It cannot be denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all
metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual or
logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man, set
himself to imagine designs- to dictate purposes to God. Having thus
fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of these
intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter
of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough,
that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat. We then
assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is the
scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man should
continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality,
with constructiveness,- so, in short, with every organ, whether
representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the pure
intellect. And in these arrangements of the Principia of human action,
the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole,
have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their
predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from the
preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of his
Creator.
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