man, who failed in applying the proper amount of force required by the nature of his work. But allow him that power in a high degree, combined with a well developed and healthy muscular system, an active temperament, and a proper training, and he will be, in what I take to be the legitimate sense of the term, an expert workman, that is a rapid one; and the conclusion appears to me inevitable, that as Constructiveness in high endowment gives this expertness, Constructiveness is, to all intents and purposes, the organ of Force. There is, however, another qualification necessary to constitute a skilful or good, in addition to an expert, workman, namely, the power of properly directing the proper amount of force, which depends, as I hope to shew, upon the intellectual organs; and in the precise ratio to the development of these organs, cæteris paribus, will be the quality of the work performed. For instance, an artist has to execute a portrait of the human face: he must not only be able to apply to his pencil the proper degree of force, but it must be applied in certain directions perceived by the organ of Form (which from a great number of observations I believe to cognize curved lines), and according to the accuracy of his perception of the necessary lines, will be his direction of the pencil: if he be deficient in Form, he cannot accurately perceive the different curves, and therefore cannot trace them; in other words, he cannot apply the proper force in the required direction. Or suppose an architect has to draw the plan of a building about to be erected: unless he have the organ of Weight large, he cannot perceive perpendiculars and inclined angles correctly; and though he may be quite competent to use the just degree of force, he cannot use it in the direction of the required angles, because he cannot accurately perceive them; and so on through the whole of the intellectual faculties, both in their single and in their combined manifestations. With large Constructiveness and the above-mentioned favourable conditions, a man will be an expert workman, or able to apply with rapidity force in the required amount; and with a good. development of the intellectual organs necessary in the particular pursuit in which he may engage superadded, he will be able to apply that force in the proper direction: he will be both an expert and a skilful workman, no other qualifications being requisite.

So far as my own observations go, they most decidedly confirm this view; and for some time I have felt convinced that if Constructiveness be not the organ for muscular force, its function is unknown. For instance, I had a man in my employment a short time ago as an engraver upon steel, who was very deficient in Constructiveness; and though his work when done was in most respects tolerably good as to quality or skill displayed,

yet he was the most unprofitable workman I ever had, as, notwithstanding very close application and great assiduity, he required at least one-third more time for the execution of each pattern than ought to have been taken. His organs of Form, Size, Weight, Colouring, Order, and Individuality, were well developed, and the reflecting organs about the average. His temperament was sanguine, and he had been in constant practice for eighteen or twenty years. His great deficiency was really the incapability to apply to his work the proper amount of muscular force; he required to go over his steel with the graver and other tools several times oftener than others with large Constructiveness find necessary, before he could work up his drawing to the strength required, although he was a strong muscular person. And the practical result of my observation is, that I would never willingly engage a man, either as an engraver or as any other kind of workman, whom I found deficient in this organ; knowing that such an one would be an unprofitable servant, however skilful he might be. As a contrast to the above-I have had for several years a man in my employment as a turner and filer, whose Constructiveness is large, but whose Form and Size are small; Weight and Order are rather large, and the reflecting organs small. His kind of work does not require much skill, and he is truly "rough and ready," and can execute more work in the same time than most men I have seen; yet, though he has been constantly employed at a lathe for the last sixteen years, should any thing occur to throw it out of order, he appears to have no more idea how to set it to rights, than a ploughman who had never seen a lathe in his life would have: indeed he has no more mechanical skill or contrivance or taste, than a North American Indian. His temperament is a mixture of bilious and nervous, chiefly the former. I might multiply cases of this kind to tediousness, but I trust the above will suffice to make clear the kind of evidence on which my view rests, as to the function of the organ called Constructiveness.

I have hitherto always found that individuals with Constructiveness large, are, cæteris paribus, more active in any kind of muscular action, and delight more in muscular exertion, than others who are deficient in it; and the organ appears to me not only to incite to muscular action, but to give the power of using the amount necessary to accomplish the result desired.

There is a gentleman in Manchester, a principal in one of the most extensive and respectable machine-inaking establishments in the neighbourhood, and who is personally eminent for his mechanical inventions and improvements, whose organ of Constructiveness is most decidedly small (indeed, it was pronounced to be so by Dr Spurzheim himself, and considered by him as a

case of great difficulty: Mr Bally is my authority for this, who took a cast of the gentleman's head at the Doctor's request, which he has in his collection). The character given of the gentleman by his workmen, as a mechanician, is, that he can invent anything, but that he can scarcely put his inventions together when each part is made ready to his hand and by his own direction, or take them to pieces when put together. Of course, this is an exaggeration; but I believe he is a much better contriver and judge of work than he is able to work himself. Those who are competent to judge of the matter, consider that bis inventions are frequently defective in principle (which I humbly conceive to arise from his organs of reflection being, comparatively speaking, deficient), but beautiful in detail as to proportion, form of each part, and general finish, the result of course of his immense development of the organs of perception; and it appears to me that all mechanical inventions and improvements, as to principle, are the result of reflection, aided by observation and experience; that the practical skill or knowledge necessary to realize them in construction-in other words, to form the component parts, and to give them proportion, accuracy of position as to the different angles each part should occupy, beauty of finish, &c.—is dependent upon the perceptive organs, and that Constructiveness, the humble servant of the rest, gives the power to apply the muscular force essential to the completion of the whole.

