ed in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, un less the owner shall commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.

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The case is the same as to crimes and misdemeanors that are forbidden by the superior laws, and therefore styled mala in se, such as murder, theft, and perjury, which contract no additional turpitude from being declared unlawful by the inferior legislature; for that legislature in all these cases acts only in subordination to the Great Lawgiver, transcribing and publishing his precepts. So that, upon the whole, the declaratory part of the municipal law has no force or operation at all with regard to actions that are naturally or intrinsically right or wrong.

"But with regard to things in themselves indifferent the case is entirely altered. These become either right or wrong, just or unjust, duties or misdemeanors, according as the municipal legislature sees proper for promoting the welfare of society and more effectually carrying on the purposes of civil life. Thus our common law has declared that the goods of the wife do instantly upon marriage become the property and right of the husband, and our statute law has declared all monopolies a public offence; yet that right and this offence have no foundation in nature, but are merely created by law for the purpose of civil life."

The former part of this extract regarding natural rights is entirely sound, and expresses with great clearness the view which I wish to present-namely, that the law is merely declaratory as to all natural rights. It does not create, but enforces them; the right depending not upon the law, but the law rather upon the right itself.

The error in this quotation which I wish to combat is, the supposition that the law has anything whatever to do with things "which are in themselves indifferent." "These," says the learned commentator, “ become right or wrong, just or unjust, duties or misdemeanors," as the legislature sees fit to declare them.

This is placing man's destiny in the hands of his fellowmen, rather than in the hand of his Creator. Here is spread wide the grand entrance-door of tyranny. What may not the legislature see fit to declare to be right or wrong, duty or misdemeanor !

If the law forbid that which nature allows, it restrains human liberty. If it enjoin a duty which nature does not impose, it inflicts an act of tyranny upon man. If it confer a right which nature has not ordained, it robs some one or many of that which it confers, and works injustice among

men.

The instance quoted by the writer, where the law

gives the goods of the wife instantly upon the marriage to the husband, is a most apt illustration of this species of injustice. Here the law creates a right arbitrarily, and without a shadow of foundation in nature. But this right conferred upon the husband implies a right taken from the wife; and hence an actual wrong to her, which the law ought not to inflict.

What I design to contend for is, that the laws shall be merely declaratory of natural rights and natural wrongs, and that whatever is indifferent to the laws of nature shall be left unnoticed by human legislation; that all rights and duties are natural; and that legal tyranny arises wherever there is a departure from this simple principle.

How then can we avoid this tyranny? What need we to know in order to arrive at justice and safety, in the work of human legislation? I answer, that we must know man's mental constitution and its relation and adaptation to the external world.

Nature outraged appeals from human to the divine laws. We have but to know ourselves and our natural relations, and we may be redressed at once.

But can we know the true nature of man? Is the natural man and the man of society one and the same being? Has not education changed his character, and luxury disordered his mind? Have the civilized and the savage man one common nature, which can be ascertained, and upon which we can base a speculation as to human rights? I answer, that the state of civilization is the true natural condition of the human race. It is in this state only that the true nature of man can be fully exhibited. He is endowed with faculties which inevitably tend to high civilization and improvement. A faculty improved is still the same faculty. A sentiment enlightened does not lose its original character. But if we need to see man in a primitive state in order to detect his natural characteristics, the means are always at hand-for every human being begins life a savage. In the nursery of human infancy are betrayed the true natural desires, emotions, and faculties of all human beings. We need not go back to

the traditions of the early ages of the world, for the cradle presents us with the early age of every man-of savage man in the bosom of civilized life.

Tyranny has no excuse. It cannot any longer affect un certainty and doubt as to the true and certain mental characteristics of mankind.

Man is at length demonstrated. The universal man stands forth to modern view with his mental forces well defined and well known. Modern discovery has given to each native desire, to each emotion and faculty of the human mind, "a local habitation and a name,” and presented to the philanthropist and statesman the means of defining human rights, and of conforming human legislation to the eternal standard of truth and nature. I allude to the discoveries of the great Gall, and to that system of intellectual and moral philosophy which has thence resulted, and which one of the greatest of his disciples has justly denominated "the last and best ofhuman sciences."

