other. When older, the cautious infant will be found the most peaceable boy in the school; never in a fight, seldom in a scrape, and any thing but "a pest to his mother at home." The man who is unduly under its influence, has, especially if Firmness be small, an interminable hesitation about him, which is extremely irksome, or extremely ludicrous. He cannot open his mouth, without talking in the slowest, most dubitating, and most tedious style. He never can state any thing directly or strongly. He goes back to correct, modify, or weaken every sentence. He avoids the personal pronoun as much as possible; it may commit him. He is rather inclined to think; he is not sure, at least he would not take it upon him to say; it may be so, but he does not know;" and thus, a statement is bled, and blistered, and poulticed out of its strength, until nothing is left but some feeble truism. These men can never act upon their own responsibility, and are never satisfied with their own opinion. They take every thing avizandum, consult everybody, and do-nothing. The operations of this organ may frequently be mistaken for those of others, particularly of Acquisitiveness. Many persons are more afraid to want money, than anxious to acquire it; saving, not to accumulate, but to "make the two ends meet;" and frugal, more from fear of destitution, than from the sense of economy. Assure them of the means of existence, and they will save no further, being rather anxious to secure what they have, than to venture for ten times more. When Hope is small, this organ operates unrestrained by its only efficient check, and it then begins to dread, to anticipate evil, and always to fear the worst. It is this combination which produces the habitual croaker. When its excess is still greater, and Hope still less, it produces hypochondria, nervousness, melancholy, blue devils, the horrors, and very often indigestion or dyspepsia. This last effect, we presume to arise from the depression of the whole brain, and consequently, of Alimentiveness, which results from lowness of spirits. The same combination produces anxiety, restlessness, or despair, and suicide, especially when accompanied with powerful Destructiveness. The desire of self-destruction is a disease which is hereditary, manifested frequently in all European nations, even through four generations, sweeping off whole families, and extending even to collaterals. Gall uniformly found these cases indicated by very large Cautiousness and small Hope. We have often, on finding this combination, predicated extreme lowness of spirits, and the individuals have solemnly assured us, that they had frequently meditated suicide. When both organs are small, the individual will probably be neither merry nor sad. will be little prone to sentimentality, but as far removed from cheerfulness. He The Germans, English, and Scotch, possess large Cautiousness. Its prevalence in the latter is proverbial. In the French and Turks, it is supposed to be much smaller; while in the Hindoos, the Cingalese, the Canadians, and Papuans, it is largely developed. The observations have not been such as, in many of these cases, to enable us to form an accurate conception of the degree in which developement corresponds with character. In Robert Bruce it is largely developed; and, bold and resolute as he was, through immense Firmness, Combativeness, and Destructiveness, it is certain that he never left to chance, what could be achieved by circumspection. Where Cautiousness is small, the individual never thinks of consequences. sults in futurity never trouble him. He runs all sorts of risks, and precipitates himself with inconsiderate rashness into danger. It is to-day with him, and there is no other; sufficient for it, is its own evil. He runs in the dark, and gropes none, breaking all that comes in his way. Misfortune bursts on him with the unexpected suddenness of a meteor, because he never provides for difficulties until they are at the door. Re Although these are, undoubtedly, genuine phenomena of this organ, or of its absence, we are not satisfied with the analysis of its function which has been generally received. Fear, which Mr. Combe believes to be the primitive function of Cautiousness, is, in any degree of it, disagreeable or painful; and we do not conceive that pain is the genuine effect of the action of any organ, exercised to however great an extent. It is not difficult to perceive, that the larger an organ is, the more susceptible it must be, either of agreeable or disagreeable excitement; because, the more powerful, the more sensitive it must be. But this is altogether a different proposition from that which would maintain, that a disagreeable state of the organ is the invariable result of its activity. We are inclined, therefore, to suspect, that fear is not the primitive function of Cautiousness, but is, on the contrary, the result of a disagreeable affection, or depressed action of the sentiment. Anger is the result of Destructiveness, but