ment after the consequences were pointed out to him, because he possesses development sufficient to give him perception of causation when presented; but he could not, like FRANKLIN, anticipate effects, as this is a higher power.

According to this view of Perception, which regards it as the lowest state of activity of every intellectual faculty, an individual may possess acute powers of perception as to one class of objects, and be quite unable to perceive others. Thus Mr MILNE had an acute perception of form, although he cannot perceive some colours; other individuals perceive symmetry distinctly who cannot perceive melody. This exposition has the merit of coinciding with nature; for we frequently meet with such examples as I have now cited.

The metaphysicians, on the other hand, treat of perception as a general faculty, and when their doctrine is applied to nature, the extraordinary spectacle is presented of their general power performing in the same individual half its functions with great effect, while it is wholly inefficient as to the other half; just as if a leg could walk east and be quite incapable of walking west. Dr THOMAS BROWN has abandoned this absurdity; and differs from REID, STEWART, and all his predecessors, in denying perception to be any thing more than an act of the general power of the mind. We call it an act of several special faculties of the mind; but with these Dr BROWN was not acquainted.

CONCEPTION. When the Knowing or Reflecting organs are powerfully active from internal excitement, whether by the will or from natural activity, ideas are vividly and rapidly conceived; and the act of forming them is styled CONCEPTION; if the act amounts to a very high degree of vivacity, it is called IMAGINATION. Thus perception is the lowest degree of activity of any of these faculties excited by an external object; and conception or imagination are higher degrees of activity depending on internal causes, and without the interference of an external object. Each faculty performs the act of conception in its

own sphere. Thus, if one person have a powerful organ of Tune, he is able to conceive, or call up in his own mind, the notes of a tune, when no instrument is sounding in his ears. If his organ of Form be very small, he may not be able to bring shapes before his mind with equal facility. Some persons read music like a book, the written sign of a note being sufficient to enable them to call up the impression of the note itself in their minds. This is a very high degree of activity of the faculty. Temperament has a great effect on internal activity; the lymphatic temperament requires external objects to rouse it to vivid action, while the sanguine and nervous glow with spontaneous and constitutional vivacity. Hence imagination, which results from a high degree of activity, is rarely found with a temperament purely lymphatic, but becomes exalted in proportion to the approach of the temperament to the ner

vous.

In treating of Colouring, I cited a passage from Mr STEWART, in which, after stating the fact that some men are able to distinguish different tints when presented together, who cannot name them when separate, he attributes this want of discrimination to defect in the power of conception, probably arising, he supposes, from early habits of inattention. So far he is correct: an individual like Mr SLOANE may be found, whose organ of Colouring enables him to distinguish hues when seen in juxta-position, and is yet so weak as not to give him conception or memory of them when seen apart, and this would certainly indicate a deficient power of conception; but then the power of conception may be deficient in this faculty alone, and very vigorous in all the others. On Mr STEWART's principle, that conception is a general power, we would have the anomaly of its performing one portion of its functions well, while deficient as to another, which defect is accounted for by him, by supposing early habits of inattention; whereas if a faculty be naturally strong, it eagerly attends to its objects, just as a vigorous and empty stomach desires food.

When any of the Knowing or Reflecting organs is internally ctive, the mind conceives, or is presented with ideas of the objects which it is fitted to perceive. Thus Locality, Colouring, and Size, being active, we are able, with our eyes closed, to conceive a landscape in all its details of hill and dale, sunshine and shade. If this internal activity become morbid, through disease of the organs, then ideas become fixed, and remain involuntarily in the mind; and if this is long continued, it constitutes insanity. Many persons have experienced, when in the dark, vivid impressions of figures of every variety of colour and form passing before the mind, sometimes invested in alarming brilliancy and vivacity. I conclude that this arises from an internal excitement of the organs situated at the superciliary ridge, viz. Form, Locality, Colouring, &c. occasioned generally by an unusual accumulation of blood. This affection is, in most instances, only momentary; but suppose that it were to become fixed and continuous, then the mind would be haunted with permanent and vivid conceptions of innumerable and fantastic beings, invested with more than the forms and hues of reality. This would be insanity; not a diseased feeling, such as melancholy, or fury, or religious joy, but an intellectual delusion; so that every sentiment might be sound, and yet this aberration of intellect remain fixed and immoveable by the will. If we suppose this disease to take place in several Knowing organs, leaving the organs of Reflection entire, it is quite possible to imagine that the individual may have false perceptions on some points, and not only be sane on all others, but be able, by means of the faculties that remain unaffected, to distinguish the erroneous impressions.

