MEMORY AND EDUCATION.

IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECT-MEANS OF CULTIVATING IT.

MAN is the lord of creation. The noblest work of God within our knowledge. The most complicated and perfect in mechanism. The most beautiful to behold. The most powerful to accomplish. The most exalted in enjoyment; in suffering; in function; and in constitution.

But, in what consists this nobleness, this superiority of his nature? In his physical superiority? In his possessing a greater number and variety of bodily organs, and those more perfect than is possessed by the balance of creation? In the erectness of his form? In the sprightliness and power of his muscular system? In even the greater power and more perfect play of his feelings and instincts? In his domestic affections? His defending, acquiring, self-caring, aspiring, persevering elements? In even his moral and religious susceptibilities? In his capability to worship God? to appreciate and enjoy the spiritual? to commune with God? to perceive the right and the wrong, and govern himself by moral principle? In kindness? In disinterested self-sacrifice. for the good of others? In his aspiring after immortality? No. In neither. Not in all combined. But in the possession of INTELLECT. Not that he does not possess these other qualities. Not that they do not add greatly to the dignity and the glory of his nature. But that all these elements of greatness, some of which are even God-like, are crowned with intellect, and, especially, with REASON-the noblest gift of God. to man. We praise Thee, O our God, "for all thy wonderful works unto the children of men," but we praise Thee most, we love Thee most, for the gift of REASON; for the power of THOUGHT; for our capability of perceiving and ap

plying those sublime and glorious laws which govern nature, in all her loveliness; in all her perfection; in all her greatness; in all her variety.

It is a fully established law of Phrenology, a law unfolded in the first volume of this work, (p. 148,) that to be either virtuous or productive of enjoyment, every action of our lives, every desire, every emotion, of our souls, every element, every function of our entire nature, must be guided by intellect, and governed by the moral sentiments. Otherwise, there is no virtue, no enjoyment. Otherwise, all is sin. All is suffering. The man of impulse, is a man of misfortune and sorrow. Animal propensity is blind, and blindly seeks gratification in the teeth of virtue; in the face of enjoyment. Intellect alone can direct her into the paths of virtue, into the haven of happiness. And this intellect can do. It can bring back wandering, wayward animal propensity. It can chasten and elevate that propensity. It can greatly augment both the power, the eflicacy, the successful gratification of that propensity. It can double, for the hundredth, the thousandth time, every result, every enjoyment-every thing--to which man applies himself, be it mechanics, be it agriculture, be it doniestic enjoyment, be it the accumulation of property, be it self-protection, be it renown, be it what it may, even religion not excepted. Indeed, it is here that intellect showers down her richest blessings. Brings forward her choicest fruits. Auains her highest achievements. Moral sentiment, too, without intellect, is blind; is bigoted. Is a blind leader of blind animal propensity, and as much more sinful and ruinous than mere animal propensity is capable of being or of becoming, as the nature and constitution of the moral sentiments excel those of the propensities. For it is a law of things, that the greater the gift or power, the more wicked, the more miserable, its perversion. Than perverted moral sentiment, nothing is more sinsul. Nothing more compting to man. Nothing more painful in its consequences. On this bastard stock of moral sentiment with propensity, but without intellect, grew all the heathen mythology and religious wickedness of past ages. Grow all the abominations of paganism; all the sectarianism, all the bigotry, of christendom. On this tree of the moral sentiments, guided and governed by en

lightened intellect, grow the choicest fruits it is possible for the nature of man to yield, or for his capacities to enjoy. More than any thing else, more than all besides, man requires INTELLECT to perceive and apply the TRUTH to matters of science; to matters of government; to matters of religious belief and practice; to all matters appertaining to health, life, happiness, immortality.

Nor is there any one thing in which man is as deficient, as he is in this self-same matter of intellect. He knows (I use this word in its true sense) precious little, and that little appertains mainly to the gratification of the propensities. He spends but little time, but little money, but little any thing, upon his intellect. Not a hundredth part of either. Almost all his desires, almost all his pursuits, almost all of every thing, is expended upon the gratification of the faculties the organs of which occupy the back and lower portion of his brain; little on science, on philosophy, on studying the facts and the laws of nature. And for the violation of this law of the supremacy of intellect, he is sorely punished in the degradation, or the physical pain and suffering, or the premature death, or the prevailing ignorance and superstition, or the religious bigotry and intolerance, or the erroneous opinions and consequent defective practices, or all combined, of nearly all classes of society; all ranks and conditions of men. Nor can the untold miseries that now scourge mankind, be done away, nor even essentially diminished, till intellect mounts the throne of the nature of man, assumes the helm of state, and guides and governs all his desires, all his conduct, all his opinions.

