who, on receiving a handkerchief, put it on as a robe, and took extraordinary delight in seeing it trail behind her as a train. In all these creatures the organ is largely developed.

The organ is large in Dr. Hette, the Rev. Mr. M., in King Robert Bruce, Clara Fisher; and deficient in D. Haggart and Dempsey.

It is established.

12.- CAUTIOUSNESS.

THIS organ is situated near the middle of each parietal bone, where the ossification of the bone generally commences.

The figures represent its appearance when large and small.

Dr. Gall was acquainted at Vienna with a prelate, a man of excellent sense and considerable intellect. Some persons had an aversion towards him, because, through fear of compromising himself, he infused into his discourses interminable reflections, and delivered them with unsupportable slowness. When any one began a conversation with him, it was very difficult to bring it to a conclusion. He paused continually in the middle of his sentences, and repeated the beginning of them two or three times before proceeding farther. A thousand times he pushed the patience of Dr. Gall to extremity. He never happened by any accident to give way to the natural flow of his ideas; but recurred a hundred times to what he had already said, consulting with himself whether he could not amend it in some point. His manner of acting was in conformity with his manner of speaking. He prepared with infinite precautions for the most insignificant undertakings. He

subjected every connexion to the most rigorous examination and calculation before forming it.

This case, however, was not by itself sufficient to arrest the attention of Dr. Gall; but this prelate happened to be connected in public affairs with a Councillor of the Regency, whose eternal irresolution had procured for him the nickname of Cacadubio. At the examinations of the public schools, these two individuals were placed side by side, and Dr. Gall sat in the seat immediately behind them. This arrangement afforded him an excellent opportunity of observing their heads. The circumstance which most forcibly arrested his attention was, that both their heads were very large in the upper, lateral, and hind parts, the situation of the organ in question. The dispositions and intellectual qualities of these two men were, in other respects, very different; indeed they resembled each other in circumspection, and in this particular developement of head alone. The coincidence between them in this point suggested the idea to Dr. Gall, that irresolution, indecision, and circumspection, might be connected with certain parts of the brain. Subsequent reflection on this disposition, and observation of additional facts, converted this presumption into certainty.

It is a principle in Phrenology, that absence of one quality never confers another. Every feeling is something positive in itself, and is not a mere negation of a different emotion. Fear, then, is a positive sentiment, and not the mere want of courage; and it appears to me that the faculty now under discussion produces this feeling. The tendency of the sentiment is to make the individual apprehend danger; and this leads him to hesitate before he acts, and to trace consequences that he may be assured of his safety. Dr. Spurzheim names it "Cautiousness," which appellation I retain as sufficiently expressive, although the primitive feeling appears, on a rigid analysis, to be simply fear. Dr. Gall says, "It was requisite that inan and animals should be endowed with a faculty to enable them to foresee certain events, to give them a presentiment of certain circumstances, and to prompt them to provide against danger., Without such a disposition, their attention

would have been occupied only with the present; and they would have been incapable of taking any measure with reference to the future." Accordingly, he describes the faculty which prompts to these actions, as if it comprised something intellectual; and calls it "Circumspection, Foresight." Dr. Spurzheim "does not believe that it foresees; it is, in his opinion, blind, and without reflection, though it may excite the reflective faculties." This observation appears to me correct.

A full developement of this organ is essential to a prudent character. It produces a cautious, circumspect, and considerate disposition of mind. Persons so organized, says Dr. Gall, "are habitually on their guard; they know that it is more difficult to sustain than to acquire reputation, and, consequently, every new undertaking is prosecuted with equal care as the first. They look forward to all possible dangers, and are anxious to anticipate every occurrence; they ask advice of every one, and often, after having received much counsel, they remain undecided. They put great faith in the observation, that, of a hundred misfortunes which befall us, ninety-nine arise from our own fault. Such persons never break any article; they may pass their lives in pruning trees, or in working with sharp tools, without cutting themselves. If they see a vessel placed near the edge of the table, their nerves shrink. If they give credit, or indulge in gaming, they never lose large sums of money. Finally," says he, "they form a standing subject of criticism to their less considerate neighbors, who look on their forebodings as extravagant, and their precautions as trifling and absurd."*

When the organ is too large, it produces doubts, irresolution, and wavering; and may lead to absolute incapacity for vigorous and decisive conduct. A great and involuntary activity of it produces a panic,—a state in which the mind is hurried away by an irresistible emotion of fear, for which no adequate external cause exists.

