ARTICLE III.

YOUNG MEN-THEIR CAPABILITIES AND PREPARATION FOR ACTIVE LIFE. NUMBER I.

He is wisest who undertakes what is best, and in the best manner.

ACTION without an OBJECT implies stupidity or insanity. A law of our being compels us to AIM at some end, in all the great, in all the little efforts we put forth. Indeed, every thing we do is but a cause of the end sought, which becomes the effect desired.

Nor are these ends or motives few or weak. It so is, that the world is full of desirable things, and of every conceivable kind. In other words,

man is capacitated to derive a world of infinitely diversified enjoyment from the exercise and gratification of his various faculties; and this gratification constitutes the warp and woof of life-the only end of our existence.

But some objects are MORE DESIRABLE than others; because they confer a higher grade, or a greater amount of enjoyment, or both combined; that is, in phrenological language, because they excite either a higher order of faculties, or else excite them to a higher pitch of action.

It is also so ordered, that a great number and variety of desires may be amalgamated into one grand motive. The latter may be called the PARAMOUNT object, and the former SECONDARY ends. Yet these sub-objects may of themselves be exceedingly valuable and important, because they confer a high order of happiness, besides forwarding the great object in view.

CHOOSE YOUR OBJECT-this is the first business of life. And in making this selection, remember that nothing else compares with it in point of importance. This is to your life, and all its joys and sorrows, what a general is to his army, or the head to the body, or the mind to the man. To live without an object, is to live for nothing; and to live for an inferior object, is scarcely to live at all; while to live for a bad object, is worse than to die on the spot. But behold how vast the array of most exalted motives spread before us for selection, each of them worthy of an angel of light, and also capable of combining many other secondary motives.

This subject can be best illustrated by reference to the phrenological faculties. Some live to eat, drink, and be merry. They may make money, but it is as a means to their ulterior end-sensual indulgence. They may seek friends, but it will be companions with whom to carouse. They talk, and ride, and boast, and dress, but all else is tributary to the great end of their being. But is this worthy of living for? It will do for a brute, but is it exactly the thing for a human being?

Others, again, live mainly to gratify Amativeness; some promiscuously, others privately, and others in wedlock; but is this worthy of becoming the primary end of life? By a law of things, this should be only secondary, and then confined to its natural sphere-the married state. Yet in this sphere, it may be a motive of extraordinary power, and contribute incalculably to whatever other object may be selected. Indeed, unless kept in subordination, it will be well-nigh certain, not only to consume the other ends of life in its fierce fires, but also to burn up even its own self.

Others choose family and friends as their paramount object. So that they can possess a comfortable home, marry well, and have a house full of sons and daughters, they congratulate themselves on having attained life's highest good. Indeed, probably more men live and labor more for their families than all the other ends of life put together; and even then fail to enjoy those families. But should not this also be a sub-motive, instead of the leading one? True, a great many, and a high order of enjoyments, cluster around the fireside. It is well to have

"A little house well filled,

A little wife well willed,
A little farm well tilled,"

But these domestic faculties

and little children all mirth and sweetness. us just as much happiness, when secondary, as when primary. Moreover, they occupy a lower and posterior position in the brain, and therefore should hardly engross and control all the other faculties. Not that we should forego these pleasures, but that we should make wife, children, and friends promotive of whatever other end we may select as

Our CONTROLLING one.

Certainly we should not live, as in feudal times, to gratify clanish revenge, nor, Ishmael-like, to make common war on our race. Yet how many have lived just to wreak their hands in the blood of their foes, and willingly venture their own lives in order to take that of another!

And is a military object just the one? Does it not consist in gratifying the combative and destructive elements of our nature, which reside in the base of the brain? It often sets up the flimsy plea of serving country; but any country will be benefited a thousand times more by promoting agriculture, commerce, manufactures, inventions, and especially education and morality, than by propping up that bloody system of wholesale murder, which military men live to promote. War, however successful, is the most withering sirocco which can sweep over any country, and quite as fatal to victor as vanquished. Besides, this profession is fast falling into disrepute, and will soon become loathsome and disgraceful. No, young man, enter not the army or navy to do good.

"The acquisition of property-ah, money is My god!-let others live

for what they like, but I go in for the almighty DOLLAR," is the PRACTICAL declaration of many young men. Oh, if I can only make a fortune, I shall be completely happy, say they in their ACTIONS, which speak louder than words. I know that money is now the object of nearly all, and the raging epidemic; but consider whether it OUGHT to be. It can be made the instrument of gratifying a great number of faculties, and therefore all should acquire property, that is, the comforts of life; but as far as this is done to promote COMFORT, it becomes a secondary object. Yet we need not particularize further, as to what subjects should NOT be chosen. What we wish to say in this number is, CHOOSE YOUR GOVERNING OBJECT. Stop where you are, till you have marked out the plan of your life. Choose the goal you would reach, the end you would attain, before you die; and then consider what subordinate ends you can group in with this general result. Or, in phrenological language, what FACULTIES you will have for your pole-star, and then what other organs you can gratify in connection with them.

