a letter from Mr. Adams
to Dr. Thomas Sewall, concerning his two letters on Phrenology, and
giving his own opinion on that subject in the following characteristic
language: "I have never been able to persuade myself to think of the
_science of Phrenology_ as a _serious_ speculation. I have classed it
with judicial astrology, with alchemy, and with _augury_; and, as
Cicero says he wonders how two Roman augurs could have looked each
other in the face without laughing, I have felt something of the same
surprise that two learned phrenologists can meet without like
temptation. But, as it has been said of Bishop Berkeley's anti-material
system, that he has demonstrated, beyond the possibility of refutation,
what no man in his senses can believe, so, without your assistance, I
should never have been able to encounter the system of thirty-three or
thirty-five faculties of the immortal soul all clustered on the blind
side of the head. I thank you for furnishing me with argument to meet
the doctors who pack up the five senses in thirty-five parcels of the
brain. I hope your lectures will be successful in recalling the sober
sense of the _material_ philosophers to the dignity of an
_imperishable_ mind."

With an urgent request, contained in a letter dated the 28th of June,
1839, for his opinion on the constitutionality and expediency of the
law, then recently sanctioned by two Legislatures of Massachusetts,
called the license law, Mr. Adams declined complying, for reasons stated
at length. He regarded the purpose of the law as "in the highest degree
pure, patriotic, and benevolent." It had, however, given rise to two
evils, which were already manifested. "The first, a spirit of concerted
and determined resistance to its execution. The second, a concerted
effort to turn the dissatisfaction of the people with the law into a
political engine against the administration of the state. There is no
duty more impressive upon the Legislature than that of accommodating the
exercise of its power to the spirit of those over whom it is to operate.
Abstract right, deserving as it is of the profound reverence of every
ruler over men, is yet not the principle which must guide and govern his
conduct; and whoever undertakes to make it exclusively his guide will
soon find in the community a resistance that will overrule him and his
principles. The Supreme Ruler of the universe declares himself, in the
holy Scriptures, that, in dealing with the preva