PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES

OF

PHRENOLOGY.

SECTION I.

OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER I.

GENERAL VIEW OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

It may be indifferent to phrenologists whether the first wise men were among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Indians or Chinese. As the fundamental powers of the mind are innate and essentially the same in mankind, it is probable that in every nation some individuals excelled and took the lead of their countrymen. My object is here to take a very summary view of the most important schools of philosophy.

It is known that before the Greek philosophers, learning was hereditary in peculiar tribes or castes, and wisdom the monopoly of certain families, of the priests in Egypt, of the Levites among the Jews, of the magi in Chaldea, Assyria, and Persia, of the brahmins among the Indians, of the druids among the Celtic nations, &c. All knowledge was confined to priesthood, and the vulgar relied on their sayings and interpretations of nature and heaven. The whole tendency of barbaric philosophy, though employed upon important subjects, both divine and human, was mystical. Instead of investigating truth from clear principles, there was every

where a public, or vulgar, and a concealed or more philosophical doctrine. The sacerdocy directed the religious and civil concerns, the administration of justice and the education of youth, clothed their dogmas in an allegorical dress, and transmitted them principally by the way of tradition, to which the vulgar gave their simple and easy assent. Ignorance, superstition and impostors prevailed. It is, however, an important fact, that the doctrines of a Supreme Deity and the immortality of the soul were universally received.

The founders of the Grecian states introduced the mode of instruction used in their native countries in a poetical dress, and under the disguise of fables, mystery, prodigies, and mythological enigmas. The management of the civil and religious affairs were in the same hands during the first period of Greece as well as elsewhere. By degrees, however, practical wisdom appeared under the exertions of the seven wise men; and Thales from Miletus, the first of them, introduced the scientific method of philosophising.

Theogony and Cosmogony, (God and nature,) were the principal objects of philosophical inquiries in the remotest ages. The chaos, as eternal, was generally admitted, and the creation from nothing was unknown. The sum of the ancient Theogonies and Cosmogonies seems to be: the first matter, containing the seeds of all future beings, existed from eternity with God. At length the Divine Energy upon matter produced a motion among its parts by which those of the same kind were brought together, and those of a different kind were separated, and by which, according to certain wise laws, the various forms of the material world were produced. The same energy of emanation gave existence to animals, to men, and to gods, who inhabit the heavenly bodies and various places of nature. Among men, those who possess a larger portion of the Divine nature than others are hereby impelled to great and beneficent actions, and afford illustrious proofs of their Divine Original, on account of which they are after death raised to a place among the gods, and become objects of religious worship. Upon the basis of such notions the whole mythological system and all the religious rites and mysteries of the Greeks may be founded. Blind

necessity in the motion of the particles of matter, seems to have been admitted as the first principle of nature.

Anaxagoras of Clazomena first affirmed that a pure mind, perfectly free from all material connexions, acted upon matter with intelligence and design in the formation of the universe. Instead of mixing mind with the rest, he conceived it to be a separate, simple, pure, and intelligent being, capable of forming the eternal mass of matter. Like Thales, he believed the sun and stars to be inanimate fiery bodies, and no proper objects of worship. Of course such doctrines offended the Athenians and their priests; Anaxagoras was banished and went to Lampsacus, saying to his friends that he had not lost the Athenians, but the Athenians had lost him.

The Ionic school investigated particularly the origin and nature of things, considered the external objects much more than the nature of man, and in men paid little attention to those subjects in which the happiness of human life is immediately concerned. They admired virtue and extolled virtuous actions without taking the pains of establishing the principles and inculcating the precepts of sound morality. No distinction was made between thoughts and objects thought of.

