Approbation, is too strong to allow them to be personally the inflicters of suffering or death, find pleasure in witnessing bullfights, military floggings, and executions of criminals. "Nature," says Montaigne," has herself, I doubt, imprinted in man a kind of instinct to inhumanity: nobody takes pleasure in seeing beasts play and caress one another, but every one is delighted with seeing them dismember and tear one another to pieces.' * Professor Bruggmanus of Leyden told Gall and Spurzheim of a Dutch priest, whose desire to witness slaughter was so great that he became chaplain of a regiment, solely that he might have an opportunity of seeing men destroyed in battle. To gratify the propensity still farther, he kept in his house a number of domestic animals, as dogs, cats, and the like, that he might have the pleasure of killing their young with his own hands. He also slaughtered the animals for his kitchen, and was acquainted with all the hangmen of the country, who sent him regular notice of each execution; and he did not grudge to travel on foot for several days to be a spectator of the scene. This sort of disposition is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott, in Quentin Durward, where he speaks of the existence of "men of undoubted benevolence of character, whose principal delight it is to see a miserable cri-` minal, degraded alike by his previous crimes and the sentence which he has incurred, conclude a vicious and wretched life by an ignominious and cruel death." People whose Destructiveness is powerful, are generally fond of witnessing tragedy; and, if they have a taste for scenery, they may probably be found to prefer such as partakes of the dreary sublime-that, namely, which is characterised by an aspect of desolation. Love of the terrible sublime has with great shew of reason been conjectured to arise from a combination of Ideality with Cautiousness.‡

When Destructiveness is disproportionately vigorous in a clergyman, it gives rise to a style of religious instruction by no means accordant with the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity. Of this class of preachers a vivid and striking picture has been drawn by Dr Caldwell, in his "New Views of Penitentiary Discipline." After describing what a Christian minister ought to be, he proceeds thus:-"How different is this, both in appearance and result, from that miserable substitute for religious and moral teaching,-that revolting caricature of piety, whining, coarse, obstreperous, and denouncing,-which so often assails us in places of worship, and which has its source as exclusively in the animal organs, as the uproar of the bacchanalian, the shout

• Essays, b. ii. ch. 11. p. 162.

+ Gall sur les Fonctions des Cerveau, iv. 88.

Combe's System of Phrenology, 3d edition, p. 330.

of battle, or the howling of wolves! This indecent storminess of instruction affects alone the animal compartment of the brain, because, as just stated, it is itself grossly animal; and we venture to assert, that no teacher or minister ever practised it, who was himself largely developed in his moral and reflecting compartments; we mean in whom those compartments fairly predominated, and gave character to the individual. On the truth of this we would be willing to peril the fate of Phrenology. It is a cast of pulpit-pugilists alone, with heads of the true ruffian mould, or nearly approaching it, that deal in nothing but discourses of terror; who, in sermonizing or otherwise teaching, exercise their combative and destructive faculties to drive their flocks into the pale of their religion, precisely as they would employ a whip or a goad to drive sheep into a fold, or black cattle into their stalls. Terror is their chief, if not their only instrument of reform; and a worse can scarcely be imagined. Their appeal is to Cautiousness, the organ of the craven passion of fear, whose influence never infused morality or religion into any one, and never can. Their plea of conversion and worship is not gratitude for existence and all its enjoyments, nor yet the love of moral purity and holiness, but the dread of punishment. They would frighten sinners into heaven, as a mere refuge from a place of torment."

In addition to the uses of Destructiveness treated of in the previous portion of this essay, another important end which it serves yet remains to be illustrated.

In surveying the constitution of man, and its relations to the external world, certain modes of action are perceived to be indispensable conditions of our welfare and happiness. It is necessary, for example, to supply the stomach with food; to build houses, and fabricate clothing and implements; to watch over the infancy of every individual with patient assiduity; to associate with our fellows for mutual assistance and protection; and to accumulate the produce of industry so as to secure ourselves from want. Now, to the performance of these and similar actions, two classes of motives may be conceived-first, the intellect, contemplating the remote advantages which ensue from performance, and the evils necessarily attending neglect; and, secondly, special faculties urging to, and giving pleasure in, the performance itself. It is obvious, however, that had man been endowed with intellect alone, his ignorance at the beginning of his career would have rendered the perception of distant results impossible, and the duties enumerated must have been so generally neglected, that the race could never have emerged from barbarism; and even if we suppose them to have possessed (what even now they are far from possessing) an amount of knowledge sufficient

for the purpose, they would have acted solely with the aim of securing the ultimate good, and every intermediate step would have been regarded as an insipid or irksome task. To avoid this result, the Creator has wisely and bountifully furnished us with propensities directly urging us to the performance of our indispensable duties, and giving rise, at the same time, to endless gratification in executing the bare means of attaining our objects. Alimentiveness renders eating very agreeable for its own sake; Philoprogenitiveness is the source of intense delight in the rearing of children; Constructiveness gives us pleasure in fashioning rude materials into houses, clothing, tools, ornaments, and other useful articles; Acquisitiveness renders it agreeable to store up and take care of wealth, without any view to its utility; Order makes cleanliness pleasant even to those who are ignorant of its conduciveness to health; and Self-Esteem derives from the possession of authority, and from the deference of inferiors, an amount of happiness often more than adequate to counterbalance the trouble which necessarily accompanies the duties of a governor or superintendent.-Let these observations be now applied to Destructiveness.

