The History of Phrenology on the WebThe History of Phrenology on the Web
PART II.
PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES
OF
PHRENOLOGY
SECTION I.
OBSERVATIONS ON VARIOUS SYSTEMS OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL VIEW OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
It may be indifferent to phrenologists whether the first wise men were among the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Indians or Chinese. As the fundamental powers of the mind are innate and essentially the same in mankind, it is probable that in every nation some individuals excelled and took the lead of their countrymen. My object is here to take a very summary view of the most important schools of philosophy.
It is known that before the Greek philosophers, learning was hereditary in peculiar tribes or castes, and wisdom the monopoly of certain families, of the priests in Egypt, of the Lévites among the Jews, of the magi in Chaldea, Assyria, and Persia, of the brahmins among the Indians, of the druids among the Celtic nations, &c. All knowledge was confined to priesthood, and the vulgar relied on their sayings and interpretations of nature and heaven. The whole tendency of barbaric philosophy, though employed upon important subjects, both divine and human, was mystical. Instead of investigating truth from clear principles, there was every where a public, or vulgar, and a concealed or more philosophical doctrine. The sacerdocy directed the religious and
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civil concerns, the administration of justice and the education of youth, clothed their dogmas in an allegorical dress, and transmitted them principally by the way of tradition, to which the vulgar gave their simple and easy assent. Ignorance, superstition and impostors prevailed. It is, however, an important fact, that the doctrines of a Supreme Deity and the immortality of the soul were universally received.
The founders of the Grecian states introduced the mode of instruction used in their native countries in a poetical dress, and under the disguise of fables, mystery, prodigies, and mythological enigmas. The management of the civil and religious affairs were in the same hands during the first period of Greece as well as elsewhere. By degrees, however, practical wisdom appeared under the exertions of the seven wise men; and Thaïes from Miletus, the first of them, introduced the scientific method of philosophising.
Theogony and Cosmogony, (God and nature,) were the principal objects of philosophical inquiries in the remotest ages. The chaos, as eternal, was generally admitted, and the creation from nothing was unknown. The sum of the ancient Théogonies and Cosmogonies seems to be: the first matter, containing the seeds of all future beings, existed from eternity with God. At length the Divine Energy upon matter produced a motion among its parts by which those of the same kind were brought together, and those of a different kind were separated, and by which, according to certain wise laws, the various forms of the material world were produced. The same energy of emanation gave existence to animals, to men, and to gods, who inhabit the heavenly bodies and various places of nature. Among men, those who possess a larger portion of the Divine nature than others are hereby impelled to great and beneficent actions, and afford illustrious proofs of their Divine Original, on account of which they are after death raised to a place among the gods, and become objects of religious worship. Upon the basis of such notions the whole mythological system and all the religious rites and mysteries of the Greeks may be founded. Blind necessity
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in the motion of the particles of matter, seems to have been admitted as the first principle of nature.
Anaxagoras of Clazomena first affirmed that a pure mind, perfectly free from all material connexions, acted upon matter with intelligence and design in the formation of the universe. Instead of mixing mind with the rest, he conceived it to be a separate, simple, pure, and intelligent being, capable of forming the eternal mass of matter. Like Thaïes, he believed the sun and stars to be inanimate fiery bodies, and no proper objects of worship. Of course such doctrines offended the Athenians and their priests; Anaxagoras was banished and went to Lampsacus, saying to his friends that he had not lost the Athenians, but the Athenians had lost him.
The Ionic school investigated particularly the origin and nature of things, considered the external objects much more than the nature of man, and in men paid little attention to those subjects in which the happiness of human life is immediately concerned. They admired virtue and extolled virtuous actions without taking the pains of establishing the principles and inculcating the precepts of sound morality. No distinction was made between thoughts and objects thought of.
Socrates gave a new direction to philosophical investigation. He united with a penetrating judgment, a liberal mind and exalted views, exemplary integrity and purity of manners. Observing with regret that the opinions of the Athenians were misled and their moral principles corrupted, by philosophers who spent all their time in refined speculations upon the origin and nature of things, and by sophists who taught the art of false eloquence and deceitful reasoning, Socrates endeavored to institute a new and more useful method of instruction. He conceived that the true end of philosophy is not an ostentatious display of superior learning, neither ingenious conjectures, nor subtle disputations, but the love of truth and virtue. He estimated the value of knowledge by its utility; and recommended the study of astronomy, geometry and other sciences only as far as they
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admit of a practical application to the purposes of human life. His great object was to lead men into an acquaintance with themselves, to convince them of their follies and vices, to inspire them with the love of virtue and to furnish them with useful moral instruction. He thought it more reasonable to examine things in relation to man and the principles of his moral conduct, than such as lie beyond the sphere and reach of human intellect, and consequently do not relate to man. His favorite maxim was: whatever is above us, does not concern us.
Socrates had many disciples who formed schools or philosophical sects, such as the Cyrenic sect (by Aristippus from Oyrene in Africa ;) the Megaric sect (by Euclid of Megara;) the Eliac sect; &c. The most important were the Academic sect by Plato, the Cynic by Antisthenes, the Peripatetic by Aristotle, and the Stoic by Zeno from Cyprus.
Plato at the age of twenty years attended to the instruction of Socrates, remained eight years with him, and was his most illustrious disciple. At the death of Socrates he went to Megara and studied under Euclid; he then travelled in Magna Grsecia and was instructed in the mysteries of the Pythagorean system; he also visited Theodorus of Cyrene, and became his pupil in mathematical science; he even went to Egypt to learn from the Egyptian priests astronomy, returned to the Pythagorean school at Tarentum and finally to Athens, where he opened a school in a small garden and spent a long life in the instruction of youth. He mixed the doctrines of his masters with his own conceptions, and showed a great propensity to speculative refinement: he therefore attached himself to the subtleties of the Pythagorean school, and disdained the sober method of reasoning introduced by Socrates. His discourses on moral topics are more pleasing than when he loses himself with Pythagoras in abstract speculations, expressed in mathematical proportions and poetical diction.
According to Plato, philosophy as it is employed in the contemplation of truth is termed theoretical, and as it is conversant in the regulation of actions, is practical. The
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theoretical philosophy requires, besides the contemplation of truth and virtue, the right conduct of understanding and the powers of speech in the pursuit of knowledge.
Plato remembered the inconveniences which several of his predecessors among the Greeks had brought upon themselves by an undisguised declaration of their opinions. On the other hand he knew how successfully the Egyptians and Pythagoreans had employed the art of concealment to excite the admiration of the vulgar, who are always inclined to imagine something more than human in things which they do not understand. Yet he did not, after the example of Pythagoras, demand an oath of secrecy from his disciples, but he purposely threw over his public instruction of various subjects a veil of obscurity, which was only removed for those who were thought worthy of being admitted to his more private and confidential lectures.
Plato divides his theoretical philosophy into three branches: theological, physical and mathematical. He admitted God and matter as eternal, since nothing can proceed from nothing, but he ascribed to God the power of formation; farther, he speaks of the soul of the world from which God separated inferior souls, and assigned them down to earth into human bodies as into a sepulchre or prison. From this cause he derived the depravity and misery to which human nature is liable. Life is the conjunction of the soul with the body, death is their separation.
The human soul consists of three parts: 1st, Intelligence; 2d, Passion; 3d, Appetite.—Passion and appetite depend on matter; intellect comes from God, and the rational soul alone is immortal. The human understanding is employed, ist, upon things which it comprehends by itself, and which in their nature are simple and invariable; or 2d, upon things which are subject to the senses and which are liable to change. Sense is the passive perception of the soul through the medium of the body.
In his Republic or political doctrine, he wished to subjugate passion and appetite by means of reason or abstract
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contemplation of ideas, a conception which prevails still now-a-days, and which will be cleared up by Phrenology.
His notions of morality were exaggerated. He placed the greatest happiness in the contemplation and knowledge of the first good—God; and the end of knowing God, in endeavoring to render men as like to God as the condition of human nature will permit. This likeness consists in prudence, justice, sanctity and temperance. To attain this state it is necessary to be convinced that the body is a prison, from which the soul must be released before it can arrive at the knowledge of real and immutable things. The virtuous tendency of man is a gift of God, the effect of reason alone, and cannot be taught.
The followers of Plato introduced in his philosophy various changes and new opinions, and increased thereby its obscurity ;—This happened particularly in Alexandria, where Platonic philosophy was mingled with traditionary tenets of Egypt and Eastern nations, and with the sacred principles of the Jews and Christians.
Aristotle, from Stagyra, a town in Thrace, at the age of seventeen years went to Athens, devoted himself to the study of philosophy in the school of Plato, and continued in the Academy till Plato's death. Several years later he was chosen as preceptor of Alexander son of Philip, was eight years with Alexander, and when Alexander undertook his Asiatic expedition formed a new school in the Lyceum—a grove in the suburb of Athens, which was used for military exercise. Since he walked in discoursing with his disciples, his sect was called the Peripatetics. He had two classes of disciples. In the morning he instructed the select, in the evening the Lyceum was open to all youag men without distinction. His study is rather that of words than of things, and tends more to perplex t'he undei standing with subtle distinctions than to enlighten it with real knowledge. His logical dissertations are not sufficiently clear; they contain many subtleties which of course produce obscurity. He was fond of syllogistic reasoning, but did not carefully distinguish between words and ideas. He reduced the gen-
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eral terms to ten classes—or categories. Plato had learnt the arrangement of categories from the Pythagorean school, who considered ten as a perfect number. Aristotle's categories are, 1st, substance ;—2d, quantity ;—3d, relation ;—4th, quality;—5th, action;—6th, passion;—7th, when or time;— 8th, where or place ;—9th, situation or local relation ;—10th, habit. Later, five other general heads were added, viz. opposition, priority, coincidence, motion, and possession. In his physics, the explanation of the natural appearances is tedious.—In his metaphysical doctrine of the Deity and soul, he divests God of the glory of creation, connects him with a world already formed by the chain of necessity, but makes him the first spring and cause of all motion. God is constantly occupied with the contemplation of his own nature, and so removed from the inferior parts of the universe that he is not even a spectator of what is passing among the inhabitants of the earth, and therefore cannot be a proper object of worship, prayers and sacrifices.-—The human soul has three faculties: nutritive, sensitive and rational. By the nutritive faculty life is produced and preserved ;•—by the sensitive we perceive and feel. He nowhere says whether the soul is mortal or immortal. He placed moral felicity neither in the pleasures of the body, nor in riches, civil glory, power, rank, nor in the contemplation of truth, but in the exercise of virtue, which is in itself a source of delight. Virtue is either theoretical—the exercise of the understanding, or practical-—the pursuit of what is right and good.— Practical virtue is acquired by habit.
Aristotle by his metaphysical doctrines offended the priesthood. Apprehensive of meeting with the fate of Socrates, he left Athens, saying: I am not willing to give the Athenians an opportunity of committing a second offence against philosophy. He had continued his school twelve years, and appointed Theophrastus, one of his favorite pupils, as his successor.
The Cynic sect, founded by Antisthenes, an Athenian, was not so much a school of philosophy as an institution of manners. Socrates, perceiving the great tendency of the
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Athenians for futile speculations, extreme effeminacy, luxury and vanity, recommended practical wisdom. The Cynics fell into the other extreme.—They taught simplicity of manners, but passed beyond the limits of decorum, and at last became ridiculous and disgusting.
Zeno admired the general principle of the Cynic school, but could not reconcile himself to their peculiar manners, nor could he adopt their indifference aboxit every scientific inquiry. He attended the different masters of philosophy, and then became a founder of a new sect, called Stoic from Sloa— porch, viz. the place of their school. There were great contests between Zeno and the academy on one side, and between Zeno and Epicurus on the other. Zeno borrowed his doctrine on physics from Pythagoras and Plato; he excels more by his strict system of moral discipline. Whilst Epicurus taught his followers to seek happiness in tranquillity and freedom from labor and pain, Zeno imagined his wise man not only free from all sense of pleasure, but void of all passions and emotions, without fear and hope, and capable of being happy in the midst of torture. Epicurus believed in the fortuitous concourse of atoms; whilst Zeno admitted fate, or an eternal and immutable series of causes and effects. According to the Stoics, wisdom consists in the knowledge of things divine or human. Virtue is the only true wisdom; and the mind of man is originally like a blank sheet, wholly without character but capable of receiving any. The conformity to nature is the great end of existence. Virtue is to be sought for not through the fear of punishment, or the hope of reward, but for its own sake. Virtue, being in conformity to nature, is in itself happiness.
Man has duties towards God, towards himself, and towards his neighbors. God is the author of all that is good, and the Supreme director of all human affairs. The pious man reveres God in all events; is in every thing resigned to God's will; considers whatever befalls him as right, and the will of God; and cheerfully follows wherever divine providence leads him, even to suffering or death. Piety, in short, is nothing but a quiet submission to irresistible fate.
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Man's duty with respect to himself is to subdue his passions of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, and even pity. It is virtuous self-denial and self-command. Man may withdraw from life because life and death are indifferent things, and death may be more consistent with nature than life.
Our duty towards others is to love all men, even our enemies. A wise man will injure no one, will feel pleasure in protecting and serving others. He will not think himself born for himself alone, but for the common good of mankind. He is rewarded for his good by itself without applause or recompense. The wise man will disdain sorrow from sympathy as well as from personal suffering. He is ready to exercise lenity and benignity, and to attend to the welfare of others and to the general interest of mankind, but pity towards a criminal is weakness.
Another great branch of Greek philosophy sprung from Pythagoras and sprouted out into the Eleatic, Heraclitean, Epicurean, and Skeptic sects. Pythagoras, probably from Samos, went to Egypt, spent there twenty-two years, underwent at Thebes many severe and troublesome ceremonies in order to gain the confidence of the priests and to be instructed in their most concealed doctrines. His method of teaching was mysterious and after the example of the Egyptian priests. He even boasted to be capable of doing miracles, and to have received his doctrine from heaven. He had public and private disciples. The oath of secrecy was given by the initiated concerning the doctrine of God and nature. He taught theoretical and practical philosophy. The former contemplates things of an immutable, eternal and incorruptible nature, the other teaches things necessary for the purposes of life. Theoretical or contemplative wisdom could not be obtained without a total abstraction from the ordinary affairs of life and a perfect tranquillity of mind; hence the necessity of a society separated from the world for the purpose of contemplation. Man was composed of body and soul, the soul of a rational principle, seated in the brain, and of an irrational part including the passions and seated in the heart. The rational part (<PPVV) is immortal, the irrational part perishes. The
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rational soul after suffering successive purgations by transmigration, and sufficiently purified, is received among the gods and returns to the eternal source from which it first proceeded. The Pythagoreans, therefore, abstained from animal food and from animal sacrifices. The object of all their moral precepts was to lead man to the imitation of God. They supposed, like the Egyptians, the air full of spirits and demons, who caused health or sickness among men and beasts.
Among the Eleatic sect was Democritus, the dérider who laughed at the follies of mankind, whilst Heraclitus of Ephesus, another follower of Pythagoras, was perpetually shedding tears on account of the vices of mankind and particularly of his countrymen, the Ephesians.
Epicurus, an Athenian, was of opinion that nothing deserved the name of learning which was not conducive to the happiness of life. He excelled by urbanity and captivating manners, made pleasure the end of his philosophy and wisdom a guide to it. He treated vulgar superstitions with contempt, dismissed the gods from the care of the world, admitted nothing but material atoms, was opposed to the austerity of the Stoics, and rejected providence and fate, doctrines so strongly maintained by the Stoics. He considered the regulation of manners (Ethics) as more important than the knowledge of physics. He was an enemy of the third part of philosophical doctrines—dialectics, as only productive of idle quibbles and fruitless cavilling.—He placed truth above any other consideration, and the end of living in happiness. Philosophy ought to be employed in search of felicity: bodily ease and mental tranquillity through temperance, moderation, fortitude, justice, benevolence and friendship.
Among the philosophers who regarded the testimony of the external senses as illusive, Pyrrho, from Elea, the founder of the Pyrrhonic sect, carried his doubts to the extreme. This school rejected every inference drawn from sensations, and admitted as a fundamental principle that to every argument an argument of equal weight might in all cases be
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opposed. The Pyrrhonic philosophers had the tendency rather to demolish every other philosophical structure than to erect one of their own. If it be true that Pyrrho carried his skepticism to such a ridiculous degree that his friends were obliged to accompany him whenever he went out that he might not be run over by carriages or fall down precipices, his mind was deranged.
The Eomans conquered the Greeks by arms, but submitted to their understanding and manners. They found among them philosophical bystems for all tastes. The gloomy and contemplative adopted the Pythagorean and Platonic creeds. Brutus was favorable to the union of the Platonic and Stoic philosophy. Cicero was rather a warm admirer and an elegant memorialist of philosophy than a practical philosopher himself. He held Plato in high respect, especially for his philosophy of nature; he also was an admirer of the Stoic system concerning natural equity and civil law; he praised their ideas concerning morals, but he was continually fluctuating between hope and fear, averse to contention, and incapable of vigorous resolutions, and full of vanity. Cato of Utica was a true Stoic ;—Lucretius and Horace were of the Epicurean sect ;—Plutarch, like Cicero, rather an interpreter of philosophers than an eminent philosopher himself. Epic-tetus taught the purest morals, and his life was an admirable pattern of sobriety, magnanimity and the most rigid virtue. Marcus Aurelius was the last ornament of the Stoic school.
About the close of the second century arose at Alexandria the Eclectic system: a mixture of the different tenets of philosophy and religion, to the detriment of both. Pagan ideas were mixed with Christianity, and the different sects of philosophy were arbitrarily interpreted. Subtle distinctions, airy suppositions and vague terms were introduced; and innumerable trifles were proposed under the appearance of profound philosophy.—Pagans became Christians and associated their ideas and language with Christianity, and the fathers of the Christian church studied the ancient philosophers to furnish themselves with weapons against their adversaries, to show the superiority of the Christian doctrine,
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and to adorn themselves with the embellishment of erudition. Many did not distinguish between the light of revelation and that of reason. Nothing could be expected for philosophy from those who were busily occupied in disputes with infidels and heretics.
Erom the beginning of the seventh century to the twelfth the Scholastic and Mystic theology sprung up. The irruptions of Barbarians had confined philosophy and learning to monastic institutions, whilst the people were ignorant and superstitious. During the dark ages up to the fourteenth century philosophy resembles a barren wilderness; it was the handmaid of theology: and though the Scholastics paid to Aristotle almost religious reverence, their minds were darkened by Aristotle's dialectics and logic, and their idle contests contimied to disturb the world. The syllogistic form of reasoning became general, and the forms of technical phraseology were infinite. I copy only one example from Dr. Th. Brown's lectures on philosophy, (stereotype edition, p. 327) where he quotes how a scholastic logician proves by a long technical argumentation that the impossible differs from what is possible: ' whatever of itself and in itself includes things contradictory, differs in itself from that which of itself and in itself does not imply any thing contradictory. But what is impossible of itself and in itself involves things contradictory, for example, an irrational human being, a round square. But what is possible of itself and in itself, includes no contradiction. Therefore what is impossible in itself differs from what is possible.'
