pieces of mechanism, or of new applications of some mechanical principle, dart into his mind, and keep their place so as to interrupt the current of his voluntary thoughts, until he has embodied them in a diagram or description, after which he is able to dismiss them and proceed with his professional duties. LEOPOLD I, PETER the Great, and LOUIS XVI. constructed locks. The organs of Constructiveness were largely developed in the late Lord President BLAIR of the Court of Session, as appears from a cast of his head, his statue, and also from his portraits: and it is said, that he had a private workshop at Avondale, in Linlithgowshire, in which he spent many hours during the vacations of the Court, constructing pieces of mechanism with his own hands. The predilection of such individuals for the practice of mechanical arts cannot reasonably be ascribed to want, or to their great intellectual faculties: for innumerable objects, more directly fitted to gratify or relieve the understanding, must have presented themselves to their notice, had they not been led by a special liking to the course they followed, and felt themselves inspired by a particular talent for such avocations. Not only so, but examples of an opposite description are met with; namely, of men of great depth and comprehensiveness of intellect, who are wholly destitute of manual dexterity. LUCIEN and SOCRATES renounced sculpture, because they felt that they possessed no genius for it. M. SCHURER, formerly Professor of Natural Philosophy at Strasburg, broke every article he touched. There are persons who can never learn to make a pen or sharp a razor; and Dr GALL mentions, that two of his friends, the one an excellent teacher, the other "grand ministre," were passionately fond of gardening, but he could never teach them to engraft a tree. As a contrast to these, men of considerable mechanical dexterity are frequently found to be remarkably destitute of talent for every other pursuit, and to possess very limited understandings.

Cases of disease also tend to prove that Constructiveness

depends on a special faculty, and is not the result merely of general intellect. Dr RUSH mentions two cases in which a talent for design had unfolded itself during a fit of insanity ; and he adds, that there is no insane hospital in which examples are not found of individuals, who, although, previously to their loss of understanding, they never shewed the least trace of mechanical talent, have subsequently constructed the most curious machines, and even ships completely equipped. These cases are at utter variance with the notion that the intellectual faculties produce this talent; for in them they were deranged, while they accord with the phrenological doctrine of this power depending on a separate faculty and organ, which may remain sound when the others are discased. FODERE', in his Traité du Goitre et de la Cretinisme, p. 133, remarks, “That, by an inexplicable singularity, some of these individuals (Cretins), endowed with so weak minds, are born with a particular talent for copying paintings, for rhyming, or for music. I have known several who taught themselves to play passably on the organ and harpsichord ; others who understood, without ever having had a master, the repairing of watches, and the construction of some pieces of mechanism." He adds, that these powers could not be attributed to the intellect, for these individuals not only could not read books, which treated of the principles of mechanics, mais ils etaient deroutés lorsqu'on en parlait, et ne se perfectionnaient jamais."

In the lower animals, nature has implanted a propensity to construct, but in them it is always specific; while in man a similar tendency is found, but general in its application. For example, nature inspires the beaver not only with a desire to build, but also with an instinctive and unerring impulse, independent of acquired knowledge and experience, to construct a dwelling of a particular form; and the power of the animal to build is confined entirely within the limited sphere of its intuitive inspiration. Man, on the other hand, has received also from nature a propensity to construct, but not a limited and intuitive instinct to build

3

a house or a ship, or to weave a coat or a vest, or, in short, to fashion any particular object. The beaver possesses no general reflecting powers to direct its propensity, and hence it was necessary to inspire it not only with a desire to build, but with a plan of architecture. To man, on the contrary, reflection is given; and the faculties of the understanding enable him to invent plans, and to employ his impulse to construct, in a great variety of ways.

Constructiveness, then, confers only the power of constructing in general, and the results which it is capable of producing are influenced by other faculties. For example, intellect alone, with extreme deficiency of Constructiveness, will never enable an individual to become an expert mechanician; but, if the development of Constructiveness be equal in two individuals, and the intellectual organs be large in the one and small in the other, the former will accomplish much higher designs than the latter: and the reason is obvious. The primitive talent for construction is the same in both; but the one, by means of reflection, is endowed with the perception of the relation of means to an end, and hence is able to select, from the wide circle of nature and of art, every object and appliance that may extend and elevate his conceptions and aid their execution; while the latter is limited to a mere mechanical talent, never stretching beyond imitation of objects previously existing.

Dr GALL mentions, that it is difficult to discover the position of this organ in some of the lower animals, on account of the different disposition of the convolutions, their small size, and the total absence of several of those which are found in man. The organ of Music in the lower creatures is situated towards the middle of the arch of the eyebrow, and that of Constructiveness lies a little behind it. In the hamster, marmot, and castor, of which he gives plates, it is easily recognised; and at the part in question, the skulls of these animals bear a close resemblance to each other. In the "rongeurs," the organ will be found immediately above and before the base of the zygomatic arch, and the

greater the talent for construction, the more this region of their head is projecting. The rabbit burrows under ground, and the hare lies upon the surface, and yet their external members are the same. On comparing their skulls, this region will be found more developed in the rabbit than in the hare. The same difference is preceptible between the crania of birds which build nests, and of those which do not build. Indeed the best way to become acquainted with the appearance of the organ in the lower animals, is to compare the heads of animals of the same species which build, with those which do not manifest this instinct; the hare, for example, with the rabbit, or birds which make nests with those which do not.

The organ is established.

GENUS II. SENTIMENTS.

THIS genus of faculties corresponds to the "emotions" of the metaphysicians. The feelings which they produce, are not the immediate consequences of the presence of external objects, but are excited, only indirectly, through the medium of intellectual perceptions or sensations. They differ from intellectual perceptions, in being accompanied with a peculiar vividness, which every one understands, but which it is impossible to express by any verbal definition*. They may exist, also, with great intensity, by the internal activity of the organs. Dr SPURZHEIM has named these faculties Sentiments, because they produce a propensity to act, joined with an emotion or feeling of a certain kind. Several of them are common to man and the lower animals; others are peculiar to man. The former shall be first treated of, and they are styled the Inferior or Lower Sentiments.

Lectures by Dr Thomas Brown. Lecture 5 2.

1. Sentiments common to Man and the lower Animals.

10. SELF-ESTEEM.

THIS organ is situated at the vertex or top of the head, a little above the posterior or sagittal angle of the parietal bones. When large, the head rises far upward and backward from the ear, in the direction of it, see figures, p. 233.

Dr GALL gives the following account of the discovery of the organ. A beggar attracted his attention by his extraordinary manners. He reflected on the causes which, independently of an absolutely vicious conformation or of misfortunes, could reduce a man to mendicity, and believed that he had found one of the chief of them in levity and want of foresight. The form of the head of the beggar in question confirmed him in this opinion. He was young, and of an agreeable exterior, and the organ of Cautiousness was very little developed. Dr GALL moulded his head, and, ou examining it with attention, remarked, in the upper and back part of the middle line, a prominence extending from above downwards, which could arise only from development of the cerebral parts there situated. He had not previously observed this prominence in other heads; and, on this account, he was very anxious to discover what it indicated. His head, moreover, was small, and announced neither strong feelings nor much intellect. After many questions addressed to the beggar, with a view to discover the remarkable traits of his character, he requested him to relate his history. The beggar said, that he was the son of a rich merchant, from whom he had inherited a considerable fortune; that he had always been so proud as not to be able to condescend to labour, either for the preservation of his paternal fortune, or to acquire a new one; and that this unhappy pride was the only cause of his misery. This, says Dr GALL, “called to my recollection those persons who forbear to cut their nails, with the view of supporting the