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George Combe's A System of Phrenology, 5th edn, 2 vols. 1853.

Vol. 1: [front matter], Intro, Nervous system, Principles of Phrenology, Anatomy of the brain, Division of the faculties 1.Amativeness 2.Philoprogenitiveness 3.Concentrativeness 4.Adhesiveness 5.Combativeness 6.Destructiveness, Alimentiveness, Love of Life 7.Secretiveness 8.Acquisitiveness 9.Constructiveness 10.Self-Esteem 11.Love of Approbation 12.Cautiousness 13.Benevolence 14.Veneration 15.Firmness 16.Conscientiousness 17.Hope 18.Wonder 19.Ideality 20.Wit or Mirthfulness 21.Imitation.
Vol. 2: [front matter], external senses, 22.Individuality 23.Form 24.Size 25.Weight 26.Colouring 27.Locality 28.Number 29.Order 30.Eventuality 31.Time 32.Tune 33.Language 34.Comparison, General observations on the Perceptive Faculties, 35.Causality, Modes of actions of the faculties, National character & development of brain, On the importance of including development of brain as an element in statistical inquiries, Into the manifestations of the animal, moral, and intellectual faculties of man, Statistics of Insanity, Statistics of Crime, Comparative phrenology, Mesmeric phrenology, Objections to phrenology considered, Materialism, Effects of injuries of the brain, Conclusion, Appendices: No. I, II, III, IV, V, [Index], [Works of Combe].

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17.-HOPE.

THIS organ is situated on each side of that of Veneration, and extends under part of the frontal and part of the parietal bones. It cannot be brought into outline in a drawing, and on this account no figure is given.

Dr Gall considered hope as belonging to every faculty ; but Dr Spurzheim very properly observes, that although every faculty being active produces desire-as Acquisitiveness the desire for property, and Love of Approbation the desire for praise ; yet this is very different from hope, which is a simple emotion sui generis, susceptible of being directed

cess of the faculties of Secretiveness, Comparison, Causality, and Wit ; on a great endowment of which, along with Concentrativeness, his penetration and comprehensiveness depended. In fact he possessed the organs of these powers largely developed, and they afford a key to his genius.- Whether he drew any of his lights from Phrenology is uncertain. He was acquainted with the philosophy of Dr Gall, for he wrote the critique on his doctrines, which appeared in the 3d No. of The Edinburgh Review in 1803, but he then condemned them. He survived the publication of Dr Spurzheim's works in English ; but I have been told that he did not alter his lectures from the first form in which he produced them

444 HOPE.

in a great variety of ways, but not desiring any one class of things as its peculiar objects. Nay, desire is sometimes strong, when hope is feeble or extinct : a criminal on the scaffold may ardently desire to live, when he has no hope of escaping death. Dr Spurzheim was convinced, by analysis, that hope is a distinct primitive sentiment ; and was led to expect that an organ for it would be found. Numerous observations have since determined the situation of the organ, on the sides of Veneration ; and it is now admitted by phrenologists in general as established. Dr Gall, however, continued till his death to mark the function of this part of the brain as unascertained.

The faculty produces the emotion of Hope in general without any propensity to act in a specific manner. It gives the tendency to believe in the future attainment of what the other faculties desire, but without giving the conviction of it, which depends on the intellect. Thus a person with much Hope and much Acquisitiveness, will expect to become rich ; another, with much Hope and great Love of Approbation, will hope to rise to eminence ; and a third, with muck Hope and Love of Life, will hope to enjoy a long and a happy existence. It inspires with gay, fascinating, and delightful emotions ; painting futurity fair and smiling as the regions of primitive bliss. It invests every distant prospect with hues of enchanting brilliancy, while Cautiousness hangs clouds and mists over remote objects seen by the mind's eye. Hence, he who has Hope more powerful than Cautiousness, lives in the enjoyment of brilliant anticipations which are never realized ; while he who has Cautiousness more powerful than Hope, habitually labours under the painful apprehension of evils which rarely exist except in his own imagination. The former enjoys the present, without being annoyed by fears about the future ; for Hope supplies his futurity with every object which his fancy desires, undisturbed by the distance or difficulty of attainment : the latter, on the other hand, cannot enjoy the pleasures within his reach, through fear that, at some future time, they may

HOPE. 445

be lost. The life of such an individual is spent in painful apprehension of evils, to which he is in fact very little exposed ; for the dread of their happening excites him to ward them off by so many precautions that they rarely overtake him.