not the ordinary function of it. Its function is to destroy, or rather to desire change. Anger, indeed, is the disagreeable or unsatisfied state of the organ; and when a change has been effected by the destruction of the obnoxious object, passion ceases, and gives way to placid satisfaction. May not fear, in the same way, be the disagreeable or dissatisfied state of Cautiousness ceasing when the organ is in some shape, or other gratified? We have long been of opinion, that there existed in the human mind, a principle which might be termed the sense or desire of tranquillity, security, or certainty. Some persons have a continual aspiration after peace, quietness, repose; and others are unhappy only when they cease from troubling. A few there are of spirit so still and quiet, that their motion blushes at itself," many of a soul that is miserable when out of the busy hum of men. The first love to repose on the silent sunshine of their own hearts," the latter are all for "guns, drums, trumpets, blunderbuss, and thunder." Some are ready to exclaim with the Psalmist, "Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly to yonder mountain and be at rest!" Others feel with Zanga, 66 "Horrors now are not unpleasing to me: I like this rocking of the battlements! Rage on, ye winds, waves roll, and tempests roar, What an exquisite delight do some persons take in the repose of the soul, the siesta of nature on a summer's eve, the resting of the moonbeam upon a violet bank! How they luxuriate in not thinking, and in feeling only that they are not at the trouble to feel! How they bask in the rays of inactive, dreaming contemplation, exercising no faculty articulately, but running down the smooth, and shallow, and lazy current of an undefined consciousness, possessing hardly a sense of sensation! How does the man of toil and trouble despise, if not hate, these dreamers! He wonders how any one can live a moment out of the world. He has been all his life in strife, and struggle, and turmoil; and, should he live till dotage, he will be a business, and public, and political, and party man to the last, fonder of suspense than of certainty, and if not having any consciousness of security, at least possessing as little the sense of danger. Others would prefer the greatest calamity to misfortune unascertained, feeling that "present fears are less than horrible imaginings," and almost tempted, while gazing on the suspensive dizziness of a roaring cataract or yawning chasm, to leap in, or down, to solve all doubts, and to “learn the grand secret." They feel that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished, "By that sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, And the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to;" and that it is a serious question, "Who would fardels bear, To groan and sweat under a weary life, Nay, even those who run with patience the race that is set before them, would rather be with Christ, which is far better. They love tranquillity, or certainty, more than all earthly things. They "could be bounded in a nutshell!" They would rather have a certain income of one hundred a-year, than a precarious living of three. They retire when they have realised a frugal competency, and labour like slaves, to enjoy an old age of peace, rest, repose, the absence of all that can fright the soul from its propriety. But it may be said that this would lead to the strange result, that the organ of tranquillity defeats its object exactly in the ratio of its size; and that the more cautious men are, the more disturbed and less tranquil they become. But this argument would indicate inattention to the peculiar nature of the organ. Like all others, the larger it is, the more incessant will be its cravings for gratification, and the less easy will it be to satisfy it. Destructiveness is angry, in the same manner as tranquillity would be disturbed, until it is gratified. If the one be very large, nothing short of a murder will gratify it; if the other be so, nothing less than a sea-girt tower U will secure its repose. If the one be only fully developed, it will produce fair resolution to destroy, where that is necessary; if the other be the same, ordinary peace and calm will content it. Benevolence is the desire of universal happiness. But the larger it is, so much the further is it from accomplishing its wishes. Everybody appears to large Benevolence as unhappy or miserable. It magnifies the smallest distress, and exaggerates the slightest misfortune, until, as in the case of Wordsworth, the loss of a red cloak by a little girl, is contemplated as a calamity equally appalling, as to a person of ordinary sensibility would be the ravages of an earthquake. It has the utmost desire for the felicity of all, and the tearing a leg from a fly, is as dreadful as to a smaller endowment of the organ would be the breaking a fellow-creature on the wheel. The cautious man, in like manner, has an earnest and intense desire for tranquillity