Various sects, as the Nominalists, Realists, Verbalists, Formalists, Thomists, Scothists, and Occamists, were at open war with each other.
The Aristotelian philosophy was kept up, since it was the common opinion that the ancient Greeks had attained the summit of science, so that after all the question was what Aristotle. Plato, or Pythagoras had taught, rather than what was true. Philosophy and religion were so mixed together that some called themselves Scriptural philosophers, not to
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show that the general principles of reason and the natural law of morality agree with the doctrine of Scripture, but to designate that all philosophy, even of physical and metaphysical science, is derived from divine revelation. Others called themselves Theosophists, and professed to derive their knowledge from divine illumination or inspiration. Fraud and hypocrisy were encouraged, to secure the credit of the church among the vulgar and ignorant. Nay, it became a rule: abroad, with the people; at home as you please.
At last in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, the taste for polite literature revived in Italy, and the bold reformers in Germany endeavored to correct the corruption of religion. Luther perceived the connexion of philosophy and religion, and declared, that it would be impossible to reform the church without entirely abolishing the canons and decretals, and with them the scholastic theology, philosophy and logic, and without instituting others in their stead. Luther, Paracelsus, Eamus and Gassendi were eminent demolishers of the Aristotelian philosophy.
After the revival of letters and restoration of sciences, Bacon, Descartes and Leibnitz were eminent in philosophy. Bacon became a great reformer and founder of true philosophy. He established observation and induction as the basis of knowledge, whilst the essentials of Descartes' philosophy, like those of many predecessors, were thought, and the knowledge obtained by thought. Leibnitz, like Plato, never arranged his philosophy methodically, yet he admitted two kinds of perceptions: one without and the other with consciousness; farther, he considered the knowledge procured bv the senses as individual, accidental and changeable, but that obtained by thinking and reasoning as general, necessary and positive. According to Leibnitz the reasoning power is endowed with principles, all phenomena are intellectual, and there is a harmony pre-established between the knowledge a priori and external sensations. The latter only quicken the former. Phrenology denies the established harmony of Leibnitz between innate ideas and external sensations; it considers sensations and ideas as acquired, and admits only
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innate dispositions to acquire sensations and ideas. Yet it admits also a kind of pre-established harmony, concerning existence, between the special powers and the object of their satisfaction. Wherever there is a power, it finds an object. This has been the cause, that many philosophers have derived the powers from their objects of satisfaction. There are objects to be perceived; these were said to be the cause of the perceptive power, whilst the power of perceiving and the object of being perceived exist separately and are only calculated for each other. There may, however, be many objectivities which man cannot perceive for want of special powers.
Hobbes was persecuted for his theological and political heresies, and therefore his views of philosophy were neglected, though Locke borrowed from him some of his most important observations on the association of ideas. According to Malebranche, God is wherever there is mind, and God is the medium of sensation. Malebranche furnishes to Locke his notions on habits and genius, to Hartley his theory on vibrations, and to Berkeley the ancient theory of Pyrrho, viz. that the material objects have no other existence than in the mind.
Locke's philosophy became the basis of the greater number of philosophical opinions in England and France. He denied the innate ideas and innate principles of morality, and maintained with Aristotle * that all knowledge begins with experience, or that all primary notions begin with sensation. According to him, the mind begins with external sensations, and then by means of its perception, retention, contemplation, comparison, reflection, or by its faculties of composing and abstracting, it executes all the particular operations of thinking and volition. In his system even the feelings and moral principles result mediately from the understanding.
Locke has some merit; he is a great lover of truth, and his work contains many judicious remarks brought together from various quarters, and he has greatly contributed to do away the rubbish of a learned jargon about the innate ideas and Platonic mysticism. But there is a want of originality,
* Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu.
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consistency and precision in his work. He is a wordy commentator of Bacon, Hobbes and Malebranche. The besetting sin of all his compositions is diffuseness and indistinctness.—Hobbes had compared the mind with a slate, Locke compared it with a white paper. This prepared the errors of Condillac, who gave all to the senses; and to those of Dr. Hartley who explained the operations of the mind by vibrations, and who thought ' that all the most complex ideas arise from sensation, and that reflection is not a distinct source, as Mr. Locke makes it.'
I think with Dugald Stewart that the work of Locke has been more applauded than studied. The French writers, particularly Voltaire, have most contributed to his celebrity. Voltaire said that Locke alone had developed the human understanding, and he calls him the Hercules of metaphysicians; yet the French did not understand the basis of Locke's philosophy, when they maintained that he denied the innate dispositions of the mind, and when they confounded Con-dillac's philosophy with that of Locke.
Among the Scotch philosophers the most remarkable are, Hume, who not only confined all knowledge to mere experience, but also denied the necessity of causation;—Dr. Reid, who speaks of intellectual and active powers of man ;— Dugald Stewart, who deserves more credit for his style than for his ideas ;—and Dr. Th. Brown.
The principal modern schools of philosophy in Germany, are the critical philosophy, the transcendental idealism, and the philosophy of nature. Kant, the founder of the critical philosophy, distinguished two kinds of knowledge, one experimental {Kritik der reinen Vernunft,) and another founded on belief {Kritik der practischen Vernunft.) He maintained that the first kind is only relative, subjective, or phenomenal, or that we know only the relation of the subject to the object; that we do not know either the subject or the object in itself, but both in their mutual relations only, and that this relation constitutes their reality to us. The subject he conceived endowed with particular categories which are applied to the object; whatever is general and necessary in
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knowledge belonged to the subject, while the particular and variable is the attribute of the object. Hence all experimental knowledge is founded upon dualism; upon the union of the subject and object; for, even the categories, though inherent in the subject, and conceived by the mind from within, acquire objective reality only by their application to the object. Kant, though he considered both subject and object, had, however, the subject more in mind than the object. He reduced all categories or forms, according to which the mind acquires experimental knowledge, to four kinds—to quantity, quality, relation, and modality; of these the two first concern objects in general, and the two last the relations of objects to each other and to our understanding. Thus Kant admits notions independent of experience, as conceptions of space, time, cause, and others; and considers these conceptions, not as the result of external impressions, but of the faculties of the subject: they exist from within, and by their means we are acquainted with the objects. Our notions of morality, of God, and of immortality, are not experimental, but belong to the practical understanding, and originate a priori. Liberty is a postulatum.
Fichte went farther, and taught the system of transcendental idealism, according to which all certainty and reality is confined to the subject, who has knowledge only of his own modifications, and by means of abstraction and reflection, arrives at intellectual intuition.
The philosophy of nature of Schelling rejects subject and object, makes no abstraction or reflection, but begins with intellectual intuition, and professes to know objects immediately in themselves. It does not consider the objects as existing but as originating; it constructs them speculatively a priori. Absolute liberty and existence without qualities, are the basis of this system.
As the philosophy of Locke has hitherto prevailed in England, as it has given occasion to that of Condillac, and as the system of Dr. Th. Brown admits more fundamental powers of the mind than any former philosophy, I shall compare them with phrenology.
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I agree with both authors in placing truth above any other consideration, and in maintaining that we cannot examine the mind in itself, but are confined to the contemplation of the mental phenomena.
Locke and Brown consider the functions of the external senses as dependent on the nervous system, but the other mental operations as independent of organization; whilst phrenology proves that every mental phenomenon depends on some bodily condition or organ, after the example of the external senses.
Locke admits in the mind understanding and will;—Dr. Brown, intellect and emotions. The subdivision of understanding by Locke is into perception, retention or memory, contemplation or judgment and imagination; and that of will into various degrees, from simple desire to passion. The subdivision of intellect by Th. Brown is, 1st, into simple suggestions, including every association of ideas, conception, memory, imagination, habit, and all conceptions and feelings of the past; and 2d, into relative suggestions of coexistence or of succession; the former of which include the suggestions of resemblance or difference, of position, of degree, of proportion, and of the relation which the whole bears to its parts; and of which the second comprehends judgment, reason and abstraction. His subdivision of emotions is into immediate, retrospective and prospective. He admits a greater number of primitive emotions independent of intellect, and in this respect he comes nearer phrenology than any other philosopher; he also calls the division of Locke into understanding and will, illogical. Thus in the great division of the mental phenomena he agrees with phrenology, which positively has the priority over him. But Dr. Brown's subdivisions of the mental phenomena are very different from the phrenological analysis and classification. Farther, Dr. Brown considers the various emotions of the mind independently of brain. His philosophy therefore coincides with phrenology only in the first principle, viz. in admitting mental phenomena different from the intellectual states of mind; but his philosophy can never be confounded with phrenology.
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Locke denied the innate ideas and the innate moral principles. I agree with him in that respect, but he admits only innate dispositions for ideas, and derives the moral principles from them, whilst I admit also innate moral dispositions, which are as essential to the conception of moral principles as the innate intellectual dispositions to the formation of ideas.
The reason why Locke denied the innate maxims of morality, viz. because certain children or adults and certain nations are without them or possess them variously modified, is not at all valuable, since innate faculties may be inactive on account of the defective development of their respective organs, and their functions may be modified by their combined operation with other faculties.
Locke derives the primitive activity of the mind, from external impressions on the senses; phrenology on the contrary, in admitting external senses and two orders of internal faculties, maintains that the internal dispositions, though they may be excited by external impressions, are often active by their own inherent power alone. According to Locke, moral principles must be proved. I think they must be felt. It is to be remarked that according to phrenology, there is an internal and spontaneous or instinctive activity, independent of external impressions, as far as the feelings are concerned, but also as the intellectual faculties and experimental knowledge are implicated. The abstract conceptions or intuitive notions are furnished by the intellectual faculties themselves. The notion of identity, for instance, or that the same is the same; that the whole is greater than the half; that two and two are four; that nothing can exist except in space; that nothing can happen except in time; and that there is nothing without a cause, &c, are internal operations of mind as well as the instincts, propensities, and sentiments.
Another essential difference between Locke, Dr. Brown and all other philosophers on one side, and phrenology on the other, is that the former think that we perceive the existence of external objects and their original qualities, such as size, figure, mobility, number, color, &c, by means of the five
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senses and their impressions alone; whilst I treat of the immediate and mediate functions of the senses (See Part I. Art. External Senses,) and ascribe very few ideas to the external senses, but the greater number, as those of size, figure, weight, color, order and number, to internal faculties.
Thus I admit in the mind external senses by which the mind and the external world are brought into communication, and made mutually influential. The internal faculties are feelings and intellect. Both sorts may act by their internal power, or may be excited by appropriate impressions from without. The knowledge of our feelings is as positive as the experimental from without. Every determinate action of any faculty depends on two conditions, the faculty and the object. The intellectual faculties are perceptive and reflective. The feelings and perceptive faculties are in relation and adapted to the external world, whilst the reflective faculties are applied to the feelings and experimental knowledge and are destined to bring all the particular feelings and notions into harmony.
Erom this summary view of philosophy it follows, that the ancient philosophers were principally occupied with theogony, cosmogony, physics, logic, dialectics, ethics and politics, and that in reference to man they examined his intellectual operations, moral actions and social relations, rather than
his nature.
Though this important object—the basis of all political sciences—has been investigated by later philosophers, its study will be newly modelled and its principles established by phrenology, in showing a posteriori the nature, number and origin of the human faculties, the conditions of their operations, their mutual influence, their modes of acting, and the natural laws by which their manifestations are regulated. I conclude this chapter with D'Alembert, in saying, that hitherto there has been a great deal of philosophizing in which there is but little philosophy.
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CHAPTER II.
RECTIFICATION OF PARTICULAR VIEWS OF PHILOSOPHERS.
In order to prosecute advantageously the study of the mental functions, a capital error must be avoided,—an error which prevails in the systems of all philosophers, and which consists in their having been satisfied with general ideas, and not, like naturalists, having admitted three sorts of notions: general, common, and special. This distinction is essential to the classification of beings into kingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. In knowing the general qualities of inanimate objects, such as extension, configuration, consistency, color,—even in knowing the common qualities of metals, earths, or acids; we are not yet made acquainted with iron, copper, chalk, or vinegar. To indicate a determinate body, its specific qualities must be exposed. In natural history it is not sufficient to say that we possess a stone, a plant, an animal, a bird, &c, it is indispensable to mention the species of each possessed, and if varieties exist, to state even their distinctive characters.
In the study of the human body, general and common notions are also distinguished and separated from those which are particular; the body is divided into several systems, such as the muscular, osseous, nervous, glandular, &c.; determinate functions, too, are specified, as the secretion of saliva, of bile, tears, &c. But this distinction between general, common, and special notions is entirely neglected in the study of the mind, and even in that of the functions which in animals take place with consciousness.
Instinct.
Zoologists divide and subdivide the organization of the beings they study, and determine the structure tjf each particularly, but they consider their animal life in a manner quite general. Whatever is done with consciousness is explained by means of the word instinct. Animals eat and drink, and construct habitations by instinct; the nightingale sings, the swallow migrates, the hamster makes provision for the win-
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ter, the chamois places sentinels, sheep live in society, &c, and all by instinct. This is certainly a very easy manner of explaining facts; instinct is the talisman which produces every variety in the actions of animals. The knowledge conveyed, however, is general, and therefore completely vague. What is instinct? Is it a personified being, an entity, a principle? or does the word, according to its Latin etymology, signify only an internal impulse to act in a certain way in ignorance of the cause? I take it in the latter signification; thus the word instinct denotes every inclination to act arising from within.
Instincts, moreover, are merely effects, and do not express peculiar causes producing determinate inclinations. In stating that one animal sings and that another migrates, we specify some sorts of instincts, but leave their individual causes undetermined. The term instinct may be compared with that of motion. Planets revolve round the sun; the moon round the earth; the magnetic needle points towards the north; rivers fall into the ocean; animals walk, run, or fly; the blood circulates; and all these phenomena are conjoined with the idea of motion. Motion certainly attends on all, just as the actions of animals are always joined with instinct, but the causes of the various motions and of the different instincts are not alike, and must, therefore, be looked for and specified.
Finally, it is an error to say that animals act solely by instinct. It is true that some of their doings, such as the labors of insects, are the result of mere instinctive powers, but many animals modify their actions according to external circumstances; they even select one among different motives, and often resist their internal impulsions or instincts. A dog may be hungry, but with the opportunity he will not eat, because he remembers the blows which he has received for having done so under similar circumstances. If, in following his master, he is separated from him by a carriage, he does not throw himself under the feet of the horses or its wheels, but waits till it has passed, and then by increasing his speed he overtakes his master.
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This shows that some animals act with understanding. On the other hand, though new-born children cry, and suck the finger, they certainly do not act from understanding. And, if men of great genius manifest talents without knowing that such faculties exist; if they calculate, sing, or draw, without any previous education, do they not do so by some internal impulse or instinct, as well as the animals which sing, build, migrate, and gather provisions? Instinct, then, is not confined to animals, and understanding is not a prerogative of mankind.
The above reflections on instinct elucidate the ideas entertained by philosophers generally in regard to the mind and its faculties. Many of them reduce all the mind's operations to sensation, and all its faculties to sensibility; others call this general faculty understanding, or intellect.
Understanding.
We must make reflections on understanding similar to those already made on instinct. There are, in the first place, different sorts of understanding, which may exist independent of each other. Great painters cannot always become great musicians; profound mathematicians may be without any talent for poetry; and excellent generals may be miserable legislators. Hence, in the study of man, it is necessary to specify the different kinds of understanding or sensation. For, if we say, with Destutt de Tracy, that memory, judgment, and imagination, are only modifications of sensation and the effects of unknown causes, it is still necessary to specify the kinds of sensation; since sensations of hunger, friendship, hatred, anger, or comparison, and knowledge of forms, colors, localities, &c, cannot be of one and the same sort, any more than the senses of feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing, and seeing. Thus, then, it is necessary to specify the various internal, as well as the external senses.
Moreover, the causes of the different kinds of understanding must also be pointed out, and new observations in consequence become necessary. Finally, I repeat, that man does not always act with understanding. Suddenly threatened
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by any danger, the limbs are drawn back before there has been time to think of the means of escape. All the gestures and peculiar sounds which accompany the rather energetic expression of the sentiments, are as involuntary as the feelings themselves, and by no means the effect of understanding. Who can say that he always acts with understanding? We too often choose the worse even in knowing the better.
The greater number of philosophers explain the actions of man upon the supposition of two fundamental powers: understanding and will. They, however, merit the same reproach as the zoologists who consider the actions of animals as effects of instinct, and those of man as effects of understanding alone. They attach themselves to generalities, and neglect particulars; they ought, however, to specify the kinds of will as well as those of understanding. For it cannot be the same faculty which makes us love ourselves and our neighbors, which is fond of destroying and of preserving, which feels self-esteem or seeks others' approbation. Moreover, the causes of the different kinds of love and of will, which are taken at one time in a good, at another in a bad acceptation, must be laid open.
Many philosophers who consider understanding and will as the fundamental powers of the mind, have conceived particular modes of action in each of them. In understanding they admit perception, conception, memory, judgment, imagination, and attention,—one of the most important of these modified operations; to the will they ascribe sensuality, selfishness, vanity, ambition, and the love of arts and sciences, in proportion as understanding is enlightened and external circumstances modified.
All philosophical considerations on the mind hitherto entertained have been general; and whilst the study of the understanding has especially engaged one class of thinkers, another has devoted itself to that of the will, principally as embracing the doctrine of our duties. The proceeding of either was fallacious. They have always taken effects for causes, and confounded modes of action, in quantity or quality, with fundamental faculties. They have also overlooked
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one of the most important conditions to the exhibition of affective and intellectual powers, viz. the organization of the brain. They considered the functions of the external senses in connection with organization, but were not aware that all phenomena of mind are subject to the same condition.
The first of these classes of philosophers is styled Ideologists, the second Moralists. This separation, and the consequent destruction of that harmony which ought to reign between the two, are to be lamented. Idealogists and moralists differ not only in their pursuits, but each criminates the other, and endeavors to confine him within certain limits. Idealogists deride the studies of Moralists, and these often decry Idealogists as the greatest enemies of mankind.
Many ponderous volumes are filled with their several opinions. I shall only consider, in a summary way, the most striking of their particular views, and begin with those of Idealogists.
