is guided in the selection of its food by the sense of smell; and the inference suggests itself, that these parts may be the organs of the instinct which prompts it to take nourishment. Corresponding convolutions occur in the human brain, but the functions of them are not ascertained, owing to their local situation presenting obstacles to the determination of their size during life. The conjecture, however, seemed to me plausible, that they might serve a similar purpose to that here supposed to belong to them in the sheep.

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This subject has attracted the notice of that ingenious phrenologist Dr HOPPE of Copenhagen, and he has treated of it in two valuable communications, published in the Phrenological Journal, Nos. V. and VII. He is of opinion, that, besides the nerves of the stomach and palate, an affection of which gives rise to the sensations of hunger and thirst, there must also be an organ in the brains of animals for the instinct of nutrition (taking nourishment for the preservation of life), which incites them to the sensual enjoyments of the palate, and the activity of which is independent of hunger and thirst. "How," says he, "should the mere sense of hunger, more than any other disagreeable or painful sensation, make the animal desire food, the necessity of such not being known to him by experience? This could only be effected by instinct, because either an instinct, i. e. the immediate impulse of an organ, or else experience and reflection, are the causes of all actions.

"We observe, that the chicken is no sooner out of the egg, than it picks the grain that lies on the ground, and the new-born babe sucks the nipple. Is this to be explained without the supposition of an organ analogous to that which makes the duckling immediately plunge into the water, or makes the kitten bite the first mouse it meets with?

"Neither am I able otherwise to conceive how the newborn animal can discriminate what is useful for its nutrition; that, for instance, the chicken never mistakes gravel

for grain, and that the wild beasts always avoid poisonous plants without ever tasting them.

"When the child, even enjoying perfect health, sucks till the stomach is filled, in a literal sense of the word, it surely feels no hunger or thirst; yet, if laid to the breast, it will continue sucking, even sometimes having thrown off the last draught from overfilling.

"If nothing but hunger and thirst impelled man to take food, he would, when satiated, have no appetite for meat and drink; yet we every day observe people that cannot resist the temptation of surfeiting themselves both with meat and drink, though they know it to be noxious, and others again that never are tempted to gluttony."

Dr HOPPE adds several other reasons in support of an organ of nutrition, and sums up his views in the following words: "According to my opinion, hunger and thirst must be discriminated from the desire of food which we call uppetite; for those I consider as only affections of the stomachical and palatic nerves, caused by deficiency of necessary supply; but appetite as an activity of a fundamental animal instinct, which has in the brain an organ analogous to the rest of the organs. Yet there is a very intimate connexion between these; thus, nothing can more effectually rouse appetite than hunger."

In lecturing on Phrenology, I had for some years pointed out the part of the brain above alluded to as the probable seat of this organ; and Dr HOPPE, without being aware of this circumstance, or the reasons on which this conjecture was founded, arrived at a similar conclusion. He proceeded even so far as to point out an external indication of the size of the organ. 66 Regarding," says he, "the organ for taking nourishment, I have been led to think, since I wrote last, that the place where its different degrees of development are manifested in the living body, is in the fossa zygomatica, exactly under the organ of Acquisitiveness, and before that of Destructiveness. Before I had thought at all of Phrenology, I was struck with the re

markable largeness of the face or head of a friend of mine, caused, not by prominent cheek-bones, as in some varieties of mankind, but more towards the ears, by the great convexity of the zygomatic arch. Knowing that this individual was exceedingly fond of good living, and that, even in spite of a very powerful intellect, and propensities moderate in almost every other respect, he was prone to indulge too freely in the joys of the table, I afterwards thought that this form of the head, and tendency of the mind, might bear a nearer relation to each other than had at first occurred to me; and in some other persons, notoriously known to be fond of good eating and drinking, I found a confirmation of my suppositions. This prominence of the bony arch, I think, must be an absolute consequence of the part of the cranium lying under the temporal muscle being pushed outwards, and diminishing, in that direction, the space of the fossa. Besides this greater convexity of the arch, the part also of the skull situated immediately above it, under the organ of Acquisitiveness, will in this case be observed to be more full and protruding. The largeness of head produced in this way can by no means be mistaken for a mere prominent cheek-bone, nor for the organs of Acquisitiveness, or Destructiveness, or Constructiveness, situated higher, behind, and in front of it. Having found the said parts in some persons much compressed, in others less so, and, as I think, the disposition of mind always proportionate to it, and not yet having met with any exceptions, I cannot but hold my opinion to be true."

