Overview

Organs

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Bibliography

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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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27.-LOCALITY.

DR GALL^l mentions, that the taste which he had for natural history induced him to go frequently into the woods in

¹ Phrenology, p. 226.

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order to catch birds, or to discover their nests ; and although lie was expert in accomplishing these objects, yet, when he wished to return to the nests, he generally found it impossible to retrace his way, or to light upon the tree which he had marked, or the snares which he had set. This difficulty did not arise from inattention ; for, before quitting the spot, he stuck branches into the ground, and cut marks on the trees, to guide him in his return, but all in vain. He was obliged to take constantly along with him one of his school-fellows, named Scheidler, who, with the least possible effort of attention, went always directly to the place where a snare was set, even although they had sometimes placed ten or fifteen in. a quarter that was not familiarly known to them. As this youth possessed only very ordinary talents in other respects, Dr Gall was much struck with his facility in recollecting places, and frequently asked him how he contrived to guide himself so surely ; to which he replied, by asking Gall, in his turn, how he contrived to lose himself everywhere. In the hope of one day obtaining some explanation of this peculiarity, Dr Gall moulded his head, and afterwards endeavoured to discover persons who were distinguished by the same faculty. The celebrated landscape-painter Schonberger told him, that, in his travels, he was in the custom of making only a very general sketch of countries which interested him, and that afterwards, when he wished to produce a more complete picture, every tree, every group of bushes, and every stone of considerable magnitude, presented itself spontaneously to his mind.¹ About the same period Dr Gall became acquainted with M. Meyer, author of the romance of Dia-na-Sore, a person who found no pleasure except in a wandering life. Sometimes he went from house to house in the country, and at other times attached himself to some man of fortune, to accompany him in extended travels. He had

¹ The organs of Form, Size, and Individuality, seem to me to have been necessary, in addition to Locality., to produce this talent. The latter faculty would recollect only the positions of the objects.

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an astonishing faculty of recollecting the different places which he had seen. Dr Gall moulded his head also; he then placed it and the other two together, and compared them attentively: they presented great differences in many points, but he was struck with the singular form which appeared in all the three a little above the eyes, and on the two sides of the organ of Individuality ; namely, two large prominences commencing near each side of the nose, and going obliquely upwards and outwards, almost as high as the middle of the forehead. From that time he was led to suppose, that the talent for recollecting places depended on a primitive faculty, of which the organ was situated under this part of the skull ; and innumerable subsequent observations confirmed this inference.¹

Dr Spurzheim states, that " the special faculty of this organ, and the sphere of its activity, remain to be determined. It makes the traveller, geographer, and landscape-painter ; recollects localities ; and gives notions of perspective. It seems to me," says he, " that it is the faculty of Locality in general. As soon as we have conceived the existence of an object and its qualities, it must necessarily occupy a place, and this is the faculty that conceives the places occupied by the objects that surround us."² Sir George Mackenzie considers the primitive faculty to be that of perceiving relative position, Dr Spurzheim says, that " notions of perspective" are given by Locality, but certain facts, already noticed, appear to shew that these depend on Size : in other respects, his observations coincide with my own.

Locality appears to me to bear a relation to Individuality somewhat similar to that which lime bears to Eventuality. Eventuality observes motion and events, and Time conceives duration, and estimates its intervals. In order to chronicle events, we divide duration into portions, such as days, months,

¹ Nearly the whole of Dr Gall's section on Locality is translated in The Phrenological Journal, vol. iv. p. 524.

* Phrenology, p. 280.

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and years, and give names to different points in it, and call these dates. Individuality furnishes us with the notion of objects as existences, and Locality conceives the idea of space, divides it into portions, and determines the position of objects within it. Places are definite positions in space, while dates are definite points in duration. Places, therefore, are to objects, what dates are to events.¹

James Wilson, whose case is mentioned on p. 70 of this volume, affords a striking example of Locality being active long after sight has been lost. A similar case is reported by Dr Joseph Moore in vol. xiv. p. 39. Philip Davis, says he, blind from the age of four years, " knows the various streets, courts, and alleys of Plymouth better than any inhabitant, and can not only direct, but shew their locality." He also makes excursions alone to the distance of several miles from the town. The organ of Locality is very large in his head. See also the same volume of the Journal, p. 45.

