We confess that we do not possess enough of science to enable us either to vindicate or refute the reasoning contained in the above developments. It is understood that a gentleman who has already distinguished himself as an opponent of Phrenology, is to appear again as an impugner of the doctrine given forth in the above description, and questionless he will be replied to by the amateurs of the science. One thing must be apparent in the above account, that while Phrenology is pompously announced as “the only science of mind which contains elements and principles capable of accounting for such a character as that before us,” the utmost that is attempted is to give a Phrenological description of the head, and to explain some traits of the character of Burke, and to endeavour to reconcile some discrepancies in the development, which seem not only inconsistent with each other, but which, taken in connection with his character and actions, would appear to any one but a Phrenologist to be positive contradictions.
It does not appear in this instance at least, that Phrenology possesses any peculiar aptitude in accounting for such a character; as the knowledge that a man may commit atrocious crimes and bear a different semblance to the world; that he may be actuated by a powerful motive at one time which gives place to another at a different season, and that again yielding to a third, is a fact that was sufficiently known before the science was promulgated, and would have been as intelligible as Phrenology has made it though we had never heard of the science, and merely telling us that such and such protuberances on the skull denote such and such faculties, does not at all account for the character. Many ignorant people also who cannot “view his character with a philosophic eye,” might inform us, that frequently a man does not get desperately wicked all at once, and that there is nothing very uncommon in a person behaving tolerably well for a length of time, and afterwards abandoning himself to the most profligate courses, neither is it unusual with an ignorant man, when once roused into a passion, to become “altogether ungovernable.” We have seen such a thing occur where “large destructiveness” was never exhibited nor suspected.
The learned Phrenologist then goes on to reconcile what has usually been accounted incompatible qualities, his “full Benevolence and large Destructiveness.” It is rather too much to assume that the existence of the affection benevolence is sufficiently proved, even for phrenological purposes, by quoting the story that Burke himself told of his horror after committing the first murder. Surely, though this tale was implicitly credited, the mere fact of a murderer’s slumbers being haunted with the image of his victim for a brief space, cannot prove the existence of benevolence; but we shrewdly surmise that the whole is a fiction of Burke’s, and that he narrated it at a time when the well developed organ of Imitation, combined with his large Secretiveness, was excited to such a degree as to produce acting or simulation, and that it furnishes an illustration of “the tact he showed in adapting himself to the person who addressed him.” We happen to know that he spoke quite freely about this as well as his other murders; that he went about it in the most cool and heartless manner; that the two monsters not only enticed the poor old woman into the house, and allured her with a show of kindness, but that they actually, in this their first essay, when they were just about to perpetrate it, jested upon the subject. Hare asking Burke “to go ben and see how his mother-in-law was this morning,” surely then was the time for benevolence to exhibit itself, but we presume that his “large Destructiveness was excited to such an extent, that it broke through the restraints of his other faculties,” and forced him to suffocate a helpless and infirm female, without even the miserable palliation of having previously intoxicated himself for the purpose, and on the next opportunity they could discover to perform the same bloody tragedy, without being ever troubled with compunction or remorse, until his organ of Imitation, in combination with Secretiveness, produced the power of acting, or simulation, in the condemned cell in the Calton-hill Jail.
We suppose that this acting or simulation, of which so much is made by the eminent Phrenologist, means neither more nor less than that he was an accomplished liar, and that faculty seems to have been in full operation when he averred, “that he could never entirely overcome the repugnance of his moral nature to murder, but that he found it necessary to deaden his sensibilities with whisky, leaving only so great a glimmering of sense as to be conscious of what he was doing.” “His moral nature” must have been of a very accommodating description, if it could without repugnance allow him to prowl about continually literally seeking whom he might devour, and “by pretended kindness, fawning and flattery, or by acting the semblance of a friend, to inveigle the victims into the den,” and when there, to entertain them with a show of kindness and hospitality, and then prompt him “to deaden his sensibilities with whisky” before it could permit him to complete the scene. But perhaps it was his benevolence that induced him to behave in this kind manner until the whisky should excite his destructiveness at the moment that the sacrifice was prepared.
But the truth is that there was neither “ungovernable fury” nor intoxication to excuse or account for his murders; they were all committed in cold blood, and without one palliating circumstance; and although he might have been drunk when some of them were concluded, he was generally sober during the preparatory process of kidnapping, and instigating them to drink.
He was continually drunk, because from his seldom working he had leisure for drinking, and an abundant supply of money, and with these he would have indulged in the same vice although there had been no reason for “deadening his sensibilities.”
The smallness of the organ of Wit is in direct opposition to the notoriety for humour and drollery he had acquired among his acquaintance.
While we allow that Burke was not such a reprobate all his life, as he was towards the close of it, we question whether he ever possessed much of “the elements of morality,” even in his youth. An account has been adopted which gives some colour to the opinion that his morality was purer than the actual fact would warrant us to allow. We have already stated in a former number, that he served only one gentleman before entering the militia. This is on his own authority, and we believe also, from the same source, he was never either a baker or a weaver, so far from being three years a groom after his discharge from the Donegal militia, he did not remain one year in Ireland, which the dates will abundantly testify. He first proved unfaithful to his wife, and as we have seen, afterwards deserted her and his children, on discovering that his father-in-law properly appreciated the selfishness and worthlessness of his character, and refused to trust him too far. His living in adultery with the woman M‘Dougal, does not display great attainments in morality, as in like manner, his unfaithfulness even to her, and frequent brutal usage of her, cannot exhibit his benevolence in a very favourable light. It is altogether too much to elevate this unnatural and anomalous monster into a being possessing some of the best and noblest attributes of humanity, merely that the dogmas of a favourite pursuit should be supported. We opine, that the lauders of the immaculate science must content themselves with the fame it has acquired from the developments of former murderers, or alter the whole systems of metaphysics heretofore received, should they not be able to discover a new designation for the bumps they may find on a murderer’s cranium.