I. Consciousness and Sensation.
Speculative philosophers incessantly speak of single consciousness and of there being nothing but consciousness and sensation in animal life. Dr. Reid and others consider consciousness as a separate faculty, and Condillac reduced all phenomena of mind to sensation, so that his philosophy is to mind what alchymy was to matter. JSTow though it be true, in a general way, that all operations of the mind are accompanied with consciousness, it by no means follows that consciousness of the impressions is one of its fundamental faculties. Consciousness is a general term, and is an effect of the activity of one or several mental faculties. It is identic with mind and exists in all its operations: in perception, attention, memory, judgment, imagination, association, sympathy, antipathy, pleasure, pain, in affections and passions. Mind cannot be thought of without consciousness. There are various kinds of consciousness, which are the special faculties of the mind, which may be possessed separately or conjointly, and which must be specified by philosophy.
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II. Perception.
Two important questions present themselves: first, whether all the impressions which produce consciousness or sensation, come from without, through the external senses; and secondly, whether all fundamental powers of the mind are perceptive, or have consciousness of their peculiar and respective impressions, or whether some of them procure impressions, the consciousness of which is only obtained by the medium of other faculties?
The majority of modern philosophers have investigated the perceptions of external impressions only, which they consider as the first and single cause of every varied mental function. The mind, say they, is excited by external impressions, and then performs various intellectual or voluntary acts. Some thinkers, however, have recognised many perceptions as dependent on merely internal impressions. Of this kind are the instinctive dispositions of animals, and all the affective powers of man. Those who would consider this subject in detail, may examine, in the first part of Phrenology, my ideas on the external senses and on the affective faculties. There it will be seen that I admit two sources of mental activity; one external and the other internal.
An answer to the second question is given with more difficulty than to the first. Dr. Reid with some of his predecessors, distinguished between sensation and perception. He understood by the former the consciousness of the mind which immediately follows the impression of an external body on any of our senses; and by perception the reference of the sensation to its external corporal cause. Certain particles of odorous matter act on the olfactory nerve and produce a peculiar sensation. When this peculiar sensation is referred to an object, for instance a rose, then it is perception. Gall thinks that each external sense and each internal faculty has its peculiar consciousness, perception, memory, judgment, and imagination; in short, that the modes of action are alike in each external sense and in each organ of the brain. To
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me, however, the individual faculties of the mind do not seem to have the same modes of action; I conceive that the functions of several faculties are confined to the procuring of impressions which are perceived by other faculties. The instinct of alimentativeness and all the fundamental faculties, which I call affective, seem destined only to produce impressions, which accompanied with consciousness are called inclinations, wants, or sentiments. The affective functions are blind and involuntary, and have no knowledge of the objects respectively suited to satisfy their activity; the nerve« of hunger do not know aliments; nor circumspection, the object of fear; nor veneration, the object deserving its application, &c. &c. Even supposing the affective powers had an obscure consciousness of their own existence, a point which, by-the-bye, is not proved, it is still certain that the intellectual faculties alone procure clear consciousness. The internal senses of individuality and eventuality, combined with those of comparison and causality, determine the species of both internal and external perceptions. As it is, however, much more difficult to specify the internal than the external sensations, the species of the former have remained almost entirely unknown to philosophers.
Thus, perception is an essential constituent in the nature of the intellectual faculties generally, and one of their particular modes of activity; yet it is no special faculty of the mind; it is a mere effect of activity in the perceptive powers.
From the preceding considerations, it follows that in my opinion every fundamental faculty of the mind is not perceptive, consequently I make a distinction between perceptive powers and kinds of perception. There are as many sorts of perceptions as fundamental functions, but the intellectual faculties alone seem to be perceptive.
It is remarkable that consciousness and perception are not always single, that in the same person they may be healthy with respect to some faculties and diseased with respect to others. There are also cases on record, where persons subject to nervous fits, completely forget what occurs during paroxysms, when these are over; and remember perfectly dur-
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ing subsequent paroxysms, what has happened during preceding fits. The same phenomenon is related of the state of persons under the influence of animal magnetism. Mr. Combe mentions the fact observed by Dr. Abel in an Irish porter to a warehouse, who forgot when sober, what he had done when drunk, but who, being drunk again, recollected the transactions of his former state of intoxication. On one occasion, being drunk, he had lost a parcel of some value, and in his sober moments could give no account of it. Next time he was intoxicated he recollected that he had left the parcel at a certain house, and there being no address on it, it had remained there safely and was got on his calling for it. It seems that, before recollection can exist, the organs require to be in the same state they were in when the impression was first received.
III. Attention.
Almost all philosophers speak of sensation as a primitive power of the mind, active throughout all its operations, and the basis on which observation and reflection repose. ' It is attention,' says Helvetius,* ' more or less active, which fixes objects more or less in the memory.' According to Vicq d'Azyr, apes and monkeys are turbulent, because they have no attention. Dr. Reid f makes a distinction between attention and consciousness, calling the first a voluntary, the second an involuntary act; whilst other philosophers, with Locke, confound these two mental phenomena. Dr. Brown confounds attention with desire; he thinks that without desire there can be no attention.
To all that has been said upon attention as a faculty of the mind, I reply, that attention, in none of its acceptations, is a single faculty; for if it were, he who possesses it in a particular sense should be able to apply it universally. But how does it happen that an individual, animal or man, pays great attention to one object, and very little or none to an-
* De l'esprit, eh. de l'inégale capacité de l'attention, f Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, p. 60.
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other? Sheep never attend to philosophy or theology; and while the squirrel and ringdove see a hare pass with indifference, the fox and eagle eye it with attention. The instinct to live on plants or flesh produces unlike sorts of attention. In the human kind, individuals are influenced in their attention to different objects, even by sex and age: little girls prefer dolls, ribands, &c, as playthings; boys like horses, whips, and drums. One man is pleased with philosophic discussion, another with witty conversation; one with the recital of events which touch the heart, and another with accounts of sanguinary battles, and so on.
The word attention denotes no more than the active state of any intellectual faculty; or, in other terms, attention is the effect of the intellectual faculties, acting either from their proper force, or from being excited by external impressions, or by one or several affective faculties. Hence there are as many species of attention as fundamental faculties of the mind. He who has an active faculty of configuration, of locality, or of coloring, pays attention to the objects respectively suited to gratify it. In this manner we conceive why attention is so different, and also why it is impossible to succeed in any pursuit or undertaking without attention. It is, indeed, absurd to expect success in an art or science, when the individual power on which its comprehension depends is inactive. Again, the more active the power is, the more it is attentive. The affective faculties, though they have no clear consciousness, yet excite the intellectual faculties, and thereby produce attention. The love of approbation, for instance, may stimulate the faculty of artificial language; boys who are fond of applause will be apt to study with more attention and perseverance than those who are without such a motive.
Thus, perception and attention, though both modes of activity, may be distinguished from each other, as perception denotes knowledge of the external and internal impressions in a passive manner, or, as perceptivity or passive capability of Kant, whilst attention indicates the active state of the intellectual faculties and their application to their respective objects, or spontaneity, in Kant's language.
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IV. Memory.
Memory is another mental operation, which has, at all times, occupied speculative philosophers. Those, too, who have written on education have given it much consideration. It is treated of as a faculty which collects the individual perceptions, and recalls them when wanted; and is further considered as being assisted by the faculties of attention and association. Memory varies more in its kind than any other of the intellectual faculties recognised by philosophers. It is notorious that some children occasionally learn long passages of books by heart with great facility, who cannot recollect the persons they have seen before, nor the places they have visited. Others, again, remember facts or events, while they cannot recall the dates at which they happened; and, on the contrary, this latter sort of knowledge gives great pleasure to others. The Jesuits, observing nature, consequently admitted a memory of facts, a local memory, a verbal memory, and so on. Even the causes of these differences in memory were looked for. Malebranche supposed some peculiar and modified state of the cerebral organization to explain the facts, such as softness and flexibility of the cerebral fibres in youth, their hardness and stiffness in old age, &c.
Is memory, then, a fundamental power of the mind? Gall thinks not; he considers it as the second degree of activity of every organ and faculty; and therefore admits as many memories as fundamental faculties.
My opinion also is, that memory is not a fundamental faculty, but the repetition of some previous perception, and a quantitive mode of action. The question arises whether memory takes place among both the affective and intellectual faculties. It is true the affective powers act without clear consciousness, and the mind cannot call up into fresh existence the perceptions experienced from the propensities and sentiments with the same facility as the perceptions of the intellectual powers; yet it renews them more or less, and consequently, I cannot confine the mode of action under discussion to the intellectual faculties. However, I distinguish
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between the faculties which have clear memory and the species of notions remembered: the perceptive faculties alone have clear memory, and all kinds of perceptions are remembered. Further, as the intellectual faculties do not all act with the same energy, memory necessarily varies in kind and strength in each and in every individual. No one therefore has an equally strong memory for every branch of knowledge. Attention too, being another name for activity of the intellectual faculties applied to their respective objects, naturally strengthens memory: viz. it facilitates repetition. Exercise of the faculties, it is further evident, must invigorate memory, that is, repetition is made more easy. Let us now see the difference between memory and
V. Reminiscence or remembrance.
We have reminiscence, if we remember how certain perceptions have been acquired, while memory consists in the perfect reproduction of former perceptions. Reminiscence is often taken for a fundamental faculty of the mind; sometimes, also, it is considered as a modification of memory.
I neither consider reminiscence as a fundamental faculty, nor as a modification of memory, but as the peculiar memory or repetition of the functions of eventuality, that faculty which takes cognizance of the functions of all the others.
This view shows how we may have reminiscence, but no memory of the functions of our affective faculties. And also, how we may remember having had a sensation which we cannot reproduce, and repeat a perception without remembering how it had been acquired. Thus we may recollect that we know the name of a person without being able to utter it, and also repeat a song without remembering where we learned it. The special intellectual faculties, in general, repeat their individual perceptions and produce memory, while that of eventuality, in particular, recollects, or has reminiscence. Reminiscence, then, is to eventuality that which each kind of memory is to the other intellectual faculties.
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VI. Imagination.
This expression has several significations: it is employed to indicate at one time a fundamental power, called also the faculty of invention, and in this sense it is said to invent machinery, to compose music and poetry, and in general to produce every new conception. Imagination, again, is sometimes taken for the faculty of recalling previously-acquired notions of objects. This signification even corresponds to the etymology of the word: the images exist interiorly. At another time imagination indicates a lively manner of feeling and acting. Imagination, in fine, is a title given to facility of combining previous perceptions, and of producing new compositions.
To the preceding considerations I answer, that imagination is in no case a fundamental faculty. There can be no single faculty of invention, or else he who displays it in one ought to show it in all arts and sciences. And it is notorious that powers of invention are very different in the same as well as in different persons. A mechanician who invents machines of stupendous powers, may be almost without musical talent, and a great geometrician may be perfectly insensible to the harmony of tones; whilst the poet who can describe the most pathetic situations and arouse the feelings powerfully, may be quite incapable of inventing mathematical problems. Man, it is certain, can only invent, or perfect, according to the sphere of activity of the peculiar faculties he possesses; and therefore there can be no fundamental power of invention. Each primitive faculty has its laws, and he who is particularly endowed in a high degree, often finds effects unknown before; and this is called invention. Imagination is consequently, no more than a quantitative mode of action of the primitive faculties, combined particularly with those of causality and comparison. Inventions are, probably, never made by individual faculties; several commonly act together in establishing the necessary relations between effects and causes.
The fundamental faculties sometimes act spontaneously,
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or by their internal power, and this degree of activity is then called imagination also. In this sense imagination is as various in its kinds as the primitive faculties. Birds build their nests, or sing, without having been taught, and men of great minds do acts which they had never either seen or heard of. In calling the degree of activity of the faculties which produces these effects imagination, it is still a mere result of existing individual powers. All that has been said of imagination, as the faculty of recalling impressions, is referable to the mode of action styled memory of the intellectual faculties, and is not an effect of any single power.
Finally, imagination, used synonymously with exaltation, or poetic fire, results from activity of the fundamental faculty which I call ideality, and to the consideration of which mental power in Part I. of Phrenology, I refer my reader for farther information.
From the preceding reflections on perception, attention, memory, and imagination, it follows, that they are quantitive modes of action of the fundamental faculties, each of which may act spontaneously, or be roused by external impressions. The intellectual faculties alone perceive or know impressions, and being directed towards the objects of which respectively they have cognizance, produce attention; repeating notions already perceived, they exert memory; and being so active as to cause effects as yet unknown, they may be said to elicit imagination.
VII. Judgment.
Judgment is commonly believed to be a fundamental power of the mind. It is said to have been given to counterbalance imagination and the passions, and to rectify the errors of intellect. Memory and judgment are sometimes also maintained to exclude each other, but experience shows this opinion to be erroneous, for some persons possess excellent memory as well as great judgment. These two kinds of manifestations, however, may also exist separately; and the conclusion then follows, that they are neither the same faculty nor the same mode of action. Let us first see whether judgment may be a fundamental power or not.
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Gall, observing that the same person may possess excellent judgment of one kind, and have little or none of another, that a great judge of mathematics, for instance, may have almost no capacity to judge of colors or of tones, considers judgment as the third degree of activity of every fundamental faculty; and admitting as many kinds of judgment as special faculties, denies it the prerogative of being looked on as a primitive power. In his opinion, every fondamental faculty has four degrees of activity: the first is perception; the second, memory; the third, judgment; and the fourth, imagination. I, myself, neither consider judgment as a fundamental faculty, nor with Gall, as a degree of activity, or as a mode of action to every faculty. Judgment cannot be a quantitive mode, and certainly not the third in degree, for some individuals judge very accurately of impressions as soon as perceived, without possessing the memory of them to a great extent; and others, with an excellent memory of particular kinds of impressions, judge very indifferently of the same. It even happens that certain faculties are in the highest degree, or spontaneously, active, while the judgment in relation to these very powers is bad. In other cases, the faculties are exceedingly active, and also judge with perfect propriety. Moreover, judgment cannot be an attribute of every fundamental faculty of the mind, since the affective powers, being blind, neither recollect nor judge their actions. What judgments have physical love, pride, circumspection, and all the other feelings? They require to be enlightened by the understanding, or intellectual faculties; and on this account it is, that when left to themselves they occasion so many disorders. And not only does this remark apply to the inferior but also to the siiperior affective powers; to hope and veneration, as well as to the love of approbation and circumspection; we may fear things innocent or noxious, and venerate idols as well as the God of the true Christian.
I conceive, then, that judgment is a mode of action of the intellectual faculties only; and not a mode of qxiantity but of quality. The better to understand my meaning, let us observe, that there is a relation between external objects
25
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themselves, and also between external objects and the affective and intellectual faculties of man and animals. These relations are even determinate, and in their essence invariable; they admit modifications only. Hunger and aliment, this and digestion have a mutual relation. Now, if these relations are seen to be perfect and to exist as they are usually found, we say the function is good or healthy. If the sense of taste approve of aliments which man commonly employs and digests, the taste is good and perfect; but there is disorder or aberration whenever the functions depart from their ordinary modes of manifesting themeslves; if, for instance, the taste select articles generally esteemed filthy or unfit for food, such as chalk, charcoal, tallow, &c. it is disordered or bad.
The intellectual faculties are in relation with the affective powers and with external objects, and their functions are subject to determinate laws. The faculties of coloring and of melody cannot arbitrarily be pleased, the one with every disposition of colors, and the other with every combination of tones. Now, the functions of the intellectual faculties may be perfect or imperfect, that is, be in harmony, or the contrary, with their innate laws, and the product of these two states announced is judgment; for the intellectual faculties alone know their own and the relations of the affective powers with the external world. The expression judgment, however, it must be observed, is used to indicate as well the power of perceiving the relations that subsist between impressions themselves, as the manner in which this power is affected by these. We distinguish different savors from each other, and we feel the different impressions they make. In both these operations we judge. The same thing holds in regard to all the perceptive faculties: they perceive the relations of their appropriate and peculiar impressions, and recognise the effect this act of perception produces. The faculty of coloring, for instance, perceives several colors, and is then affected agreeably or disagreeably; in consequence, it approves or disapproves of their arrangement. The perception of any relation whatever is the essence of judgment.
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The judgment of the faculties which perceives the physical qualities of external objects, even of tones or melody, is also called taste. We are said to have a good or a bad taste, or judgment, in coloring, drawing, and music, in speaking of forms, proportions, &c.
Each perceptive faculty feels impressions and relations of one kind only; that of configuration knows forms; that of coloring colors; and that of tune tones. The judgment, or the more or less healthy action of each, is in like manner confined to its special function. There are consequently as many kinds of judgment as perceptive faculties, and one kind must not be confounded with another. The regular and perfect manifestation of the functions of the two reflective powers, however, examining the relations of all the intellectual and affective faculties to their respective objects, and the relations of the various powers among themselves, particularly deserves the name judgment; it essentially constitutes the philosophic judgment, which is applicable to every sort of notion. It is synonymous with reasoning. Comparison and causality being the highest intellectual powers, and an essential and necessary part of a reasonable being; their perfect action or good judgment consequently ranks above all other kinds of judgment. However, reason or the reflective faculties in themselves are not infallible; they may be deceived by the erroneous notions and feelings on which they operate. Sound and true reasoning requires two things; first, sound reflective faculties; and second, exact notions and just feelings, viz. sound premises.
VIII. Association.
Several philosophers in Great Britain, and especially Dugald Stewart, have lately spoken much of a peculiar faculty of association. They have examined the laws of its activity, and ascribed to it a great influence on our manner of thinking and feeling; they have even considered it as the cause of the sublime and beautiful.
These propositions I conceive are erroneous; association, in my opinion, being only an effect of the mutual influence
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of the fundamental faculties. One being active, excites another, or several, and the phenomenon is association; which occurs not only among the intellectual faculties, when what is called association of ideas results, but also among the affective and intellectual together; and, indeed, among all the fundamental faculties. The sight of a rose may recall one we love; ambition may excite courage, or an intellectual faculty; artificial signs may arouse the perceptive faculties; and these, in their turn, make us remember arbitrary signs.
Association is a phenomenon of some importance in the practical part of anthropology; and when I come to speak of the modifications of the mental functions, I shall enter into its consideration at some length.
The principles of association are the same as those of sympathy. Faculties whose organs are situated near each other, or which act at the same time, will readily excite one another. Faculties also, which contribute to the same peculiar function, will be apt to exert a mutual influence. The strongest of the faculties will further excite and overwhelm the weaker with ease.
