8



which I shall speak, is the separation which they make of our
true humanity from those accidental and factitious circumstan-
ces with which it is interwoven and overlaid. By revealing to
us the essential nature of humanity, in its complex physical
and spiritual constitution, it exposes, also, the manifold illusions,
which this humanity has always and everywhere worn. In
the clear liaht of Phrenology, man, for the first time, stands be-
fore us as man,-whatever, and however unlike and diverse
may be the accidents of his environment. If there is any one
moral truth, which can claim to be a central truth,-the truth of
truths,-it is that of the entire, essential, absolute oneness and
equality of human nature. All right rests upon this, its only
immutable basis; all order flows from this, its sole inexhausti-
ble fountain. I do not claim for Phrenology the merit of hav-
ing first asserted or promulgated this truth. Always, through-
out all time, and in every country, have there been SEERS, who
have read the sublime record written on their own hearts;-
always, too, have there been PROPHETS and TEACHERS, who
have uttered it. It is a doctrine, also, of inspiration. It was
proclaimed by Moses, and it runs through all the teachings of
Christ. I do not claim for Phrenology, I say, the merit of hav-
ing first asserted and promulgated this truth ; but I do claim for
it the next highest merit of having given to that which was,
before, only matter of argument or speculation, or of dogmatic
statement, merely, the fixed and positive and everlasting attri-
butes of science. What was precept became law, unchangea-
ble and eternal, and universally binding in its obligations.
  In spite of all the teachings of sages and philosophers and
prophets, blind to the light of wisdom, and deaf to the oracles
of Revelation, men, generally, have never believed this truth.
They do not yet believe it. At least they do not feel it, and
they never have felt it. The feeling,-and in this case the
feeling is equivalent to the belief,-is almost universal, that the
circumstances, by which each man and woman is accidentally
surrounded, have wrought a change in that man's or woman's
nature, and rendered it unlike that of an individual surrounded