If I am correct in entertaining these apprehensions as to the influence of false metaphysics on the public characters I have enumerated, there is abundant cause to rejoice when a blow is struck, like that pulverizing blow which is given in this work, to so considerable an error. There are thousands among the young and ardent and curious of our countrymen and countrywomen, whose minds may be likewise led astray from the truth; but if it be mischievous for the judge and the juror and the legislator to entertain erroneous views upon the nature of the understanding, the mind, or the soul, it is equally to be deprecated where the error is sown broadcast in the land.
Tares, if not in themselves poisonous, serve at best to choke up the useful or beautiful plants that ought to be cultivated in the fields of science or morals; but you will find that M. Flourens regards them as poisons.
Has not M. Flourens clearly refuted the phrenologists? and has he not, in doing so, performed a useful and an acceptable service?
I pray you to believe that I am, with the most grateful respect and the sincerest esteem,
Your obliged and faithful servant,
CHARLES D. MEIGS.
Philadelphia, Dec. 10, 1845.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
DESCARTES.