scientiousness feels that his destruction by the angel was just. This is not Conscientiousness giving opposite decisions on the same case; but the intellect presenting different cases, or different views of the same case, and Conscientiousness producing its peculiar emotion in regard to each, according as it is laid before it. This organ is occasionally found diseased, and then the most awful sentiments of guilt, generally imaginary, harrow up the mind. I have seen two individuals labouring under this disease. One of them believed himself to be in debt to an enormous amount, which he had no means of paying; the other imagined himself to be guilty of murder, and of every variety of wickedness contained in the records of iniquity; whereas, in fact, the whole conduct of both, while in health, has been marked by the greatest humanity, honour, and scrupulosity. When this organ and that of Cautiousness are diseased at the same time, the individual imagines himself to be the most worthless of sinners, and is visited with fearful apprehensions of punishment. Such patients sometimes present a picture of despair which is truly appalling. Slight degrees of disease of these organs, not amounting to insanity, are not unfrequent in this country, and produce an inward trouble of the mind, which throws a gloom over life, and leads the patient to see only the terrors of religion. Such persons are greatly relieved by being convinced that the cause of their unhappy feeling is disease in the mental organs, and that they may in general be restored to health by proper medical treatment. If they are religiously disposed, their anxiety will probably be directed to their salvation. they are worldly-minded, the fear of ruin, or of inability to meet their engagements, will probably be the form in which the disease will appear. In all cases, however, where there are no adequate external causes for the impressions, they may be regarded as really arising from disease of the mental organs, the feelings only being differently directed, according to the character of each individual. I have known great injury done to the health, by treating these depressions, when they occurred in amiable persons, on exclusively religious principles; and very respectfully, but earnestly, recommend to the friends of such patients to call in a physician as well as a clergyman for their relief.* If In the first edition of this work I stated that gratitude probably arises from this faculty; but Sir G. S. Mackenzie, in his Illustrations of Phrenology, has shown that gratitude is much heightened by Benevolencea view in which I now fully acquiesce. It is premature to speak of the combinations of the faculties before we have finished the detail of the simple functions; but this is the most proper occasion, in other respects, to observe, that Phrenology enables us to account for the origin of the various theories of morals before enumerated. Hobbes, for instance, denied every natural sentiment of justice, and erected the laws of the civil magistrate into the standard of morality. This doctrine would appear natural and sound to a person in whom Conscientiousness was very feeble; who never experienced in his cwn mind a single emotion of justice, but who was alive to fear, to the desire of property, and to other affections which would render security and regular government desirable. It seems to me probable that Hobbes was so constituted. Mandeville makes selfishness the basis of all our actions, but admits a strong appetite for praise; the desire for which, he says, leads men to abate other enjoyments for the sake of obtaining it. If we conceive Mandeville to have possessed a deficient Conscientiousness and a large Loveof Approbation, this doctrine would be the natural product of his mind. Mr. Hume erects utility, to ourselves or others, into the standard of * See Dr. A Combe's Observations on Mental Derangement, pp. 187, 196. virtue; and this would be the natural feeling of a mind in which Bene volence and Reflection were strong, and Conscientiousness weak. This is Paley makes virtue consist in obeying the will of God, as our rule, and doing so for the sake of eternal happiness as the motive. the natural emanation of a mind where the selfish or lower propensities are considerable, and in which Veneration is strong and Conscientiousness not remarkable for vigour. Cudworth, Hutcheson, Reid, Kames, Stewart, and Brown,* on the other hand, contend most eagerly and eloquently for the existence of an original sentiment or emotion of justice in the mind, altogether independent of other considerations; and this is the natural feeling of persons in whom the faculty is powerful. A much respected individual, in whom this organ is predominantly large, mentioned to me, that no circumstance in philosophy occasioned to him greater surprise, than the denial of the existence of a moral faculty; and that the attempts to prove it appeared to him like endeavours to prop up, by demonstration, a self-evident axiom in mathematical science. The organ is regarded as established. 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 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 *I embrace this opportunity of paying an humble tribute to the talents of the late Dr. Thomas Brown. The acuteness, depth, and comprehensiveness of intellect displayed in his works on the mind, place him in the highest rank of philosophical authors; and these great qualities are equalled by the purity and vividness of his moral perceptions. His powers of analysis are unrivalled, and his eloquence is frequently splendid. His Lectures will remain a monument of what the human mind was capable of accomplishing, in investigating its own constitution, by an imperfect method. In proportion as Phrerology shall become known, the admiration of his genius will increase; for it is the highest praise to say, that, in regard to many points of great difficulty and importance in the Philosophy of Mind, he has arrived, by his own reflections, at conclusions harmonizing with those obtained by phrenological observation. Of this, his doctrine on the moral emotion, discussed in the text, is a striking instance. Sometimes, indeed, his arguments are subtle, his distinctions too refined, and his style circuitous; but the phrenologist will pass lightly over these imperfections, for they occur only occasionally, and arise from mere excess 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. Spurz heim's works in English; but I have been told that he did not alter his lec tures from the first form in which he produced them. 