or security, and therefore, the fall of a tea-cup is as horrible, as to another would be the descent of a thunderbolt, and an impatient word as disgusting as a mortal quarrel. Accordingly, the Scotch and Germans, who possess Cautiousness largely developed, are the most peaceable and tranquil people in Europe; while the French and Irish, who possess it to a much less degree, are never out of a row or a revolution. The Hindoos, who also possess the organ large, are the people, of all the Orientals, who are most enamoured of tranquillity. It is much larger in the female than the male head; and the love of peace and quiet is in women so great, that they would sacrifice any advantage, domestic or political, to avoid civil commotion. In the diagram here, copied from a skull in Spurzheim's collection, the situation of the organ is accurately indicated. 12 12 CHAPTER IX. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE MORAL SENTIMENTS. WE now proceed to the consideration of those organs which are placed in the region of what is called the coronal surface. Their entire mass is comprised in, and measured by, the portion of brain above Cautiousness behind, and Causality in front. The bony ridge which we have already noticed as running from Cautiousness forward to the organ of Tune, indicates with complete precision the base of these organs. They are generally termed the Moral Sentiments; and although those faculties which form moral results are here situated, the name is not altogether correct, as there are several of them which do not in themselves conduce to morality, and are not even entitled to the alternative appellation of superior sentiments, to any greater extent than many of the propensities; which may assist, either in the career of vice or of virtue, according as the balance of the other faculties, and the guidance of external circumstances, have tended to form the character. Thus, Imitation, Wonder, and Firmness, do not, in the ordinary sense of the term, produce morality, although they may assist in maintaining it; and these, together with Benevolence, seem to be possessed by the lower animals. But we must here most solemnly protest against the term "Moral Sentiments," as applied to any one set of faculties more than to another. The expression is unphilosophical and absurd. If this were all, we should not, perhaps, have quarrelled with it; but unfortunately, Spurzheim, Combe, and the Phrenological world in general, have acted upon the distinction, and have reared theories of ethics upon it, of a tendency, in our view, not less false in principle, than dangerous in practice. The Bible knows no such doctrine as the theory which supposes a supremacy of the moral sentiments, as they have been called. It tells us all to come to the measure of a perfect man, as the only method of becoming a moral man; and denounces those who are without natural affection, or, in other words, who are deficient in Amativeness, Philoprogenitiveness, Concentrativeness, and Adhesiveness, or those who have not fought the good fight and overcome the world (Combativeness and Destructiveness), as equally immoral with those who have neither visited the widow in her affliction, nor kept themselves unspotted from the world. Into this subject, however, our limits will not permit us to enter; and we must, therefore, for the present, leave it. SECTION I-Organ XIII. Benevolence. BENEVOLENCE is situated in the centre of the frontal region of the coronal surface; and its size, in length, may be measured by the quantity of brain above Comparison, extending backwards. In estimating the size of the organ, we must carefully calculate its breadth, and the length of brain backwards from Comparison to Veneration. Let it be remembered, that however high may be the appearance of the head in the coronal region, if the distance from Firmness to Comparison be short, or the brain on the top be sharp, narrow, and deficient in breadth, a deduction must be made from the estimate. Recollect, also, that however fair an aspect the moral region may present, if the brain be shallow above the region, or any part of the region lying above the ridge which runs upon the top of each side of the head from Cautiousness to Tune, the organs of the moral sentiments are of under size. In the diagram of the head of Eustache (No. 1.) the organ of Benevolence is very large. The dotted line marks the situation of Comparison in this diagram, and in that of No. 2; and the amount of brain above that point in the former, is manifestly enormous; while, in the latter, there is little or none at the front of the coronal surface. Hitherto we have been engaged in a consideration of those organs which produce the relation of husband (Amativeness and Concentrativeness); father (Philoprogenitiveness and Concentrativeness); and friend (Concentrativeness and Adhesiveness). We have also noticed those which produce society (Adhesiveness); patriotism (Concentrativeness, enhanced by the domestic group); and