Metaphysical Depth of Thought; Aptitude for drawing Conclusions. (Metaphysischer Tief-sinn.)

I have a long time observed, that some men, to whom a great philosophic spirit is attributed, had the anterior superior part of the forehead singularly large and prominent. Such are Socrates, Democritus, Cicero, Bacon, Montaigne, Galileo, La Bruyere, Leibnitz, Condillac, Diderot, Mendelsohn, &c.

But the tendency of the profound genius in these men, is not the same in all of them. The domain of one, is the material world; the domain of another, is the spiritual. One wishes to know what is; endeavours to discover the conditions, under which that which is, exists; makes observation the basis of all his meditations, and investigates the relation of cause and effect; another, disdaining the material world, raises himself into the world of spirits; and, creating to himself a universe of ideal beings, contemplates mind in its effects as mind, and takes no account of the material conditions of its functions; he is occupied in the investigation of general truths, of general principles; and, according to him, all which exists here below ought to conform to these general ideas; such is the ideologist, the metaphysician.

In these heads two cerebral parts are developed, one on each side, xxIII. Pl. Ix. at the side of the organ of comparative sagacity. In those the parts of the forehead which immediately touch these cerebral parts, are found prominent, and form, by themselves alone, or jointly with the organ of sagacity, two segments of a sphere, placed on each side of the forehead in the horizontal line.

At Vienna I knew men endowed with very distinguished intellectual faculties, zealous followers of Kant. The too great generality of the assertions, which constitute their doctrine, always convinced me, that it is without any practical utility. Their dogma,

for example, that time and space are only a form to which our understanding is subjected, appears to me so general, that it finds no application to any science or any art. It is on this account, that they and myself have never been able to understand each other. They reproached me, as the followers of the transcendental philosophy have since done in the rest of Germany, with not having raised myself above the lowest step in the ladder of observation. In return, I reproached them with losing themselves in the void beyond the limits of the sensible world; with wishing to determine the laws of the corporeal world according to those of the spiritual; and with constructing the whole external world with pretended materials, collected within themselves, instead of making observation the basis of their reasonings.

During our travels, they gave us a cast, moulded on the head of Kant after his death. It was with a lively pleasure, that we saw the extraordinary prominence of the two frontal parts which I have pointed out. See his portrait, Pl. LXXXII. fig. 3. Afterward, we became acquainted with Fichte, and found the same region of his forehead still more prominent than in Kant. We saw the same organization in Schelling; we need take no notice here of those numerous followers, who do nothing but repeat the words of their

master.

It seems to be proved by experience, that so long as man is condemned to inhabit this earth, there is no advantage to be drawn by him from the speculations of this sublime philosophy, and consequently that we shall do well to confine ourselves within that sphere of activity, which the world of realities offers us.

Sometimes, it is true, we are forced to admire the depth of the human mind, when, at distant intervals, we see those men, if not by the sole force of reasoning, at least by induction from a small number of data, discover truths, to which the naturalist dares not give his consent till after a numerous and painful succession

of experiments. Still these results, as brilliant as rare, are bright rays of light, doubtless, but such as it is very difficult to distinguish from the meteors, which usually dazvle the mind of the metaphysician.

The ancients probably had already perceived the relation, which exists between this organization, and the tendency to be occupied with things beyond the reach of the senses, and consequently beyond the sphere of observation. They give to their Jupiter Capitolinus the same prominence in the anterior middle superior part of the forehead; a characteristic mark, which suits perfectly with supreme intelligence, I am far from denying, that interior intuition may likewise become an object of observation; but when I see, that this intuition leads, in each individual, to different conclusions, and tends, consequently, to no certain observation; when I see, that in the midst of the corporeal world, in the midst of institutions founded on matter and on bodies, metaphysicians, as Berkeley did more than a century since, go so far as to call in doubt the existence of matter, by the most puerile sophisms, whether in the intention of repelling the charge of materialism, or because by a similar extravagance they pretend to raise themselves above the humble observer of nature; when I see in all ages the efforts as frivolous as profound, of the ideologist, to destroy and renew themselves by turns; when I see, that the metaphysicians by profession, affect an aversion for researches on man, such as he is; I doubt whether such an employment of the metaphysical spirit could ever pretend to any other merit, than that of simple speculation.

