and Imitation, could not imitate Malibran, nor, what is the same thing, perform her parts on the stage: neither could an individual possessing little Self-Esteem and Destructiveness, represent, with just effect, the fiery Coriolanus; because the natural language of haughty indignation can no more be called up by Imitation and Secretiveness, without Destructiveness and Self-Esteem, than can melody without the aid of Tune. Hence, to constitute an accomplished actor, capable of sustaining a variety of parts, a generally full endowment of the mental organs is required. Nature rarely bestows all these in an eminent degree on one individual; and, in consequence, each performer has a range of character in which he excels, and out of which his talents appear to be greatly diminished. I have found, in repeated observations, that the lines of success and failure bear a decided reference to the organs fully or imperfectly developed in the brain. Actors incapable of sustaining the dignity of a great character, but who excel in low comedy, will be found deficient in Ideality; while, on the other hand, those who tread the stage with a native dignity of aspect, and seem as if born to command, will be found to possess it largely developed; and also Firmness, Self-Esteem, and Love of Approbation. It does not follow, however, from these principles, that an actor, in his personal conduct, must necessarily resemble most closely those characters which he represents to the best advantage on the stage. To enable an individual to succeed eminently in acting Shylock, for example, Firmness, Acquisitiveness, and Destructiveness are indispensable; but it is not necessary, merely because Shylock is represented as deficient in Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Veneration, and Love of Approbation, that the actor should also be so. The general powers of Imitation and Sensitiveness, although they do not supply the place of faculties that are deficient, are quite competent to suppress the manifestations of incongruous sentiments. Hence, in his private character the actor may manifest, in the highest degree, the moral sentiments; and yet, by shading these for the time, by the aid of Secretiveness, and bringing into play only the natural language of the lower propensities, which also we suppose him to possess, he may represent the scoundrel to the life.

This faculty is indispensable to the portrait painter, the engraver, and the sculptor; and, on examining the heads of Mr. W. Douglas, Mr. Joseph, Mr. Uwins, Mr. W. Allan, Mr. James Stewart, Mr. Shelby the ornithologist, and Mr. Lawrence Macdonald, I found it large in them all. Indeed, in these arts Imitation is as indispensable as Constructiveness. It also aids the musician and linguist, and, in short, all who practise arts in which expression is an object. On this faculty, in particular, the power of the ventriloquist depends.*

Dr. Spurzheim, alluding to Imitation, Wonder, Ideality, Wit, and Tune, observes, that "it is remarkable that the anterior, lateral, and upper region of the brain contains the organs of such powers as seem to be given particularly for amusements and theatrical performances."

Imitation gives the power of assuming those gestures which are expressive of the thoughts and feelings of the mind, and hence is requisite to the accomplished orator. In private life some individuals accompany their speech with the most forcible and animated expressions of counte nance; the nascent thought beams from the eye, and plays upon the features, before it is uttered in words; this is produced by much Imitation and Ideality.

In children Imitation is more active than in adults. Young persons are very apt to copy the behaviour of those with whom they associate

* See " Phrenological explanation of the vocal illusions commonly called Ventriloquism," by Mr. Simpson, Phren. Journ., vol. i., p. 466; and additional illustrations, vol. ii., p. 582.

and hence the necessity of setting a good example before them, even from the earliest years. "Children," says Locke, "(nay, men too,) do most from example; we are all a sort of chameleons, that still take a tincture from things near us."*

Cabanis relates a case in which the organ of Imitation seems to have been diseased. The patient felt himself impelled to repeat all the movements and attitudes which he witnessed. "If at any time they prevented him from obeying that impulse, either by constraining his limbs or obliging him to assume contrary attitudes, he experienced insupportable anguish; here it is plain, the faculty of imitation was in a state of morbid excitement."+ "A young idiot girl," says Pinel, whom I have long had under my care, has a most decided and irresistible propensity to imitate all that is done in her presence; she repeats automatically everything she hears said, and imitates the gestures and actions of others with the greatest accuracy."

46

This organ is possessed by some of the lower animals, such as parrots and monkeys, which imitate the actions of man. The faculty is very powerful in the Turdus Polyglottus, or mocking-bird. Its own natural note," says Dr. Good, "is delightfully musical and solemn; but, beyond this, it possesses an instinctive talent of imitating the note of every other kind of singing bird, and even the voice of every bird of prey, so exactly as to deceive the very kinds it attempts to mock. It is, moreover, playful enough to find amusement in the deception, and takes a pleasure in decoying smaller birds near it by mimicking their notes, when it frightens them almost to death, or drives them away with all speed, by pouring upon them the screams of such other birds of prey as they most dread." When this organ and that of Benevolence are both large, the anterior portion of the coronal region of the head rises high above the eyes, is broad, and presents a level surface, as in Miss Clara Fisher, who, at eight years of age, exhibited great talents as an actress. When Benevolence is large and Imitation small, there is an elevation in the middle, with a rapid slope on each side, as in Jacob Jervis. The organ is regarded JACOB JERVIS.

as ascertained.