Persons in whom this organ is large, form vivid and distinct conceptions of situations and scenery which they have seen or heard described, and they have great power in recalling such conceptions. When the faculty is active from internal excitement of the organ, such ideas are presented to the mind involuntarily. In the mask of Sir Walter Scott the organ is large. Readers, similarly endowed, are almost as much delighted with his descriptions of scenery, as by a tour made by themselves amid the mountain glens ; while those in whom the organ is small, are quite uninterested by his most splendid poetical landscapes. He wrote so pictorially,

¹ Mr W. Hancock jun. has published an able essay on Locality, in the Phrenological Journal, vol. x. p. 462, in which he maintains that " the two organs now called Weight and Locality are in reality but one, subserving to the faculty of direction, and that direction or relative position is only an ingredient, though probably the principal one, in the recollection of places/' Mr Sampson has stated his own experience in contradiction to this view. In his head Locality is deficient, and he does not recollect places, but he judges easily and accurately of direction. He refers direction to weight. Phren. Journ., vol. xii. p. 366.

76 LOCALITY.

that he almost saves an artist, who means to illustrate his pages, the trouble of invention. Authors in whom this organ is moderately developed treat of places in a very different manner. In the head of Mr Tennant, the author of Anster Fair and The Thane of Fife, the organ of Locality is below the average size, and he merely designates, by appropriate epithets, the leading features of a landscape, in a way which excites a pleasing and distinct recollection of it in those readers who have seen it, but which calls up no picture in the mind of one who was not familiar with it before, The following lines are characteristic of his manner :

" Next them the troopers each on fervent steed

That dwell within the warm and flowery dales
Where Annan, and where Esk and Liddle lead

Their streams down tripping through the sunny vales,
And where the stronger and more swelling Tweed,

Emergent from his midland mountain, trails
Voluminous and broad his waters down

To meet the briny sea by bulwark'd Berwick town."

The organ is large in the busts and portraits of all eminent navigators and travellers, such as Columbus, Cook, and Mungo Park; also in great astronomers and geographers, as Kepler, Galileo, Tycho Brahé, and Newton. In Tasso the poet, also, it appears to have been very large, and he manifested the faculty in a high degree. Several cases are mentioned by Dr Gall, of individuals passionately fond of travelling, in whom the organ was greatly developed ; and a similar instance is reported by Mr Schiotz, a Danish magistrate, in The Phrenological Journal Dr Caldwell speaks of an American named Daniel Boone, " who was perpetually in motion from, one place to another, and who was the most celebrated hunter and woodsman of the age :" he possessed this organ " in a degree of development, so bold and prominent, that it deformed his face."²

¹ Vol. viii. p. 64. * Caldwell's Elements of Phrenology, p. 124.

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This faculty gives what is called " coup d'oil,'¹' and judgment of the capabilities of ground. It is necessary to the military draughtsman, and is of great importance to a general in war. Dr Gall mentions, that he had observed the organ large in distinguished players at chess ; and he conceives their talent to consist in the faculty of conceiving clearly a great number of the possible positions of the men.

Some persons have a natural tact in discriminating and recollecting the situation of the organs on the phrenological bust, and perceiving differences in the forms of the head, while others experience the greatest difficulty in doing so. The former have Locality, Size, and Form large ; the latter have them small, indicated by a general narrowness at the top of the nose. These state their own inability to observe the organs, as an objection against Phrenology ; but this is as unreasonable as if Mr Milne were to deny the diversity of certain colours, because his own organ of Colouring is so defective that he cannot distinguish them.

Locality appears to be an element in a genius for geometry. In the heads or busts of six or seven eminent mathematicians which I have carefully examined, this organ, and also those of Size, Individuality, and Comparison, are large. Indeed pure geometry treats only of the relations of space, and does not imply agency, or any relation except that of proportion ; and hence it might be legitimately inferred to belong to the sphere of the organs now mentioned. Negative cases also coincide with these positive observations. Zhera Colburn, the American youth who was celebrated for his arithmetical powers, turned his attention to mathematics, but with very little success. He stated to me that he had been taught the first six books of Euclid, and understood the propositions, but felt no interest in the study. He liked algebra much better ; and he had the organ of Number large, but that of Locality deficient. The gentleman who had taken charge of his education, it is said, at first intended him for a mathematician, but afterwards, finding that his genius did not lie that way, directed his attention to law. (See foot-note

78 LOCALITY.

on p. 86.) Mr George Bidder, when a mere child, displayed such astonishing talent as a mental calculator, that several gentlemen in Edinburgh were induced to take charge of his education ; and, on the supposition that his abilities extended to mathematical science generally, selected for him the profession of an engineer. Having heard of this intention, and having observed that in his head the organs of the geometrical faculties were not developed in any extraordinary degree, I inferred that his eminence as a geometrician would not equal that which he had attained as a calculator, and communicated this conviction in writing to Principal Baird, one of his patrons. Mr Bidder subsequently pursued the study of geometry ; but, at the end of two years, both he himself and Professor Wallace informed me, that he was not distinguished for more than common ability in the class.

