ty, have fine temperaments combined with Ideality. The most exquisite mental manifestations are those which proceed from a favourable combination of the whole faculties, in which each contributes a share of its own good qualities, and is restrained by the others from running into excess or abuse. Thus, I conceive the very admirable taste of CAMPBELL the poet, to arise from a great endowment of the higher sentiments, Reflection and Concentrativeness; so that, on any feeling or image occurring to his mind, these faculties judge by an intuitive tact of its fitness, and modify it to the point at which it pleases them all. If a favourable development of this kind be possessed, the higher that Ideality rises, not to run into excess, and the finer the temperament, the more perfect will be the taste. At the same time, and for the same reason, there may be much good taste, of a simple kind, with moderate Ideality, if the other faculties be favourably balanced.

As Taste arises from fine quality of brain, and a favourable combination of organs, the explanation is simple, how it may be possessed without genius. Genius arises from great vigour and activity, depending on large size, and a high temperament: these are greater endowments than equability, and an individual may be deficient in them, and yet be so favourably constituted, with respect to the balance of the powers, as to feel acutely the excellencies or the faults of genius manifested by others. Hence many persons are really excellent critics, who could not themselves. produce original works of value; hence also, many original authors, of great reputation, display very questionable Taste.

In applying these principles to actual cases, I find them borne out by numerous facts. Dr CHALMERS occasionally sins against taste, and in his head Ideality and Comparison are out of due proportion to Causality, and some other organs. In Mr JEFFREY's bust, on the contrary, there is a very beautiful and regular development of Eventuality, Comparison, and Causality, with a fair balance between the

propensities and sentiments; and his taste is generally admirable.

As good taste is the result of the harmonious action of the faculties, we are able to perceive why taste is susceptible of so great improvement by cultivation. An author will frequently reason as profoundly, or soar as loftily, in his first essay, as after practice in writing for twenty years; but he rarely manifests the same tact at the outset of his career, as he attains by subsequent study, and the admonitions of a discriminative criticism. Reasoning depends on Causality and Comparison, and lofty flights of imagination on Ideality; and if the organs of these faculties be large, they will execute their functions intuitively, and carry the author forward, from the first, on a bold and powerful wing; but as taste depends on the balancing and adjusting, the suppressing and elevating, the ordering and arranging, of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, so as to produce a general harmony of the whole; it is only practice, reflection, and comparison with higher standards, that enable us successfully to approximate to excellence; and even these will do so only when the organs are by nature equably combined; for if the balance preponderate greatly in any particular direction, no effort will produce exquisite taste.

Much has been written about a standard of Taste; and in considering this question, a distinction requires to be made. If, by fixing a standard, we mean determining particular objects, or qualities of objects, which all men shall regard as beautiful, the attempt must necessarily be vain. A person possessing Form, Size, Constructiveness, and Ideality, may experience the most exquisite emotions of beauty from contemplating a Grecian Temple, in which another individual, in whom these organs are very deficient, may perceive nothing but stone and lime. One individual may discover, in an arrangement of colours, beauty which is quite imperceptible to a person deficient in the organ of Colouring. Or one may be delighted with music, in which

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another, through imperfection in the organ of Tune, may perceive no melody. Thus no object, and no qualities of objects, can be fixed upon, which all mankind, whatever be their original constitution, will acknowledge to be beautiful, and in this view no standard of Taste exists.

But degrees of Beauty may be estimated, in which sense a scale at least, if not a standard, of Taste, may be framed. The more favourable the original constitution of an individual is, and the greater the cultivation bestowed on his powers, he becomes the higher authority in questions of Taste. The existence of a sentiment of Justice has been denied, because individuals are found in whom it is so weak, as scarcely to influence their conduct; but Phrenology, by pointing out their defect, shews that these persons form exceptions to a general rule, and then no one thinks of appealing to them, to determine whether an action be

just or unjust in any particular case. In like manner, men deficient in the faculties which give the perception of Beauty, are not authorities in Taste; but that individual is the highest judge in whom large Ideality is combined with a fine temperament, and the most favourable development of the organs of propensity, sentiment, and intellect; and who, besides, has exercised his faculties with the greatest assiduity. His determinations in regard to degrees of beauty in objects, will form the best standards of Taste which our imperfect nature is capable of attaining.