When predominant, and too energetic, this faculty disposes to credulity with respect to what we desire to attain, and, in mercantile men, leads to rash and inconsiderate speculation. Persons so endowed never see their own situation in its true light, but are prompted by extravagant Hope to magnify tenfold every advantage, while they are blind to every obstacle and abatement. They promise largely, but if Conscientiousness be deficient, they rarely perform. Intentional deception, however, is not always their object; they are misled themselves by their constitutional tendency to believe every thing possible that is future, and they promise in the spirit of this credulity. Those who perceive this disposition in them, should exercise their own judgment on the possibility of performance, and make the necessary abatement in their anticipations. Experience accomplishes little in improving the judgment of those who possess too large an organ of Hope, combined with deficient Cautiousness : the tendency to expect immoderately being constitutional, they have it not in their power to see both sides of the prospect ; and, beholding only that which is fair, they are involuntarily led to form extravagant expectations. When the organ is very deficient, and that of Cautiousness large, a gloomy despondency is apt to invade the mind ; and if Destructiveness be strong, the individual may resort to suicide in order to escape from woe.

This faculty, if not combined with much Acquisitiveness or Love of Approbation, disposes to indolence, from the very promise which it holds out of the future providing for itself. If, on the other hand, it be combined with these organs in a full degree, it acts as a spur to the mind, by uniformly representing the objects desired as attainable. An individual

446 hope. with much Acquisitiveness, great Cautiousness, and little Hope, will save to become rich ; another, with the same Acquisitiveness, little Cautiousness, and much Hope, will speculate to procure wealth. I have found Hope and Acquisitiveness large in persons addicted to gaming. Hope has a great effect in assuaging the fear of death. I have seen persons in whom it was very large die by inches, and linger for months on the brink of the grave, without suspicion of the fate impending over them. They hoped to be well, till death extinguished the last ember of the feeling. On the other hand, when Hope, and Combativeness, which gives courage, are small, and Cautiousness and Conscientiousness large, the strongest assurances of the Gospel are not always sufficient to enable the individual to look with composure or confidence on the prospect of a judgment to come. Several persons in whom this combination occurs, have told me that they lived in a state of habitual uneasiness in looking forward to the hour of death ; while others, with a large Hope and small Cautiousness, have said that such a ground of alarm never once entered their imaginations. Our hopes or fears on a point of such importance as our condition in a future state, ought to be founded on grounds more stable than mere constitutional feeling ; but I mention these cases to draw attention to the fact, that this cause sometimes tinges the whole conclusions of the judgment. When the existence of such a cause of delusion is known, its effects may more easily be resisted.

In religion, this faculty favours the exercise of faith ; and by producing the natural tendency to look forward to futurity with" expectation, disposes to belief in a happy life to come.

The metaphysicians admit this faculty, so that Phrenology reveals only its organ, and the effects of its endowment in different degrees. I have already stated an argument in favour of the being of a God, founded on the existence of a faculty of Veneration conferring the tendency to worship, of which God is the proper and ultimate object. May not the

HOPE. 447

probability of a future state be supported by a similar deduction from the possession of a faculty of Hope ? It appears to me that this is the faculty from which originates the notion of futurity, and which carries the mind forward in endless progression into periods of everlasting time. May it not be inferred, that this instinctive tendency to leave the present scene and all its enjoyments, to spring forward into the regions of a far distant futurity, and to expatiate, even in imagination, in the fields of an eternity to come, denotes that man is formed for a more glorious destiny than to perish for ever in the grave ? Addison beautifully enforces this argument in the Spectator, and in the soliloquy of Cato ; and Phrenology gives weight to his reasoning, by shewing that this ardent hope, and " longing after immortality," are not factitious sentiments, or a mere product of an idle and wandering imagination, but that they are the results of two primitive faculties of the mind, Love of Life and Hope, which owe their existence and functions to the Creator.