Dr. Gall and his disciples have demonstrated, by observation upon a world of facts, that the brain is the medium through which all human passion, sentiment, and intellect, are manifested,-that the force and degree of these manifestations depend (other things being equal) upon the size of that organ,—that the size of the brain, or any particular portion of it, can in general be accurately determined, during life, from an outward examination of the human scull,-that the brain is composed of a congeries of organs, having each its peculiar function, namely, the manifestation of a peculiar faculty, sentiment, or passion, and having that office alone. Assuming, therefore, that they have, after more than forty years of patient labor and investigation, discovered the peculiar function of each portion of the brain, they declare that they have demonstrated, by physiological facts, the true natural faculties and dispositions of the human mind.

These conclusions are not derived from an examination of any peculiar people. All human kind have passed under their observation-from the rude Tartar to the most enlightened European-the children of the sun, and the inhabitants

of earth's frozen regions-the educated and the ignorant -all colors, all classes and conditions of men-the ancients, from their decayed sepulchres, and the moderns in the midst of life-both sexes and all ages-have passed under their most rigid examination; and the same natural faculties and dispositions have been found in all.

Their conclusions, therefore, embrace all human kind.— Produce a man, and to them you exhibit a being endowed with the sum of those faculties and dispositions which they have demonstrated as pertaining to humanity. The idea of Man, to them, is but the embodying of certain known and well-defined powers, sentiments, and passions, in a living being. They know his desires, emotions, and faculties—what he wants, what he wills, and what he suffers. No distance renders his case uncertain. Color clouds not their observation, nor does time outlaw his claims. He is a Man-that suffices to define his certain nature, and his ultimate destiny. Climate, country, distance, government, the distinctions of society, can neither change his nature, nor annihilate his rights. The king, the subject, the master, and the slaveeach is a man; no more nor less than a man; and in the eye of this philosophy, each is bound to acknowledge the other to be a man, with all the rights pertaining to humanity.

This science does not deny that a very great disparity exists among men in regard to their mental constitutions. On the contrary, it asserts that there are vast individual and national differences in respect to both intellectual and moral endowments, and that this difference is mainly dependent upon their physical organization. But each man possesses, nevertheless, the faculties and sentiments peculiar to humanity, although as to each of his natural powers, one man may differ from another, either in the strength, activity, or peculiar combination of his faculties. What the phrenologist asserts is, that no sane man has a faculty which another has not.He admits a difference in degree, although none in kind.

I beg, therefore, to be allowed the advantage of certain great and fundamental truths derived from phrenology, which I esteem as well established as any truths in natural science.

First. That mankind have one common nature, which is now ascertained and well defined.

Second. That this common nature is composed of certain well-known intellectual faculties, moral emotions, and desires or passions, which are innate, and spring from the very existence of a human being.

Of these innate powers, I need not enumerate more than a part, and such only as may be found essential to the discussion of the topic stated in the title to the present chapter -to wit, the desire of life-the desire of food-the desire of safety—the desire of exclusive property and possession-the innate love of the opposite sex-the faculty to speak and communicate ideas-the sentiment of reverence and awe— the disposition to have faith-to wonder-a love of the beautiful and perfect-a love of praise and commendation—a desire to see others happy-a love of justice, or sense of right -a feeling of self-esteem, or pride.

Now these, and all the other natural faculties of man, are adapted to harmonize with external nature—so that each faculty finds in the world an object upon which to rest for its appropriate exercise and gratification. It would, therefore, seem to be the natural design that every power of the mind should be exercised. Wherever Nature has ordained desire, she has spread before it the means of gratification.From this we infer the right to its indulgence-and hence, also, the rights of man.

Man has a right to the gratification, indulgence, and exercise of every innate power and faculty of his mind. The exercise of a faculty is its only use. The manner of its exercise is one thing; that involves a question of morals. The right to its exercise is another thing, in which no question is involved but the existence of the innate faculty, and the objects presented by nature for its gratification.

To my own mind this derivation of rights seems so clearly just, that I would not attempt its further illustration-but that we meet in the works of the most celebrated writers with so much controversy upon this subject.

"Natural law, natural rights," says Mr. Bentham, in his Theory of Legislation, [p. 104,] "are two kinds of fictions or metaphors, which play so