The mutual influence or association of the fundamental faculties explains the principles of Mnemonics, or the science of artificial memory, and shows its importance. To enable us to recall ideas or words, we may call in any of our other faculties, which acts with great energy, to assist. If that of locality, for instance, be vigorous, ideas will be easily recollected through the assistance of localities; that is, by associating ideas with localities. Local memory will remember the peculiar ideas associated with particular places. The same means or faculties, however, it must be understood, will not serve in every case. Individuals must severally make use of their strongest to excite their weakest powers; one will employ form, a second color, a third places, and others numbers, analogies of sounds, causes, and so on, with success.
This consideration in its whole extent may be kept in view with advantage in education. No intellectual faculty is ever to be tutored singly, but all which are necessary to the perfect understanding of a subject are to be exercised together.
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Geography will aid the memory of events, and the reverse; and so on with the rest.
Association also elucidates the common saying, We think in our mother tongue. The meaning of this phrase is not determined; if language be supposed primitively to produce thought, a grave error is committed; for we think in no language; the feelings and ideas existed before the signs which express them, and we may have feelings and thoughts without a term to make them known. Language is only associated with the feelings and thoughts; but as this is done very frequently and with extreme rapidity, even in conformity with the succession of thoughts, we are said to think in our native language. The fact, however, is interesting in itself, and proves the importance of the mutual influence of the faculties. Several of the modern languages, it is true, have a determinate structure, and do not admit of inversions, and ideas consequently follow regularly in a certain order, but ideas are not therefore results of the signs by which they are expressed. It is obvious, however, that the structure of a language must give a peculiar direction to the mental operations; and again, that the prevailing spirit or general mental constitution of every nation may be known by its language. The French directs the mind especially to individual objects and their qualities; the German, on the contrary, forces it to combine, at once, all particular notions. Notwithstanding these admitted effects of language, signs must never be confounded with ideas, nor simultaneous action mistaken for identity.
The second idea which Mr. Alison and others entertain of association as the source of the beautiful and of the pleasure that flows from it, is also unsupported by observation. Pleasure does not derive from association only. Every faculty is in relation to certain impressions; these, being either in harmony with it, or the reverse, produce pleasure or pain. The power of configuration is pleased with certain forms, and displeased with others. The faculty of coloring likes certain colors, and dislikes others. In the same way impressions of tones are immediately pronounced agreeable or dis-
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agreeable. The perceptive faculties are pleased by their respective harmonious impressions.
On the other hand it is, however, certain that association may increase or diminish the absolute pleasure or pain. Pleased with a rose in itself, we may call it beautiful; but the pleasure and the beauty may still be heightened by recollections of the person who planted or presented it. Impressions, little agreeable in themselves, may gain by association. A national air may rank very low as a musical composition, and even offend a scientific ear, and yet delight him, the scenes of whose boyhood, and of whose home, the remembrances of whose relations and friends, it recalls.
IX. Categories.
Even those who recognise certain laws, or categories, according to which the mind operates, confine too much their considerations to general views. If Kant, in his treatise on Experimental Knowledge, admits a category of quality, his conception is still general. We know, it is true, the qualities of natural objects, but there are various kinds of these, and none of them are either specified in Kant's philosophy, or considered as fundamental faculties of the mind.
Idealogists have therefore recognised certain effects and modes of action of the mental powers, and certain laws according to which the mind acts, but few of the fundamental faculties. Among the categories of Aristotle and Kant those of space and time, and that of causality by Kant, are fundamental faculties of Phrenology, but the others are mere modes of action and general conceptions. The various conceptions of philosophers exist in nature, but they are defective, and need rectification, that is, the faculties and their modes of acting must be specified and their existence demonstrated by observation; in this way alone will philosophy become applicable to man in his social relations.
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Moralists.
Man must soon have felt that every kind of mental operation could not be called intellectual. Philosophers have accordingly acknowledged a second, and a different sort, which they name Will.
Living in society, man is in relation with his parents, his friends, his enemies, with those who are inferior or superior, and by an innate power he examines his actions in a moral point of view. In conceiving supernatural beings, and admitting their influence on his situation, he also contrived means to render himself agreeable to them.
Those philosophers, then, who examine the moral conduct of man, and its rules, viz. moralists, are particularly interested in the knowledge, not only of the intellectual faculties and their modes of action, but also of the inclinations and sentiments, of the affections and passions, of the motives of our actions, of the aim of our faculties, and of the means of arriving at it. The study of moralists, however, is not more exact than that of idealogists. Like them, ignorant of the fundamental powers of the mind, they confound modes of action with the faculties themselves, disagree about the origin of morality, its nature, and the means of advancing it; the philosophic doctrines of the will, affections and passions. I therefore begin with their elucidations.
X. Desire and Will.
Many philosophers understand by the expression Will, all sorts and all degrees of inclinations, desires; and sentiments. Moralists commonly say that the will alone is the cause of our actions and omissions, and even that mankind is degraded by any other explanation than this. The will is considered as an entity and styled weak or strong, good or bad. These terms, however, are vague, and require consideration.
In the common acceptation of the word, will is no more
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a fundamental power than the instinct of animals, it is only the effect of every primitive faculty of the mind, and synonymous with desire; each faculty being active produces an inclination, a desire, or a kind of will; and in this signification there are as many species of will as fundamental faculties; the strength of each, too, is in proportion to the activity of the individual faculties, and exists involuntarily. Such a sweeping and general acceptation of the term Will, then, is evidently defective.
That desire which overwhelms the others is also called Will. Wow, in this sense, every faculty in its turn may become Will. A dog, for instance, is hungry, but having been punished for eating the meat he found upon the table, he, without ceasing to feel appetite, for fear of a repetition of the blows, does not indulge; he desires to eat, but he will not. Will, therefore, in this acceptation, cannot be any fundamental power, it is only an effect of the most active powers.
Let us here ask, whether man in his healthy state of mind is eompelled by nature to consider certain desires as superior and others as inferior? The answer is affirmative. I shall detail this point later, in speaking of the moral nature of man; meanwhile I adopt it as quite positive, and only add that the preference given is founded on intelligence which knows the different desires, and determines the election which is made. Now by calling will the mental operation which appreciates the value of the desires, and chooses among them, it is evident that it depends on, and is proportionate to, intellect; hence, that it is not a fundamental faculty.
It is of the utmost importance to be aware that there is no moral will without intelligence, though this does not constitute will, and that will is no fundamental power, but the effect of the reflective faculties applied to the affective and perceptive powers of the mind.
Legislation, in general, recognises intelligence as an indispensable condition of will. Idiots, and the insane, therefore, are not answerable for their actions. All the affective faculties, indeed, are blind, and dispose us to act according
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to pleasure, not according to will, which may frequently be opposed to pleasure. In conformity, the moral code of Christianity distinguishes between desires and will.
Let us for a moment suppose that will is a fundamental power, and of a higher order than intellect; but, on this hypothesis, how can will act at one time in this and at another in the opposite direction? How happens it, that in one the will looks only for selfish gratifications, and in another for general happiness? Can will take a determinate direction without any cause? Is it different in itself, or is it influenced by other causes—may it, for instance, be excited by the feelings? In this case, however, it would become dependent and exposed to aberrations.
The Christian law commands the will to resist inferior temptations, and to follow the inspirations of the Spirit. Pious persons, also, in their addresses to the Great Guiding Power, pray that their will may be directed towards certain actions, and turned away from others. This proves that they consider will as susceptible of being influenced, and by no means as independent, and acting without any cause. Such an independent will would, indeed, be a principle, and could have only one, never opposite tendencies.
Thus, in the world, will has been separated from mere desires, or from the affective faculties; and intelligence been considered a condition necessary to its manifestations. Yet intelligence does not constitute will; for a person with an excellent intellect may take very little interest in the welfare of other beings. He may acknowledge the better, and still incline and even yield to his inclination to pursue the worse. Two conditions then, the feelings and intellect, are necessary to will; in other terms, will consists in the application of reason to the affective and perceptive faculties.
The greater number of persons take their individual inclinations and pleasures for will, forgetting that these give motives blindly and involuntarily. We may, indeed, say, that the exhibition of true will is very rare; it is too generally in opposition to our inclinations. This state has been noticed by several moralists. ' The spirit,' it is said, ' is
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willing, but the flesh is weak.' * ' For that which I do,' says the Apostle Paul, ' I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.' f
Here it is sufficient to know that will can neither be confounded with the individual inclinations nor with intellect; and that it is no special faculty, but the application of reason, or the reflective powers, to our desires and notions. I shall afterwards show that in its true signification it is the basis of liberty.
XI. Affections.
There is a great confusion of ideas in the works which treat of the affections. The name affection is sometimes given to fundamental powers, as to physical love, to self-love, to the love of approbation, and to hope. Affections are also confounded with passions. Moreover, affections are occasionally put for the pathognomonical signs, which indicate different states of satisfaction or discontent of the fundamental powers; for instance, smiling, laughing, sighing, yawning, shedding tears, &c.
I employ the word in none of the preceding significations, but solely according to its etymology, to indicate the different states of being affected of the fundamental powers. The sense of feeling, for instance, may convey tickling, itching, burning, or lancinating pain; its various modes of sensation are affections. In the same way the internal faculties may be differently affected.
The affections of the fundamental faculties may be divided into qualitive and quantitive. The former may again be subdivided into five sorts: 1st, general, which exist in each fundamental power; 2d, common, which inhere in several faculties; 3d, special, which belong to individual powers; 4th, simple or compound; finally, 5th, which are common to man and animals, and which are proper and peculiar to man. The quantitive affections may be subdivided into two sorts: 1st, the fundamental powers and their qualitive affections may be active in very different degrees, from indolence to
'' Matt. xxvi. 41.
† Rom. vii. 15.
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passion; and 2d, they may act with more or less quickness and duration.
Among the qualitive and quantitive, and among the simple and compound affections, we may also distinguish those which appear in the state of health from those which occur in disease. Let us now quote examples of each kind.
A general quantitive mode of action or affection is desire: each faculty being active, desires; hence, there are as many sorts of desire as fundamental faculties. The sensations of pleasure and pain are two sorts of general qualitive affections; they are effects, and happen, the former if any faculty be satisfied, the latter if its desire be not complied with. There are consequently as many kinds of pleasure and of pain as individual faculties.
The mode of being affected, called sentiment, is common to several affective faculties. That known under the name of memory, belongs to the intellectual faculties. Fury is common to combativeness and destructiveness. Simple affections take place in individual faculties. Anger, in my opinion, is a special affection of combativeness or destructiveness; fear, of circumspection; compassion, of benevolence; and repentance or remorse, of conscientiousness. Compound affections, on the contrary, depend on the combined activity of several faculties; jealousy, for instance, whose essence is egotism, is modified according to the peculiar faculties which desire, as physical love, friendship, love of approbation. Envy is another compound affection: it is jealousy without benevolence; it increases by the want of the superior feelings. An envious person covets for himself alone; he would possess all enjoyments, to the entire exclusion of others; while a jealous man desires to enjoy and is especially careful not to lose possession of the pleasure he enjoys.
The affections common to man and animals, and those proper to man, depend on the respective faculties. Anger, fear, jealousy, envy, appear in. man and animals, as the faculties to which these affections belong inhere in both; while sdoration, xepentance, admiration, and shame, pertain, like the faculties from which they arise, to man alone.
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Let us now remark that the fundamental powers and their qualitive affections may be more or less active or strong. The different degrees of activity are called velleity, desire, ardent desire, passion; of the agreeable affections, pleasure, joy, and ecstasy; and of the disagreeable affections, pain, grief, and misery.
The nervous irritability, which is styled sentimentality in friendship, irascibility in courage, sensibility in benevolence, indicates only a higher degree of excitability or activity of the fundamental powers, and irregularity of application. The affections may, further, be sudden and transitory, or slow and durable. [Finally, the difference of the affections in the healthy and diseased state is easily understood. The complete absence of a faculty may be called imbecility, if it never existed, and fatuity, if it have been destroyed by disease. Fury, melancholy, despair, and irresistibility of any inclination, are diseased affections. But this subject is treated of at greater length in my work on Insanity, and I shall not dwell longer on it here.
Physicians, as well as moralists, must study the doctrine of the affections, on account of their influence on the vital functions and on man's actions in society. The same may be said in regard to the following article on
XII. Passions.
This word passion is commonly confounded with affection. What I have stated upon the affections, however, being known, the signification which I attach to the term passion will be easily understood; I use it to indicate only the highest degree of activity of any faculty. Passions, therefore, are not fundamental powers, but quantitive modes of action, and effects; there are, consequently, as many sorts of passions as of faculties.
Physicians, idealogists, and moralists, incessantly complain of the influence of the passions, since they ruin health and often occasion insanity, disorder judgment, cloud reason, and are causes of many errors and criminal actions.
Passions being the highest degree of activity of every
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faculty, we easily conceive why great results, whether good or bad, follow from them; why they advance the arts and sciences, and why they may be excessively dangerous. This depends on the nature of the faculties which act with the utmost degree of energy. The lower feelings, however, let me remark, are commonly the most active; and in speaking of passions, we are apt to think of them. Still, the superior sentiments and the reflecting powers also act with passion in some, that is, they act with the greatest possible energy. Two feelings, selfishness and the love of glory, have been considered by Helvetius as the greatest, or principal passions, and the cause of all our actions. There is no doubt that these two feelings are very active in the majority of individuals, and excite and employ the other faculties to procure their satisfaction. But certain it is, also, that they cannot produce talents. There are ambitious people eager for distinction, who labor hard, and who notwithstanding all, never excel in any one particular.
As there reigns a natural harmony among the fundamental powers, those faculties which are too energetic, or which act with passion, must obviously disturb this balance or order. A youth in love, and a fanatic in religion, sacrifice the rest to their passion, and do harm. Yet in complaining of the passions, we do not stigmatize the fundamental powers themselves, but only their too great energy. This remark applies to the religious and moral feelings, as well as to the most brutal propensities. Selfishness, though it undermines morality, is still necessary to self-preservation. The love of approbation, though the main cause of political slavery, has a useful destination in private life. And religion, though the source of incalculable misery, procures the greatest consolation to humanity.
I shall make one observation more upon passions: the factitious passions, spoken of in books, do not exist. The primitive powers, on which they depend, are innate; their applications alone may be called factitious. Love of approbation is inherent in human nature; its satisfaction by external marks, titles, &c. is artificial.
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1 conclude with repeating that the various conceptions of philosophers, of idealogists as well as of moralists exist in nature, but they are defective and need rectification, that is, the fundamental powers of the mind and their modes of acting must be specified, and their existence demonstrated by observation. This great task was reserved to Phrenology, by which alone philosophy will become applicable to man in his social relations. A
SECTION II.
The following new classification of the fundamental phenomena of the mind is the result of all physiological inquiries, contained in my work entitled Phrenology, and constitutes a summary of its philosophy.
ORDER I.
Affective faculties or feelings.
The essential nature of the affective faculties is to feel emotions. I shall indicate their nature, the aim of their existence, the disorders to which they dispose, and the consequences of their inactivity.
Genus I.—Feelings common to man and animals.
Hunger and thirst are desires felt and known by means of the brain, and there is a special organ in which these impressions inhere.
(Alimentiveness.)
Aim: The preservation of the individual.
Disorders: Gluttony—Drunkenness.
Its inactivity is accompanied by want of appetite.
Destrutctiveness.
Aim: Destruction, and the violent death of animals, for the sake of living on their flesh. Disorders: Murder, cruelty. Its inactivity prevents destruction.
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Physical love—(Amativeness.)
Aim: The propagation of the species. Disorders: Fornication, adultery, incest and other illegitimate modes of satisfaction.
Its inactivity predisposes to passive continency.
Love of offspring—(Philoprogenitiveness.)
Aim: The preservation of the offspring.
Disorders: Too active; it spoils children, or causes their loss to be felt as an insupportable calamity.
Its inactivity disposes to neglect, or to abandon the progeny.
InhABITIVENESS.
Aim: Animals have peculiar instincts to dwell in determinate localities. Nature destined all places to be inhabited. Disorder: Nostalgia.
Attachment—(Adhesiveness.)
Aim: Attachment to all around us. It appears variously modified, and produces friendship, marriage, society, habit, and general attachment.
Disorders: Inconsolable grief for the loss of a friend.
Its inactivity predisposes to carelessness about others.
Courage— ( Combativeness. )
Aim: Intrepidity and defence.
Disorders: Quarrelsomeness, disputation, attack, anger.
Its inactivity predisposes to cowardice, timidity, and fear.
Secertiveness.
Aim: To conceal.
Disorders: Cunning, duplicity, falsehood, hypocrisy, dissimulation, intriguing, lying.
Its inactivity predisposes to be deceived by others.
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Acquisitiveness.
Aim: To acquire that which, is necessary to our preservation.
Disorders: Theft, fraud, usury, corruptibility.
Its inactivity makes one's own interest be neglected.
CONSTRUCTIVENESS.
Aim: Construction in general.
Cautiousness.
Aim: To be cautious and circumspect.
Disorders: Unceitainty, irresolution, anxiety, fear, melancholy.
Its inactivity predisposes to levity.
Self-esteem.
Aim: Self-esteem.
Disorders: Pride, haughtiness, disdain, arrogance, insolence.
Its inactivity predisposes to humility.
Love of approbation.
Aim: Love of approbation and distinction.
Disorders: Vain glory, vanity, ambition, titles, distinctions.
Its inactivity predisposes to indifference about the opinion of others.
Genus II—Affective faculties proper to man*
Benevolence.
Aim: Benevolence in general.
Disorders: Benevolence to the undeserving, or at the expense of others.
* The rudiments of some of them exist also in animals; but they are much stronger and more extensive in their sphere of application in man.
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Its inactivity predisposes to selfishness, and not to regard others.
Reverence.
Aim: To respect what is venerable.
Disorders: Idolatry, bigotry.
Its inactivity predisposes to irreverence.
FIRMNESS.
Aim: Firmness.
Disorders: Stubbornness, obstinacy, and disobedience.
Its inactivity: predisposes to inconstancy and changeableness.
Conscientiousness.
Aim: Justice, conscientiousness, and duty. Disorders: Remorse for actions which are innocent, or of no importance.
Its inactivity predisposes to forgetfulness of duty.
Hope.
Aim: Hope.
Disorders: Love of scheming. Its inactivity predisposes to despair.
Marvellousness.
Aim: Admiration, and belief in supernaturality.
Disorders: Sorcery, astrology, the belief in demons.
Its inactivity predisposes to incredulity in revealed ideas.
Ideality.
Aim: Perfection.
Disorders: Too great exaltation, eccentricity. Its inactivity predisposes to taking things as they are.
MIRTHFULNESS.
Aim: Glee, mirth, laughter.
Disorders: Raillery, mockery, irony, satire.
Its inactivity predisposes to seriousness.
26
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Imitation.
Aim: Imitation, expression in the arts. Disorders: Buffoonery, grimaces.
