become uppermost. They live in holes in the rocks; and, putting the water in motion with their arms, thus bring their distant prey within reach.-They swallow muscles, and reject the entire shells, after extracting the fish. The magnifica is cautious and circumspect; and on the approach of danger withdraws its tentacula. into its elastic tube; and then this tube into its den in the rock. The medusa and star-fish can sink and rise, and direct their movements at pleasure. They have no nerves or circulation; but their arms are excellent organs of touch. If any of these sea-flowers, medusæ, and star-fish, be cut into pieces, each piece becomes as perfect an animal as its original. The polypus possesses an equal facility of reproduction. It is a mere stomach, and can have no other desire or gratification but such as may be supposed to actuate a stomach not accustomed to much variety. The sponge is a congeries of reticulated fibres, clothed with gelatinous flesh, full of small mouths, by which it absorbs and rejects water, and acquires all necessary nourishment. Its pores alternately contract and dilate, and it shrinks from the touch when examined in its native situation. It scarcely seems to possess the organization worthy to raise it to the dignity of a plant; yet it gives unequivocal proof of animal life, and arrogates a right to be admitted into a superior kingdom.

Can such creatures have mental powers?-can Molluscæ have minds? I doubt whether this question must not be answered in the affirmative. Even the

very Sense of existence is a Mind to the animal that yet possesses no other feeling. If the Sponge be a living animal, and possess that feeling, to that extent it must have a Mind. But the other species of Mollusca I have named, enjoy superior powers. They have, all, the powers of voluntary motion, and some of them of locomotion. They have, all, the desire of food; but, perhaps, none of them a choice, even restricted, of the victims they swallow. They have, all, offspring; but whether they experience any indistinct and feeble type of the feeling, which, in superior animals, resides in the cerebellum-whether they know that they have young, or care whether they have or not, it were vain to conjecture. But thus far we may assume that whatever pleasure they may feel in swallowing their prey-whatever enjoyment in their voluntary movements-whatever pain when they shrink from dangerwhatever desire of food or other gratification within their narrow sphere-even the very sense of existence itself all these feelings, as far as they exist in the animal, combine to constitute its Mind-and a Mind it has, if it be a living creature.*

What difference then, it will be asked, between the Mind emanating from the unorganized nervous mass of these Molluscæ, and the highly organized cerebral system of more perfect animals? The question is startling, and deserves an answer: but it is not easy, in the present state of our knowledge, to attain satisfaction, * See Note, pp. 73, 74.

much less conviction. It is, however, to be observed, that these creatures can neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, and seem to be only sensible of present feelings and desires; probably they have no memory, no anticipation, no choice, no inventive resources to gratify any of their wants--and these are the common attributes of every brain and its congeries of organs, every organ being imbued with its own propensity, perception, memory, judgment, and imagination.

I have dwelt thus long on the first of these important questions, THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN AND THE INFERIOR ANIMALS, because these minute details will render more easy and perspicuous the discussion of the other subjects on which Phrenology appears to have thrown more light than all the labors of metaphysics in all past ages. With respect to the next question, The origin of SOCIETY, we have even anticipated the solution, in discussing the nature and connexion of the organs developed at the back of the head.

It is admitted that mankind, at the earliest periods, were united in society; yet various theories have been formed concerning the circumstances and principles which gave rise to this union. These theories suppose the original state of man to be that of savages, without language, intellect, or moral restraint, the mutum et turpe pecus,' which the Roman Satirist describes with more of poetical beauty than philosophical truth. Such suppositions are contradicted by the most authentic

records of antiquity; and the Mosaic account of the exalted endowments bestowed upon man-even if it had no higher pretension, carries conviction to the mind, from its consonance with nature and reason. Children increased, families multiplied, and communities were established; and it could not have been otherwise, from the organization of the mental faculties bestowed by God upon Man. If he had been denied the organ of Attachment, husband and wife would have separated with as little ceremony, and lived as much asunder as the tiger and tigress; if denied Philoprogenitiveness, he would have shaken off his offspring as if they were leopard's cubs, or, like the ostrich, abandoned them altogether; if denied Concentrativeness, family would have fought with family, instead of uniting into communities, and battling with other communities in defence of their women, their children and their portion of the soil. Without Combativeness, they would not have battled at all; but suffered the beasts to make war on them, and yielded in weakness and despair their lives to the victors; without Self-esteem and the Love of Approbation, there would have been no government of the community, no desire nor ambition to become its leader or head—no struggle for power-no monarchy, no oligarchy, no republic. Would society be better if it were otherwise? We may venture to decide that it would not. It is according to the mental powers given us by God; and what He wills`must, on the whole, be best.

It is the same in the humbler communities of animals -the dove-cot, the rookery, the domestic flocks and herds, the wild flocks and herds, those which unite for migration, those which unite for the chase, those which place sentinels, and seek their safety in flight or resistance, all are alike governed by their organization; and where the organization differs, there is also a difference in the constitution of the society. Are they gregarious because they considered effects and causes, and saw that their security and happiness depended on a union of strength or of intellect? No! they are gregarious, because they feel the irresistible impulse of their organization.-This is the prime and proximate cause of SOCIETY.

Philosophers have differed much as to THE ORIGIN OF ARTICULATE LANGUAGE; and some cannot conceive how man could have arrived at so exquisite a power without the intervention of the Deity; and therefore conclude that this divine gift was bestowed by inspiration on our first parents.

I admit that the gift is divine, and that God is the giver, as he is the giver of all good things; but the inspiration was indirect, not immediate; the inspiration resides in the organ of Language, and that organ is the gift of God. Were a family of men to be created by miracle in a wilderness, they would, if similarly endowed with us, feel the impulse of this organ, and soon learn, in the first instance, to comprehend