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says, and what Conscientiousness says, and what Veneration says, just as if these were separate individuals, each having a vote in the congress of the faculties. And if man had no other faculties than these, the decision would be unanimous, and, according to Mr Combe's view, quite satisfactory. It may be quite true that Benevolence, which merely looks to the welfare of others,-Conscientiousness, which respects their rights,—and Veneration, which looks up to the Creator,-may feel no disturbance at the prospect of death. But that is not the question. These are not the faculties which are affected by the prospect of death. The faculties which really are so affected are, first, the Love of life, which Mr Combe admits to be an original principle or feeling for which there is an organ in the brain; second, the Love of self, which by no theory of morals, not even the Christian, is ever required to be less strong than the love of our neighbour, for we are only commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves; Hope, which the prospect of death is calculated entirely to crush and destroy, and which nothing can reconcile to it but the promise of a life to come; and lastly, Cautiousness, which ever regards death, as soon as we understand what it means, with the greatest solicitude and alarm. It, therefore, signifies nothing to tell us what Benevolence says, and what Conscientiousness says, and what Veneration says; but what does the man say who possesses the one set of faculties as well as the other? The latter set of faculties, so long as they possess any sensibility, are strongly impressed with horror at the idea of death; and it signifies nothing to tell us that another set of faculties, which, in general, act with much inferior force, do not feel this horror. The man feels it, and that is enough. It may safely be pronounced, that, apart from the prospect of a future state, every human being, whose

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FEELINGS OF MAN ON PROSPECT OF DEATH.

mind is in a sane, active, and well ordered condition, feels a natural horror at the idea of death, and regards it as the greatest of earthly calamities. Philosophers may speculate on the subject in their closets, and persuade themselves that they are reconciled to the idea of death; but their feelings change when the King of Terrors actually makes his approach, and delivers his awful summons. Mr Combe mentions this to have been the case with Lord Byron in the near prospect of death, though, in general, he felt no great desire to live; and, it may be affirmed, the feeling is universal. In all circumstances, except under the pressure of complicated calamities or incurable disease, or in cases of overwrought religious feeling, when the faculties are in a disordered and morbidly excited state, or when existence itself seems to have become a burden, there is no real instance of a desire for, or even an indifference about, death. As Dr Johnson observes, we know it will do us no good to whine, and we submit ; but we submit because our fate is unavoidable, and for no other reason.

All attempts to argue away the fear of death on natural grounds are universally felt to be utterly hollow and worthless, and can have no other effect than to turn away our eyes from the only true preservative from that fear, and, as far as in us lies, to detract from the value of " the blessed hope of everlasting life," which is held out to us by the Gospel.

2. On the omission of a Future State.

Throughout the whole of his speculation on death, Mr Combe has industriously, and of set purpose, excluded all consideration of a Future State. There might have been less harm in this, had his work been a purely

philosophical one, intended merely as an ingenious exercise of the understanding, and addressed exclusively to philosophers. On the contrary, however, he states in his preface, that his purpose is practical; that his great object is " to exhibit several of the most important natural laws, and their relations and consequences, with a view to the improvement of education, and the regulation of individual and national conduct." Accordingly, the work has been widely disseminated among the labouring classes, and others of the less educated portion of society. The object of the Henderson Bequest, is expressly to promote its circulation among these classes. It is put into the hands of the young and the half-instructed, as a manual of information on all points relative to their condition in this world; and not merely for the regulation of private conduct, but for guiding their opinions on every point of national and political, as well as individual interest. In these circumstances, it is impossible to admit the excuse which Mr Combe offers for the omission of this most important and vital element in the constitution and condition of man. He says, at p. 7, that the objection stated to that omission, is founded on a misapprehension of the object of the book. "It is my purpose to shew, that the rewards and punishments of human actions are infinitely more complete, certain, and efficacious in this life than is generally believed; but by no means to interfere with the sanctions to virtue afforded by the prospect of future retribution.” To this, the

answer is obvious, that such a mode of considering the subject may be very fit for a philosophical thesis, but is radically defective and unsound when applied to a practical treatise of morals, intended expressly for the instruction of the people.

In order to consider, to any proper or useful effect, the subject of death, it must be, first of all, necessary to

ascertain what death truly is. Now, this depends entirely on the question whether there is a future state or not. If there is no future state, then death is the extinction of life, and the end of our existence. If, on the on the contrary, there is a state of existence beyond the grave, then death is merely the transition from one mode of existence to another; it is the termination of one life, and the commencement of another. Surely a matter so inconceivably important as this, ought not to be left in uncertainty in a practical and popular work, a manual of instruction for the regulation of conduct, which is to be industriously disseminated among the lower and less educated classes of society.

Even though it be conceded to Mr Combe, that he was not called upon, in such a work as this, to go beyond the sphere of natural reason, he is without excuse, in as far as there are many arguments for a future state deducible by reason, which came fairly and naturally under his notice, and which he was bound, in discussing such a subject as this for the edification of the people generally, to place before them in their true light. And he is the more especially inexcusable in this, as the system of human nature which he adopts as the basis of his entire work, has furnished grounds in support of this conclusion, clearly confirming those which were relied upon by the philosphers of other days. Mr Combe is quite aware of these arguments, and has expressly alluded to them in his System of Phrenology.

*

In speaking of the organ and faculty of Hope, in that System, he has the following passage: "In religion, this faculty favours the exercise of faith; and by producing the natural tendency to look forward to futurity with expectation, disposes to belief in a life to come.

* Combe's System of Phrenology, second edition, p. 207. Third edition, p. 307.

"The metaphysicians admit this faculty, so that Phrenology only reveals its organ, and the effects of its endowment in different degrees. I have already stated an argument in favour of the being of a GOD, founded on the existence of a faculty of Veneration, conferring the tendency to worship, of which God is the proper and ultimate object. May not the probability of a future state be supported by a similar deduction from the possession of a faculty of Hope? It appears to me, that this is the faculty from which originates the notion of futurity, and which carries the mind forward in endless progression into periods of never-ending time. May it not be inferred, that this instinctive tendency to leave the present scene, and all its enjoyments, to spring forward into the regions of a far distant futurity, and to expatiate, even in imagination, in the fields of an eternity to come, denotes that man is formed for a more glorious destiny than to perish for ever in the grave? Addison beautifully enforces this argument in the Spectator, and in the soliloquy of Cato; and Phrenology gives weight to his reasoning, by shewing that this ardent hope, this longing after immortality,' is not a factitious sentiment, or a mere exuberance of an idle and wandering imagination, but that it is the result of a primitive faculty of the mind, which owes at once its existence and its functions to the Creator." There is more to the same purpose, but this is quite sufficient, and shews that Mr Combe is quite aware of the argument; and how, after having obtained so clear a view of a doctrine, in his opinion so beautiful and consolatory, deduced from a principle recognized by Phrenology, he should have omitted all notice of it in a work expressly founded on the basis of that doctrine, appears utterly unaccountable. Admitting that it did not strictly fall within the original plan of his work, it would, at any rate, have

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