Its inactivity hinders expression in the arts, and imitation in general.
ORDER II.
Intellectual faculties.
The essential nature of the intellectual faculties is to procure knowledge.
Genus I. External senses.
Genus II. Internal senses, or perceptive faculties, which procure knowledge of external objects, their physical qualities, and various relations.
Individuality. Order.
Configuration. Calculation.
Size. Eventuality.
Weight and resistance. Time.
Coloring. Tune.
Locality. Language.
Genus III. Reflective faculties.
Comparison. Causality.
SECTION III.
Origin of the Mental Dispositions.
Not the nature of the mental powers only, but their origin, or the cause of their existence also, has constantly been an object of investigation. Philosophers have never differed in opinion upon the vegetative qualities of man. His digestion, circulation, respiration, and various secretions and excretions, are natural functions, and cannot be acquired by will nor intelligence; but, in regard to the origin of the mental powers, many, and different opinions, have been, and are still, entertained. According to some, man is every thing by nature; to others, there are a few general fundamental faculties which
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produce all particular manifestations; whilst others, again, hold that man is born without any determinate disposition, a tabula rasa, or blank sheet, and that his facilities are the result of external impressions both natural and artificial. Let us examine these different opinions, and see how far each is exaggerated.
CHAPTER I.
Man is every thing by Nature, or, all is innate in Man.
According to the philosophers of antiquity, we look in vain for qualities in man which are not given to him from birth. This language was used both by profane and religious writers. Plato, in his Republic, considers philosophical and mathematical talents, memory, and the sentiments of pride, ambition, courage, sensuality, &c, as innate. Hippocrates, in treating of the qualities necessary for a physician, speaks of natural and innate dispositions. Aristotle, in his work on Political Science, adopts the principle, that some are born to govern and others to obey. Quintilian said, ' If precepts could produce eloquence, who would not be eloquent? ' Cicero, Seneca, Szc, were of opinion that religion is innate; so thought Lavater also. Herder * considered man's sociability, his benevolence, his inclination to venerate a superior being, his love of religion, &c. as innate. Condillac f says, ' Man does not know what he can do, till experience has shown what he is capable of doing by the force of nature alone; therefore, he never does any thing purposely till he has once done it instinctively. I think this observation will be found to be permanent and general. I think also that, if it had been duly considered, philosophers would have reasoned better than they have done. Man makes analyses only after having observed that he has analyzed. He makes a language after having observed that he had been understood. In this manner
* Ideen zur Geschichte der Philosophie der Menschheit. Th. 1. S. 252. f CEuv. Compl. 8vo. t. iii. p. 115.
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poets and orators began before they thought of their peculiar talents. In one word, all that man does he did at first from nature alone. Nature commences, and always commences well. This is a truth that cannot be repeated too frequently.'
' When the laws,' says he in another passage,* ' are conventions, they are arbitrary. This may be the case; and, indeed, there are too many arbitrary laws; but those which determine the morality of our actions cannot be arbitrary. They are our work in as far as they are conventional; but we alone did not make them; nature dictated them to us, and it was not in our power to make them otherwise than they are. The wants and faculties of man being given, laws are given also; and, though we make them, God, who created us with such wants and such faculties, is, in fact, our sole legislator. In following these laws conformably to nature we obey God; and this is the completion of the morality of our actions.'
The ancient institution of castes, or tribes, in eastern countries, shows that endeavors were made to preserve the purity of the races. The prejudice of nobility in certain families can be explained only by admitting the innateness of dispositions.
The religion of Christ also recognises the innateness of the faculties. According to it, all is given from above. ' A man can receive nothing, except it be given to him from Heaven.' f ' No one can come unto me except it were given to him by my Father.' $ ' Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.' § ' All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.' || St. Paul says, When the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the word of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.' **
* Loc. cit. p 55. fJohn, iii. 27.% John, vi. 65. § Matt. xm. 9.
II Matt. xix. 11. *A Rom. ii. 14, 15.
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The doctrine of predestination is also conformable to the opinion that e\ery thing is innate. Pious persons implore the influence of God and of various spirits. The doctrine of divine grace also agrees with the principle that man has natural gifts.
Thus the principle of innateness is obvious, and has been admitted from the remotest antiquity; but what it is that is innate, and how it is so, are points not sufficiently known. Before I examine them, however, I shall rectify the two other notions, already mentioned, in regard to the origin of the faculties of the mind.
CHAPTER II.
A few general Faculties produce all particular Dispositions.
Philosophers, at all times, have had a great fondness for general conceptions. They have shown the same liking in their explanation of the causes of our actions. A certain activity of the mind is commonly admitted as necessary to profit being made of external impressions; but some general modes of action have seemed sufficient to account for all the particulars.
1. Wants and pleasure produce our Faculties.
The expression Want is here taken as synonymous with desire. This general term, however, designates no determinate faculty, but the effect of each power being active; there are as many wants, or desires, as fundamental faculties, and these wants are proportionate to the activity of the faculties. Those, therefore, who speak of wants, in this sense, must specify them, and point out their individual causes. For it cannot be the same cause which finds pleasure in construction and in demolition; in benevolence and in cruelty; in righteousness and in sensual enjoyments; in the study of history and of mathematics; in poetry and in ascetic contemplations, &c. Thus the general proposition of philosophers, that desire of pleasure and aversion to pain produce
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our actions, must be rectified. The pleasures are different, and effects of individual active faculties; these then must be made known, and the objects of their satisfaction indicated.
2. Attention is the cause of our Faculties.
Attention is very commonly considered as the cause of all internal faculties. Helvetius even said, that each well-organized person might exercise his faculties by means of his attention, with such success as to arrive at the first rank in society.
The word attention as I have shown, has two acceptations: it denotes consciousness in general; and conseqxiently, in this sense, accompanies the activity of every faculty; and it explains why one animal or man pays great attention to one object, and very little or none to another; why individuals are attentive to different objects, even according to sex and age; and why attention is proportionate to the activity of the respective faculty, so that, if the senses be not exercised, much stronger impressions are required to arouse their attention. The attention, therefore, of every faculty may be cultivated and improved by its exercise; but attention, as a general quality, cannot be the appanage of any particular power.
Moreover, as attention also denotes a distinct consciousness, a reflection on sensations and actions, the aptitudes and instincts of animals cannot certainly be its effect in this signification. "No one will maintain, that the rabbit, badger, mole, marmot, or hamster, make burrows, because they have examined with attention the advantages of such dwellings; or that the beaver builds a cottage, because it has studied the laws of mechanics. Among men, geniuses also burst forth quite unconscious of their talents. This kind of attention then may excite, but can never produce, the particular faculties.
3. Understanding is the cause of our Faculties. This proposition is also cleared up by Phrenology. The affective powers must be separated from the intellectual faculties, and there are several sorts of understanding, and each
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special power, affective or intellectual, is a fundamental gift, in the same way as each external sense.
4. The Will is the cause of our Faculties.
This opinion is refuted by daily observation. Who can doubt that every thinker as well as every dreamer in philosophy has occasionally felt the limits of his faculties, and has done things disapproved of by reason. What had then become of the will? I do not agree with those who object, that man is degraded by having his actions explained. Those who lise such language seem to me to speak without attaching any meaning to their words. Is man degraded by having it said, that he must submit to the laws of the creation? Can he change the laws of his organization, of his senses, of his understanding, or alter the principles of music, algebra, &c.? Were man degraded by a determinate nature, all beings are so, even God himself, seeing that, by his nature, he cannot will evil, nor do an injustice. N"ow, if God act according to his nature, man cannot be degraded by laws dictated to him by the Creator, or by his will not being absolute. In the same way man is not degraded by our saying, that he cannot produce the talents and feelings he desires.
CHAPTER III.
Man's Faculties are the result of Education.
The doctrine of innate ideas, of innate moral principles and of predestined actions lost its authority by degrees, and it was easy to combat it, as it is not conformable to nature. That so many errors on this point should have prevailed during centuries is almost inconceivable; for every day observation belies the principle. How could philosophers maintain that man is every thing from birth, with the fact before them of the difference in so many particiilars between the Athenians and Lacedœmonians, occasioned by the dis-
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similarity of the laws which governed each nation? And is it not obvious too, that several modern nations neglect the arts and sciences only because their religious creeds interdict such pursuits? And further, is not every one of us aware that his notions and his actions are modified by external circumstances, and by the education he has received? The doctrine of universal innateness has been examined and refuted by Locke, Condillac, and others, and I find it superfluous to say more on the subject here. But some of these authors and their followers fell into the opposite extreme, and conceived men and animals born indifferent—tabulée rasœ, or blank sheets, and maintained all the instincts of animals, from the insect to the dog and elephant, to be the consequences of instruction. Helvetius—the great champion of this opinion—maintains that foxes hunt because they have learnt hunting from their parents; birds sing and build nests in consequence of instruction; and man becomes man by education.
The opinion of Helvetius and his school, being still much accredited, and many institutions being founded on it, deserves a particular examination, but the answer to their positions is, that education produces no faculty whatever, either in man or animals. According to their hypothesis, arts and sciences ought to improve in proportion as they are taught, and mankind ought to become perfect under the care of moral and religious preachers. Why then is the progress of the arts and sciences so slow? Why are we forced to allow that men of genius are born? Why has every one of us certain faculties stronger than others 1 Truth lies at neither of the extremes, but between the two, and this is what I shall endeavor to prove. I shall consider, under three separate heads, the ideas according to which man acquires his affective and intellectual faculties by education. The first concerns the external senses; the second fortuitous circumstances; and the third, instruction and the external circumstances which are voluntarily prepared.
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1. Of the external Senses as cause of the mental faculties.
The external senses, it is certain, are indispensable to the acquiring of knowledge of the external world, and to the fulfilment of social duties; it is also certain that they are given by nature. But it is only because they are absolutely necessary to our actions that they have been considered as their cause.
This subject has been particularly examined in the first part of this work, and I shall only repeat that the internal faculties are not in proportion to the external senses, and that these are mere intermedia. The hands may be used to take food, to write to a friend, to draw, to play on a musical instrument, &c.; but they do not produce hunger, friendship, drawing, music, &c. Let us observe instead of supposing, and we shall find that the internal faculties are only manifested by means of the external senses and of voluntary motion.
2. Of fortuitous or accidental Circumstances as the cause of our faculties.
The following language is very common:—Necessity makes man act and invent; occasions produce talents; revolutions bring forth great men; danger gives courage; society causes the passions, and these are the principal motives of our actions; climate and food beget powers, &c.; in short, circumstances produce the mental faculties.
Whatever has been said of fortuitous circumstances as the cause of faculties, may be reduced to two considerations: they present the faculties with opportunities necessary to the exhibition of their activity; or they excite the faculties, without, however, originating them.
‘Demosthenes,' says Helvetius, ' became eloquent because the eloquence of Callistratus made so deep an impression on his mind that he aspired only to this talent.' According to the same author, ' Yaucanson became famous in mechanics, because, being left alone in the waiting-room of his mother's confessor, when a child, he chanced to find a clock, and after
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examining its wheels, endeavoring, with a bad knife, to make a similar machine of wood. He succeeded, and therefore constructed his surprising machines, the automatons. Milton would not have written his Paradise Lost, had he not lost his place of secretary to Cromwell. Shakespeare composed his plays because he was an actor; and he became an actor because he was forced to leave his native country on account of some juvenile errors. Corneille fell in love, and made verses to the object of his passion, and therefore became famous in poetry. Newton saw an apple falling, and this revealed to him the law of gravitation, &c.'
In this manner of reasoning the origin of the faculties is confounded either with the opportunity necessary for their manifestation, or with some external excitement. It is evident that external circumstances must permit the internal faculties to act; opportunities, however, do not, therefore, produce faculties. Without food I cannot eat; but I am not hungry because food exists. A dog cannot hunt if it be shut up, but its desire of hunting is not produced by leading it into the fields. Many millions are often placed in the same circumstances, and, perhaps, a single individual alone takes advantage of them. Revolutions make great men, not because they produce faculties, but because they offer opportunities necessary to their display. Circumstances often favor the attainment of distinction and the acquisition of celebrity, but every individual does not reach an eminent place. Bonaparte alone knew how to acquire supremacy over all French generals who rose before and with him. The Revolution of Spain is far from having produced the same results as that of France. It is not certainly enough to be an actor in order to compose such plays as those of Shakespeare. Theatrical performers were almost ranked with slaves, at Rome, yet iEsop and Roscius appeared; whilst in Greece, where this profession was esteemed, no actor of renown is on record. France has produced a greater number of eminent actors than England; yet in the "former country performers were excommunicated and in the latter honored. How many children are exposed to similar influences without
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manifesting the same energy of faculties, while, on the contrary, some individuals not only make use of occasions present, but prepare and produce others which permit their faculties a still greater sphere of activity !
On the other hand, it is true that our faculties are often excited by events, and that without external excitement they would remain inactive. Yet however useful, the study of excellent models may be in the arts, I am still convinced that the principles of every science, art, and profession, are readily conceived by those who possess the faculties each requires in a high degree. This is the case with moral principles and religion also, which are easily developed if the innate conditions on which they depend be possessed.
Society.
Many authors treat of the natural state of man in opposition to his social condition, and consider numerous qualities as the result of society. According to their hypothesis, man is made for solitude; the social state is contrary to his nature; and many of his virtues and vices would never have existed, had he not abandoned his state of isolation.
Excepting certain idiots, however, where, and at what time, has man lived a solitary being? History, so far as it goes, shows that he has always lived in society; in families, at least; and families, though scattered through the woods, form communities. As we find man every where united in societies, then, is it not natural to conclude that he is a social being? Animals, it is necessary to recollect, in regard to the instinct of sociability, are divided into two classes: several species are destined to live in society, as sheep, monkeys, crows, &c.; others to live solitary, as the fox, hare, magpie, &c. Man belongs to the social class. Now we may easily conceive that the social animals are endowed with faculties destined for society, and that these cannot act without it. And every individual is, in fact, generally calculated for society; all his faculties are in harmony with this aim. Bustards and cranes place sentinels; a flock of wild geese forms a triangle in flying; a herd of chamois is led by
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a female; bees act in concert, &c.; and all these peculiarities inhere in animals along with the social instinct. Consequently society is itself a natural institution; a law established by creation; and the faculties of social animals are not the result of society. This proposition is also proved by the fact of social animals having different and often opposite faculties; which if society produce any of them could never happen.
Misery.
Want, that is, some disagreeable sensation, misery, poverty, or painful situation, is often considered as the source of the instincts, propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties of man and animals.
Want, in this signification, certainly excites the internal faculties, but it is not true that it produces them; or else the same external wants ought to create the same faculties in animals and in man: yet we observe that not merely every kind of animal, but even every individual, acts differently under like impressions from without. The partridge dies of hunger and cold during sharp winters, and the sparrow falls benumbed from the housetop, while the nightingale and quail take wing to temperate climes before the season of want arrives. The cuckoo requires a nest to lay its eggs in as well as the wagtail or the redbreast, and yet builds none. The idiot makes no effort to defend himself from the inclemencies of the weather, while the reasonable man covers himself with clothing. Moreover, the faculties of animals and man are active, without any necessity from external circumstances. The beaver, though shut up and protected against the weather, builds its hut; and the weaver bird, though in a cage, makes its tissue. It consequently follows, that external wants excite the activity of the internal faculties, but do not produce them; and in this respect their influence is important. The faculties of the poor, for instance, are more active than those of the affluent; when the faculties, however, have not been given by nature, external wants cannot excite them.
On the other hand, misery exercises innate benevolence and
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improves the softer feelings, whilst riches are prone to excite and encourage lower passions, and in this sense it may be said that the Lord inflicts pain upon those he likes, that is, they grow better; and Jesus Christ condemned riches, yet it remains certain that misery does not produce benevolence.
I have already shown that the expression Want, taken as synonymous with inclination or desire, is the effect and not the cause of the internal faculties; that there are as many wants as different faculties; and that wants are proportionate to the activity of these.
Climate and mode of Living.
Several philosophers have supposed that climate, mode of living, and even the nurse's milk, might be the cause of man's
faculties.
In this manner of thinking, the modifications are confounded with the origin of our faculties. The opinion, however, must be considered. The arguments adduced in support of it only prove that manifestation of the faculties depends on the organization; for climate, eating, drinking, &c. have a powerful influence upon the body. Instead, therefore, of denying the influence of climate, food, air, light, &c. I consider it as of great importance, in as far as the activity of the faculties is concerned. The milk of nurses certainly contributes to the growth and organic constitution of children, and consequently to the manifestation of the affective and intellectual faculties, inasmuch as the body is necessary to this. All these external influences, however, cannot, it is evident, produce any faculty. If parents were right in attributing the inferior propensities of their children to the nourishment they had received, why should not grown-up people, who live on beef, veal, mutton, pork, &c, accuse the ox, calf, sheep, and pig, for their want of intelligence, and their peculiar character? The activity of our faculties varies with the modifications of our organization, just as the milk and butter of cows vary according to the food they live on; or PS the flesh and fat of animals are modified according to the articles with which they are fattened. The activity of
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men fed on game differs much from the activity of men living upon potatoes and other vegetables; and it seems possible to show the influence of different aliments upon certain systems in the healthy state, just as it may be shown that some medicines act more upon one than upon another. From the same reason we may also conceive the utility of certain rules of fasting in subduing sensual appetites. Particular degrees of excitement suppress the activity of certain faculties, while they increase that of others.
Climate certainly exerts a great influence upon the organization, and it is natural to suppose that one contributes more than another to develope certain faculties. The influence of climate is not, however, so powerful on man as on animals; for man, by means of his intellectual faculties, opposes its effects. The Jews are a proof of this. They are dispersed over the whole world, and though somewhat modified in different countries, their primitive and characteristic organization is still every where the same. The effects of innate-ness and of the laws of propagation are much more potent than those of any thing external. In saying, therefore, that climate and food influence the activity of the faculties, this is not to be confounded with their primitive origin.
3. Of prepared Circumstances, and Instruction as the cause of our Faculties.
Having once considered external circumstances as cause of the mental faculties, men naturally thought that to teach arts and sciences, and moral and religious principles, to found academies and schools, to pay large sums to masters, and to studv the works of great men, might be sufficient to produce superior talents.
This opinion must be opposed, by observing:—
i. The Constancy of the Nature of Animals and Man.
Were animals susceptible of change from every impression and not endowed with determinate natures, how comes it that every species always preserves the same characters?