Locke's Thoughts concerning Education, & 67.

+ Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, tome i., p. 195. De l'Alienation Mentale, 2d edit., p. 99, 115.

Good's Study of Medicine, 2d edit., vol. i., p. 463.

In both of these figures the head rises to a great height above the eyes; but in Jervis it slopes rapidly on the two sides of 13, Benevolence, indicating Imitation deficient; whereas in Miss Clara Fisher it is as high as 21, Imitation, as at Benevolence, indicating both organs to be large.

ORDER II-INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.

THESE faculties communicate to man and animals knowledge of their own internal sensations, and also of the external world; their object is to know existence and to perceive qualities and relations. Dr. Spurzheim's latest division of them is into three genera :

"I. The External Senses.

"II. The Internal Senses, or perceptive faculties which procure know. ledge of external objects their physical qualities, and various relations.

"III. The Reflective Faculties."*

For the sake of uniformity, 1 here adopt the same classification; although, as noticed in the Appendix, No. II., it is far from being unexceptionable. But until the analysis of the faculties themselves shall be more complete than at present, an accurate arrangement of them cannot be attained.

GENUS L-EXTERNAL SENSES.

By means of the Senses man and animals are brought into communication with the external world. Dr. Spurzheim. in his Physiognomical System, and, in his more recent work, Phrenology, gives admirable treatises on the senses; of which I shall avail myself largely in the following pages.

The opinions entertained by philisophers in regard to the functions of the senses have, in many instances, been whimsical, extravagant, and contradictory.

Since the time of Bacon and Locke, the greater number of philosophical systems rest on the axiom of Aristotle, that all ideas come into the mind by means of the external senses. ́ According to this notion, he who possesses them in the highest state of perfection, is able to manifest most powerfully the intellectual faculties of the mind; or, in other words, the faculties, both of man and animals, ought to be proportionate to the perfection of the senses, and to the education bestowed upon them. Daily experience, however, contradicts this hypothesis. Dr. Thomas Brown's doctrine is, that in the sensations "we find the rude elements of all our knowledge, the materials on which the mind is ever operating, and without which it seems to us almost impossible that it could have operated at all, or could, even in its absolute inactivity, have been conscious of its own inert existence."+

Philosophers of another class maintain, that the mind acts independently of all organization, and that the senses, instead of being instruments of action, are rather impediments to it. They complain much of the illusions of the senses; and despise all testimony, and all conclusions grounded upon sensation. Such notions are unworthy of being refuted.

Other philosophers, again, have attributed to the external senses many acts which are performed by the internal faculties alone. For instance, Helvetius has said, that man owes his arts to the structure of his hands; and that, if the hoof of the horse had been joined to the human a-m, he would have been still wandering wild in the woods. But many animals Philosophical Principles of Phrenology. Boston, United States, 1832, 1 Lectures, "ol. i., p. 398.

p. 52.

have instruments equally curious and perfect in structure with those to which peculiar capacities of mind have been attributed in man; and yet these instruments do not produce in them the corresponding functions. Monkeys have hands almost as nicely formed as those which are attached to the human arm; but do monkeys put wood upon the fire to support. combustion? or do they construct works of art ? According to this theory, also, insects, craw-fish, lobsters, and still more the cuttle-fish, ought to have exact ideas of extension, of size, and of the theorems of geometry, in consequence of their numerous and perfect organs of touch.

In point of fact, however, the external instruments are often similar, while the functions performed by them are quite different. The hare and rabbit have similar feet; yet the hare lies on the surface of the fields, while the rabbit burrows under ground. We have also examples of similar functions observed in animals which have instruments quite different. The proboscis is to the elephant what the hand is to man and to the monkey. The hands of monkeys and the feet of parrots and squirrels are certainly different; yet, by means of these instruments, they all move their food to their mouths in eating. In order to dig up truffles, the hog ploughs the earth with his snout, and the dog scratches it with his feet.

Some have taught that the functions of the senses are not ordained by nature, but acquired by experience. Much, for example, has been written about the rectification of the sense of sight by means of touch; and about what they call the acquired perceptions of sight.

