In the consideration of the faculties and impulses--of the of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to
make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a
radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally
overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the
pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We have
suffered its existence to escape our senses solely through want of
belief--of faith;--whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in
the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply
because of its supererogation. We saw no of impulse--for
the propensity. We could not perceive its necessity. We could not
understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the
notion of this ever obtruded itself;--we could
not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the
objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be
denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all metaphysicianism
have been concocted . The intellectual or logical man,
rather than the understanding or observant man, set himself to
imagine designs--to dictate purposes to God. Having thus fathomed,
to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of these
intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter
of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough,
that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat. We then
assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is the
scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man
should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with
causality, with constructiveness,--so, in short, with every organ,
whether representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty
of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the of human action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or
wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle,
the footsteps of their predecessors; deducing and establishing everything from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the
ground of the objects of this Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to
classify (if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually
or occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than
upon the basis of what he took it for granted the Deity intended
him to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how
then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being?
If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures, how then in
his substantive moods and phases of creation?
Induction, , would have brought phrenology to
admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a
paradoxical something, which we may call , for want
of a more characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in
fact, a without motive, a motive not .
Through its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if
this shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far
modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we
act, for the reason that we should . In theory, no reason
can be more unreasonable; but, in fact, there is none more strong.
With certain minds, under certain conditions it becomes absolutely
irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the
assurance of the wrong or error of any action is often the one
unconquerable which impels us, and alone impels us to its
prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for
the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior
elements. It is radical, a primitive impulse--elementary. It will
be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel
we should persist in them, our conduct is but a
modification of that which ordinarily springs from the of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy
of this idea. The phrenological combativeness has, for its
essence, the necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard
against injury. Its principle regards our well-being; and thus the
desire to be well is excited simultaneously with its development.
It follows, that the desire to be well must be excited
simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a
modification of combativeness, but in the case of that something
which I term , the desire to be well is not
only aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.
An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to
the sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and
thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to
tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware that
he displeases, he has every intention to please; he is usually
curt, precise, and clear; the most laconic and luminous language is
struggling for utterance upon his tongue; it is only with
difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads
and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought
strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses this anger
may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The impulse
increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an
uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and
mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences)
is indulged.
We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We
know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important
crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and
action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the
work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our whole
souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet
we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no answer, except
that we feel , using the word with no comprehension of
the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a more impatient
anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety
arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because
unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving gathers strength as
the moments fly. The last hour for action is at hand. We tremble
with the violence of the conflict within us,--of the definite with
the indefinite--of the substance with the shadow. But, if the
contest has proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails--we
struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the knell of our
welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note to the ghost
that has so long overawed us. It flies--it disappears--we are
free. The old energy returns. We will labour .
Alas, it is !
We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the
abyss--we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from
the danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness
and dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable
feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud
assumes shape, as did the vapour from the bottle out of which arose
the genius in the . But out of this 
cloud upon the precipice's edge, there grows into palpability, a
shape, far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale,
and yet it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which
chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the
delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our
sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a
height. And this fall--this rushing annihilation--for the very
reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all
the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which
have ever presented themselves to our imagination--for this very
cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our reason
violently deters us from the brink, do we the most
impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge
of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge, for a moment,
in any attempt at , is to be inevitably lost; for
reflection but urges us to forbear, and it is, I say,
that we . If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if
we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the
abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.
Examine these and similar actions as we will, we shall find
them resulting solely from the spirit of the . We
perpetrate them merely because we feel that we should 
Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible principle; and we
might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct instigation of the
arch-fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate in
furtherance of good.
I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question--that I may explain to you why I am here--that I may
assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect
of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this
cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you
might either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble,
have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am
one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.
It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a
more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon
the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because
their accomplishment involved a of detection. At
length, in reading some French memoirs, I found an account of a
nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the
agency of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy
at once. I knew my victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too,
that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not
vex you with impertinent details. I need not describe the easy
artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room candle stand, a
wax-light of my own making for the one which I there found. The
next morning he was discovered dead in his bed, and the coroner's
verdict was--'Death by the visitation of God.'
Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years.
The idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains
of the fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no
shadow of a clue by which it would be possible to convict, or even
suspect, me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment
of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute
security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel
in this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the
mere worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at
length an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by
scarcely perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing
thought. It harassed me because it haunted. I could scarcely get
rid of it for an instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus
annoyed with the ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of
the burthen of some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches
from an opera. Nor will we be the less tormented if the song in
itself be good, or the opera air meritorious. In this manner, at
last, I would perpetually catch myself pondering upon my security,
and repeating, in a low under-tone, the phrase, 'I am safe.'
One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested
myself in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary
syllables. In a fit of petulance I re-modelled them thus: 'I am
safe--I am safe--yes--if I be not fool enough to make open
confession.'
No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill
creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of
perversity (whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain),
and I remembered well that in no instance I had successfully
resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion,
that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of which
I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom
I had murdered--and beckoned me on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the
soul. I walked vigorously--faster--still faster--at length I ran.
I felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave
of thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too
well, understood that to , in my situation, was to be
lost. I still quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through
the crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm
and pursued me. I felt the consummation of my fate.
Could I have torn out my tongue, I would have done it--but a rough
voice resounded in my ears--a rougher grasp seized me by the
shoulder. I turned--I gasped for breath. For a moment I
experienced all the pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf,
and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with
his broad palm upon the back. The long-imprisoned secret burst
forth from my soul.
They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with
marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of
interruption before concluding the brief but pregnant sentences
that consigned me to the hangman and to hell.
Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.
But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am
! To-morrow I shall be fetterless!--?