cal supports of brain,
muscle, and other tissue; and neither persuasion, nor even education,
can go very far to alter that character. If there be anything at all in
the observations of phrenology, it is the connection of energetic
determination with size of brain. Lay your hand first on the head of an
energetic man, and then on the head of a feeble man, and you will find
a difference that is not to be explained away. Now it passes all the
powers of persuasion and education combined to make up for a great
cranial inequality. Something always comes of assiduous discipline; but
to set up a King Alfred, or a Luther, as a model to be imitated by an
ordinary man, on the points of energy, perseverance, endurance, courage,
is to pass the bounds of the human constitution. Persistent energy of a
high order, like the temperament for happiness, costs a great deal to
the human system. A large share of the total forces of the constitution
go to support it; and the diversion of power often leaves great defects
in other parts of the character, as for example, a low order of the
sensibilities, and a narrow range of sympathies. The men of
extraordinary vigour and activity--our Roman emperors and conquering
heroes--are often brutal and coarse. Nature does not supply power
profusely on all sides; and delicate sympathies, of themselves, use up
a very large fraction of the forces of the organisation. Even
intellectually estimated, the power of sympathising with many various
minds and conditions would occupy as much room in the brain as a
language, or an accomplishment. A man both energetic and sympathetic--a
Pericles, a King Alfred, an Oliver Cromwell--is one of nature's giants,
several men in one.

There is no more notable phase of our active nature than Courage. Great
energy generally implies great courage, and courage--at least in
nine-tenths of its amount--comes by nature. To exhort any one to be
courageous is waste of words. We may animate, for the time, a naturally
timid person, by explaining away the signs of danger, and by assuming a
confident attitude ourselves; but the absolute force of courage is what
neither we nor the man himself can add to. A long and careful education
might effect a slight increase in this, as in other aspects of energy of
character: we can hardly say how much, because it is a matter that is
scarcely ever subjected to the trial; the very conditions of the
experiment have not been thought of.

The moral quali