coarse tools, such as a plane, a hammer, and a file, he made, alone, the case, the wires, the keys, and put all together with marvellous industry. The forms, the proportions were observed. He afterward made two others, which have not the elegance of the pianos of Erard, but which are worth many of those which bear the names of well-known makers.

This was not all; after this trial, he wished to have a clock. He examined one, and made all the pieces, which he joined, and gave them all the regularity which a good clock-maker could have done.

An

This success did not puff up father Vincent. other would have quitted the spade and the plough; but this rustic Vaucanson continued to cultivate his field, contenting himself with employing his new talent in his leisure moments, and solely to procure himself some enjoyment, or to ornament his house.

We every where see men, occupying eminent places, relax themselves from their habitual occupations by working at the lathe or in drawing. This taste cannot be attributed to peculiar feelings, nor to necessity, nor to very distinguished intellectual faculties.

On the contrary, we often see men endowed with very distinguished intellectual faculties, who absolutely know not how to do any thing with their hands. Lucian and Socrates renounced sculpture, because they did not feel any inclination for this art. M. Schurer, formerly professor of physics at Strasburgh, broke every thing he touched. There are persons who do not know how to mend a pen or sharpen a razor. Two of my friends, the one an excellent instructer, the other a great minister, were passionately fond of gardening, but I could never teach them to graft a

tree.

On the other hand, the greatest mechanicians are astonishingly limited in capacity as respects every thing else. The greater part of them, like all geniuses, are ordinarily great masters without suspecting it.

I close by making the remark, that the exercise of

the mechanical aptitudes takes place the more servilely, and in a manner the more invariable, as the animal is placed lower down on the scale of perfection; on the contrary, the higher he is placed, the more liberty has he in the exercise of these aptitudes. The nest of the squirrel offers much more variety than the envelope of the caterpillar; it is thus, that we see this apparent freedom go on increasing in the proportion of the organization in general, and of the organ of art in particular, until we arrive at length at the draughtsman, the painter, the sculptor, the architect, the mechanician, who believe, that in the exercise of their art, they have not subjected themselves to any fetter; yet the limits, assigned in this respect to the human race, do not escape the eye of the philosophic observer, who compares the works of one artist with those of another; the works of the ancients with those of the moderns; the works of one nation with those of another.

Finally, I am far from denying, that exercise and models serve to perfect the products of art, as well as every thing else. But, as Ferguson says, "All the skill which man acquires in the space of many ages, is only the development of the talent, which he possessed from the earliest times. The hut of the Scythian offers to the eyes of Vitruvius the elements of architecture; the bow, the sling, and the savage canoe, present to the armorer and the builder the original constructions of their trade.”

Faculty of Constructiveness in Disease.

It is not rare to see idiots, who manifest an astonishing talent for mechanics.

Pinel relates the example already quoted of a madman, who imagined, that his head had been changed, and who made the most ingenious machines, which were the result of the most profound combinations.

Doctor Spurzheim mentions the case of a woman on whom the organ of constructiveness, whenever she became pregnant, was in such a state of excitement, that she had actually a mania for building. Doctor Rush cites two cases, in which the talent for drawing showed itself during madness, and adds that there is no insane hospital in which we do not find examples of individuals, who, having never before shown the least trace of mechanical talent, have constructed the most curious machines, and even ships completely furnished.

Seat and external Appearance of the Organ of the Arts in Man.

It is the convolution vII. rolled in a spiral, Pl. iv. v. VIII., which constitutes this organ. In Pl. vi. it is almost half covered by the very considerably developed convolutions of the middle lobes. When it has acquired a considerable development, it manifests itself in the cranium by a protuberance in the form of a segment of a sphere, the base of which has an inch. and more in diameter. It is placed sometimes a little higher, or a little lower, according as the neighbouring organs are more or less developed immediately behind the organ of music, and above that of numbers. An unpractised eye might easily confound it with the organ of the propensity to acquire; but the form of this last is lengthened from behind forwards, and when the cushion which it forms is very considerable, it extends to the external edge of the superciliary arch. The protuberance formed by the organ of the arts is, on the contrary, round, and placed above that of the organ of the sense of property.* See Pl. LXXxv. fig. 5, the portrait of Raphael, and fig. 6, that of Michael Angelo.

We sometimes meet with great mechanical talents, which, instead of having the temporal regions as prominent as the zygomatic, have them rather contracted. This is in consequence of the deficient development of the organs, placed in the anterior lateral part of the forehead.

This protuberance gives to the temples a prominence equal to that of the zygomatic regions; on this account great mechanicians have a head apparently enclosed between two parallel planes. In very distinguished artists this region is extremely prominent, and appears like a cushion, which engravers, painters, and sculptors regard as a deformity, and therefore never express it in its whole development.

At Vienna, several very respectable men brought me a subject, on which they begged me to give them my opinion. I told them, that he must have a great genius for mechanics; these gentlemen thought I was mistaken, but the person in question was much struck by my decision; it was the famous painter Unterberger. To give evidence, that I had judged correctly, he declared that he had always had a passionate taste for mechanics, and that the art of painting, which he exercised, was only his trade; he carried us into his house, where he showed us several large apartments filled with machines and instruments, which he had partly invented, partly brought to perfection. Moreover drawing, so necessary to the painter, depends on the organ of constructiveness.

Doctor Scheel of Copenhagen had attended one of my courses at Vienna; thence he went to Rome. One day he suddenly entered my house when I was surrounded by my pupils, and presented me a skull in plaster, on which he begged me to give him my opinion. I immediately exclaimed, that I had never seen the organ of constructiveness developed to the degree, that it was in this cranium. Scheel continued to question me. I requested those present to observe a considerable development of the organ of

Physical Love, and that of Imitation. "How," continued he, "do you find the organ of coloring?" I had not paid attention to it, for it was only moderately developed. M. Scheel then declared, with all the marks of the most lively joy, that it was the cast of the skull of Raphael which he had just sent me, and that, during his residence in Italy, he had found my ideas confirmed by the study of the antiques.

Many of my hearers spoke to me of a man endowed with an extraordinary genius for mechanics. I described to them beforehand the form, which his head ought to have, and we went to find him. It was the skilful inventor of mathematical instruments at Vienna. His temples were swollen into two misshapen cushions. Before this, I had found nearly the same form in the head of the celebrated mechanician and astronomer David, an Augustine friar, and of the famous Voigtlænder, maker of mathematical instruments.

At Paris the Prince of Schwartzenberg, then minister of Austria, wished to put M. Spurzheim and myself to the test. At the moment when we rose from table, he led me into a neighbouring apartment, and introduced to me a young man without saying a single word. I went to rejoin the company with the Prince, and begged M. Spurzheim to examine the young man; during his absence I told the company what I thought of him. Spurzheim had hardly seen the individual, when he came to join us in the parlour, and likewise declared, that he thought him a great mechanician, or, a great artist in some similar department. In fact the Prince had induced him to come to Paris on account of his great talent for mechanics, and furnished him the means to prosecute his studies there.

At Vienna and in the whole course of our travels, we found among all the mechanicians, architects, draughtsmen, and sculptors, this organ developed in proportion to their talent for example, in Messrs. Fischer and Zauner, sculptors at Vienna; Grosch,