1. The brain is the organ through which the mind operates.
2. In proportion to the developement of any part of the brain will be the power of that corresponding faculty, sentiment, or passion, because that faculty, sentiment, or passion, by its anterior action, has developed the brain.
3. The increase or decrease of mental passions, affections, or sentiments, is accompanied by a corresponding increase or decrease of the brain.
4. The brain like the muscle, is only the agent through which the immaterial spirit acts, for as muscular power resides not in a muscle, so neither does the mind dwell in the brain;—and as all connection between the muscle and life, or vital energy is destroyed by severing the connection of the nerve communicating power to that muscle, so might the mind and brain be severed, but for the beautiful design of Providence, in so carefully protecting the brain lest any mental organ be impaired, as well as by the formation of duplicates to those organs most exposed to injury; for as in common life, the accident that deprives man of a limb, does not render him incapable of his higher and loftier duties, so is it proportionably necessary that the organ through which those higher and nobler functions are performed should have been rendered most secure from harm.
5. That the different parts of the brain having been found by long experience to be appropriated to different functions, those parts are and have the same design, and are produced by the same faculties in all human beings.
Under one of these heads all phrenological facts must fall.
From these principles also, it must be evident that the brain is dependant for its form and character on the developement of the mind in any individual, and in this manner phrenology ascertains the natural bias of the mind, so as to direct education;—it ascertains similarity of pursuits and dispositions so as to improve social intercourse;—it ascertains at any time of life what faculties require to be cultivated or to be checked, what sentiments or passions preponderate in the individual, for good or for evil, what should be repressed, as well as those parts wherein increase should be aimed at, it points out the persons with whom we sympathize, or towards whom we may have an antipathy,—in the treatment of mental disease, its use is obvious. “No more satisfactory proof of this can be referred to, than the extraordinary success of the experiments at the Hanwell Lunatic Asylum under the direction of Dr. and Mrs. Ellis. Regarding the brain not as an entire organized mass, but as an assemblage of organs, some of which may come into a morbid condition while the rest remain comparatively healthy, the course pursued at that excellent institution has been, by kindness and by engaging the attention of the patient, to exercise those organs which are sound, and, by diminishing the action of those which are in a diseased state, to restore them to the healthy performance of their functions. The success which has attended the experiment stands without precedent in the annals of insanity.” From this treatment we learn that cures have averaged ninety in a hundred.
Phrenology teaches us how to aim at self-improvement, that is, the duty which every man owes to himself, so as to improve and render more perfect whatsoever is wrong in his nature.—Improvement is the end and object;—it demands a vigorous well regulated exertion of all the energies of thought and feeling.—Phrenology teaches where it is most required—whether it be moral, intellectual or religious, and whichever it may be, we must make it the great end of our endeavours, and use solemnly and deliberately the great powers that GOD has given to us,—without this resolution of purpose the best means are worthless: but with it the poorest may become mighty in moral and intellectual powers, the progression of our nature to the perfection pointed at by St. Paul, must not be regarded as a fiction, but a reality,—we must look coolly and rationally upon the vast amount of ignorance—intemperance, sensuality and selfishness that dwell with and around us,—we must think what an immense field of mind is lost—how many might be cheered with intelligence, disinterestedness and refinement, that now are lost in voluptuous extravagance or the exercise of worthless and depraved passions;—we must learn the dignity of our station as men—that we shall be made partakers of CHRIST, if we be stedfast unto the end,—and that if we keep this object in view stedfastly and zealously, we shall inherit a crown of righteousness that fadeth not away—and that too in a kingdom of everlasting happiness where the wicked shall cease from troubling and the weary be at rest.