunate enough to have a depressed and a compressed cranium.” Cuvier, be it remarked, is no phrenologist, but is still perfectly aware of the consequence of having an 44 unhappily mo¬ delled skull.” We shall now leave our author to digest this last extract from the first of modern comparative anatomists and physiologists, who, we doubt not, knows something of the matter, and whose language will, at any rate, acquit phrenology of main¬ taining singular or unheard-of doctrines in regard to the existence of a good brain being requisite for a good understanding. Every one must be aware, that there is no other object or intention in the Essay we have now criticised, than that of disproving the law just quoted from Cuvier. Whatever the shape of the skull, however deformed or defective, no matter how 44 prepos¬ terous” its configuration ; how unhappily modelled or grotesquely developed ; that is all the same according to the invariable lan¬ guage of our author. And yet, we venture to affirm, that a more preposterous doctrine was never advanced, nor one which all nations and characters so flatly contradict. Can any man feel his pride wounded at what nature teaches him ? Mr. M. talks of abjuring phrenology if it were a system of Hindooism. Abjure what he never embraced ! But what is the meaning of the sentence ? Is not phrenology founded solely on facts ? is it not nature herself speaking a plain and simple language ? If we see a head with a defective front, we know from experience that the

61

, /• * » ' * *■

intellect is weak ; we know further, that so long as the organization continues, the latter cannot be improved, — that the individual can never go beyond a certain confined limit. This fact we can observe in our own country. Does, now, this constitute Hindooism ? Then is phrenology Hindooism ; then is Nature itself Hindooism ; and whether our author reject it or not, the fact is not the less a fact, nor its universal prevalence the less notorious. Because we choose to shut our eyes, the sun shines not the less bright and splendid. We confess ourselves not a little surprised at hearing the Essayist recommend that phrenology should be substantiated, if possible, by plain positive facts, seeing that he has himself pursued merely a rambling course of desultory reasoning, and fondly resorted to remote antiquity, which is ever surrounded by a halo of dubious conjecture and uncertainty. To recur to doubtful history when you can have the palpable testimony of the senses, reminds us of that silly childish trick of youths, when they say to each other, open your mouth, shut your eyes, and so forth. So here, close your eyes, don’t look around you ; don’t examine or mind the actual state of things ; open wide the mouth of credulity, prepare yourself for a glorious uncertainty, and then see how antiquity will satisfy you ! The laws of nature are not variable and capricious, they are constant and uniform ; they can never be in contradiction now with what they once were. Let us turn, therefore, to them ; “ to the law and to the prophets,” to nature and her operations ; and whoso speaketh not according to them, speaketh false things. Let Mr. M. look around him in his own country ; if he cannot subvert the doctrines of phrenology, or find them contradicted there, he may rest assured that he will never succeed abroad. We must now take leave of the reader, for as to Sandanee’s dream, we can but marvel at its introduction, since we never heard that dreamers were remarkable for intellect. In the present case, both incident and imagery are entirely scriptural, and cannot therefore indicate originality of thought ; and if they did, no end would be gained thereby without the lad’s head had also been set before us.

In conclusion, to suppose revelation can ever be affected by phrenology, is indeed to have a very sorry opinion of that revela¬ tion. How can any natural truth be contrary to that which ema¬ nates directly and immediately from the fountain of truth itself? Does not the mere supposition contradict itself? For nature is surely nothing but the manifestation of the Deity, and who is so weak as to imagine that his words should oppose his works? The idea is irrational in the extreme, and, morally speaking, altogether impossible. That there exist nations with small and defective brains, and which, therefore, so long as this organization con¬ tinues, are incapable of rising in the scale of intellect, remains an incontestable fact. Ages and ages have rolled over their heads, and they still continue precisely in the same state. But does this impugn the truth of religion any more than the hundreds and

62

thousands who are born in Christian countries with defective brains, and who are therefore doomed to perpetual imbecility ? From downright idiotcy up to superior intelligence, the grades are astonishingly various — no man can deny this. It is the will of the Creator, that mind should necessarily depend on the brain. But who will pretend to expound to us, why one man has more brain given to him than another ? Or why one nation excels ano¬ ther in this respect ? It is a fact ; but does it overthrow religion ? Truth can never fall. Let no man’s pride be shocked at the dis¬ coveries which anthropology makes ; yet, too true is it, no reason¬ ing, no arguments, no teaching, no instructions, can ever elevate the imbecile, how happy and healthy so ever in other respects, to / what we designate, in common language, an “ intellectual being.” Can any one impart an air of dignity to the silly and vacant coun¬ tenance of folly ? Can he infuse fire into the lack-lustre eye of ( stupidity? Can he adorn the fair temple of thought? Can he illu¬ mine the gay recess of wisdom and of wit? Alas ! he cannot ; nor

“ Can all, saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,

People the lonely tower, the tenement refit.”

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