Many operations which imply destruction are indispensable in the business of life. We must kill animals for food and commercial purposes-rid ourselves of noxious vermin-perform surgical operations-destroy weeds and many unsightly and unwholesome objects-and stimulate by chastisement animals useful to man, but insensible to higher motives. Even in manufacturing processes, fabrication and destruction generally go hand in hand. Now, I conceive that Destructiveness has exactly the same relation to such actions that Alimentiveness has to eating, Acquisitiveness to hoarding, Constructiveness to building, and Self-Esteem to the exercise of authority; that is to say, it urges to, and gives us positive gratification in performing, acts which in themselves are only the means of producing useful or indispensable results. And moreover, just as Combativeness gives pleasure in witnessing contention, so does Destructiveness inspire a sort of placid gratification when we behold the decay and perishing of so many objects around us. Had Benevolence been implanted in the mind without Destructiveness, the pain occasioned to it by the suffering which we are frequently compel led to witness-by "the wrong and outrage with which earth is filled" would have been altogether unbalanced; whereas, by giving us Destructiveness, Nature, as Mr Combe well ob serves, *has steeled our minds so far as to fit us for our condition, and to render scenes which our situation constrains us to witness not insupportable."

* System of Phrenology, 3d edit. p. 172.

ARTICLE V.

JOURNAL DE LA SOCIÉTÉ PHRÉNOLOGIQUE DE PARIS. April and July 1835.

THE April Number of the French Journal makes a very respectable appearance, and contains articles, of more or less importance, by Fossati, Voisin, Richard, the celebrated Andral, Casimir Broussias, Imbert, Rolandis of Turin, and Duchesne. One of the most remarkable is a letter dated Vienna, 1st October 1798, in which Dr Gall gives his friend Retzer an outline of the work he was then preparing on the functions of the brain, and the possibility of discovering certain talents and dispositions by the configuration of the head and skull. Dr Gall there specifies very exactly the extent and results of his researches and discoveries up to that time, and expounds the great principles which he afterwards so successfully established in his large work. The letter thus becomes a sort of historical document, and we are indebted to Dr Fossati for having rescued it from oblivion, by translating and publishing it in the French Journal. In a communication addressed to Dr Elliotson of London, and prefixed to the letter of Dr Gall, Dr Fossati remarks that this letter is precious as affording evidence of Gall alone being the DISCOVERER of Phrenology, its date being two years prior to the time at which Spurzheim first became one of his hearers. Fossati adds, that he insists upon this point because several phrenologists who have received their knowledge from Spurzheim give him a great share in the discovery, and even sometimes place him above Gall-which, he says, they will now no longer be

able to do.

With all due deference to Dr Fossati, we consider such a commentary from him as neither more nor less than pure twaddle. He knows perfectly well that Spurzheim himself, in his various publications and lectures, was scrupulous in giving Gall the sole merit of the discovery, and in stating that he himself first became his hearer in 1800. Why, then, make such an insinuation as is implied in saying that many of those phrenologists who derived their knowledge from Spurzheim were "tempted" to ascribe higher merit to him than to Gall? Can he point out a single phrenologist who has assigned to Spurzheim any share in the original discovery? We have never met with such a phrenologist, nor can we conceive his existence possible. Before a man can become a phrenologist, he must know what Phrenology is; and before he can know what it is, he must of necessity

become acquainted with the mode of its discovery, and with the fact that to Gall alone the glory of making the discovery is due. We hope, therefore, that Dr Fossati will not again, without reason, throw out remarks of this nature, which tend only to gratify bad passions, and to prejudice in the public mind the great cause in which we are all equally interested.

The second article is an excellent translation, by M. Richard, of Mr Combe's Outlines of Phrenology, as originally published in the Transactions of the Phrenological Society. It is intended to convey to the less advanced readers a condensed view of what is known in Phrenology, and is preceded by some judicious remarks by the translator, whose contributions, by the way, indicate the possession of a philosophic understanding, and considerable acquaintance with the principles of the science.

A report on the state of the idiot children under the care of Dr Voisin, at the Hospital of Incurables in Paris, follows next in order; and its contents form an instructive commentary on the doctrine so long maintained by some philosophers, that all ideas come to us through the medium of the external senses, and are merely images, as it were, of what exists without. Dr Voisin describes the lowest class of his patients as reduced to a vegetative existence, and performing no other functions than those of digesting and breathing. "The organs of the senses are open and well formed, but they find nothing to which to transmit the impressions of the external world; the impression is confined to the organ-to the ear or to the eye-but excites no movement in the mind; nothing seems to have any purpose to serve in their organization; every thing is vague and without aim; the eye is not fixed on its object, the ear does not listen, the hand does not stretch forth, the imperious cravings of hunger are felt in vain ; food is before their eyes, but they know not how to carry it to the mouth; there is no attention, no perception :-sentiments, affections, passions, and intelligence, are alike absent, along with every other quality peculiar to man." Let the philosophers construct a rational creature out of such materials, and we shall at once yield to the external senses all the high prerogatives which have been claimed for them.

Dr Voisin states as an observation never before made by any author, but which seems to us a truism, "that in most idiots the manifestations which appear first are all instinctive and animal;" that, "in the development of the lateral and posterior parts of the head, nature is rarely deficient in her work; and that she has a manifest predilection for the animal faculties, as being necessary to the propagation and preservation of the living being, and therefore given to man only in common with the inferior creatures." Dr Voisin adds, "that in newly born infants the same parts are in high development, while the anterior portion