The organ is almost uniformly large in children, and appears, from this circumstance, to be developed at an earlier age than

* Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, tome iv. p. 320

many of the other organs. This is a wise provision of nature, as caution is never more indispensable to the safety of the individual, than during the helpless years of infancy and childhood. Children possessing a large endowment may be safely trusted to take care of themselves; they will rarely be found in danger. When, on the other hand, the organs are small in a child, he will be a hapless infant; fifty keepers will not supply the place of the instinctive guardianship performed by adequate Cautiousness. In a boy of six years of age it was very small, and he took off his clothes to leap into an old quarry full of water to recover his cap, which the wind had blown into it, totally insensible to the danger, which was imminent, of being drowned. In some very young children, the organs are so prominent as to alarm mothers with the fear of disease or deformity. Water in the head indeed frequently shows itself by an enlargement of this part of the skull, and it is not uncommon for unskilful persons to mistake a natural and healthy developement of the organ in question, for an indication of this disease.

In mature age, when the organ is very deficient, the individual is rash and precipitate. He is never apprehensive about the results of his conduct, and often proceeds to act without due consideration. Persons of this description are frequently of a gay, careless disposition, and engrossed entirely with the present; they adopt rash resolutions, and enter upon hazardous enterprises, without deliberation or advice. In domestic life, misfortunes overtake them in consequence of their want of precaution. From constitutional recklessness, they precipitate themselves against objects in the dark; they break frangible articles, owing to want of precaution in arranging them; and lose the money which they lend, by omitting to take proper security for repayment. Riding upon a slippery path, quite insensible to danger, their horse falls and deprives them of life. A cat, or other animal, overturns the candle which they have left burning, and sets their house on fire. In short, they are subject to interminable misfortunes, through want of caution in their conduct.*

* Gall sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, p. 319.

This faculty produces a repressing influence, and, in estimating its effects, the faculties with which it is combined ought to be kept in view. An individual, with large Acquisitiveness and SelfEsteem, which produce instinctive selfishness, was pointed out to me as remarkably careful of his own interest, although the organ of Cautiousness was deficient in his head. It was admitted, however, that his prudence consisted chiefly in resisting solicitations to perform generous actions, and to enter into suretiship; but that, when a tempting prospect of gain was held out to him, although attended with great risk, he was liable to dash into the adventure, and in consequence frequently sustained severe losses. His natural dispositions rendered him little prone to excessive generosity, and in that respect no danger awaited him; but if Cautiousness had been large, it would have rendered him alive to the perils of speculation, and prompted him to prefer small and certain profits, to the chances of greater but uncertain gain.

Extreme and involuntary activity of this faculty produces internal sensations of dread and apprehension, highly distressing to the individual, although often very ridiculous in the eyes of ignorant spectators. Many persons believe that the feelings of the mind depend upon the dictates of the understanding, and that individuals, if they would allow themselves to be convinced of the groundlessness of their apprehensions, might, by an act of volition, remove these terrors. Such notions argue great ignorance of human nature. As easily could we remove a pain from the leg, by resolving to be quit of it, as the unhappy sufferer, under diseased Cautiousness, could dispel the mental gloom by which he is afflicted.

A large developement of this organ, combined with much Destructiveness, predisposes to self-destruction. Cautiousness does not produce suicide as a specific act, but the sentiment, when excited to excess by disease of the organs, gives rise to intense melancholy, anguish, and anxiety, and, by rendering life extremely miserable, indirectly prompts to this result. Hence the fact, that the best of men, and those in whose external circumstances no adequate motive can be found, are sometimes led to that fatal deed.