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Why do not fowls coo when they are reared with pigeons? Why do not female nightingales sing like males? Why do birds of one kind, hatched by those of another, display the habits and instincts of their parents? Why does the duck, hatched by a hen, run towards the water? Why does not the cuckoo sing like the bird that reared it? Why do squirrels, when pursued, climb trees, and rabbits hide themselves in burrows % Why are dogs attached in despite of the unkind blows they receive, &c.? It is true that animals are not confined in their actions solely to such as are required for their preservation. They vary their manners according to the circumstances in which they live; and are susceptible of an education beyond their wants. Horses, monkeys, dogs, &c, may be taught to play various tricks. This power, however, of modifying their actions is still limited, and is always conformable to their nature.
The same reasoning applies to man. If his faculties be the result of external influences, why does he never manifest any other nature but his own? Children pass most of their time with mothers and nurses; yet boys and girls, from the earliest infancy, show the distinctive characters which continue and mark them through life.
ii. The Occurrence of Geniuses among Animals and Men. Did animals and men learn all from others, why should individuals, similarly circumstanced in regard to manner of living and instruction, excel the rest? Why should one nightingale sing better than another living in the same wood? Why, amongst a drove of oxen, or horses, is one individual good-tempered and meek, and another ill-natured and savage? M. Dupont de Nemours had a cow which singly knew how to open the gates of an enclosure: none of the herd ever learned to imitate its procedure, but waited impatiently near the entrance for their leader. I have the history of a pointer, which, when kept out of a place near the fire by the other dogs of the family, used to go into the yard and bark; all immediately came and did the same; meanwhile he ran in, and secured the best place. Though his companions were often
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deceived, none of them ever imitated his stratagem. I also knew of a little dog, which, when eating with large ones, behaved in the same manner, in order to secure his portion, or to catch some good bits. These are instances of genius among animals which are by no means the result of instruction.
Children often show particular dispositions and talents before they have received any kind of education. Almost every great man has, in infancy, given earnests of future eminence. Achilles, hidden in Pyrrha's clothes, took the sword from among the presents of Ulysses. Themistocles, when a child, said that he knew how to aggrandize and render a state powerful. Alexander would not dispute any prize at the Olympic games, unless his rivals were kings. At fourteen years of age, Cato of Utica showed the greatest aversion to tyranny. Nero was cruel from his cradle. Pascal, when twelve years old, published his treatise on Conic Sections. Voltaire made verses when only seven years of age. The number of such instances is very great, and it is unnecessary to mention more here, as they must be within the scope of every one's knowledge.
iii. Individualities among Animals and Men.
Individual animals of every species have universally something particular in their mental constitution; every bird of the same brood does not acquire its song with equal facility; one horse is fitter for the race than another; and sportsmen know very well that there is a great difference among dogs. It is the same with the human kind. Children of the same parents differ in talents and disposition, though their education has been the same. How then should the same education possibly produce the peculiarities of different children? Or why have not teachers yet found means to confer understanding, judgment, and all other good qualities? Why are we not all geniuses? Why cannot moral and satirical discourses keep us from abusing our faculties? And why must we lament so many errors and crimes?
To prove that man acquires his affective and intellectual
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faculties by education, some assert that the savages who have been found in the woods, and destitute of all human faculties, resemble beasts only because they have not received any education.
This presumption is refuted as soon as the condition of these unfortunate beings is known. They may be referred to two classes; being ordinarily defective in organization, with large dropsical heads, or brains too small and deformed. They are almost always scrofulous, have hanging lips, a thick tongue, swollen neck, bad general constitution, and an unsteady gait; they are more or less completely idiots, and have commonly been exposed and left to the care of Providence, having been found burdens by their parents. In some countries, the lower classes consider such unhappily-constituted creatures as bewitched, and take no care of them. Idiots too have sometimes a determinate propensity to live alone, and consequently escape to the woods. At Haina, near Mar-bourg, where there is a great hospital, Dr. Gall and I were told, that on sending people to search for some idiots who had escaped, others were found who had fled from different places. We saw a mad woman near Augsburg, who had been found in a wood. At Brunswick we saw a woman also found in a forest, who was incapable of pronouncing a single word. The pretended savage of Aveyron, kept in the institution of the Deaf and Dumb at Paris, is an idiot in a high degree. His forehead is very small, and much compressed in the superior part; his eyes are small, and lie deep in the orbits, and we could not convince ourselves that he hears; for he paid no attention to our calls, nor to the sound of a glass struck behind him. He stands and sits decently, but moves his head and body incessantly from side to side. He knows several written signs and words, and points out tho objects noted by them. His most remarkable instinct, however, is love of order; for, as soon as any thing is displaced in the room, he goes and puts it to rights.
Such unfortunate beings, then, are idiots, not because they are uneducated, but because their imbecility unfits them to receive education. Tt is difficult to conceive a well-organized
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person long wandering about like a savage in our populous countries without being discovered. Were such an individual, however, to escape in infancy, and be afterwards discovered in a forest, though he could not be acquainted with our manners, and the sciences we teach, he would still manifest the essential and characteristic faculties of the human kind, and would soon imitate our customs and receive our instructions. The girl of Champaigne proves this assertion.
Thus, education produces no faculty either in man or in animals; but let us not conclude that education is superfluous. My ideas on education are published in a separate volume, and I only remark here that it excites, exercises, determines the application, and prevents the abuses of the innate faculties; and that on this account it is of the highest importance. Mechanics and peasants, confined to their laborious occupations, are frequently ignorant; but many of them, with a good education, might surpass thousands of those who have enjoyed its advantages.
From the preceding considerations on external circumstances, it results, that they either present opportunities which favor the activity of the faculties, or excite and guide, but do not in any wise produce them.
I shall now consider the share Nature has in originating the powers of man and animals, in the following chapter.
CHAPTER IV.
On the Innateness of the Mental Dispositions.
Let us see now what is innate. The fundamental powers of the mind, as well as the organization on which their manifestations depend, are given to man by the Creator. The constancy of human nature affords the first proof of this position. The human kind, in as far as its history is known, has ever been the same, not only as regards organic, but also as concerns phrenic life. The skeletons of ancient mummies
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are the very same as those of the men at the present day; and all ages have exhibited virtues and vices essentially similar. Thus, the special faculties of man have ever been the same; the only difference observable at different times, is, that they have been more or less active, and variously modified in individuals. Here one has -unjustly seized a piece of ground, there a place of distinction; here mistresses have been celebrated on an oaten-reed, there on a harp; conquerors in one quarter have been decorated with feathers, in another with purple and crowns, and so on; these modifications are, however, all grounded upon primitive faculties essentially the same. And man, though endowed with proper and peculiar faculties, still receives them from creation; the truly human nature is as determinate as the nature of every other being. Though man compares his sensations and ideas, inquires into the causes of phenomena, draws consequences, discovers laws and general principles, measures immense distances and times, and circumnavigates the globe; though he acknowledges culpability and worthiness, bears a monitor in his interior, and raises his mind to conceive and to adore a God,—yet none of the faculties which cause these acts result either from accidental external influences or from his own will. How indeed could the Creator abandon and give man up to chance in the noblest and most important of all his doings? Impossible! Here, as in all besides, he has prescribed laAvs to man, and guided his steps in a determinate path. He has secured the continuance of the same essential faculties in the human kind,—faculties whose existence we should never have conceived had the Creator not bestowed them upon us.
The uniformity of the essential faculties of mankind, notwithstanding the influence of society, climate, modes of living, laws, religion, education, and fortuitous events, affords another great proof that nothing can change the institutions of nature. We every where find the same species; whether man clothe himself or go naked, fight with slings or artillery, stain his skin, or powder his hair, dance to the sound of a drum or the music of a concert, adore the sun, moon, and
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stars, or in his religion be guided by Christian principles, his special faculties are universally the same.
I have also spoken of genius, in order to prove that education does not produce our faculties, and mentioned that children often show peculiar faculties before they have received any kind of instruction. External circumstances are sometimes very unfavorable to the exhibition of genius; but gifted individuals do not always wait for opportunities, they even make them, and leave parents, professions, and all behind, to be at liberty to follow their natural inclinations. Moses, David, Tamerlane, and Pope Sixtus the Eifth, were shepherds; Socrates, Pythagoras, Theophrastus, Demosthenes, Molière, Rousseau, and a thousand others, who have lived to adorn the world, were the sons of artificers. Geniuses sometimes surmount great difficulties, and vanquish innumerable impediments, before their character prevails and they assume their natural place. Such individuals, prevented by circumstances from following their natural bent, still find their favorite amusement in pursuing it. Hence peasants, shepherds, and artisans, have become astronomers, poets, and philosophers; and, on the other hand, kings, and prime ministers, employed themselves in the mechanical arts; all, indeed, unites to prove the innateness of the primitive mental faculties.
Men of genius, however, have been said to form a particular class, and to be incomparable with persons whose faculties are of middling excellence.
This, however, is the same as saying that hunger and circulation do not depend on organization, because all have not immoderate appetite and fever; or that the mole does not see with its eyes, because the stag sees better; or that man has no smell, since the dog's is superior. But, if we admit that organization causes the highest degree of activity of the different faculties, the lowest degree must also depend on it. Moreover, the greatest genius in one particular is often very weak in others. William Crotch, at six years of age, astonished all who heard him by his musical talents; but in every other respect he was a child. Csesar could never have become
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a Horace or a Virgil, nor Alexander a Homer. Newton could not have been changed into so great a poet as he was an astronomer; nor Milton into so great an astronomer as he was a poet. ISFay, Michael Angelo could not have composed the pictures of Raphael, or the contrary; nor Albano those of Titian, and so on.
The mental faculties again must be innate, since, although essentially the same in both sexes, they present modifications in each. Some are more energetic in women, others in men. The feelings are, in general, stronger in women, the intellectual faculties more active in men. These modifications inhere naturally, and it is impossible to give to one sex the dispositions of the other.
We may add, that in every nation, notwithstanding the uniformity of its opinions, customs, professions, arts, sciences, laws, religion, and all its positive institutions, each individual composing it differs from every other by some peculiarity of character. Each has greater capacity and inclination in one than in another direction, and even in childhood manifests his own manner of thinking and feeling. Every one excuses his frailties by saying, It is my nature; it is stronger than I; I cannot help it, &c. Even brothers and sisters often differ extremely, though their education is uniform. The cause of difference must, therefore, be internal.
The innateness of the faculties must also be admitted, because there is a direct relation between their manifestations and a certain organic apparatus.
Finally, if we believe that man is a being of creation, it is only rational to suppose that his faculties are determinate and ordained. I consequently, with all these considerations in view, contend for the innateness of every faculty of the mind. But here it is of importance to notice an observation of Locke upon innateness. He, to show that ideas are not innate, stated that children do not manifest certain qualities, and that different nations have different, nay, opposite principles of morality. This position, however, in relation to the innateness of ideas and moral principles, must not be con-
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founded with the innateness of the faculties. ~No sensation, no idea, no principle, is innate. Sensations and ideas of external objects follow from external impressions, and these being accidental, ideas of them cannot be innate; but the faculties which perceive impressions, and conceive ideas, are innate. Thus the idea of a stone, plant, or animal, is not innate; but these objects make impressions on the senses, which produce sensations or ideas in the mind, and both the senses and the mental faculties are innate. In the same manner, sensations and ideas of external and accidental events, and, in general, determinate actions of the faculties, are not innate. The propensity to love, and not the object of love; the faculty of speaking, not the peculiar language; the faculty of comparing and judging, not the determinate judgment; the faculty of poetry, not the particular poem, &c, is innate. There is, therefore, a great difference between innate faculties and innate ideas and sensations.
It is also true that children do not manifest all the faculties, but we cannot from this conclude that these are not innate. Birds do not make nests, the hamster and marmot do not collect provisions, the swallow does not migrate immediately after birth; neither do animals propagate, nor females give suck, when they come into the world; yet all these qualities are innate. This diffictüty is easily explained. Every faculty has its own organ, in proportion to whose development are its manifestations. Now in childhood several organs are very little, and in adult age very greatly developed; and while some are proportionately larger in children than in the grown-up, others are fully developed in both. The manifestations of the faculties being, as I have stated, always proportionate to the development and activity of their organs, it becomes evident why some of them do not appear in infancy.
Why moral principles differ in different nations is also obvious. I agree with Locke that they are not innate, but maintain that the faculties which form them are. I shall afterwards show that moral principles depend on several faculties, and vary in nations in consequence of different
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combinations of their organs; the justice of a libertine without benevolence and veneration must differ entirely from that of a charitable, modest, and continent person. The same fundamental faculties exist every where, but their manifestations are universally modified. Men every where adore a Supreme Being; they every where have marks of honor and of infamy; there are every where masters and servants; all nations make war, whether with clubs and arrows, or with muskets and artillery; and every where the dead are lamented, and their remembrance cherished, whether it be by embalming their bodies, by putting their ashes into an urn, or by depositing their remains in the tomb. Hence, though the functions of the faculties in general are modified in different nations, and of those consequently which determine the moral principles also, the same fundamental powers still appear in the customs, manners, and laws of all.
An essential part of the study of man, therefore, is to show that his nature is determinate, that all his faculties are innate, and that nature's first prerogative is to maintain the number and the essence of his special powers, whilst she permits many modifications of the functions of all, in the same way precisely as she preserves species, but continually sacrifices individuals.
The second right of nature is to allow more or less activity to individual faculties in different persons; that is, she endows all with the same faculties, but gives them in very different degrees. Some few are geniuses, but the majority are middling in all respects. Nature then produces genius, and the individual dispositions of every one.
Finally, nature has stamped a difference tipon the sexes: some faculties are more active in women, others in men. Men will never feel like women, and women will never think like men.
These are facts which observation proves. Philosophers, therefore, can only examine how nature produces such phenomena, and see whether it is possible to imitate and to assist her.
Thus, the principle of Phrenology—that the faculties of the mind are innate—is indubitable.
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SECTION IV.
The Brain is indispensable to mental phenomena.
After having seen what nature does in man, let us inquire into the means by which she effects it. Religious people commonly believe in a mere supernatural dispensation of gifts; but there cannot be a doubt of natural causes also contributing to produce the phenomena of mind.
I may follow the example of other natural philosophers, and confine myself to proving a relation between the body and the manifestations of the mind, or, I may endeavor to determine the special powers of the mind and the respective organs. This latter task has been accomplished by Phrenology. Here I shall only show, in a summary way, how reasoning coincides with observation. It is important duly to appreciate my expressions upon this subject: I do not say that the organization produces the affective and intellectual faculties of man's mind, as a tree brings forth fruit, or an animal procreates its kind; I only say that organic conditions are necessary to the manifestations of mind.
I never venture beyond experience; and therefore consider the faculties of the mind only in as far as they become apparent by the organization. Neither denying nor affirming any thing which cannot be verified by experiment, T make no researches on the lifeless body nor on the soul alone, but on man as a living agent. I never question what the affective and intellecttial faculties may be in themselves, do not attempt to explain how the body and soul are united and exercise a mutual influence, nor examine what the soul can effect without the body. The soul may be united to the body at the moment of conception or afterwards; it may be different in every individual, or be of the same kind in all; it may be an emanation from God, or something else. Whatever metaphysicians and theologians may decide in regard to these various points, the position, that manifestations of the faculties of the mind depend, in this life, on organization, cannot be shaken. Let us then consider the proofs which reasoning affords of this principle of Phrenology.
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i. Difference of the Sexes.
The faculties of the mind are modified in the sexes: some are more energetic in men, others in women. Do then the souls of men and women differ, or is it more probable, that the faculties are modified because their organs or instruments vary? Phrenology shows that certain parts of the brain are more developed in men, others more in women; and thus renders the peculiarities in the mental manifestations of each, easily explicable. There are, however, many instances in which the intellectual faculties of women resemble those of men, and the contrary.
ii. Individuality of every Person.
The mental faculties are modified in every individual. Now, is it probable that the soul differs universally, or is it more likely, that as the whole human kind has descended from an original pair, all modifications of the faculties may be explained by differences in the organs on which each respectively depends? Like species of animals, and man also, have essentially the same corporeal structure; there is merely difference of proportion and development in the various parts of which the body is composed; and these differences in the organs produce corresponding varieties in the functions attached to them.
iii. Ages.
Mental manifestations are modified by age. Either the soul, or its instruments, therefore, must produce these modified manifestations. It is ascertained that certain faculties appear early in life, or at a later period, according as the peculiar organs of each are developed.
The same law holds in both affective and intellectual faculties: the manifestations of all are not simultaneous. Several of both orders appear in infancy, others not before maturer years; several, too, disappear earlier, whilst others endure till the end of life. Now as we know that manifes-
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tations of the mental powers always accord with certain organic conditions, it is impossible to overlook their dependence on organization.
iv. Influence of Physical Conditions.
All that disorders, weakens, or excites the organization of the nervous system, influences especially the manifestation of the mental faculties also. It is generally observed that organs are enfeebled if their growth be very rapid; their functions too, are, in consequence, less energetic. This is chiefly remarkable in the climateric years, or periods of increase; a knowledge of which is so very important in practical medicine. Vegetables are known to increase particularly at two periods; in the spring, and in the middle of summer. The growth of the human body is also more rapid at certain times than at others. Now rapid growth weakens the organs, both of vegetative and animal life, and consequently the functions they perform respectively. Girls who grow too suddenly turn pale, chlorotic, and consumptive, &c. Individuals, therefore, during the periods of growth, are not fit for active business, and ought not to exercise their intellectual faculties much. Rest is necessary till the organs acquire maturity, when all the faculties of the mind and body will resume their energy. Organs of particular faculties aro occasionally too soon developed, and are then apt to be exercised overmuch. Incurable exhaustion often results from this, and early genius is nipped in the bud.
Adult men and animals are still subjected to variable degrees of excitement from seasons, temperature, food, and especially from particular laws to which the organization is subjected. We see animals resume and abandon at different periods, their instinct to sing, to build, to gather provisions, to live solitarily or in society, to migrate, &c.; and the faculties of man do not always act with the same degree of energy. Who can overlook the influence of such evacuations as the catamenia, hemorrhoids, &c.; or of pregnancy, digestion, fasting, and whatever exhausts the corporeal powers? Who can deny the effects of disease upon the manifestation of our
DEPENDENCE OF THE MENTAL PHENOMENA 427
faculties; or of external and internal excitements, as of agreeable impressions, fine weather, music, dancing, &c.? Now all these act upon the organization only; manifestation of the mental faculties consequently depends on the organization.