Hence it is, that the CULTIVATION of intellect, becomes the highest object to which the attention of man can be turned; the concerns of the soul, of eternity, not excepted; for we have just seen, that in order properly to understand or practice the great interests of religion, we must possess a vigorous intellect, a well disciplined mind, and a range and power of thought demanded by nothing else whatever. Cultivate intellect, and you banish ignorance. Cultivate intellect, and you close the doors of the grog-shop, of the gambling saloon, of revelry, of lust; and check, if you do not almost annihilate, depravity in all its forms, with all its woes. Cultivate intel

lect, and you banish paganism with all its crimes, sectarianism with all its deformities, bigotry with all its intolerance. Cultivate intellect, and you expand and elevate every element, every power, of the nature of man; adorn, and purify, and sweeten, every virtue; and crown every department of the nature and capabilities of man with the very climax of all that God has created, all that men can be or enjoy.

And then again, how exceedingly rich and exhaustless are the treasures of knowledge! How delightful the study of nature! "Knowledge is power." Man is so constituted that, to study the laws and phenomena of nature; to witness chemical, philosophical, and other experiments; to explore the bowels of the earth, and examine the beauties, the curiosities and the wonders of its surface; to learn lessons of infinite power and wisdom as taught by astronomy; but, more especially, to study living animated nature; to observe its adaptations and contrivances-in short, to study nature in all her beauty, variety, and perfection, particularly with reference to the wisdom and goodness of that great Being who created all things, constitutes a source of the highest possible gratification of which the human mind is susceptible.

To descant upon the value or utility of Memory,* would be superfluous. I appeal to you who are rich, whether you would not gladly give your all, (the necessaries of life alone excepted,) for a clear and retentive memory of all you have ever seen, or heard, or known. What would not lawyers and physicians give, to be able, without notes, to recall, clearly and in order, every point of their evidence, every fact in their practice, every point in the authors they have read?

* By the term Memory, when used by the writer in this general, unqualified manner, is meant the entire class of the intellectual faculties. The leading doctrine of Phrenology, that every intellectual faculty remembers whatever belongs to its own class of operations :—that Locality remembers places; Form, faces; Eventuality, events; Causality, principles and ideas; Language, words, &c., &c., throughout the whole of the intellectual faculties—that, therefore, there are as many different kinds of memory as there are intellectual faculties, and that, as some of these faculties may be powerful while others are weak, so some kinds of memory may be very retentive while others are feeble, (a principle which lies at the very basis both of memory itself, and of course of its improvement,) is not lost sight of by the Author. He uses this term as it is generally understood and used in common parlance.

Similar remarks apply to men of business, to whom a retentive memory is, if possible, still more serviceable. How often has the reader felt mortified in the extreme, and angry with himself, because he has forgotten something he intended to say or do! How great the consequent inconvenience, and delay, and even loss, which a good memory would have avoided! How much more powerful and effective that speaker who can dispense with notes, yet say all he wishes; and by the aid of a clear and retentive memory, bring to mind. thoughts and arrangements previously prepared! In short, is there any occupation in life in which nearly every kind of memory is not most useful? In many, it is indispensable. I ask parents whether transmitting to your children vigorous intellects and retentive memories, is not one of the richest legacies you can leave them? and whether a poor memory, one that is treacherous to its trust, is not a great misfortune?

If it be inquired, Is man's intellect CAPABLE of being improved? Phrenology answers, YES; and to an extent far exceeding what is generally supposed. Indeed, all efforts at education are based on this supposition; and this fact has been placed beyond all doubt in the previous volume. The same law of increased power by exercise, there shown to govern the entire brain, the entire man, applies here in all its ramifications.

Do parents, do teachers, do the young, or the religious, does one, do all, eagerly inquire, then, By what MEANS can intellect be so expanded, can memory be so strengthened, can the intellectual education of children and youth be so conducted, as to give REASON this desired supremacy? Phrenology answers, By improving the power and activity of the intellectual organs. By this means. By no other. Indeed, ALL improvement, be it intellectual, be it moral, must be based in, must proceed upon, this law. Phrenology demonstrates the fundamental, immutable law of perfect reciprocity of relation between the brain and the mind. This law is universal. It admits of no exceptions.

No Phrenologist will for a moment question either the validity or the universality of this principle; nor indeed will any who believe even in the doctrine that the brain is the organ of the mind; for, if the brain be the agent of the