SECTION III.-OF THE PARTICULAR FACULTIES OF THE MIND, THEIR CEREBRAL ORGANS, MODES OF ACTIVITY, AND USES AND ABUSES.

These subjects are treated of in detail in the phrenological and other works before named (page 31); to which I beg leave to refer. In the Appendix No. I. a list of the organs, and an outline of their positions in the brain, are given, to assist such readers as may not have access to these works; but as they embrace only names and divisions of space, they are not meant as substitutes for the treatises. It is necessary here only to recapitulate the following general conclusions, which are considered as ascertained :

1st, That men in general, in the state of health, have no consciousness of the existence or uses of the brain.

2dly, That in consequence of this want of consciousness, men, in general, in all ages, have ascribed the phenomena of sensation, emotion, and thought, exclusively to a spiritual entity which they have named the Mind.

3dly, That certain facts discoverable by observation, demonstrate that the brain is the organ of the mental functions, and that no consciousness, and no mental manifestations, take place, in our present state, without its agency.

4thly, That the condition of the brain affects both the power and the quality of the mental manifestations.

It is of much importance in this inquiry to bear in mind that the size and condition of particular parts of the brain determine the degree of energy and activity of particular faculties of the mind. For example; if the part of the brain which serves to manifest the emotion of Veneration be very deficient, that emotion will be very imperfectly known through the consciousness of the individual; and no external influences hitherto discovered, falling within the sphere of natural action, will enable him to experience it in a normal degree. If that part be very large, and his temperament be active, he will be conscious of strong emotions of that description, and will feel great pleasure in religious exercises. And if that part become diseased, the effect may be prostration or extinction of the emotion, if the disease destroy the organ; or a morbid exaltation of it, if the malady excite the cerebral convolutions into abnormal vivacity, without impairing their structure. And so of all the other mental faculties and their organs.

Each mental faculty is a distinct power, the strength of which depends, as I have said, on the size and condition of its organ; and each has a prescribed sphere of action which is regulated by fixed laws. For example, Acquisitiveness is the

с

desire for property. Its power and activity depend on the size and condition of its organ. Property can be called into existence only by complying with certain conditions woven into the order of nature, and not dependent on the will of man; and it can be distributed so as to produce general well-being, only according to certain rules, also fixed by the nature of things and beings, and not alterable by man. If, in any individual, the desire be too feeble, or too strong, or be unguided by knowledge, and if, in consequence, it acts in contravention of those rules, disappointment and suffering will ensue; and the same propositions may be stated in regard to all the other faculties.

The key to the moral government of the world, therefore, is to be found in a knowledge of these mental forces and of the laws to which they are subjected.

The evidence on which certain mental organs are considered to be ascertained, and the existence and functions of others rendered probable, is stated in the works on Phrenology before mentioned. It is not considered necessary to enter into a detailed statement of that evidence here; because this may be seen in the works alluded to, and because I here assume that the present treatise will have no practical influence, until, by the advance of the public mind, that evidence and its consequences shall have been studied with the attention and earnestness which so important a subject demands.

SECTION IV.IS MAN NATURALLY A RELIGIOUS BEING ?

As our ideas of physical things are formed through the medium of faculties which are common to all the race, it would be possible to arrive at unanimity of opinion concerning them, provided every individual possessed the faculties in an equal degree of perfection, and had applied them in the same direction, and with equal assiduity. But as the organs of

the external senses and of the intellectual faculties differ widely in size, quality, and cultivation, in different persons, this unanimity is unattainable. The same remark applies to the religious and all the other emotions. If religious emotions exist, and if their organs were equally large and active, equally cultivated, and directed to the same objects, in all men, all would be equally religious; but as these organs differ in size, activity, and cultivation, in different persons, some are ardently religious, while others deny the existence of religious emotions altogether. The emotions, moreover, are differently directed in different individuals; and hence, unanimity in regard to

the objects to which they should be addressed, is not to be expected.

These facts do not lead logically to universal scepticism; because they do not deny the existence of religious emotions and their organs. On the contrary, by establishing the existence of organs for the religious emotions, while we show how widely their size, cultivation, and direction, differ in different persons, we remove the objections to the existence of religion which these differences naturally suggest. In proportion as men reach the highest points of cerebral development, temperament, and cultivation, the nearer will they approach to unanimity in regard to moral and religious truths. The same form and size of brain and cultivation may be found in a sincere Roman Catholic and a sincere Protestant; but their faculties having been directed to different objects in their youth, each has failed to give the same consideration to the objects venerated by his neighbour which he has given to his own.

Organs for the following emotions have been discovered and proved to exist in man: viz., WONDER, IDEALITY, VENERATION, HOPE, CONSCIENTIOUSNESS, and BENEVOLENCE. In the works of Drs Gall and Spurzheim, and other writers on Phrenology, and in the Phrenological Journal, the history of the discovery, and a mass of evidence in support of the organs are given. Those readers who desire seriously to investigate the basis on which this treatise rests, will naturally examine these works, and appeal to nature; and it is therefore unnecessary for their satisfaction to detail the evidence here. Individuals, again, who regard this work as a collection of mere speculative opinions, like the philosophies of ethical writers who were unacquainted with Phrenology, or of those who choose to ignore it, would treat any amount of narrated evidence only as words; and it is, therefore, unnecessary to state it for their edification,

OF THE ORGAN OF WONDER.