Each sense, however, performs its functions in consequence of its own innate constitution alone; and the relations of every sense to external impressions are determinate, and subjected to positive laws. If an odour make an impression upon the olfactory nerve, the impression is immediately found to be agreeable or disagreeable; and this feeling arises from the constitution of the sense, and the relation established between it and the odorous particles which excite it to activity. The functions of every sense depend only on its peculiar organization; and hence no preceding exercise or habit is necessary, in order to acquire the special power of any sense. If the organization be perfect, the functions are perfect also; and if the organization he diseased, the functions are deranged, notwithstanding all preceding exercise. If the optic apparatus be perfect in newlyhatched birds, their sight is perfect; as is the case with chickens, ducks, partridges, aud quails: if, on the contrary, at the first entrance into life, the organization of the eyes or the ears be imperfect, the power of the animal to see or hear is proportionally deficient. In adult persons vision is deranged if the eyes be diseased. In old persons the function of the five senses lose their energy, because the vital power of the organs is diminished.

It is indeed ridiculous to suppose that Nature should have produced any sense which could not perform its functions without being supported by another and a different sense; that, for example, we should not be able 10 see without feeling, or to hear without seeing. Hence the propositions appear self-evident that no sense acquires its functions by means of any other sense, and that any one sense cannot be the instrument of producing the sensations experienced by means of all the senses collectively. But we must observe, that different senses may enable us to perceive the same object; and that one sense is more fitted than another to make us acquainted with different objects and their qualities. For example, we may obtain a conception of the figure of a book by means of the sense of touch, and also by means of the sense of sight.

Each sense, as already observed, is subject to its own positive laws. For example, we see according to the laws of the refraction of light; and hence, a straight rod half plunged in water appears crooked, although touch proves that, in this situation, the rod continues straight.

This is a kind of rectification; but it must not be confounded with the doctrine which maintains that one sense acquires its functions by means of the rectification of another sense. Touch may show that a rod which is plunged in water, and looks crooked, is straight; but the eyes will see it crooked as before. The rectifications thus effected by the senses are mutual, and not the prerogative of one sense. In this view the eyes may rectify the sense of touch. If, without our knowledge, a piece of thin paper be placed between one of our fingers and the thumb, we may not feel but we may see it. Even smell and taste may rectify the senses of seeing and of touch. Thus, many fluids look like water, and it would be impossible to discover them to be different substances by the sense of touch; but it is easy to do so by smell and taste. Thus each sense has its peculiar and independent functions, and each is subject to positive laws. But every sense also perceives impressions of which another is not susceptible; and it is in consequence of this circumstance that the external senses rectify one another; or rather produce, by their co-operation, an extent of accurate conception, which, in an unconnected state, they would have been incapable of producing.

It is a task of considerable difficulty to point out accurately the precise limits of the functions of the senses; because, in every act of perception their instrumentality is combined with that of the internal faculties of the mind; and it is not easy to discriminate to what extent the act depends upon the one, and to what extent upon the other. For the elucidation of this point, I submit the following considerations to the reader :

The external organs of the senses do not form ideas. For example, when an impression is made upon the hand, it is not the nerves of touch which form the conception of the objects making the impression; they merely receive that impression, and communicate it to the brain, and un internal faculty of the mind perceives, or forms an idea of the object by which the impression is caused. Without the nerves of feeling, the internal faculty could not experience the perception; because the medium of communication between it and the object would be wanting.

Hence, previously to every perception, there must be an impression on the external organs of sense; and the function of these organs appears to consist in receiving and transmitting this impression to the brain and internal faculties. The nature of the impression depends on the constitution of the organs of sense, and on the relations established between them and external objects; and, as it is absolutely impossible for the human will to change either the constitution of the senses or the relations between them and the external world, it is clearly absurd to speak of acquired impressions. But, as the senses are constituted with a determinate relation to external objects, so the brain and internal faculties are constituted with a determinate relation to the organs of sense. In virtue of the first relation, a certain object makes a certain impression; and in virtue of the second, a certain impression gives rise to a certain perception: and both depend on nature, and not on the will, nor on exercise or habit.

But we must distinguish between the perceptions we experience of external objects, and the inferences concerning their qualities which we draw by reasoning from these perceptions. All those ideas which are pure perceptions are formed intuitively, on the presentation of objects fitted to excite them. Inferences from these, on the other hand, are the result of our reasoning powers. What are sometimes called "acquired perceptions are merely habits of reasoning from the impressions naturally made on the senses; and these habits are just as much a part of our nature as the original perceptions. It appears to me, that the visible and tangible appearances of bodies are simple perceptions, because, after the ampiest experience of some of these being deceitful, we cannot, in the