PREFATORY NOTE.

THIS is the discourse, in which the Trustees of Transylvania University charge Dr. Caldwell with the design. of delineating the character of Dr. Dudley. On this point two or three questions may be fitly asked.

Would any one draw such pictures of moral deformity as the discourse contains, with a view to their being considered the likenesses of honest and honourable men? or would any one of discernment apply them to such men? The application excites a strong suspicion that a likeness existed.

Suppose Dr. Caldwell had drawn abstract pictures as remarkable for piety and rectitude, and as free from duplicity and guile, as Fenelon, Hervy, or the late Bishop White, would any person have pronounced them likenesses of the same man, for whom the pictures he drew were supposed to be intended? These questions are put. The public will answer them, every one for himself.

The discourse is printed verbatim as it was delivered; certain portions of it that were not delivered, on account of its length, being in italics. During its delivery, Dr. Caldwell did not direct toward Dr. Dudley a single look or gesture. If the audience therefore, or any of them,

applied the pictures to that gentleman, they were induced to do so, not by the manner of the speaker, but by the matter of the speech. In a word, they made the application on account of the likeness which they, from some cause, perceived or fancied.

If there be blame in the case therefore, Dr. Caldwell feels that it cannot justly fall on him. The fault lies in being a man addicted to falsehood, not in delineating one. We have fallen on evil times, indeed, if the business of life be, not to have vice "undone," but to keep it "unknown;" as was once, we are told, the rule in Venice.

THOUGHTS

ON THE

PHRENOLOGY OF FALSEHOOD

AND

ITS KINDRED VICES.

A VALEDICTORY

ADDRESS, TO THE MEDICAL GRADUATES IN TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY; DELIVERED MARCH 15, 1837, BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D.

GENTLEMEN GRADUATES:

WHEN one of the sages of Greece was asked by an Athenian youth, what were the choicest elements of the human character, and the brightest ornaments of human nature, he replied, 66 A REGARD FOR TRUTH, JUSTICE TOWARD MEN, AND PIETY TOWARD THE GODS." In accordance with this answer are the spirit and tenour of every precept and point of doctrine of the christian religion, that bears either directly or indirectly on the subject. In like accordance are the tenets and practice of every distinguished teacher and pattern of morals, whose history is known to us. And in a corresponding strain does one of the most accomplished judges of man deliver himself, when he exclaims:

"A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod;

An HONEST MAN's the noblest work of God."

But in confirmation of this maxim in morals, it is not necessary to refer to writings and opinions either ancient or modern, sacred or profane; nor to any other form of evidence from without. The truth of it is sustained by a witness within ourselves, whose testimony no infidel will reject, no casuist make a subject of cavil, nor skeptic of doubt. It is written on the constitution of man, in characters which can be neither erased, misinterpreted, nor concealed. We feel instinctively, and intuitively recognise the surpassing beauty, sacredness, and value, of the qualities embraced in the reply of the sage. And in proportion to the amount and purity of those qualities, which our consciences tells us we ourselves possess, are the complacency and satisfaction with which we contemplate our condition, and the actual degree of our self-estimation. No man, however lofty his rank, and confident his bearing in his intercourse with the world, or whatever show of respect he may receive from his adherents and followers, can stand well in his own esteem, if he feels himself deficient, in those bright and glorious attributes of character — if he feels that he is wanting in truth and its concomitants, the shield and buckler against the stings and arrows of an offended conscience

or rather that which keeps the conscience free from offence. He may for a time impose on the public, and even make an effort to blindfold himself. But the struggle is vain; and failure is certain. In his dark. and lonely hours, when sleep has shed his dews on the eyelids of honesty, he is haunted by the spectre of his own degradation; and sooner or later his masquerade closes, and he appears to the eye of general scorn, the artificial and miserable thing that he is.

It is obvious then that truth and fidelity are recommended alike by a constitutional instinct in ourselves, by the ripest experience and wisdom of earth, and by all we know of the approval of Heaven, as of paramount importance, as well to the honour, as to the interests of our race. Of this also the converse is true. By the same instinct and high authority the practice of falsehood, in all its modifications open lying, theft, slander, swindling and overreaching, duplicity in action and words, perjury, prevarication, and treachery, are denounced as deep and nefarious vices, consigned to infamy, and doomed to punishment.

I am aware of having here grouped, under the head of falsehood, a number of crimes which are not usually regarded as of the same kind, or as springing in any degree from a common, or even perhaps from a kindred source. I do not however doubt of being able to convince you that the case is otherwise that they all arise in part from the same root, and therefore partake of a common nature - that they are convertible into each other that he who, under one form of temptation, will equivocate, prevaricate, and shuffle, practise calumny and duplicity, make faithless professions, and debase his being by deliberate falsehood—the wretch I say, who will thus outrage truth and manliness, under one temptation, will, under another, cheat, steal, commit perjury and forgery, and play the traitor, and even the murderer! And principle, as well as experience, confirms the position. "He that will lie, will steal," is a phrase so strictly conformable to observation, that it has passed into a proverb.

Truth is the rock on which the temple of virtue and