A third peculiar manifestation of the intellectual faculty, is what the Germans have called witz, and the English, wit. I know of no French word which

accurately expresses the same idea. This faculty considers objects under a point of view altogether peculiar, finds in them relations altogether peculiar, and presents them in a manner altogether peculiar, which constitutes what is called salt, causticity, and sometimes naïveté. To give my readers a just idea of this faculty, I see no better means than to cite men whose dominant faculty was what I suppose this to be; such was Lucian, the Voltaire of the Greeks, both by his boldness and by the turn of his mind; Rabelais, Cervantes, Marot, Boileau, Racine, Régnier, Swift, Sterne, Voltaire, Piron, Rabener, Wieland, &c.

In all persons eminently endowed with this faculty, whom I have had occasion to examine, I have found the anterior superior lateral parts of the forehead considerably prominent, in a segment of a sphere.

When this organization predominates, it carries with it an irresistible propensity to ridicule every thing; to spare neither friend nor brother; and as there are persons who, for want of better subjects, rob themselves, so there are found those who, for want of other objects, launch their satire against themselves.

Aristophanes was so bitter, that he did not spare his own family. Socrates and Euripides were the butts of his sarcasms. Henry IV. has been blamed for being too fond of jesting; he has been reproached for his gaiety in the midst of a combat, for his jests in poverty and misfortune, and for the sometimes untimely sallies of his lively mind.

Baron Grimm said of Piron; "This poet was a machine for sallies, epigrams, flashes of wit. In examining him closely, it was seen that these things were entangled one with another in his head, came out involuntarily, urged themselves confusedly on his lips, and that it was no more possible for him to avoid uttering bon mots, and epigrams by the dozen, than it was to avoid breathing. Piron was a real study for the philosopher."

pensity to satire.

Mathurin Régnier showed, from his youth, his proHis father chastised him several times to correct him. Punishments, prayers, all were useless.

Diogenes, the cynic, a biting wit, amused himself with all the follies of the age.

Cicero had an extreme inclination to raillery. Horace, a merry philosopher of the court of Augustus, usually manages his satire with delicacy. Juvenal, the unrelenting censor of the reign of Domitian, destroys all that he touches.

If we consider the busts and the portraits of Diogenes, Aristophanes, Henry IV., Cicero, Cervantes, Rabelais, Pl. LXXXIII. fig. 4; of Boileau, Racine, Régnier, Swift, Piron, fig. 5; of Sterne, fig. 6; Voltaire, Pl. LXXXIV. fig. 4; of Wieland, &c., we shall find in all of them, the anterior superior lateral part of the forehead projecting into two segments of a sphere.

Other persons want this talent, and sometimes to such a degree, that, like Crebillon, they hate and despise whatever is satire or epigram. In this case, the same region of the forehead is contracted. (Pl. lxxxii. fig. 5.)

It is therefore no longer permitted to doubt, that this talent is indicated by the organization, which I have described. The manner in which it manifests itself, whether by offensive sarcasms, or by jests without bitterness, the choice of its subjects, &c., all this depends on the greater or less development of other organs.

It is the convolutions, xxiv. Pl. vIII. fig. 9, which constitute the organ of wit.

"The spirit of wit," says Demangeon, "this Proteus of the understanding which assumes all forms to produce gaiety, marking with its seal all the sciences and all the arts, by striking contrasts, irony, raillery, ridicule, pleasantry, punning, buffoonry, satire, the grotesque, caricature, &c., this wit, which sports with all the faculties, has it really its principle in a single organ? I think it must depend on several cerebral apparatus