In the Phrenological Journal, vol. x., p. 449, Dr Abram Cox reports a case in which, after death, the organ of Hope on the right was found injured by disease, and the manifestations had been affected during life. In the same work, vol. xii.,p. 157, Dr W. A. F. Browne reports a case, in which a patient, a flax-dresser, aged forty, had received a tremendous blow from a shoemaker's hammer, which fractured and depressed the skull, on the right side, injured the brain, and rendered trephining necessary. A large piece of bone had been removed. The situation of the injury corresponded to the organ of Hope, including the confines of Conscientiousness and Veneration, and several years afterwards he applied to Dr Browne for medical advice. At his first interview in autumn 1836, he denied that he was, or had been, less cheerful or less hopeful than previous to the infliction of the injury. In autumn 1837, he returned and confessed that he had formerly deceived Dr B., adding, " That for years he had been occasionally unhappy and desponding,

448 HOPE.

but that now his feelings of depression and despair were so constantly awful and unbearable, that unless Dr B. could do something for him he was lost. His fears were indefinite ; but they, more or less, affected every train of thought, clouded every prospect, and incapacitated him for life or work." In December 1837, his whole mind participated in the disease. He was sent to the Montrose Lunatic Asylum, under Dr Browne's management, where some slight mitigation of the symptoms took place, but no radical cure, when Dr B. ceased to be connected with that Institution. In the same Journal, vol. xiii., p. 80, a case is reported by Mr E. J. Hytche, in which it is stated that the "organ of Hope is not merely depressed, but is sunken to such a degree, that, on the right side, half the depth of the nail of the fore-finger can be placed in the hollow. This portion of the skull, says he, is very thin, and indicates some organic defect ; for if it receives the slightest pressure, pain is immediately produced, which continues until the pressure is removed.'' The individual was twenty years of age, of the sanguine temperament, and the organ of Cautiousness is broad and prominent. " He is much subject to depression of mind,'⁵ and " even when circumstances wear the most favourable aspect, he incessantly conjures up some evil awaiting to derange every plan, and blast all his goodly prospects." In vol. xv., p. 35, Dr Otto discusses the influence of different diseases and different kinds of food on the different organs ; " when the heart and lungs suffer," says he, " Hope is ever active, and along with it Ideality, and all the intellectual faculties."

Pope beautifully describes the influence of the sentiment of Veneration in prompting us to worship-blindly, indeed, when undirected by information superior to its own. He also falls into the idea now started in regard to Hope, and represents it as the source of that expectation of a future state of existence, which seems to be-the joy and delight of human nature, in whatever stage of improvement it has been found.

WONDER. 449

" Lo ; the poor Indian whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind ; His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk or Milky Way ; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill an humbler heaven ; Some safer world, in depth of woods embraced ; Some happier island in the watery waste ; Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold."

The organ is regarded as established.

 

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Vol. 1: [front matter], Intro, Nervous system, Principles of Phrenology, Anatomy of the brain 1.Amativeness 2.Philoprogenitiveness 3.Concentrativeness 4.Adhesiveness 5.Combativeness 6.Destructiveness, Alimentiveness, Love of Life 7.Secretiveness 8.Acquisitiveness 9.Constructiveness 10.Self-Esteem 11.Love of Approbation 12.Cautiousness 13.Benevolence 14.Veneration 15.Firmness 16.Conscientiousness 17.Hope 18.Wonder 19.Ideality 20.Wit or Mirthfulness 21.Imitation.
Vol. 2: [front matter], external senses, 22.Individuality 23.Form 24.Size 25.Weight 26.Colouring 27.Locality 28.Number 29.Order 30.Eventuality 31.Time 32.Tune 33.Language 34.Comparison, General observations on the Perceptive Faculties, 35.Causality, Modes of actions of the faculties, National character & development of brain, On the importance of including development of brain as an element in statistical inquiries, Into the manifestations of the animal, moral, and intellectual faculties of man, Statistics of Insanity, Statistics of Crime, Comparative phrenology, Mesmeric phrenology, Objections to phrenology considered, Materialism, Effects of injuries of the brain, Conclusion, Appendices: No. I, II, III, IV, V, [Index], [Works of Combe].