The phenomena of apparitions, or spectral illusions, may be accounted for by the principles now explained. If several organs become active through internal excitement, they produce involuntary conceptions of outward objects, invested in all the attributes of Form, Colour, and Size, which usually distinguish reality. Several interesting ex

amples of this affection are given in the Phrenological Journal *.

The Knowing organs, and the organ of Wonder, seem to be the chief seats of these diseased perceptions, which appears obvious from the descriptions of the apparitions themselves. Thus NICOLAI, the Berlin bookseller, saw the form as of a deceased person within eight steps of him— vast numbers of human and other forms equally in the day and night-crowds of both sexes-people on horseback, birds and dogs-of natural size, and distinct as if alive,— of natural colour, but paler than reality. He then began to hear them talk. On being blooded with leeches, the room was crowded with spectres-in a few hours their colour began to fade, but in a few more they were white. They dissolved in air, and fragments of them were visible for some time. Dr ALDERSON of Hull furnishes two other cases. Mr R. left his wife and family in America, but saw them and conversed with them in this country-saw trains of living and dead persons-in a bright brass lock again saw his transatlantic friends, and always in that lock-had violent headach. A pothouse-keeper in Hull saw a soldier in his cellar whom he endeavoured to seize, but found an illusion-attempted to take up oysters from the ground, which were equally unreal-saw crowds of the living and dead-scarcely knew real from spectral customers-suffered repeated flogging from a waggoner with a whip, who was an illusion. In Vol. II. of the Journal, page 111, is given the case of a man in the west of Scotland, with a large organ of Wonder, who sees inanimate things and persons in visions-had a spotted carpet for a long time before his eyes-a funeral-a log of wood on wheels. His son has the same tendency-he followed a beggar, who glided and vanished into a wall. All these perceptions are clearly referrible to the Knowing organs.

Mr SIMPSON has communicated to the Phrenological Journal the following case, which is particularly interestVol. i. p. 541, and vol. ii. pp. 111, 293, 362.

ing and instructive. Concomitance of pain in the precise seats of the organs, with disorder of their functions, forms a striking feature in it; and the author states, that he is ready to afford the means of verification of the facts to any philosophical inquirer.

"Miss S. L.," says Mr SIMPSON, "a young lady, under twenty years of age, of good family, well educated, free from any superstitious fears, and in perfect general health of body and soundness of mind, has nevertheless been for some years occasionally troubled, both in the night and in the day, with visions of persons and inanimate objects, in almost all the modes and forms which we have already related. She was early subject to such illusions occasionally, and the first she remembers was that of a carpet spread out in the air, which descended near her, and vanished away.

"After an interval of some years, she began to see human figures in her room as she lay wide awake in bed, even in the daylight of the morning. These figures were whitish, or rather grey and transparent like cobweb, and generally above the size of life. At this time she had acute headachs, very singularly confined to one small spot of the head; on being asked to point out the spot, the utmost care being taken not to lead her to the answer, our readers may judge of our feelings as phrenologists, when she touched with her fore-finger and thumb, each side of the root of the nose, the commencement of the eyebrows, and the spot immediately over the top of the nose, the ascertained seats of the organs of Form, Size, and Lower Individuality! Here, particularly on each side of the root of the nose, she said the sensation could only be compared to that of running sharp knives into the part. The pain increased when she held her head down, and was much relieved by holding her face upwards *. Miss S. L. on being asked if the pain was confined to that spot, answered, that some time afterwards the pain extended

· Quere,-Does not this look like a pressure of blood on that region of

the brain?