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 sentiment of Hope in general, or 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 much 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 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 it is scarcely possible they can 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 rarely perform. Intentional deception, however, is frequently not their object; they are misled themselves by their constitutional tendency to believe everything possible that is future, and they promise in the spirit of this credulity. Those who perceive this disposition in them, ought to 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: 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 constitutionally 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 wo. 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 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 Seeling; 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 only reveals 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 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 rotion 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 showing that this ardent hope and longing after immortality are not factitious sentiments, nor 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 at once their existence and their functions to the Creator. 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. "Lo! the poor Indian whose untutored mind 230 18. WONDER. THIS organ is situated immediately above Idea.ity, in the lateral parts of the anterior region of the vertex. Dr. Gall observed, that some individuals imagine themselves to be visited by apparitions of persons dead or absent; and he asks, How does it happen that men of considerable intellect often believe in the reality of ghosts and visions? Are they fools, or impostors? or is there a particular organization which imposes, in this form, on the human understanding? and how are such illusions to be explained? He then enters into an historical sketch of the most remarkable instances of visions. Socrates spoke frequently and willingly to his disciples of a demon or spirit, which served him as a guide. Dr. Gall remarks, that he is quite aware of the common explanation, that Socrates referred only to the force and justness of his own understanding; but adds, that if he had not himself believed in a genius communicating with him, the opinion that he had one would have been lost in the twenty-three years during which Aristophanes made it a subject of ridicule, and his accusers would not have revived it as a charge against him. Joan of Arc also related an appearance of St. Michael to her, who told her that God had pity on France, and that she was commissioned to raise the siege of Orleans, and to install Charles VII. as king, at Rheims. Tasso asserted himself to have been cured by the aid of the Virgin Mary and St. Scholastic, who appeared to him during a violent at tack of fever. In the historical notes which accompany the Life of Tasse the following anecdote appears, extracted from the Memoirs of Manse Marquis of Villa, published after the death of Tasso, his friend: Tasso, in his delirium, believed that he conversed with familiar spirits One day, when the marquis endeavoured to drive these ideas from his mind Tasso said to him, "Since I cannot convince you by reason, I shall do s. by experience; I shall cause the spirit, in which you refuse to believe, t appear before your own eyes." "I accepted the offer," says the marquis "and next day, when we sat by the fire conversing, he turned his eye toward the window, and, looking with steadfast attention, appeared completely absorbed, that when I called to him he did not answer. 'See " said he, at length, 'See! my familiar spirit comes to converse with me I looked with the greatest earnestness, but could see nothing enter th apartment. In the meantime, Tasso began to converse with this myster. ous being. I saw and heard himself alone. Sometimes he questioned, an.' sometimes answered; and from his answers I gathered the sense of wha* he had heard. The subject of his discourse was so elevated, and the ex pressions so sublime, that I felt myself in a kind of ecstasy. I did not venture to interrupt him, nor to trouble him with questions, and a considerable time elapsed before the spirit disappeared. I was informed of its departure by Tasso, who, turning toward me, said, 'In future you will cease to doubt.' 'Rather,' said I, I shall be more sceptical; for although I have heard astonishing words, I have seen nothing.' Smiling, he replied, "You have perhaps heard and seen more than-' He stopped short; and, fearing to importune him by my questions, I dropped the conversation."* Dr. Gall quotes this dialogue from "La Vie du Tasse, publiée à Londres en 1810;" and I have translated from his French version.t Swedenborg believed himself miraculously called to reveal to the world the most hidden mysteries. "In 1743," says he, "it pleased the Lord to manifest himself to me, and appear personally before me, to give me a *Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, tome v., p. 341. + For the original, see Rev. Mr. Black's Life of Tasso, vol. ii., p. 240. |