ple let us take the following: Nausea, Disgust, Loathing -words which are used indifferently, but which, nevertheless, are accurately distinguished by the speaking features of the deaf and dumb. They can also represent in significant signs, by a species of animated hieroglyphics, very excellent pictures of most tangible objects, of course with relative degrees of correctness, in proportion to the natural intelligence of each individual acting with the imitative faculty variously developed. The utility of such a faculty as this must be obvious; for, in every transaction between human beings, when the natural expression is exercised without dissimulation,* the mental faculties under excitement are more strongly delineated by the countenance and action, than they can possibly be by the evanescent sounds of artificial language: because, in mere verbal language or composition, without the auxiliary assistance of physiognomical expression, there is a want of what might be called a living commentary, and which, although noiseless, speaks a universal language illustrative of our different emotions. The instruments used for this purpose, by imitation, are those of all the external organs; the head, and the features of the face—the eyes, nose, mouth; and the body, with its members-the hands, arms, legs; which are moved with magic quickness, and by the varied action of these exterior indices we trace the fleeting changes of our innate faculties, each of which is marked with the most astonishing accuracy. There is a wide range taken by the faculty of Imitation, because it can act together with all our feelings and sentiments, and is, as might be anticipated, essential to the dramatic actor and the orator; and is also important to the painter, the sculptor, and the musician, as it enables each artist to infuse an animation which gives to the figures upon canvass, to sculptured marble, and to the song, a living * Secretiveness. breath, a something which seems to move, or to possess or express sensation. Its utility in education will be a subsequent consideration for the present we shall conclude with noticing briefly its abused activity. It gives a tendency, when in excess, to mere mimicry,—a sort of monkeylike propensity to antics, often absurd, sometimes disgusting, and in persons who have little natural verbal language, there is, even in ordinary circumstances, too much gesticulation. Instances of the latter kind may occasionally be met with in persons nearly idiotic. Concluding Remarks on the Affective Faculties. Experience and observation have long since partially convinced the friends of education, "that unless the feelings be constantly restrained by reason, they are liable to numerous abuses." But how, and in what manner, is this mental harmony to be effected? Too much is left to accidental circumstances; and whenever it is found that this mere empirical mode of moral culture fails in its operation, the individual is abandoned to his own stupidity or depravity! We shall have occasion to refer again to this subject, when treating of the means of cultivating the affective faculties. Having now proved, by facts and by inductive reasoning, that the feelings and sentiments have organic instruments in the brain, and that they each and severally act as innate impulses (instincts), when under excitement; we would, in concluding this chapter, impress upon the reader the importance of possessing correct knowledge respecting the affective faculties, which may become a blessing if early and properly educated, and a bane if exercised too much and too constantly. Thus, self-esteem may degenerate into pride and egotism; the religious organs may excite a senseless superstition; and even benevolence may induce prodigality, and bring ruin and disgrace upon an individual. But, all excesses may be avoided, if the feelings and senti ments be regulated by the intellectual faculties: they then become the sources of our most refined pleasures as moral agents, and the means of the highest gratification to us as organized beings. CHAPTER V. PRIOR to discussing the evidence for the different mental powers, commonly called perceptive and reflective faculties, it is essential to make a few general observations on the functions of the external senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and touch. Phrenologists regard the senses as sentinels, placed by the all-wise Creator to intimate to man all objects in the external world; but they act as neutral agents; for, it is through the instrumentality of the innate faculties of the mind that we have consciousness of the existence of all the things in the material creation. The senses can only passively receive impressions: they do not form ideas of things seen or felt, or mark the kind and degree of sound, &c.; but they convey all such impressions to the different organs of the brain (perceptive faculties), and it is these recipient powers which take cognizance of those impressions, and through which we have separate ideas of form, size, colour, and all other qualities, and of the relation and order of all external objects. Now if it were true, as some philosophers have stated it is, that all our ideas are formed by the senses, it is an incontrovertible fact, that many animals would then excel us in intellectual pursuits, because there are many birds and quadrupeds whose vision, smell, and hearing, are much more exquisitely intense, and consequently more perfect in ́their receptive capacities, than is to be found even in the most intelligent among mankind. A few examples will suffice to demonstrate the correctness of our views, and negative the latter proposition; or, at least, they will show the fallacy of attributing to the perfection of the external senses the rank man holds as an intellectual agent. The eagle has a very large optic nerve, and it can see objects on the surface of the earth when it rises even to so great a height in the air as to be invisible to us. Now then, if ideas of colour, form, distance, &c., were dependent on vision, it cannot be denied that the eagle should excel man in a capacity for painting, modelling, &c., and all other ideas attributable to the eye. The hearing of some animals is also most acute, as, for instance, in the cat and the hare; and yet, they show no predilection for melody or harmony: but if this quality depended merely on a vivid perception of sound, the contrary might be expected: for, in man the sense of hearing is less perfect, and yet there exists within him an innate love of music. The olfactory nerve (sense of smell) is considerably larger in the vulture, the pig, the horse, and the dog, than it is in man ; and yet none of them evinces his discriminative power in reference to aromatic substances, or the various kinds of effluvia. Nor can a tact in the mechanical arts be dependent on the sense of touch; for there are many animals which possess a feeling more exquisitely sensitive than man, as, for instance, the cuttle-fish, the lobster, and the elephant. But who ever heard of these animals inventing any machine? Whilst it is an indisputable truth, that it is possible for man, if the faculties we are shortly to speak of, and constructiveness also, be well developed, to form mentally, and without hands, a machine, and accurately to describe its parts and uses. If, then, we had no other faculties than the external senses, it is evident that all impressions made upon them must be evanescent, and could not be retained when the external objects which produced them were removed. On the contrary, however, we are endowed with faculties which preserve all the impressions derived through their agency. For instance, can we not recall the pictures of scenes after many years have elapsed? And do we not concentrate a vast number of objects and circumstances, which may often be reproduced involuntarily? Even in dreams we see landscapes, and seem to distinguish the colour of trees and flowers,smell their perfumed exhalations,-taste the flavour of fruits and viands, and hear delightful music. Before any of these reminiscences could take place, it is true that the senses must have been impressed with the various objects to which they refer; but without other faculties to take cognizance of objects and their qualities, all our ideas would have been shadowy nothings, impalpable and fleeting; a picture would have been a nonentity, for the next thing presented to the eye must have obliterated it.* Place a machine before you ;-it is represented on the nervous curtain (retina) with the most perfect accuracy: let this object be removed, and another occupy its position, there will be then a picture of the latter, whilst the former one is altogether effaced; in precisely the same manner as we see the reflected objects change places in the magic lantern. But, being endowed with perceptive powers superadded to this most perfect but passive optical instrument (the eye), we are enabled to remember a vast number of objects, and to recall them into fancied existence, and to see them (in the mind's eye) either in combinations, or in their separate parts, so as to retain a knowledge of them, and be thus enabled to describe things once seen, as correctly as if they were still before us. Phrenologists, therefore, reject the theory which regards the intellectual faculties as resulting simply from the exercise of the external senses; but we admit these organs to be essential to us in forming a correct knowledge of the * If any object is placed before an ox's eye within an hour after death, it will be accurately painted. Does not this prove it a passive agent? |