I have been informed that Mr CROOK also, without knowing Dr HOPPE's remarks, had arrived at a similar conclusion as to the situation of the organ.

The external part to which Dr HOPPE alludes, was formerly included by Dr SPURZHEIM within the limits of Destructiveness; but in Dr GALL's busts and plates, that organ was not carried so far forward, and the function of the part in question was marked by Dr GALL as unascertained.

Dr SPURZHEIM now coincides in the soundness of the views of Dr HOPPE, and the organ is regarded as probable. The part of the brain indicated by these gentlemen is different from the convolutions corresponding to that in which the olfactory nerves originate in the sheep. In the human brain the function of that part is therefore still unascertained.

ORGAN OF THE LOVE OF LIFE.

IN conversing with a variety of individuals about their mental feelings, no fact has more forcibly arrested my attention than the difference which exists in the love of life. It will be assumed by many, that this is an universal desire, glowing with equal intensity in all; but this is not the fact. All possess the feeling, but its degrees vary much more than is generally imagined. Some individuals desire life so intensely, that they view death as the greatest calamity; they declare, that rather than part with existence, they would submit to live in endless misery; the bare idea of annihilation is unsupportable to their imaginations ;and they found an argument for immortality on the position that God cannot be guilty of the injustice of making them conscious of so great a boon as life, and subsequently depriving them of it; to have lived, according to them, gives an indefeasable title to continue to live. Other individuals, again, experience no such passion for existence; they regard pain and parting with the objects of their affections, as the chief evils of death; so far as the mere pleasure of living is concerned, they are ready to surrender it with scarcely a feeling of regret; they discover nothing appalling in death, as the mere cessation of being; and do not feel the prospect of immortality to be essential to their enjoyment of the present life. I have found these different feelings combined with the most opposite dispositions in all other respects; the great lovers of life were not always

the healthy, the gay and the fortunate; nor were those who were comparatively indifferent to death, always the feeble, the gloomy and misanthropic; on the contrary, the feeling exists strongly and weakly in these opposite characters indiscriminately.

Neither does the difference depend on the moral and religious qualities of the individuals; for equal morality and religion are found in combination with either sentiment. This is a point in human nature not generally adverted to; nevertheless, I have obtained so many assurances of the existence of these different feelings, from individuals of sound judgment and unquestionable veracity, that it appears to me highly probable, that there are a special faculty and organ for the Love of Life. We seem to be bound to existence itself by a primitive instinct, just as we are led by other instincts, to provide for its continuance and transmission. The organ is probably situated in the base of the brain.

The only fact tending to illustrate its position, is one observed by Dr A. COMBE, and recorded in the Phrenological Journal, vol. iii. p. 471. In describing the dissection of the brain of a lady upwards of sixty, who for many years had been remarkable for continual anxiety about her own death, he observes, that "the enormous development of one convolution at the base of the middle lobe of the brain, the function of which is unknown, was too striking not to arrest our attention; it was that lying towards the mesial line, on the basilar and inner side of the middle lobe, and consequently of Destructiveness. The corresponding part of the skull showed a very deep and distinctly-moulded cavity or bed running longitudinally, with high and prominent sides, and presenting altogether an appearance much more striking than in any skull I ever saw. From the situation of this convolution, its development cannot be ascertained during life, and hence its function remains unknown. Whether it may have any connexion with the Love of Life, is a circumstance which may be de