Exceedingly defective mental powers have been known to grow very active when excited by external or internal causes. Haller relates the case of an idiot, who happening to be wounded on the head, manifested great understanding so long as the wound remained open, but who, as soon as this healed up, fell into his former stupidity. He speaks of another patient whose eye being inflamed, saw perfectly during the night whilst the inflammation lasted. Eather Mabillan, in his infancy, gave little promise of superior abilities; but, having received a blow on his head, he, from that moment, displayed talents. I have heard of a boy, who, at the age of fourteen, seemed incapable of improvement; having fallen down stairs one day, however, and got several wounds in his head, he afterwards began to excel in his studies. I have seen a girl, nine years old, whose right arm grew gradually weak and almost paralytic, in consequence of a blow on the same side of the head; her lower jaw trembled incessantly, and she was often convulsed; but her intellectual faculties had acquired great energy and perfection; her whole deportment indeed, was exceedingly imposing. I shall mention only one other case of this kind from the Edinburgh Review,* in an article upon the Retreat, an institution near York for insane persons of the Society of Eriends: ' A young woman, who was employed as a domestic servant by the father of the relater when he was a boy, became insane, and, at length, sunk into a state of perfect idiocy. In this condition she remained for many years, when she was attacked by a typhus fever; and my friend, having then practised some time, attended her. He was surprised to observe, as the fever advanced, a development of the mental powers. During that period of the fever when others are delirious, this patient was
* No. XLV. p. 197.
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entirely rational. She recognised, in the face of her medical attendant, the son of her old master, whom she had known so many years before, and she related many circumstances -respecting his family and others, which had happened to herself in her earlier days. But, alas! it was only the gleam of reason: as the fever abated, clouds again enveloped the mind; she sunk into her former deplorable state, and remained in it until her death, which happened a few years afterwards.' These facts are positive, and there can be no doubt of similar causes influencing the faculties of the mind surprisingly; yet they can only act immediately upon the organization. We must perforce conclude, that when physical and organic causes excite the most impudent lascivious-ness, the most arrogant pride, despair which rejects all consolation, and so on, these various manifestations depend on the organization.
v. Sleeping and Dreaming.
The states of watching, sleeping, and dreaming, also prove the manifestations of the mind dependent on organization; for corporeal organs can alone be fatigued and exhausted. Wow it is known that mental operations cannot be continued incessantly, that rest is indispensable, and that a regular recurrence of that inactive state of the mental faculties called sleep, is necessary to enable them to display their perfect energies.
If single organs be by any cause excited, and enter into action while the others are inactive, partial sensations and ideas, or dreams, arise. Dreams, then, are almost always the result of certain material causes, and are conformable to the age and organic constitution of the dreamer. Men and women of an irritable habit of body, find difficulties and endless impediments in their dreams, and generally suffer pain, and feel anxiety and alarm. This constant relation between dreams and bodily frame, which has been verified by an infinity of observations, proves further that the mental manifestations depend on organization.
DEPENDENCE OF THE MENTAL PHENOMENA 429
vi. Exercise.
The possibility of exercising and of training the faculties of the mind, also shows their dependence on the organization; for that an immaterial being can be exercised is inconceivable.
vii. Relation between the Brain and the manifestations of the Mind.
The preceding arguments are founded on reasoning, and prove that all manifestations of the mind depend on organic conditions. In the first part of this work it is demonstrated, that individual faculties manifest themselves by means of particular cerebral parts, and that the faculties appear, increase in strength, and diminish in vigor, in proportion as the organs on which they depend are developed, increase in size, and shrink again. The brain of the new born child scarcely shows any traces of fibres; these appear, become firmer by degrees, and attain perfection between the twentieth and fortieth year. As years accumulate, its convolutions, which had been plump, become flabby, and are less closely packed together.
In conformity with the state of the brain at birth, animal life is confined to spontaneous motions, to the perception of hunger and thirst, to some obscure sensation of pain and pleasure, and to an imperfect state of the external senses. By degrees the number and energy of the affective and intellectual faculties augment, and the child begins to acquire knowledge and determinate ideas of external objects. Through the periods of boyhood and adolescence the faculties gradually gain strength; and, in manhood, they at length manifest the greatest degree of energy. From this state of perfection, however, they soon begin to decline; and, in extreme old age, the propensities are blunted, the sentiments weakened, and the intellectual faculties almost or entirely annihilated.
If the organs of the faculties, however, do not follow the usual order of increase, but be either precocious or tardy, their respective functions are also manifested with corresponding
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variations. If the intellectual faculties are often more energetic in rickety children than beseems their age, their brains will also be found extraordinarily developed or irritable. Independently of all disease, however, particular portions of the brain are occasionally developed at too early a period, and then their functions likewise appear prematurely.
On the other hand, when parts of the brain or its whole mass arrives very late at maturity, the mental imperfections of childhood remain longer than usual, sometimes till about the tenth or twelfth year, so that parents despair of the rationality of their children. After this age, however, the cerebral organs will often take on a particular growth, and the faculties then appear with great vigor. One of the most distinguished physicians at Berlin, when ten years old, could not use his organs of speech, and Gessner, at the same age, had made such slender progress in his studies, that his preceptor declared him half an idiot; yet it is known how famous he became afterwards.
If the growth of the cerebral organs be incomplete, the faculties of the mind are equally defective. It is impossible to determine with exactness the degree of organic development necessary to the due manifestation of the mental powers; for this depends not on the size of the organs alone, but on their peculiar constitution also. A very small brain, however, is always accompanied with imbecility.
Children have sometimes the same organic constitution of brain as their parents, and then manifest precisely similar affective and intellectual faculties. Characteristic forms of head are often transmitted from generation to generation; and thus are mental faculties propagated in families during centuries. It is an acknowledged fact, that children who resemble each other, or their parents, manifest similar faculties, making allowances for difference of age and sex. I have seen twin-boys so like each other that it was almost impossible to distinguish them; their inclinations and talents were also strikingly similar. Two other twin sisters are very different; the muscular system in the one being most developed,
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the nervous in the other; and while the first has little understanding, the second is eminently talented.
To conclude this point, I say that, as the peculiar organs of the affective and intellectual faculties can positively be demonstrated, it is impossible to deny the dependence of mental phenomena on the organization.
The principle of Phrenology, therefore, that the manifestations of the affective and intellectual faculties of the mind depend on the brain, is also ascertained.
SECTION V.
Practical Considerations.
In every science the theoretical must be distinguished from the practical part. The former considers principles, the latter applies them. Both, however, must be in harmony with each other. Saying that experience contradicts a theory, only means that the theory was inexact, and not founded on sufficient experience. But it does not indicate that no theory or principle should be established. Farther, I think with Socrates, that knowing and acting ought to be inseparable, and that useful knowledge is alone worth attending to; no philosophy, therefore, which cannot be applied in social life deserves to have a student. The knowledge of the human mind is interesting to physicians in reference to insanity, and to teachers and legislators in determining the means of perfecting mankind. I have treated these subjects in separate volumes; I shall here add some considerations which concern us in our social intercourse, and which may contribute to further general happiness.
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CHAPTER I.
On the Modifications of the Affective and Intellectual Functions.
In philosophy it is commonly admitted, that the world is different to every species of animals, and even to every individual of the same species. This is easily understood, when we consider that all the beings of nature are in relation one to another, and that these, endowed with consciousness, recognise this; in other terms, perceive various impressions made on them by other beings. Now, it is evident that each must perceive impressions in proportion to the number and energy of its sentient faculties. Hence it results that the world differs to different species of animals; that it is essentially the same, but modified to individuals of the same kinds; and that man, who unites all the faculties distributed among the other living tribes, and possesses some peculiarly and alone, has, so to speak, the most extended world, though this be still modified to individuals, as it is among animals of the same species.
I shall now investigate the modifications of the faculties more in detail. First, then, the manifestations of every faculty are greatly modified in different kinds of beings. This appears from the functions of those faculties, both of vegetative and animal life, which are common to man and animals. The liver secretes bile, the kidneys secrete urine, the salivary glands saliva, &c.; yet these secretions vary in different kinds of animals; and are even modified in individuals of the same species. The power of motion is modified in different kinds of animals, and the consistence, texture, and taste of its organs, the muscles, also vary. The external senses offer modifications according to species and individuals. Now, are the faculties attached to the brain also modified in different animals?
If we examine their applications, there can remain no doubt of it. The function of the cerebellum must be modified in every species, because the individuals of each prefer
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others of their own kind. Sometimes also it is quite inordinate. Modifications of philoprogenitiveness are not less certain. Animals love the young of their own more than those of other kinds. Inhabitiveness must be modified in animals which live in the water, on dry land, in the air, and at greater or less elevations. Adhesiveness presents many modifications in solitary and in social animals. Destruc-tiveness and constructiveness are much modified; all animals do not kill in one way, and the nests of all birds are not built in the same manner. The song of birds, and the instinct to migrate, are modified universally. Similar observations might readily be made in regard to the whole of the propensities, sentiments, and intellectual faculties. Thus it is certain that all are modified both in species and in individuals. Nay, it seems to me that there are idiosyncrasies of all the mental functions, as well as of digestion and the external senses. Certain stomachs do not digest some particular substances; some individuals cannot bear certain odors, savors, colors, and sounds; and some cannot endure certain modes of feeling or thinking, certain successions of tones, of ideas, and so on. The same thing is approved or disapproved of by different people according to the manner in which it is proposed.
Another cause of the modified manifestations of the faculties is their mutual influence. I only consider the human kind at present. It is indubitable that if two or more persons do the same thing, it will be done in a modified way by every one. Inasmuch as the faculties are essentially the same, the same actions are observed in all mankind: nay, in as far as nations have similar predominating faculties, there prevails a certain analogy in their actions and manners, because these are effects of the special faculties and their combinations; it is only their modifications and different combinations that produce varieties in action. Every faculty may act combined with one, or two, or more. The number of binary, ternary, and more multiplied combinations is, therefore, immense, especially if it be remembered that each may be modified in itself, and may be more or less energetic.
28
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As this subject, however, is of the highest importance in anthropology, and indispensable to the elucidation of my ideas, I shall treat it somewhat in detail, and choose examples easily understood, and interesting to every one.
Physical love alone, combined with adhesiveness, philo-progenitiveness, benevolence and veneration, or with the propensities to fight and to destroy, acts very differently. Two affectionate mothers, of whom the one has philoprogenitive-ness combined with much self-esteem, much firmness, a great propensity to fight, and little benevolence; and the second, philoprogenitiveness combined with adhesiveness, benevolence, veneration, and very little self-esteem and propensity to fight, will love their children in very different manners. Determinate or individual justice varies extremely. Justice gives laws universally, but these are modified according to the particular and combined faculties of legislators. What a difference in the characters of Lycurgus and Solon; but what a difference in their precepts also !
Man universally believes in one or several Gods; but what a difference between the Gods of different nations, and even of different men! The Gods seem to be every where represented with faculties conformable to those of the nations by whom they are adored, or of the religious legislators who have commanded in their name. The sages of the Orient thought God the centre of light and the source of all wisdom: but the Scythes took him for a valiant hero, constantly armed and occupied with battles. The ancient Egyptians supposed their Supreme Divinity to have little eyes, brown skin and dark hair, whilst the natives in the North fancied him to be of exceedingly white complexion with blue eyes and fair long hair. The Caffres imagined him to be black with a broad flat forehead. The God of the Jews, particularly of Joshua, and the Deity of the true Christian, are extremely modified. If different individuals, even of the same religion, be asked their opinion about God, we observe great diversities. St. Peter and St. John speak, the former with fear, the latter with meekness and love, of the same Christian Deity. The holy spirit did not so guide the Apostles as to suspend the
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peculiarities of their minds. If we examine the opinions of the reformers, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others, do we not always observe the faculties of the individuals? Who, for instance, finds not in the principles of Melancthon, the mildness and moderation of his character? A person endowed with veneration, combined with charity, attachment, and understanding, without pride, destructiveness, and amativeness, will establish a system of religious observance quite different from his who is endowed with veneration combined with covetiveness, pride, amativeness, and destructive-ness, without charity and understanding. Every one who dares to think for himself, interprets the Bible according to his own feelings. The ambitious contrives to find in it doctrines which favor his love of dominion; the timid discovers a gloomy system; and the mystical and fanatical finds a visionary theology.
The Evil Spirit or Devil, too, was represented with forms quite opposite to those of God. The Romans, Celtic nations and Germans saw him black, whilst the ancient Egyptians painted their Typhon with a red beard and similar hair, almost as the Germans formed their good principle.
Music is different in every nation. We easily distinguish that of the Italians, Germans, French, Scots, &c. Even the music of each composer offers something particular, and connoisseurs distinguish that of Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, and others. It is the same with painting. All painters are colorists, but there is a difference in their modes of coloring; and every one as regularly prefers certain colors as subjects. Hence the difference in the pictures of Titian, Rembrandt, Paul Veronese, Albano, and others. The canvas of Titian shows reflection and combination; that of Paul Veronese his fondness for architecture; Albano again betrays his amorous inclination; and so of the rest. The same object, represented by various masters of painting, will always show the peculiarities of every artist's mind. How different, for instance, the Virgins of Raphael, Correggio, Guido, Titian, Murillo, Carlo Dolce, Caravaggio, Rubens, &c.
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The languages of different nations present fine examples of modifications produced by the mutual influence of the faculties. I even admit as a principle, that the spirit of its language proclaims the predominating faculties of a nation. I have spoken of a faculty which learns and knows the signs invented by the superior intellectual faculties, to express the feelings and ideas. It is evident, therefore, that a nation with many feelings or ideas must have many signs, and that the number of any one kind of these indicates the energy of the faculty they represent. Thus, the Greek and French languages have a greater number of tenses than the German and English. The French, on the contrary, is poor in expressions of reflection and of sentiment; moreover, it has few that are figurative; while the German is rich in all of these, and has also many more signs of disjunction. Frenchmen have the organs of individuality and eventuality very much developed, and are therefore fond of facts; but their faculties of comparison and causality are commonly smaller. In consequence of this, the French Institute does not admit analogies as proofs; these consist according to it only in facts. The Germans, on the other hand, are fond of analogies, perhaps too much so, for they compare and wish to explain every thing. French expressions are individual, without any comparison; therefore, similar sounds denote many different objects. From this it appears that the discriminating faculties are not very active in Frenchmen. The same deficiency is evident in the very different names they give to very similar objects. The German and English tongues are more systematic than the French. The common language of Germany is even conformable to the system of Linnasus. Whilst the French say, bouvreuil, chardonneret, pinson, &c, the Germans and English preserve the generic name finie, or finch, and join to it a sign of distinction. In the same way, while the French say, rasoir, couteau, canif, serpette, &c.; in German and English the generic name messer or knife is retained, and a sign of particular destination affixed, as feder-messer, or pen-knife; tafel-messer, or table-knife; &c. For this reason also, the number of roots of the French lan-
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS 437
guage is much more considerable, though that of its words be much smaller than those of the German. Another proof that the French language is very unsystematic, lies in the fact of its very often having a substantive without its derivative adjective, or the contrary, to designate the same idea. These illustrations show the evident influence of the faculties generally, in establishing languages. Thus the number and nature of signs is in relation to the special powers of the mind which invent them. The faculties of individuality and eventuality being the first active in children, we may understand why nouns and vei'bs are soonest employed, and constitute almost the whole artificial language of infancy; and why all words may be reduced etymologically to these signs. By degrees, as other faculties become active, other significations of signs are discovered, even though their roots remain the
The construction of languages proves also the modified manners of thinking of different nations. The French like facts, and direct their attention to them, without first considering causes. It is natural, indeed, to begin with the subject, then to join the action of the subject, and after this to express other circumstances. This the French do regularly. If cause and effect be considered, they always begin with the effect, and relate the cause afterwards. The Germans proceed in a very different manner, and their tongue in this respect requires much more attention than the French. It also ordinarily begins with the subject; then follow expressions of the relation between subject and object, both of which are mentioned; and lastly, the action of the subject upon the object is considered. If an effect and its cause, again, are spoken of, the cause is commonly denoted first and the effect after it. Certain languages are known to admit of a great number of inversions, others of very few. The former appear to me the more logical; for it seems natural that attention should be given first to the most important object. The French language begins almost always with the fact: hence French understandings consider the fact as the most important.
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From these observations upon language, we may conceive that the spirit of no one language can become general. I am of opinion that the spirit of the French will never please Germans; and that Frenchmen, on the other hand, will always dislike that of the German; because the manner of thinking, and the enchainment of ideas, are quite dissimilar in the two nations.
I am farther convinced that different philosophical systems have resulted from various combinations of faculties in their authors. He who has much of the faculty of eventuality will never neglect facts. He who possesses less of it, and a great deal of the faculties of comparison and causality, will begin to philosophize with causes, and construct the world, instead of observing its existence. He, on the contrary, in whom the faculty of causality is less active, will reject this mode of consideration, and may think it unphilosophical to admit a primitive cause. Another who has individuality very small may doubt of external existence. The philosopher in whom the superior sentiments are very energetic, directs his mind principally to moral principles, and then we have various systems of virtue and morality, according to the predominance of one or other of these. One makes virtue consist in prudence, another in benevolence. One considers all actions as done from love of praise or from vanity; another from self-esteem, from love of self-preservation, self-interest and so on. Philosophers as well as other men think differently, and each is also apt to consider his own manner of thinking and feeling as the best; his consciousness tells him it is so; but every one errs who assumes himself as a measure of the absolute nature of man. In examining human nature, we ought to make abstraction of ourselves entirely; we ought never to admit in man a feeling as the strongest, and a manner of thinking as the best, solely because they are conformable to our own; nor ought we ever to deny in others w7hat we ourselves do not possess. We should observe mental phenomena in the conviction that all the essential kinds, or particular faculties inhere in human nature; and we should observe how and under what cir-
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cumstances each faculty can and does act. In this way I think it possible to determine the absolute nature of man, and to become acquainted with the infinity of modifications occurring in individuals.
It would be easy to quote examples in the case of every faculty, to prove the mutual influence of the whole; but I shall only dwell on this principle, in reference to abuses of the faculties, for the sake of showing how peculiarities may be explained which seem inconceivable to those who know nothing of Phrenology.
Suppose, for instance, we are told that of two inveterate thieves presented to us, one has never scrupled to rob churches whilst the other has, the robber of the church may be distinguished from the other: he who has the smallest organ of veneration is the thief of the holy articles. Suppose we see two women in confinement, and are told that one has stolen, and that the other has concealed the stolen things; the former will have the organ of acquisitiveness larger, and that of the propensity to conceal less, while the second will have the organ of secretiveness much developed. If we would detect the chief of a robber band, we examine the organs of self-esteem and determinateness. We may distinguish an habitual vagabond thief from a coiner of false money by his having, besides the organ of acquisitiveness, the organ of locality larger, and smaller organs of cautiousness and of constructiveness. We may also distinguish dangerous and incorrigible criminals from the less desperate and more easily amended. They who have the organs of the sentiments proper to man and of intellect very small, but those of the propensities to fight, to destroy, to conceal, and to acquire, verv much developed, will be corrected with far more difficulty than such as have the organ of acquisitiveness very much developed, but at the same time the organs of the human faculties and of intellect large, who, in short, are susceptible of moral will.