The primitive function of this faculty appears to me to be to produce the love of the new. Its gratification is accompanied by an emotion which we name surprise; and as this feeling is highly pleasurable, it prompts us to pursue the new, and leads to inventions in art, and discoveries in science. The faculty is adapted to the constitution of the external world; for the whole of nature, animate and inanimate, is in a continual state of decay and renovation. Carlyle has well remarked, that the whole of this world is habitually in a state of revolution. Nothing stands still. This faculty renders the

new agreeable to us, while Destructiveness places us in harmony with the dissolution of the old.

a

Ideality produces the peculiar emotion which is experienced when we behold beautiful objects; and it gives a desire to improve everything, and to advance constantly towards perfection. When it acts in combination chiefly with our emotional and observing faculties, it may stimulate the intellect to imagine poetical scenes which cannot stand the test of scientific analysis; and it frequently is thus employed. In like manner, high degree of development or morbid excitement of the organ of Wonder, by giving an intense desire for the new and strange, may prompt the intellect, when uninstructed in science, to imagine a supernatural world, which reason cannot penetrate or recognise. Fairy-land, and the witch scene in Macbeth, may be cited as examples.

This organ, when very large and active, or when morbidly excited, leads to a belief in ghosts, spirits, and a spiritual world, in which the human mind is supposed to act independently of matter. These notions bear the same relation to it that the imagery of poetry bears to Ideality. They gratify the emotion, although rigid science ignores them. A full account of the discovery and effects of the organ of Wonder is given in Gall's work, Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, tome v., p. 341; in Dr Spurzheim's "Phrenology," p. 206; and in my System of Phrenology, vol. i., p. 449, 5th edition.

In the Phrenological Journal, vol. i., pp. 541 and 553, the subject of spectral illusions, or apparitions, is largely discussed, and evidence adduced that they result from morbid action of the organs of the observing faculties. The organ of Wonder, when very highly developed, and also when diseased, stimulates these organs into a state of abnormal action, and causes them to generate apparitions or spectral illusions. There is evidence that the organ of Wonder is not sufficient by itself to give form and colour to spectral illusions, but that these originate in the abnormal activity of the perceptive organs. In the same work, vol. v., p. 594, a case is recorded in which diseased structure was found under the portion of the cranium lying above the organ of Wonder; and the patient, an educated man of 41 years of age, had long complained of being tormented by invisible beings, whose agency and influence he felt, but whom he never could see, In him the observing organs were not affected.

As a contrast to this instance, the case of an old gentleman of 94 years of age is described in the same journal, vol. x., p. 352, in whom disease, indicating chronic inflammation, was found in the falx and in the dura mater, covering. Firmness,

Benevolence, Veneration, Imitation, and Wonder, on both sides, and in the portion of the skull covering the organ of Wonder, on the left side, which was thickened by descent of the inner table; and there were indications also of chronic inflammatory action and other disease in the anterior lobe. He never was insane, but he saw visions, coloured, and of various forms, which he knew to be spectral illusions; and he lost the knowledge of the meaning of words, while he knew objects and judged of them soundly. Additional cases of spectral illusions are recorded in vol. v., pp. 210, 319, 430; -and at p. 504 of the same volume the subject of witchcraft is discussed in connection with this and other organs.

A gentleman in whom the organ of Wonder is large, and the reflecting organs are fully, although not largely developed, told me that when a marvellous incident or miraculous narrative is presented to him, his instinctive tendency is to believe it. In its mere marvellousness, it possesses to him so great an interest that he is disposed at once, and with pleasure, to embrace it as true. An effort of his intellect is required to arrest his tendency to believe, and to enable him to subject the narrative to a philosophical investigation.

Here, then, we discover an organ which, in a state of high development and activity, and also in one of disease, gives a love of the supernatural; and which, when acting with the perceptive organs in a morbid condition, produces spectral illusions, which the ignorant mistake for supernatural appearances.

I have observed, that when this organ and that of Veneration are large, and there is a nervous or sanguine temperament, and even when the intellectual organs are well developed, a strong predisposition exists to believe in spiritual beings and agencies. It is this combination which, when unguided by science, produces belief in spirit-rapping, tableturning, and other supernatural phenomena, about which so much has recently been published. Persons thus constituted recoil from such investigations as that in which we are now engaged, as repugnant to their feelings. There is in nature no evidence accessible to man of the existence in this world of creatures unconnected with matter; but we appear to be capable of recognising the existence of intelligence, design, power, and other mental qualities behind the screen of matter, although our own faculties are not adequate to the discovery or comprehension of the nature of the Being who manifests them. Wonder appears to stand related to this supernatural power in a way somewhat analogous to that in which Benevolence stands related to pleasure and pain in sentient beings. Pain, which Benevolence desires to remove, and plea