In making this selection, of course many men will have many minds; yet Phrenology lays down certain principles, by following which we can incomparably promote our happiness and success-those sole ends of human existence. The gratification of some faculties will confer a higher order of happiness than others, and Phrenology shows which, namely, the moral and intellectual. We have already shown the value of knowledge. To improve his mind should be a PARAMOUNT object with all, and especially with every young man.

In subsequent articles on this subject, we shall treat the MEANS of attaining so desirable an end; and hope, in this series of articles, to make many important suggestions to young men, drawn from Phrenology, to follow which will vastly promote all the enjoyments and acquisitions of life.

POWER OF KINDNESS.-In a quarter of the town of Hingham, known as Rockynook, there is a pond, where a little girl, not six years old, who resides near the bank, has tamed the fishes to a remarkable degree. She began by throwing crumbs in the water. Gradually the fishes learned to distinguish her footsteps, and darted to the edge whenever she approached; and now they will actually feed out of her hand, and allow her to touch their scales. A venerable turtle is among her regular pensioners. The control of Van Amburg over his wild animals is not more surprising than that which this little girl has attained over her finny playmates. Visitors have been attracted from a distance of several miles, to the spectacle she exhibits. They will not have any thing to do with any one but their tried friend. They will trust no one else, let him come with provender ever so tempting. Even fishes are not so cold-blooded, but they will recognize the law of kindness, and yield to its all-embracing power.

ARTICLE IV.

THE PHRENOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND MENTALITY OF PROFESSOR SAMEL B. F. MORSE, INVENTOR OF THE MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH, ILLUSTRAT WITH TWO ENGRAVINGS.

MORSE'S MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH far outstrips rail-roads, steamboats, and all those other modern inventions and improvements which are so rapidly and effectually revolutionizing business, society, and the entire order of the things that were. Its advantages to business men are incalculable. A Baltimore or Buffalo merchant, or any large operator, has an application for $10,000 worth of goods, which he has on hand, excepting one quality or variety of one kind, the want of which will prevent the sale. At four o'clock he dispatches a telegraphic order to New York for the wanted items, and in an hour they are on their way of which he is informed in fifteen minutes-and they are in Baltimore the next morning; whereas it would have taken three or four days to have obtained them by letter, which is longer than his customer can wait. Nor can he know whether the New York merchant can or has supplied him till re

turn of mail, perhaps ten times as many hours as it is minutes by telegraph. It will probably completely revolutionize existing modes of doing business; for when telegraphic lines become extended, and its transmitting powers vastly improved, as they doubtless will be, Western, Southern, Northern-all business men, instead of leaving their business and going to distant cities, will order by telegraph what, and as, they

want.

Or a person dies, some of whose very near friends live at a distance. A letter will not reach them in season for them to arrive before decomposition compels the burial, and even then it may lay in the post-office for days, whereas the telegraph will enable those many hundreds of miles off to be present; and thus of innumerable cases like these. Its prospective advantages, and the number of useful ends which it will yet be made to subserve, exceed all computation.

But it is in the world of MIND PROPER that it is destined to effect by far the greatest revolution, and achieve its highest good: coupled with PHONOGRAPHY, it will place any important speech, delivered in any part of our vast nation, in the hands of the entire country WHILE IT IS BEING DELIVERED. Thus, phonography now reports a speech VERBATIM, and, by having several sets of wires-especially after the telegraph has been still further improved*-it can be transmitted in TAKES, as the printers parcel off matter wanted immediately, and sent throughout the land, there to be set up, and the first part printed and circulated before the last part is delivered! As, when Fulton first navigated the Hudson by steam, none conceived it possible that this new motive power, great as it was considered, could ever be made to accomplish a thousandth part of what it has already done-and it is yet in its merest infancy-so we can form no conception of the wonders the telegraph is destined, in the lapse of ages, to accomplish. See what it has already done in connection with the press. See how many new papers it has given birth to all along its lines, every one of which go forth to rouse and develop mind. In short, it has literally ELECTRIFIED the civilized world. And if it achieves all this in the green tree, what will it do in the dry? Time alone can an

swer.

The Phrenology and Physiology of that man who first reduced this power to practical application, at least to any degree which attracted attention, is fraught with special interest. What, then, are they?

We should hardly expect a sluggish brain to originate such an invention. Nor did it. Morse's brain is one of the highest order of activity, as our articles on the temperaments will fully show. Yet, since these signs can be pointed out to much better advantage in our articles on this

* One of its recent improvements uses LETTERS, as in printing, and others will be added as time rolls on.