which a man of ordinary constancy may be able to bear, and from which, at the worst, when he finds them to become intolerable, he may escape at any time, by an act for which, however criminal, Mr Combe's system provides no punishment,-- Suicide.

Many undoubtedly there are, and these even not the most degraded and vicious of mankind, whom nothing will prevent from gratifying their most craving propensities, and tasting present enjoyment, let the consequences be what they may. In the heyday of youth, when the blood boils in the veins, no consideration of evils to be endured in the present life will deter them from tasting the cup of pleasure—or, when once they taste, from drinking even to the dregs. With them, the great craving is for excitement.

They scorn in apathy to float or dream
Down listless Satisfaction's torpid stream;
But dare, alone, in vent'rous bark to glide
Down turbulent Delight's tempestuous tide.*

And they will do so, although at the bottom they see a gulf which they believe is to swallow them up for ever.

To many such, there will appear even a bravery in despising laws which have no other sanction than a little corporeal suffering in the present life; and companions will encourage one another to disobedience, by the same motives which Lady Macbeth urges upon her lord to induce him to the murder of Duncan. "Art thou afeard," such a one may say,—

Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and deed
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the prime solace of life,

And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting I dare not wait upon I would,
Like the poor cat i' the adage?

* Pursuits of Literature.

The young, the thoughtless, and those endowed with strong passions, will never learn wisdom so as to be of any practical use, except from the stern teacher, experience. Of them it must always be true, what the poet has applied to a gay and unfortunate monarch:

Fair laughs the man, and soft the zephyr blows,
While, proudly riding o'er the azure realm,
In gallant trim, the gilded vessel goes-

Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm,
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway

That, hush'd in grim repose, expects his evening prey.*

Were the natural laws and all their consequences universally known, they would be studied to procure new and ever varied modes of present enjoyment-to procure the means of gratifying the lower, even the very lowest, propensities; and the consequence would be, that vice, immorality, and debauchery of all kinds, would be carried to a height, of which, at present, we can have no adequate conception. The world would be ransacked for condiments more piquant to the taste than Curry or Cayenne-for intoxicating substances more powerful than Alcohol or Opium-for wines more delicious and exhilarating than Champagne or Burgundy. The present generation would find themselves mere children in the arts of procuring, heightening, prolonging, and sustaining to the utmost extent every form and mode of sensual enjoyment.

We would see new varieties of HELLS, suited to our increased knowledge, and consequently extended sphere of enjoyment, in which every resource of human ingenuity would be exhausted for the destruction of time, talents, fame, fortune, health, and life itself. We would have establishments for the rich, more luxurious and more seducing than the gayest of our modern clubs; and

beverages more palatable, cheaper, and more exciting, than the poison which is at present dealt so liberally from our gin palaces, for the poor. We would not, like Thalaba, require to go to Tunis, nor to search under the sea, for the Dom-Daniel. We would have DomDaniels of our own in every street, crowded by whole hecatombs of more willing victims than ever prostrated themselves before the car of Juggernaut.

But if there were, as there undoubtedly would be, some, who would willingly go all this length, and brave all consequences in the mad pursuit of transitory pleasure, there are others, who, possessing more Cautiousness, -certainly not more virtue,- would trim their vessels in the voyage of life more warily, and endeavour to compromise the matter between the love of enjoyment and the dictates of prudence. These would study the natural laws, to discover how far they might be able to go in vice, and yet return unharmed to ascertain what amount of sensual pleasure they might be able to enjoy, without the entire destruction of life and health, and the future comfort of their worldly existence. The question would be, not what they might be able to enjoy consistently with innocence and duty, but what they might be able to enjoy with safety.

Were man endowed with universal knowledge of the capacities of his own constitution, and the powers of external nature, and freed, as Mr Combe seems to desire, from all the checks arising from fear of death and the prospect of an existence to come, while his faculties and dispositions remain as they now are, every one would of course rush forward to reap as much enjoyment as he could in the present life; and what kind of enjoyments these would in general be, we may easily suppose, when we have it on the authority of Mr Combe himself, that, with the generality of mankind,

the higher feelings and intellectual faculties are weak and defective, and the lower propensities greatly predominant. To one so constituted, it would be in vain to point out the pleasures arising from the cultivation of the intellect, or those high and generous feelings which form the chief distinction of our race. He would tell you, that his happiness is not placed in these, but in the gratification of his appetites, and in sensual and epicurean enjoyment-in the destruction of innocent animals in the chase-or in the still more exciting pursuits of war and bloodshed. You can have no answer to this. It is needless to point out the delights of peace and virtue to one who cares nothing about them or to depict the future pain and misery he is bringing on himself, to one who sets all such considerations at defiance. Speak of death-Mr Combe has argued away, as far as he is able, all the effect which this circumstance is fitted to produce, and he carefully excludes every motive arising from the prospect of a future state. He represents, indeed, the evil which a man who follows such a course will bring upon his children, and upon the human race in general; but he might as well address the winds. What does the selfish man care for his posterity, or for the welfare of his race? If he will not be deterred from a life of vicious pleasure by a prospect of the evils it will bring upon himself, will he be stopped in his career by the consideration that his guilt is to be expiated in the person of another?

Supposing, then, that Christianity, as at present taught, were abolished, and the "Natural Laws" erected in its room, the concerns of life, confined to the present world, would become, as I have said, mere matter of calculation. But men, according to their predominant feelings, would calculate differently. While a few would undoubtedly prefer the enjoyments of sentiment and

intellect to those of sense and passion, some would, as now, prefer a short life of high excitement, and endeavour to crowd into as narrow a compass as they could, all the delights of which their nature was susceptible; while others, like true epicures, would wish to prolong the feast, and while, like Solomon, they "withheld not their heart from any joy," would partake of these so cautiously, as not to bring the course of their delights to a too abrupt conclusion. This last may be thought the more rational and more prudent plan, and would certainly be more consistent with the natural laws; but it is just as far removed as the other from that which is alone worthy of regard, -moral and virtuous conduct. What, then, becomes of the fine drawn speculations of Mr Combe, as to the regeneration of the world by means of the natural laws?

Christianity presents not only the clearest views of duty, but also the most powerful motives to obedience; and if those, enforced by every consideration that can influence the mind of man, have not been hitherto sufficient to restrain the evils arising from perverse inclination and unbridled passion, will any fact revealed by Phrenology have this effect? If men have not been prevented from crime by the constraining motives of the fear of God, and the love of a Saviour-the prospect of divine wrath on the one hand, and eternal felicity on the otherwill their headlong passions be quelled, and their wayward propensities kept in check, by the doctrine of the supremacy of the moral sentiments and intellect? Is there any thing in this doctrine more attractive than the speculations of Plato or Socrates, on the Beauty of Virtue and the happiness of living according to nature? Will the irreligious man be convinced and rendered pious, by being informed that there are in the brain organs of Veneration, Hope, and Wonder? Will the thief be