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Some will say, this was the force of habit; but habit only strengthened an original disposition. But I have another instance; there is, in the Institution under my charge, a man deaf and dumb, and almost entirely blind; there is a blind boy, also, who entered when but four years of age: now there could be no possible pleasure from interchange of thought between these two persons; there could be no advantage to either; and yet the blind child took great delight in being with the deaf and dumb man; the man loved to hold the child in his arms, and to keep near him for hours. The child was remarkable for his loquacity, his continual prattle, his inclination to make a noise in every possible way, in order to exercise his sense of hearing; but I observed that he never would speak to the deaf man, and when with him would be perfectly still. As the man once wandered into the streets, and took the child with him; I was obliged, for fear of harm, to break up the intimacy, but it cost me much labor to effect it.

I have no doubt, that if you ask the convicts at Charlestown whether they should rather hammer granite six hours daily, alone in their cells, or ten hours where they could gratify their feelings by being near to and in sight of their fellows, though without speaking to them, they would choose the latter. If one or two should dissent, then it would indicate a less activity of adhesiveness.

But this innate disposition of man, though in its origin and character like that which makes the animals gregarious, is as far above it as is his nature higher and nobler than theirs. He seeks not only for society, but for communion with his fellows; his soul yearneth for sympathy -- for close intercourse -- for a congenial soul with which to intertwine itself; for

"The heart, like a tendril, accustom'd to cling,
Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone;
But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing
It can twine with itself, and make closely its own."

Philanthropy, friendship, and love, are closely connected with, and dependent upon this disposition of man, which is the foundation of all his social relations.

But this disposition, like every other, is blind, and requires the light of the intellect for its proper guidance and direction: it is the foundation of social union; but the superstructure raised upon it, will vary according to the intellectual and moral condition of the builders: it unites the savage tribe, and the refined nation; but how varied are their ties, and their relations!

Phrenology teaches, that all the institutions and regulations of the society, which is built upon this social principle should be formed with a view to the development of all the propensities, faculties, and sentiments of man in their due proportion, and in their natural order; or, in other words, should cultivate and develop his physical, moral, and intellectual nature. The society which effects this to the greatest possible number of its members, is in accordance with the principles of phrenology, and is good: that which calls into action any of these natures, and stimulates it to such a degree as to repress or prevent the due development of either of the others, is unphrenological, and bad.

The animal nature of man is the strongest; the posterior and inferior region of the brain is most developed; and this is wise. The first care of nature is for the whole race; this must be preserved and continued at all hazards; and hence we see that idiots, and imbeciles, although entirely deficient in the frontal and superior parts of the brain, in the perceptive and moral faculties, have always enough of the propensities to support vegetative and animal existence.

The lowest and most savage nations have the animal region of the brain fully developed, while the other parts are small; and the greater this disparity, the more barbarous and ferocious they are.

The safety and continuance of the race, and the life and interest of the individual being thus provided for by nature, the next in order come the perceptive faculties, which seem to be the lights and guides of the propensities, and, after them, are most developed. They are placed where guides should be, in the front of the head; but they merely guide the propensities to the means of the greatest gratification; hence that tribe of savages, whose intellect by nature or cultivation, has become superior to the neighboring tribes, will be most cunning and successful, but by no means less ferocious and animal; unless indeed the intellect perceives, that by restraint of one propensity, for instance, destructiveness, there may, on the whole, be derived more gratification to the rest. So in individuals; the cunning and calculating rogue may be as purely animal, as he who is so stupid, and at the same time depraved, as to make us call him a brute.

Lastly, and for the government and control of the whole, comes the moral and religious nature of man, with its organs, where the governing ones should naturally be, on the top of the head.