EFFECTS OF SIZE IN THE ORGANS ON THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE FACULTIES.

THE reader is referred to the distinction between POWER and ACTIVITY in the mind, as stated on page 103 of the present work. Cæteris paribus, size in the organs is the measure of power in the manifestations of the faculties. The practical application of this doctrine remains to be stated; and it will be understood now, after the functions

and modes of activity of the primitive faculties have been elucidated.

As size in the organs is an indispensable requisite to power in the mind, no instance ought to occur of an individual who, with a small brain, has manifested clearly and unequivocally, great force of character, animal, moral and intellectual, such as belonged to BRUCE, BUONAPARTE, or Fox; and such accordingly phrenologists affirm to be the fact. The Phrenological Society possesses casts of the skulls of BRUCE, RAPHAEL, and LA FONTAINE, and they are all large. The busts and portraits of Lord BACON, SHAKSPEARE and BUONAPARTE, indicate large heads; and among living characters no individual has occurred to my observation who leaves a vivid impression of his own greatness upon the public mind, and who yet presents to their eyes only a small brain.

The European head is distinguished from the Asiatic and native American, not more by difference of form than of size; the European is much the larger, and the superior energy of this variety of mankind is known. The heads of men are larger than those of women, and the latter obey; or to bring the point to the clearest demonstration, we require only to compare the head of an idiot with that of BURKE, or of a child with that of a full grown man, as represented on p. 77. If, then, size is so clearly a concomitant of power in extreme cases, we are not to presume that it ceases to exert an influence where the differences are so minute that the eye is scarcely able to detect them. The rule, Extremis probatis media præsumuntur, is completely applicable here.

The doctrine, that power is a characteristic of mind, distinguishable at once from mere intellectual acumen, and also from activity, is one of great practical importance; and it explains a variety of phenomena of which we previously possessed no theory. In society we meet with persons whose whole manner is little, whom we instinctively feel

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to be unfit for any great enterprize or arduous duty, and who are, nevertheless, distinguished for amiable feeling and good sense. This springs from a small brain favourably proportioned in its parts. Other individuals, again, with far less polish, inferior information, and fewer amiable qualities, impress us with a sentiment of their power, force, energy, or greatness; we instinctively feel that they have weight, and that, if acting against us, they would prove formidable opponents. This arises from great size. BUONAPARTE, who had an admirable tact in judging of human nature, distinguishes between mere cleverness and force of character, and almost always prefers the latter. In his Memoirs, he speaks of some of his generals as possessing talents, intellect, book-learning, but as still being nobody, as wanting that weight and comprehensiveness which fit a man for great enterprizes; while he adverts to others as possessing limited intellect and little judgment, but prodigious force of character; and considers them as admirably adapted by this qualification to lead soldiers through peril and difficulty, provided they be directed by minds superior to their own. MURAT was such a man; and BUONAPARTE appears on the whole to have liked such officers, for they did not trouble him with thinking for themselves, while they possessed energy adequate to the execution of his most gigantic designs. The leader of a popular party who has risen to that rank by election, or assumed it with acquiescence, will be found to have a large brain. The leaders of an army or a fleet also require a similar endowment, for otherwise they would possess authority without natural weight, and would never inspire confidence in their followers. BUONAPARTE had a large head; and officers and soldiers, citizens and statesmen, bowed before his mental greatness, however much they might detest the use he made of his power. In him, all the organs, animal, moral, and intellectual (Conscientiousness and, perhaps, Firmness, expected), seem to have been large;