Socrates gave a new direction to philosophical investigation. He united with a penetrating judgment, a liberal mind and exalted views, exemplary integrity and purity of manners. Observing with regret that the opinions of the Athenians were misled and their moral principles corrupted, by philosophers who spent all their time in refined speculations upon the origin and nature of things, and by sophists who taught the art of false eloquence and deceitful reasoning, Socrates endeavored to institute a new and more useful method of instruction. He conceived that the true end of philosophy is not an ostentatious display of superior learning, neither ingenious conjectures, nor subtle disputations, but the love of truth and virtue. He estimated the value of knowledge by its utility; and recommended the study of astronomy, geometry and other sciences only as far as they admit of a practical application to the purposes

of human life. His great object was to lead men into an acquaintance with themselves, to convince them of their follies and vices, to inspire them with the love of virtue and to furnish them with useful moral instruction. He thought it more reasonable to examine things in relation to man and the principles of his moral conduct, than such as lie beyond the sphere and reach of human intellect, and consequently do not relate to man. His favorite maxim was whatever is above us, does not concern us.

Socrates had many disciples who formed schools or philosophical sects, such as the Cyrenic sect (by Aristippus from Cyrene in Africa ;) the Megaric sect (by Euclid of Megara ;) the Eliac sect; &c. The most important were the Academic sect by Plato, the Cynic by Antisthenes, the Peripatetic by Aristotle, and the Stoic by Zeno from Cyprus.

Plato at the age of twenty years attended to the instruction of Socrates, remained eight years with him, and was his most illustrious disciple. At the death of Socrates he went to Megara and studied under Euclid; he then travelled in Magna Græcia and was instructed in the mysteries of the Pythagorean system; he also visited Theodorus of Cyrene, and became his pupil in mathematical science; he even went to Egypt to learn from the Egyptian priests astronomy, returned to the Pythagorean school at Tarentum and finally to Athens, where he opened a school in a small garden and spent a long life in the instruction of youth. He mixed the doctrines of his masters with his own conceptions, and showed a great propensity to speculative refinement: he therefore attached himself to the subtleties of the Pythagorean school, and disdained the sober method of reasoning introduced by Socrates. His discourses on moral topics are more pleasing than when he loses himself with Pythagoras in abstract speculations, expressed in mathematical proportions and poetical diction.

According to Plato, philosophy as it is employed in the contemplation of truth is termed theoretical, and as it is conversant in the regulation of actions, is practical. The theoretical philosophy inquires, besides the contemplation of truth and virtue, the right

conduct of understanding and the powers of speech in the pursuit of knowledge.

Plato remembered the inconveniences which several of his predecessors among the Greeks had brought upon themselves by an undisguised declaration of their opinions. On the other hand he knew how successfully the Egyptians and Pythagoreans had employed the art of concealment to excite the admiration of the vulgar, who are always inclined to imagine something more than human in things which they do not understand. Yet he did not, after the example of Pythagoras, demand an oath of secrecy from his disciples, but he purposely threw over his public instruction of various subjects a veil of obscurity, which was only removed for those who were thought worthy of being admitted to his more private and confidential lectures.

Plato divides his theoretical philosophy into three branches: theological, physical and mathematical. He admitted God and matter as eternal, since nothing can proceed from nothing, but he ascribed to God the power of formation; farther, he speaks of the soul of the world from which God separated inferior souls, and assigned them down to earth into human bodies as into a sepulchre or prison. From this cause he derived the depravity and misery to which human nature is liable. Life is the conjunction of the soul with the body, death is their separation.

The human soul consists of three parts: 1st, Intelligence; 2d, Passion; 3d, Appetite.-Passion and appetite depend on matter; intellect comes from God, and the rational soul alone is immortal. The human understanding is employed, 1st, upon things which it comprehends by itself, and which in their nature are simple and invariable; or 2d, upon things which are subject to the senses and which are liable to change. Sense is the passive perception of the soul through the medium of the body.

In his republic or political doctrine, he wished to subjugate passion and appetite by means of reason or abstract contemplation of ideas, a conception which prevails still now-a-days, and which will be cleared up by Phrenology.