s essential, when in growing manhood we
have the real cares of the world to contend with, or when in declining
age we need every auxiliary to enable us to sustain our infirmities.

But, before I conclude my remarks on this subject, it is necessary that
I should carefully distinguish between the thesis, that self-complacency
is the indispensible condition of all that is honourable in human
achievements, and the proposition contended against in Essay XI, that
"self-love is the source of all our actions." Self-complacency is indeed
the feeling without which we cannot proceed in an honourable course; but
is far from being the motive that impels us to act. The motive is in the
real nature and absolute properties of the good thing that is proposed
to our choice: we seek the happiness of another, because his happiness
is the object of our desire. Self-complacency may be likened to the
bottle-holder in one of those contentions for bodily prowess, so
characteristic of our old English manners. The bottle-holder is
necessary to supply the combatant with refreshment, and to encourage him
to persist; but it would be most unnatural to regard him as the cause
of the contest. No: the parties have found reason for competition, they
apprehend a misunderstanding or a rivalry impossible to be settled
but by open contention, and the putting forth of mental and corporeal
energy; and the bottle-holder is an auxiliary called in afterwards, his
interference implying that the parties have already a motive to act, and
have thrown down the gauntlet in token of the earnest good-will which
animates them to engage.

ESSAY XX. OF PHRENOLOGY.

The following remarks can pretend to be nothing more than a few loose
and undigested thoughts upon a subject, which has recently occupied the
attention of many men, and obtained an extraordinary vogue in the world.
It were to be wished, that the task had fallen into the hands of a
writer whose studies were more familiar with all the sciences which bear
more or less on the topic I propose to consider: but, if abler and more
competent men pass it by, I feel disposed to plant myself in the breach,
and to offer suggestions which may have the fortune to lead
others, better fitted for the office than myself, to engage in the
investigation. One advantage I may claim, growing out of my partial
deficiency. It is known not to be uncommon for a man to stand too near
to the subject of his survey, to allow him to obta