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CHAPTER II.
On the difficulty of judging others.
Having examined the modified manifestations of the faculties of the miiid, natural order leads me to consider the difficulty of judging, and of determining the motives and actions of others. From the preceding views it follows, first, that the judgment of every one as well as all his other functions must be modified. If we but attend to the judgments of different individuals upon the same object, if we note their reflections, and consider what each praises or blames, we may speedily be convinced by experience of the truth of this. It may, indeed, be admitted as a principle, that every one judges according to tlie natural modifications and the mutual influence of his faculties ;—that all judge others by their own nature, or taie -themselves as the measure of good and evil. Therefore it is that God has at all times been anthropomor-phosed; every one has modified the Divinity, and conceived a Creator confo unable to his own manner of judging and feeling. And when philosophers, moralists, and the virtuous, regard conscience as the severest judge of malefactors generally, they suppose in these degenerate beings the sentiment they feel themselves;—they judge themselves in the actions of others. In the same way, whatever is conformable to our manner oif feeling and thinking is apt to be approved, and the contrary- to be disapproved of. To judge well, therefore, we must first distinguish the common nature of man from the modifications of every individual; and then we must know our own nature and the modifications of our faculties to avoid censuring or lauding others according to our own favorite sentiments or ideas. We must, in fact, judge others and ourselves by one and the same standard— absolute good and evil.
It is also difficult to judge of the actions of others, and determine their ieal motives, because the motives of the same action may be quite different. Appearances are proverbially deceitful. I shall quote but a few examples in illustration ;
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a very superficial glance, however, will, at all times, show us many motives for the same act done by different individuals. One gives to the poor from ostentation, another from duty, a third from the hope of gaining heaven,* and others again from real charity. One wishes to know the history and situation of the unfortunate,—if he be of his sect or party, &c, before he does good; another relieves as soon as he sees misery, every one is his neighbor, his left hand knows not Avhat his right hand does. One goes to church because it is usual; another to see or to be seen; another to obtain the good opinion of the pious; and another from feelings of sincere veneration. One is neat and clean only when he goes into society, while another is so at all times, even in solitude. One cultivates an art or science from vanity; another because he is charmed with it; and a third because he finds it advantageous, &c.
It is the same with the abstaining from abuses. One, for instance, from charity does not steal; another steals every where except in the house where he lives; another robs churches, but not the poor; another does not steal, for fear of being punished, for fear of injuring his reputation, or from a sense of duty and justice, &c. In short, every one knows that the same action he did, or abstained from, has not always followed from the same motive. Thus, if an action or omission is to be judged, it is necessary to consider whether it resulted from the natural energy or inactivity of the respective facility, or whether other faculties exerted a determinative influence. In judging others, we must remember that every faculty may be active by its own energy or by the excitement of other powers, and, again, may be inactive by its own insufficient energy, or by the influence of other faculties. Hence it follows, that, on one hand, every function does not suppose large developement of the respective organ; and, on the other, that organs may be greatly developed without producing abuses. The organ of acquisitiveness may be very large without causing theft; the organ of amativeness much developed without occasioning libertinism; and so of the rest. The functions of very large organs
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may be suppressed, though certainly not without difficulty. The activity of every organ only produces a particular inclination; the faculties mutually influence each other, and regulate their subordination. Thus we cannot judge of other persons from our own sentiments and intellectual endowments, nor by one or several, but by the whole of their facilities together; and then only censure or praise their actions as they disagree or harmonize with the absolute moral nature of man.
The principle that every faculty may be active by its internal energy, answers the question so often proposed in books: What is the origin of the arts and sciences? In examining their source, writers commonly begin from remote antiquity, and endeavor to show how external circumstances have produced and improved them. Without denying the importance of external circumstances as exciting causes, I still think that the most important, the primary cause, indeed, is overlooked; that, namely, which exists in the connate organization; the same, in fact, as that of the instinctive labors of animals. Man invents and cultivates arts and sciences in the same way and for the same reason that the beaver builds its hut, and the nightingale sings. Every sentiment and every intellectual faculty may act by its internal activity without external excitement; and this is the primitive source of the arts and sciences. Scarcely could Handel speak, before he articulated musical sounds, and his father, grieved at the child's propensity to music, banished all musical instruments from his house; but this sublime genius was not to be extinguished by the caprice of a mistaken parent; for the boy contrived to get a little clavichord into a garret, and applying himself to this after the family retired to rest, he soon learnt to produce both melody and harmony.
Nature, then, invented arts and sciences, and revealed them to man by means of his organization. Arts and sciences are also gradually perfected only in proportion as they who cultivate them are possessed of energetic organs.
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Inferences.
The consideration of the two sources of activity of the faculties leads me to the following question: What actions in reference to morality deserve the greatest confidence, those which result from the goodness of nature, or those which are the effect of virtue? Though I think that good is always good in itself, and must ever be approved of, I still allow that there is greater merit in virtue than in natural goodness. I agree with the definition of virtue which all the great ancient and modern philosophers have given, as Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Kant, and others. I admit that those who have vanquished temptations deserve particularly to be rewarded, and that by the possibility of being either virtuous or vicious, our actions have the greatest merit or demerit. Nevertheless, T confess that for my own part and guidance in society, I trust more to natural goodness than to virtue. I love goodness and esteem virtue. Guided by early experience, which shows that the greatest number of persons act more from the dictates of their propensities and sentiments than of their understanding and moral will, I never choose for my intimate friends individuals in whom the inferior organs are very large, and the superior very small. In the same way I think, that if the intellectual faculties act by their internal energy, they effect much more than if they be excited by sentiments or motives emanating from any other source. From the modifications of our faculties results still another very important practical rule—indulgence. It is impossible that others should feel and think on every point as we do. Precisely as it is generally admitted, that the functions of the external senses cannot be altogether the same, and without any modification—and as it is proverbially said, De gusiïbus non est disputandum, so also are the internal faculties modified, and no one has a right to desire another to feel and think with him. A certain indulgence is indispensable in society. I do not maintain that every manner of feeling and thinking, and every action, are to be tolerated.
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There is a common touchstone for all mankind. Feelings, thoughts, and actions, must be conformable to the absolute conscience of man; but all other modifications ought to be permitted. This principle may be applied to both sexes, and to all conditions, and to all ages; no friendship can be permanent without indulgence upon many modifications in the manner of feeling and thinking. It is the same in regard to religious and other opinions. St. Paul said to the Romans, ' One believeth that he may eat all things; another, who is weak, eateth herbs; let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not, and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth. One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. The kingdom of God is not meat nor drink, but righteousness and peace.'
SECTION VI.
Explanation of different Philosophical Expressions.
Nothing is more vague than the language of philosophy. Many expressions have several significations, and almost every term in use has been invented to designate actions, and not the faculties which produce them. To make this difference felt I shall collect several of the most common words, and in one column give their usual signification, in another their explanation according to the fundamental faculties, referring the reader to the passages either in the physiological or in the philosophical part of this work, in which the terms as they occur are more particularly explained.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 445
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Absolute.
Unconditional; not relative. Nothing but God is absolute.
In man every thing is relative and conditional.
Admiration.
A tribute paid by individuals to whatever appears to them good and excellent.
It is an affection of the sense of marvellousness.
Adoration.
The external homage paid to The effect of the sense of the Divinity. veneration.
Affectation.
A singular manner of speaking; the making an external appearance in order to attract the attention of others.
It results from the love of approbation when not combined with understanding; it increases in combination
with secretiveness and ideality.
Affections.
Certain states of the mind.
They are the modes of being affected of the fundamental faculties. See Section II. of Part II.
Ambition.
Great desire of preferment and distinction.
An effect of great activity of the love of approbation applied to things of importance. See p. 212.
Anger.
Uneasiness upon a receipt of any disagreeable sensation.
A violent emotion with an inclination to revenge.
446 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Apathy.
The quality of not feeling; exemption from passion; freedom from mental excitation.
Inactivity of every fundamental faculty; it is partial, or more or less general.
Ardor.
Heat, or eagerness in action. Great activity of every fundamental power.
Art.
A word used in opposition to The result of individual pow-nature; something effected ers of the mind, by skill and dexterity.
Attention.
Application of the mind to The result of the individual any subject. intellectual faculties. See
p. 379.
Attrition.
Grief of sin arising from the A disagreeable affection of fear of punishment. the sense of conscientious-
ness caused by that of veneration, assisted by benevolence and circumspection.
Beautiful.
Each agreeable sensation by It designates the harmonious means of hearing and see- relations between external ing. impressions and the intel-
lectual faculties of the mind, principally the senses of extension, configuration, coloring, tone, and order.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 447
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Belief.
Credit given to something which we know not of ourselves.
Hope disposes to belief; hope and marvellousness produce religious belief.
Benevolence.
Disposition to do good.
A fundamental faculty. See p. 218.
Charming.
Pleasing in the highest degree.
Springs from a high degree of satisfaction of every fundamental faculty.
Compassion.
Painful sympathy.
A disagreeable affection, or mode of action of benevolence.
Confusion.
Distraction of mind and indistinct combination of ideas.
Defect of order in general, discord among the functions.
Conscience.
The faculty by which we judge of good and evil.
A mode of action of conscientiousness.
Constancy.
Unalterable continuance.
The effect of firmness assisted by the activity of the individual faculties.
Consternation.
Astonishment accompanied with terror.
An affection of marvellousness and circumspection without hope and courage.
448 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations Explanation according to the Faculties.
Contempt.
The act of despising.
A disagreeable affection of self-esteem, produced by various causes.
Contentment.
Acquiescence without plenary satisfaction.
A degree of satisfaction of every fundamental faculty.
Contrition.
Sorrow for sin.
A disagreeable affection of conscientiousness, caused by benevolence, veneration, and marvellousness.
Courage.
Active fortitude.
A fundamental power. See p. 191.
Cruelty.
Delight taken in the pain of others.
It results from the satisfaction of destructiveness without benevolence.
Cupidity.
Unlawful longing.
Great activity of acquisitiveness.
Desire.
Wish to enjoy.
A result of every faculty in action. See p. 391.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 449
Common Significations Explanation accoidmg to the Faculties
Desolation.
A sort of mixture of melancholy and despair.
A disagreeable affection of attachment, and of benevolence, or of circumspection without courage, hope, and firmness.
Despair.
Hopelessness.
A disagreeable affection of circumspection without hope.
Despise.
An act of contempt.
A disagreeable affection of self-esteem.
Diffidence.
Want of confidence.
The effect of circumspection, combined with secretiveness and intellect.
Disdain.
A sort of contempt.
A disagreeable affection of self-esteem.
Disorder.
Irregularity, neglect of rule.
Want of order and time; often also want of justice and benevolence.
Doubt.
Uncertainty of mind.
The effect of circumspection, combined with intellect.
450 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Duty.
That to which a man is by any natural or legal obligation bound.
The effect of conscientiousness.
Ecstasy.
Eapture and excessive elevation of the mind.
The faculties of marvellousness, ideality, mirthfulness, and hope, dispose to this state of mind.
Envy.
Pain felt at the sight of excellence or happiness in another.
The effect of selfishness, combined with various inferior powers, and without benevolence.
Faith.
Belief in the revealed truths of religion.
The effect of marvellousness and hope.
Friendship.
The state of minds united by mutual benevolence.
A fundamental feeling. See p. 182.
Fright.
A strong and sudden fear.
A strong and sudden affection of circumspection.
Fury.
A violent fit of anger.
An affection and strong irritation of courage and destructiveness.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 451
Common Significations Explanation according to the Faculties.
Genius.
A man endowed with mental The highest degree of activ-powers in a high degree. ity of the individual facul-
ties.
Grief.
Sorrow for something past. A state of dissatisfaction of
every fundamental faculty.
Happiness.
State of satisfaction. The effect of the satisfaction
of every fundamental faculty.
Hatred.
Ill-will. A compound affection, it re-
sults from opposition to « our selfish views, whilst
benevolence and justice are inactive.
Haughtiness.
Pride, arrogance. The effect of self-esteem,
sometimes combined with firmness and justice.
Honor.
Reputation, dignity. Its basis is the love of appro-
bation. It is often modified by self-love and veneration.
Hope.
Expectation of something A fundamental power. See which we desire. p. 240.
452 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Horror.
Terror, mixed with détesta- A disagreeable, more or less tion. compound, affection of
benevolence, veneration, justice, circumspection, approbation, and configuration.
Idea.
Thought, mental image. The effect of each intellec-
tual faculty.
Imagination.
The power of forming ideas, The spontaneous and great and of representing ideas activity of every faculty; of absent things. activity of ideality. See
p. 383.
Impatience.
Inability to suffer delay. Great activity of every fun-
damental faculty.
Impetuosity.
Great vivacity in action. Great and quick activity of
the fundamental faculties, principally of ideality, self-love, courage, of the love of approbation and of mirthfulness, without circumspection.
Inattention.
Want of attention. Inactivity of every intellec-
tual faculty. See p. 379.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 453
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Indifference.
Unconcernedness. Little activity of every fun-
damental faculty.
Indignation.
Anger, mingled with con- A compound affection of self-tempt or disgust. esteem, justice, courage,
and the love of approbation.
Indolence.
Laziness, carelessness. Little activity of the funda-
mental faculties.
Insolence.
Pride, displayed in contemp- The effect of great self-tuous treatment of others. esteem, courage, and other
inferior feelings, combined with little justice.
Instinct.
An impulse to act in the The effect of spontaneous ac-mind not determined by tivity of every faculty, deliberation. See p. 372.
Jealousy.
Suspicious caution, or ri- A compound affection of valry. every fundamental fac-
ulty, particularly of the feelings.
Joy.
A lively and agreeable emo- An agreeable affection of tion of the mind. every fundamental faculty,
, - particularly of the feel-
ings.
454 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Judgment.
The power of judging; the A mode of action of the indétermination come to. tellectual faculties. See p.
384.
Knowledge.
Cognizance, clear perception. The effect of the activity oi
every intellectual faculty.
Love (physical.)
The passion between the A fundamental power. See sexes. p. 171.
Lukewarm.
Indifferent, not ardent. Little activity of the funda-
mental faculties.
Melancholy.
A gloomy temper. A disagreeable affection of
the feelings, particularly of circumspection.
Memory.
The power of recollecting An internal repetition of its things past. function by every intellec-
tual faculty. See p. 381.
Moderation.
Forbearance; not going to A moderate activity of every extremities. faculty.
Modesty.
Decency, purity of manners. Little activity of self-esteem
with benevolence, circumspection, and justice.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 455
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Morality.
Practice of the duties of life. The effect of the faculties
proper to man, particularly of conscientiousness.
Negligence.
The habit of omitting, or of Little activity of the individ-acting carelessly. ual faculties, particularly
of order, of the desire to acquire, &c.
Nohility.
Persons of high rank. True nobility results from
activity of the superior sentiments.
Pain.
A disagreeable sensation. A disagreeable affection of
every fundamental faculty.
Passion.
Violent emotion of the mind. The highest degree of activity of every faculty. See p. 396.
Patience.
The power of expecting long, Moderate activity of the fac-or of suffering without dis- ulties, supported by cir-content. cumspection, firmness, and
sometimes by benevolence; also, the activity of individual faculties, assisted by firmness.
456 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Perplexity.
Distraction and irresolution A compound affection of of mind. circumspection, combined
with the love of approbation and justice, increased by little courage.
Pleasure.
Gratification of the mind. An agreeable affection of
every faculty.
Pretension.
Claim, true or false. Great activity of self-esteem,
increased by the love of approbation.
Rage.
Violent anger. Great activity of courage and
destructiveness.
Ravishment.
Violent but pleasing excite- A high degree of pleasure ment of the mind. produced by the satisfac-
tion of every faculty very active.
Regret.
Vexation for something past. A disagreeable affection of
every faculty combined with the remembrance of some enjoyment lost.
Reminiscence.
Recollection. The peculiar memory of the
power of knowing facts {Eventuality. See p. 382.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 467
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Remorse; or, Repentance.
Pain of guilt. A disagreeable affection of
conscientiousness.
Science.
Knowledge built on prin- It is the effect of the reflec-ciples. tive applied to the percep-
tive faculties.
Self-esteem.
A fundamental power. See p. 214.
Sensation.
Perception by means of the The knowledge of every im-senses. pression either external or
internal. See p. 376.
Shame.
The passion felt when repu- A disagreeable affection of tation is supposed to be the love of approbation, lost, or when a bad action combined with justice and is detected. circumspection.
Sorrowful.
Mournful; grieving. A disagreeable affection of
every faculty.
Spite.
Malice, rancor. A disagreeable affection of
self-esteem and courage.
Stupor.
Great diminution, or suspen- A great degree of inactivity sion of sensibility. of the faculties.
458 PHRENOLOGY
Common Significations. Explanation according to the Faculties.
Sublime.
Exalted, high in excellence. The effect of ideality, combined with the superior sentiments, and intellectual faculties.
Temperance.
Moderation and sedateness. A moderate activity of the
inferior feelings.
Temptation.
The act of tempting, and the The effect of every active state of being tempted. faculty which incites to
action.
Tranquil.
Quiet. The effect of little activity.
Uneasiness.
State of disquiet. The effect of great activity
of every faculty.
Unhappiness.
Distress. The state of dissatisfaction
of every active faculty.
Unreasonable.
Want of reason. Inactivity of the reflecting
faculties.
Vengeance.
The desire and act of render- Self-esteem being offended, ing evil for evil. combined with courage, de-
structiveness, and other inferior sentiments, whilst benevolence and justice are inactive, incites to revenge.
PHILOSOPHICAL EXPRESSIONS 459
Common Significations Explanation according to the Faculties.
Virtue.
Moral goodness, that which Every action conformable to gives excellence. natural morality; the re-
sult of the contest between the two natures of man.
Want.
The state of not having; de- Want, in the sense of desire, sire. is the effect of every active
faculty.
Will.
A faculty of the mind, and Decision according to mo-the determination which tives which are proper to results from it. man, and enlightened by
the reflecting faculties.—
See p. 391.
Wisdom.
The power of judging The regulation of every ac-rightly. tion, by the rule of natural
morality.
Conclusion.
The object of anthropology in its extensive signification is immense, extremely difficult, but important and interesting in the same proportion. It will still require much exertion to be rendered perfect. I shall be happy if I succeed in calling the attention of others to the study of man, and particularly to the consideration of his moral nature, which is essential to general happiness, and which, I think, has been too much neglected in modern times. I conclude in hopes that the things prescribed by Providence, and the victorious forces of truth will finally prevail.
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