An opinion prevails, that mathematics afford exercise to the reflecting faculties, and that their tendency, as a branch of education, is to cultivate the talent for general reasoning : some persons regard them as the best substitute for the useless logic of the schools. This idea appears to me to be erroneous. Geometry treats of the proportions of space, and algebra and arithmetic of the relations of numbers, and the three constitute the grand elements of the science of pure mathematics. For judging of the proportions of space, the faculties of Size, Locality, and Individuality, aided by Comparison, are those essentially required ; while the faculties of Number and Order, also aided by Comparison, are the chief powers necessary for dealing with the proportions of numbers. Causation always implies power, force, or agency ; and the idea of causation, or efficiency, does not at all enter into the propositions of pure mathematics. The popular error is not sanctioned by the authority of the masters in philosophy. Lord Bacon observes, that " the mathematical part in some men's minds is good, and the logical is bad. Some can reason well of numbers and quantities, that cannot reason well in words." Dugald Stewart remarks, that " when it is stated in the form of a self-evident truth, that

LOCALITY. 79

magnitudes which coincide, or which exactly fill the same space, are equal to one another, the beginner readily yields his assent to the proposition ; and this assent, without going any farther, is all that is required in any of the demonstrations of the first six books of Euclid."¹ Mr Stewart was a mathematician, and also a metaphysician ; and this is a strong testimony to the fact, that the whole of the first six books of Euclid, which constitute a large portion of a common mathematical education, relate exclusively to the proportions of space or magnitude, and do not imply causation.

Professor Leslie states, that the whole structure of geometry is grounded on the simple comparison of triangles ; and Mr Stewart corrects this remark by observing, that " it is expressed in terms too unqualified. D'Alembert has mentioned another principle, as not less fundamental, the measurement of angles by circular arches." It is obvious, that both triangles and circular arches are mere forms of space. " Fluxions," says Professor Playfair, " were, with Newton, nothing else than measures of the velocities with which variable or flowing quantities were supposed to be generated, and they might be of any magnitude, providing they were in the ratio of those velocities, or, which is the same, in the ratio of the nascent or evanescent increments."² Sir John Herschel remarks, that " it must be recollected that there are minds which, though not devoid of reasoning powers, yet manifest a decided inaptitude for mathematical studies,- which are estimative--not calculating, and which are more impressed by analogies, and by apparent preponderance of general evidence in argument, than by mathematical demonstration, where all the argument is on one side, and no shew of reason can be exhibited on the other. The mathematician listens only to one side of a question, for this plain reason, that no strictly mathematical question has more than one side capable of being maintained otherwise than by simple assertion ; while all the great questions which arise in busy

¹ Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 174, edit. 1816. ³ Dissertation II. Encyc. Brit, p, 16.

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life, and agitate the world, are stoutly disputed, and often with a shew of reason on both sides, which leaves the shrewdest at a loss for a decision."¹

In these remarks I allude merely to pure mathematics, or to geometry and its branches, with algebra and arithmetic and their branches. Although these sciences do not treat of causation, yet they may be applied to measure forces, in instances in which these operate with undeviating regularity. Gravitation is such a force.-But wherever agents do not operate in this manner, mathematics are inapplicable. Human actions, for instance, proceed from intellectual perceptions, the impulses of affection, or the force of passion ; all of which are causes, but none of them possesses that simplicity of character and uniformity of operation which are indispensable in the application of mathematical measurements. In judging of human conduct, the understanding must estimate by innate sagacity, improved by experience, the influence of motives and of external circumstances ; and a high mathematical training, by exercising chiefly the powers conversant with space and quantity, is by no means favourable to the development of this talent, which depends chiefly on Comparison and Causality, operating along with the affective faculties. Hence an individual may be distinguished for talent as a mathematician, and extremely deficient in this estimative sagacity.

It is worthy of remark, that the French mathematicians use the word done " then," where the English use " therefore" in their demonstrations. The French done corresponds with the Latin tune, and with the English then, or at that time, and it is the more correct expression. In a purely mathematical demonstration, the conclusion becomes apparent at a particular point of time, when the proposition and its relations have been unfolded, without the least idea of active

¹ Views on Scientific and General Education, applied to the proposed System of Instruction in the South African College ; reprinted in The London and Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, vol. viii, p. 432 No. 48. May 1836,

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efficiency in the premises to produce the conclusion as an effect ; whereas the word therefore expresses a necessary result of efficiency. In the proposition " The sun shines brilliantly, therefore we are hot ;" the word therefore implies a relation of causation ; whereas in the proposition, ' A is equal to B, and C is equal to B, therefore A and C are equal to one another ;" the relation which it expresses is one of proportion merely, and the French then is the more philosophical term.

When the group of organs situated at the top of the nose, namely. Individuality, Form, Size, Weight, and Locality, are all large, there is generally a strong talent for dynamics. Persons thus endowed excel in turning, and in archery ; and if Constructiveness also be full, and they have been bred to professions in which they find no scope for these faculties, they frequently set up private workshops, and become inventors and improvers of machinery.

The organ of Locality is generally much larger in men than in women ; and the manifestations correspond.

Dr Grail cites several cases of diseased affection of this organ ; and in The Phrenological Journal? Mr Simpson gives a highly interesting detail of symptoms attending disorder of this and the other knowing organs already treated of. He adverts particularly to the case of Mr John Hunter, who, when in the house of a friend, forgot in what part of the town he was, and looked out of the window to refresh his memory in vain ; for, as Sir Everard Home expresses it, " he had not a conception of any place existing beyond the room he was in yet was perfectly conscious of the loss of memory.''²

This organ is possessed by the lower animals, and many interesting examples are recorded of their manifestations of the faculty. Dr Gall mentions several instances of dogs returning to their homes from a great distance, without the

¹ Vol. ii. p. 303. See also vol. vii. p. 317.

* Life of John Hunter, annexed to his Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gunshot Wounds, published by Sir E. Home in 1794. VOL. II.

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possibility of their having been guided by smell or sight. " A dog," says he, " was carried in a coach from Vienna to St Petersburgh, and at the end of six months reappeared in Vienna : Another was transported from Vienna to London ; -he attached himself to a traveller, and embarked along with him ; but at the moment of landing, he made his escape and returned to his native city. Another dog was sent from Lyons to Marseilles, where he was embarked for Naples, and he found his way back by land to Lyons/' An ass, shipped at Gibraltar, on board the Ister frigate, in 1816, was thrown overboard, when the vessel struck at Point de Gat, in Spain, a distance of 200 miles. There were holes in his ears, indicating that he had been used for carrying criminals when flogged ; and as such asses are abhorred by the peasantry, no one stopped him, and he immediately returned, through a mountainous and intricate country intersected by streams, to Gibraltar.¹ Dr Gall remarks that the common hypothesis,-that dogs retrace their way by the aid of smell, when applied to cases in which they were transported by water, or in a coach, appears abundantly absurd ; and the idea that these animals can discover the effluvia of their master's person across a space of several hundred leagues, seems equally preposterous. Besides, a dog does not return home by the straightest road, nor even by the precise line in which he was carried away ; and some naturalists have therefore been induced to admit an occult cause of this surprising talent, and have named it a sixth sense. Dr Gall considers it to belong to the organ of Locality. The falcon of Iceland returns to its native place from a distance of thousands of miles ; and carrier-pigeons have long been celebrated for a similar tendency, and in consequence have occasionally been employed to convey dispatches. Swallows, nightingales, and a variety of sea-fowls, migrate from one climate to another at certain seasons of the year, which is attributed by Dr Gall to periodical and involuntary excite -

¹ Kirby and Spence's Entomology, p. 496.

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ment of the organ of Locality. This excitement occurs even in birds kept in cages, and abundantly supplied with food.¹

Dr Vimont has published some valuable observations on this faculty, He does not consider it to be the sole cause of the migration of animals. He thinks that the inclemency of the season, also the organs of ^t: distance," " resistance," and " time,'' may contribute to their movements. He indicates the precise place of the organ in several species of the lower animals, and corrects Dr Gall's errors in regard to its situation in them. He says that it is very large in the dog, fox, and horse.

The frontal sinus has been stated as an objection to the possibility of ascertaining the size of the organ of Locality, but it rarely ascends higher than the lower part of it ; and while prominences formed by the sinus are irregular in form, and generally horizontal in direction, the elevations occasioned by a large development of Locality are uniform in shape, and extend obliquely upwards towards the middle of the forehead. Further, the negative evidence in favour of the organ (explained on page 34) is irresistible, and the function is therefore regarded as established.