self-estimation (Self-Esteem and Love of Approbation). It is very apparent, that these propensities, and what have been styled Inferior Sentiments, embrace important moral duties, and are essential to virtue, producing that enthusiastic love of the objects of the relations before enumerated, which is necessary to the true and genuine responses of the morality of the heart, and not merely of the head. Hence it is, that no people has ever been eminent for virtue and true greatness, which did not nationally possess these organs to a very large extent. Hence, also, it is, that the Sclavonic races, which excel the Asiatic so much in the manifestation of the domestic duties, likewise possess a much larger relative endowment of the propensities. It is thus, also, that an individual to be a perfect man, must also be a perfect animal; and that a deficiency of the organs of propensity, is as inimical to the formation of a truly virtuous character, as a deficiency of the sentiments. What, indeed, is all the gentleness, and all the justice in the world, without dignity, emulation, energy, love, friendship, and patriotism? Tell us not of the morality that is without natural affection-of the father that tolerates, but does not dote upon his child—of the husband that respects, but does not love his wife of the man that lives in society without being social-of the neighbour that is not the friend, or of the citizen who lives in a country, but has no countrymen. Inoffensiveness is not morality, any more than not to hate is to love. These organs provide for the primary and most necessary relations of life. They continue and preserve the species, stimulate men to congregate, and in social communion to exercise those organs necessary to man's exaltation, which can only be brought into efficient activity by intercourse with his species, and the consequent interchange of thought and feeling. To the perfection of the scheme of human advancement, there was wanting, after these primary relations had been provided for, the creation of yet another and more extended relation, which it was also necessary to establish and recognise. We are children of the circumscribed commonwealth of the domestic hearth, of the same tribe or family, of the same country, and in all these capacities we recognise a related brotherhood. But we are also children of the Father of all, and mankind at large are our brethren. To inspire us with a practical and abiding conviction of this great truth, and its proper consequences, we have been endowed with the sentiment, designated in Phrenological language, Benevolence. In so far as we have been enabled to analyse the function of the organ, it appears to resolve into the principle of sympathy, spoken of by the metaphysicians. In treating of the causes which enable the actor to excel in his art, we observed, that although by mere imitation, a performer may have the power of exhibiting the skeleton or bare anatomy of a passion, yet, in order to represent it to the very life, to feel, in short, what he expresses, he must also himself possess in ample endowment the sentiment which he is to portray. Thus, no actor can perform Coriolanus who has not large Self-Esteem; nor Richard, with small Destructiveness; nor Hotspur, with weak Combativeness. We conceive that, in like manner, sympathy, which is admirably defined by the Apostle to be, to "rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep," is dependent for its proper exercise upon the size of the other faculties. Indeed, it is plain, that in order to feel with another, we must vividly conceive what he feels; and this we cannot do without possessing, in large endowment, the faculties which produce his sensations. If our Destructiveness and Benevolence be large, we will feel deep indignation along with the man who is proclaiming the injuries of the widow and the orphan; if our Destructiveness be small, we shall not sympathise in the indignation of the speaker, but we shall feel with him the miseries of the victims; if our Destructiveness be large, on the contrary, and our Benevolence small, we conceive that he will not make us feel at all. That the power of Benevolence depends upon the size of the faculties in the states of which we are to sympathise, is indeed plain, from the fact, that the more vividly the feelings of the object are presented to us, the more intensely do we feel; as, for example, the enemies of slavery, in order to move public compassion, present pictures of a negro kneeling in chains, or tied up and suffering under the driver's whip. The benevolent man actually and literally shivers with the naked, weeps with the mourner, and feels that knife entering, or fire burning him, which is dismembering or eating into the vitals of another. It is thus that he more acutely feels present and immediate misery, than that which is distant; and that minute details of an actual case of calamity, evoke more tears from the eye, and pieces from the purse, than a thousand homilies on charity, |