I may, perhaps, at some future period, resume the subject; and in the mean time, I would request those phrenologists who, like myself, employ a number of hands, to direct their attention to it in the way of observation; as all mere opinions are valueless in Phrenology, facts alone being calculated to further its progress and completion.-I am, &c.

RICHD. EDMONDSON.

Though not yet prepared to coincide with Mr Edmondson in all his views, we think the facts and arguments adduced in his paper worthy of the attentive consideration of phrenologists. Having artizans in his employment, he is favourably situated for making observations tending to throw light on the subject under discussion, and we trust that he and other phrenologists who have similar opportunities will continue to impart their discoveries to the public. Constructiveness is a faculty regarding elementary nature of which we have never been fully satisfied. The propensity to fashion or configurate has occurred to us as the phrase most accurately descriptive of it; but if Mr Edmondson's views be sound, some other name must of course be applied. In several of the manifestations ascribed by Dr

Spurzheim himself to this faculty, there is neither construction nor any other kind of fashioning or configurating: "It is necessary," says he, " to those who excel by their ability in musi cal performances, to clever experimenters in physical doctrines, to good operative surgeons."-EDITOR.

ARTICLE VII.

THE DETAILS OF PHRENOLOGY.

THE empty cry about the conclusions of phrenologists being unsupported by facts has now ceased, unless with a few speci mens of antiquity or obtuseness, to the stock of whose ideas no addition has been made for some twenty or thirty years. It is found more convenient, because more vague and unmeaning, to make random protests against the details. What are these details? They are either facts considered individually, or the relations existing between such facts; that which is discovered to be applicable to all similar facts, or all similar relations, being called a general conclusion. These general conclusions are usually admitted by the persons who object to the details. Now, the facts exist in nature, and that by millions, whether we observe them or not. So, also, do their mutual relations. The uniting of these details into general conclusions is what the phre nologists can alone claim the peculiar credit of. How vast, therefore, is the absurdity of these objectors to "the details," who thus give their acquiescence to Phrenology, in so far as it depends immediately upon the correct observations and reasonings of phrenologists; yet, in the same breath, deny such details of the science as rest directly on the visible realities of nature, open to the eyes of every one! After all, we find such objections to the details to be merely nominal-merely a cry without substance and support; since practical observers of acknowledged ability are continually bringing forward these details as matters of fact, and differ from phrenologists only by failing to reach the conclusions.

A good illustration of this may be seen in Audubon's description of a visit to the late Mr Bewick, the celebrated engraver on wood.* Bewick is described as being "a tall stout man, with a large head, and with eyes placed farther apart than those of any man I have ever seen;-a perfect English man, full of life, although seventy-four years of age, active and prompt in his la

In the third volume, recently published, of his "Ornithological Biography," p. 300.

bours." On reading this simple description, a phrenologist would at once presume the large head and active temperament to have been attended with a powerful and energetic mind; while the very large organ of Form, indicated by the extraordinary breadth between the eyes, would at once point out the probable direction of that mental power to some art in which a talent for correctly observing shapes is pre-eminently called forth. Of course, Audubon, in speaking of Bewick's talents and force of mind, deems it necessary to give his own guess as to their origin; and, after making due allowance for the vague manner in which mental manifestations are usually written of, the explanation of Mr Audubon is substantially correct as a general statement; but it wants the " phrenological details" necessary to render it of any practical applicability. His words are " My own opinion of this remarkable man is, that he was purely a son of nature, to whom alone he owed nearly all that characterized him as an artist and a man. Warm in his affections, of deep feeling, and possessed of a vigorous imagination, with correct and penetrating observation, he needed little extraneous aid to make him what he became, the first engraver on wood that England has produced.” Let us now join this description of Bewick's mind to the description of his person, and we have one of the " details of Phrenology," given by a man of great natural talent, and who, in all likelihood, had no suspicion that he was doing so when writing the descriptions above quoted. How many, too, will read those descriptions without ever suspecting the necessary connexion of the facts mentioned; and, possibly enough, in a few hours thereafter, some of them will declaim against the "DETAILS OF PHRENOLOGY." H. C. W.

REMARKS ON THE CEREBRAL ORGAN CALLED MARVELLOUSNESS by SPURZHEIM, and WONDER by COMBE.

(to the editor of the Edinburgh phrenologiCAL JOURNAL.)

HALL GATE, Doncaster,
December 24. 1835.

→SIR, As soon as I could possibly spare time, I avail myself of your: kind offer of allowing me to make a few remarks on the func-. tion of Marvellousness, in reply to a statement made in an article of your Journal, No. 43, page 276. The writer says: