A Repository of Science, Literature, General Intelligence. NEW YORK, APRIL, 1861. are but one disease, one being the result of the other-are produced, in ninety-nine cases in a hundred, by the use of one or all of three articles, namely: coffee, tobacco, and spices. However much coffee and tobacco may affect the nervous system in general, they seem to have a peculiar effect upon the involuntary nerves. To make this clear, we remark that men and animals have several sets of nerves. First, nerves of motion and nerves of sensation. These are entirely distinct in character and function, and although they may be side by side in ical Character and Biography 58 How to Teach and How to Study Natural Philosophy and Chemistry.... To Correspondents.... Phrenology and Machinery in the Nursery... 60 61 one common 64 COFFEE AND APOPLEXY. EVERY person who has attained to forty years of age will doubtless have observed that sudden deaths, occasioned by what is called "apoplexy," or by what is more commonly called an affection of the heart," have within the last twenty-five years increased in a frightful ratio. The old lady who remarked, when hearing so much said about persons being nervous, "La! when I was young, people did not have any narves," stated an apparent truth, though one not fully borne out by anatomy. In her early days, when luxuries were few and labor abundant, persons did not become nervous, as they do at the present day, under the stimulus of high living and exciting modes of life. Who ever heard of dyspepsia forty years ago? Though a few might have been troubled with that disease, it was so very rare that the name did not become known to the common people. Consumption, rheumatism, dysentery, and fevers were known, but nervousness, dyspepsia, diseases of the heart, and apoplexy are in this country apparently modern. We believe that heart-disease and apoplexy-which, in a majority of cases, character or NOT function is as different as gas and water, whose pipes may chance in a hiva building to lie side by side; and these nervous systems are so distinct, that one may be paralyzed without injuring the other. There is many an arm which, having been paralyzed, its owner can not move voluntarily, but which retains its sensation of feeling as perfectly as ever. The nerves of motion are also divided into two sets one is called the voluntary, the other the involuntary. We use the voluntary nerves in walking, and in all the motions which are governed by the will. The nerves of involuntary motion serve to carry on the various vital functions of the human body; the processes of secretion, of excretion, of digestion, of assimilation, and especially the process of the circulation of the blood, not one of which would it be safe to leave to be performed by volition merely. The process of breathing [WHOLE NUMBER, 268. partakes more or less of both characters of voluntary and involuntary effort, and although a man can stop breathing for a time, or can breathe more rapidly than usual, or more irregularly, under the control of the will, still we think that the involuntary nerves of motion would, in respect to breathing, ultimately master the voluntary system; that is to say, though a man could stop breathing for fifty or sixty seconds, yet it would be impossible for him to commit suicide by holding his breath. The heart, on the contrary, acts day and night, when we sleep as well as when we sz wake; in infancy, in idiocy, in insanity, and all the changes of this varied life, still that powerful pump continues to act, and no man, by an effort of the will, can stop the beating of his heart; and, we might add, no man, No. 2. by an effort of the will, can start it when stopped, although, by inviting exciting thoughts, by working up the imagination, the whole system can become excited, and with it the circulation -but this is excited only in sympathy with the other parts of the body. For example, if a man is angry or afraid, and has either to fight or run, his whole system will become agitated, and the heart's action will increase, so as to send through the system the re-vitalizing element of the blood more rapidly than common, to invigorate the man for the exigency. But who, by saying, "Heart, beat faster," can insure obedience, or who, by saying, "Beat slower," will be obeyed? We have said that the use of coffee, tobacco, and spices appears to affect the involuntary system of nerves which operate on the heart and some other organs. Now, if this be so, aside from all other questions of health and propriety in respect to the use of these articles, it comes to be a grave question who may use them with impunity. Who can use strong coffee, who can use tobacco, or make free use of spices, without being liable to a spasmodic action of the heart, and probable sudden and early death therefrom? We believe that at least one third of the human race of to-day are liable to palpitation of the heart, and to such spasmodic action of that organ as to throw the blood unduly upon the brain, and thus produce apoplexy, from the habitual use of the three articles named. We believe that we can point out individuals thus specially liable to apoplexy, almost as rapidly as men could be marched in review, in single file. Nothing is more common in our private examinations than for us to say to certain persons, "If you drink coffee, you must quit it, if you would avoid apoplexy;" or, “If you use tobacco, your heart will suddenly stop some day, and you will be a dead man. 77 We say nothing is more common than for persons thus addressed to reply, “Oh, yes, I gave up coffee six months ago on account of a rush of blood to the head," or of palpitation of the heart. Another will say, "If I smoke more than my usual quantity, I am troubled with palpitation;" and another, "Yes, my physician has interdicted it, and I find that it injures me very much." We know persons of robust constitution, of active habits, and excellent general health, who can bear all the fatigues of hard labor, either of mind or body; yet, if they drink one cup of coffee every morning for a fortnight, they suffer so much from palpitation of the heart and a rush of blood to the brain, as to be unfit for business. The portraits which we give in connection with this article exhibit a striking difference in the forms of the face. No. 1, Mr. N., it will be seen, has a very broad face at the cheekbones. It is also full through the middle of the cheek, and then suddenly tapers off, showing an exceedingly small chin. The other portrait, No. 2, Mr., presents a face in many respects the reverse of the first. The cheek-bones are not broad or prominent. The middle of the face is rather lank, and the chin is long, square, broad, and heavy. There is some nervous relation between different parts of the face and different organs of the body. Persons with a full and prominent cheek on each side of the nose, especially if the face there be broad, will be found with large and vigorous lungs; they will, as it were, live on air, and can not endure to be where they can not have an abundance of it. In consumption, that part of the face first presents a hectic flush, a feverish state. As disease of the lungs advances, that part of the face becomes poor, falls away and makes the eyes glaring The middle part of the face being plump Persons with a small chin, like Mr. N., are found to possess a weak circulatory system, that is to say, it is vacillating and irregular, and such persons are liable to palpitation of the heart, flushed face, and a rush of blood to the brain under the least excitement, and at the same time, perhaps, the hands and feet are cold. Experiments in animal magnetism have been made on sensitive subjects, and the operator by putting his fingers upon the cheek under and outward from the eyes, could, at will increase or decrease the respiratory process in the subject; by putting the fingers on each side of the face, the subject would complain of stomach sickness, and become very pale; and by putting the fingers upon the chin, the heart would either almost cease to beat, or else its beating would be greatly accelerated, and the whole circulatory system, as indicated by the pulse, seriously disturbed. We have found, by thousands of observations, that persons having such a chin as Mr. N. can not use coffee, tobacco, or spices without palpitation of the heart and a general disturbance of the circulation, while such evils are not palpable in cases like the portrait No. 2. The trouble with this man would be a weakness of the digestive and respiratory systems. The heart beats quite stiffly and steadily, and will be the last part of his organization to give out; while Mr. N., No. 1, informs us that he is obliged to avoid coffee, and everything that is calculated to agitate the circulatory system, and that from experience; without any theory he was led to avoid them. If he drinks a eup of coffee or glass of brandy, the blood rushes to his head so as to make him almost blind. We know not a few who, by the use of tobacco in any form, though exceedingly fond of it, and having used it for twenty years, will be afflicted with symptoms similar to those just described as arising from the use of coffee. Others, again, suffer in a similar manner from the use of cloves, cinnamon, or other spices. We have known children to be thrown into violent convulsions by eating nutmeg. A lady of our acquaintance, who had been nibbling from nutmeg, was thrown into violent spasms; her face became flushed and her eyes set; still she was conscious, though very much alarmed. From that day to this she has been very sparing in her use of nutmeg and all other spices, and, we think, wisely. We therefore would raise the warning voice to all young people, to let the pepper-box, the cinna mon, the cloves, and all other spices have the go-by. Avoid them, partly because they produce a general feverishness of the system, and are not needed, but chiefly because they derange the circulation, and render those who use them liable to apoplexy. We advise them also to break away from the use of tobacco, if they have formed the habit, as well as to avoid coffee. There may be some who can use the latter without serious injury to health; but it behooves all who have an irregular action of the circulatory system, and who are sensitive to the effects of coffee, to use it very weak, or, what would be better, none at all. Many mothers think that when they nurse, they must needs use not only their ordinary quantity of coffee, but must increase the quantity; and, feeling somewhat exhausted, they drink their coffee stronger, so as to brace themselves up, and thus they keep their infant children fairly intoxicated with the stimulation of this article. A lady brought to us her child eight months old, whose head was vastly increased in size. The opening of the top became much larger, instead of closing. Its eyes were beginning to protrude; it was not able to keep the head erect, and the large veins were laid on like whip-cords, all over the forehead and head generally. The mother came to inquire in respect to the child's brain, if we thought it was affected, and whether she would be able to raise the child, and if so, whether it would be sensible or otherwise. We gave a single glance at the mother, and recognized in her organization one to whom coffee should be accounted a poison, and remarked แ "You drink coffee, I suppose ?" "Much?" "Yes, three times a day, and that very strong." "You have followed it for years ?" "Then your child was born diseased in brain, having been kept intoxicated by it from its earliest existence, and now that you nurse it, and drink such strong coffee, and so much of it, your child has never seen a sober hour, and is now so far gone that you will not be able to raise it." She remarked, in reply, “Now I understand why my five other children have died in the cradle." This is only one among many instances of a similar character which have fallen under our professional notice. Our cemeteries are filled with short graves. Coffee-acting as we have described, and also producing in children a tendency to brain-fever, which is so prevalent of late has slain its thousands. The children of tobacco-users are liable to be exceedingly nervous and sensitive in the action of the heart and brain; besides, they are liable to be born with a tendency to dyspepsia, and thus tobacco sends its thousands of little victims to untimely graves, before they have themselves sinned in this respect. A man who is saturated with tobacco, whose nervous system is all on fire with unnatural excitement from tobacco, coffee, and alcoholic liquors, can not be expected to become the parent of healthy children; and if the laws of nature could be translated into a statute form, such men might be indicted for manslaughter, or, perhaps more properly, for infanticide. Hardly a day passes that we do not read in the newspapers of men in the vigor of manhood, and in the midst of their usefulness, being cut off in a moment by an affection of the heart, or by apoplexy, which is practically the same thing. It may be safe to say, that there are fifty of these cases to-day where there was one forty years ago, and the increase in the use of coffee and tobacco has been in "He that hath ears to nearly an equal ratio. hear, let him hear." TALK WITH READERS. J. P. S. asks the following questions, to which we reply. First. "What mental faculty gives a man a love of truth for its own sake?" Answer. Conscientiousness, if it can be attributed to a single faculty; but in man's complex nature it is difficult to suppose that Conscientiousness alone can be highly gratified with truth in the abstract, without a number of other faculties readily and pleasurably responding. Causality, the faculty which looks to consequences and anticipates results, would certainly give in a cordial adhesion to the love of truth, and serve to sustain and strengthen Conscientiousness. So Cautiousness, enlightened by intellect, would give a sense of safety and pleasure in consequence when on the side of truth, and since falsehood can not fail to be injurious to mankind, and indirectly to one's self. Love for friends, interest in society, and a benevolent regard for the good of mankind would strengthen the love of truth; and he who loves himself, and his neighbor as himself, having conscience and reason sufficient to teach him the intrinsic value of truth, and the intrinsic wrong of falsehood, must value truth for its own sake as the foundation of happiness to himself and others. Second. "Is not the love of revenge the action of the love of justice in a low form ?" Answer. If it could be called the love of justice at all, we should reckon it to be in a very "low" form. The idea of punishment originates in Conscientiousness; and revenge is unjust punishment. Doubtless the hint of the wrong-doing of an adversary originates in Conscientiousness; but the overmastering energy of Destructiveness, and perhaps other selfish faculties, lead persons to inflict vengeance in excess (which is revenge) upon those who give offense. But there are many forms of revenge. Destructiveness and Conscientiousness seem to be the ministers of its execution. A lover being supplanted in his possession by a rival, feels that injustice has been done him, and that action of Conscientiousness which this reports correctly, tends to arouse his Amativeness, his Approbativeness, Self-Esteem, and Destructiveness to such a degree, that he will either bury the dagger in the heart of his adversary, call him to the deadly field, or, what is meaner and baser than all, seek revenge as a jealous woman sometimes does, namely, throw vitriol in his face. It may be that a person would evince a spirit of revenge without any of the monitions of conscience to teach him the injustice from which he has suffered. If it could be shown that the lower animals exhibited a spirit of revenge, which we doubt, the case might be made out. Third. "How does a man become a wolf in sheep's clothing,' phrenologically?" Answer. By having very large Destructiveness and Secretiveness, and generally Acquis itiveness, and having just enough of the moral and religious faculties to exhibit the outside garment of the gentle sheep; for if a man had nothing in his composition but the mere wolf, he would not be likely, in his outward demeanor, to simulate the sheep. A man must have some notion of virtue and religion in order to be able to counterfeit their character. Fourth. "How do you account for the fact that girls have a finer mental organization than boys, being offspring of the same parents ?" Answer. In nearly every department of nature we find the male larger and stronger, if not coarser, than the female. In the human species the male is larger, rougher, and coarser, because masculine; and the female is smaller, smoother, more delicately organized; and the only reason we can give is, because she is female, that this is the order of nature. There are sometimes, to be sure, apparent exceptions to this rule; but the general law is, that the feminine is finer grained, because of its femininity; moreover, if a girl resembles her father, she will be finer grained than he, but stronger and more vigorous and earnest in her character than if she resembled her mother. A son, on the contrary, strongly resembling his mother, will still be less fine than she, but more refined and sympathetical than if he had resembled his father. Fifth. "What is the distance from the middle of a line drawn through the opening of the ears to Individuality, Benevolence, Firmness, and Philoprogenitiveness in a large head, and in a small head respectively ?" Answer. We have no tables setting forth what the distance should be in well-balanced large heads and well-balanced small heads. We have taken a few caliper measurements which indicate the distance between the opening in the ear and the organs in question, not from the center of the brain; but counting about six inches for the width of a large head, a calculation could be made to approximate correctness by drawing a right-angled triangle. We have measured a head which was 23 inches in circumference, another which was 23 inches, which we call large. We have also measured one which was 19 inches, which we call small, but neither of these are perfectly well balanced; consequently the measurements can not be taken as an absolute standard. The following table exhibits the figures: Size of heads measured-inches 23 .. 66 54 281 191 4 51 IN the consideration of this intricate and much vexed question, it is not my purpose to endeavor to prove that the will of man is free, in the loose and unlimited interpretation which the term may receive. Such freedom, transcending the bounds of rational liberty, would be wild licentiousness. It would be incompatible with subjection or definite responsbility to any form of law, But this is not true of the human will. In the performance of his voluntary actions, man is as strictly under the control of the laws of his moral and intellectual nature as the streams are under the influence of gravitation in their descent to the ocean, or the planets in the performance of their journeys around the sun. Nor are the laws which govern the movements of mind less definite, positive, and unchangeable than those which govern the movements of matter. Were the case otherwise, to reason as to the grounds and motives of human conduct would be impossible; and all efforts to that effect would be futile. Let the actions of man be free from the guidance of affective causes and controlling influences, and by no extent of experience or depth of wisdom could they be foreseen or reasonably calculated on from one moment to another. A moral and intellectual chaos, with the confusion accompanying it, would everywhere prevail. When I say that [ will or will not perform a certain deed, my meaning is, that I purpose to obey a motive which now influences me. And some motive must always influence us, else are we aliens and outlaws from the system of nature, violators of its harmony, and totally dissimilar to everything else within the compass of creation. some cause. In the sphere, however, for which he is intended, and within whose limits alone he can act, man is sufficiently free for all the purposes of moral agency and personal accountability. In his selection and pursuit of a line of conduct, as well as in the performance of individual actions, he feels himself free from any hampering control; though he also feels that, in whatever he does, he is influenced by And between that cause and the action he performs there is as natural and positive a bond of law as there is between a falling body and the earth which attracts it. Were the case otherwise, man, I repeat, would be an anomaly in creation, all things else being governed by law, and he being lawless. To this, even the actions of the Deity form no exception. They are circumscribed and determined by the law (if it may be so called) of his own nature and perfections. He can not swerve from truth, justice, or goodness, because they are elements of his moral essence, and form a kind of fate, which bind him to maintain them pure and inviolate. Much less can man so far control his nature as to become independent of the motives and influences which are ordained and fitted by his Creator to govern his actions. My object, then, I say, in the present disquisition, is not to prove the abstract and positive freedom of the human will, but to show that there is nothing in Phrenology more inconsistent with it than is found in other doctrines of moral action. On the contrary, I hope to make it appear that, on the principles of that science, a more satisfactory exposition of free-will can be given than on those of any other scheme of mental philosophy. Without farther preface, therefore, I shall engage in the enterprise. In this attempt, the truth of the science will be regarded, not as a postulate to be demonstrated, but as a theorem demonstrated already. therefore, are not the necessary product of the human faculties; they are but the incidental fruit of only a few of them, when abused or misapplied. And the mind is so constituted as to be able to prevent such abuse or misappliance, provided it be suitably educated and disciplined. For it must be borne in remembrance that the mental faculties are susceptible of great alteration by training. They can be strengthened or weakened, according as the condition of the mind requires for its amendment the one or the other. Another truth essentially connected with this subject, and which the inquirer therefore should never forget, is, that some persons receive from nature a much stronger propensity to vice than others. This is verified by all observation, and can not therefore be disputed, much less denied. The propensity is in many cases a strongly-marked constitutional quality. Even in members of the same family, educated alike by precept and example, this difference of propensity is in numerous instances exceedingly striking. From their earliest infancy some of the children are marked by ill temper, and, as soon as they are capable of action, are addicted to mischief, cruelty, and vice. They delight in teasing or in some way annoying, perhaps tormenting, their brothers and sisters; in puncturing servants with pins, needles, or penknives; in inflicting pain and mutilation on domestic or other animals; and even in the tearing or burning of wearing apparel, the breaking of glass windows, and the destruction of household furniture. In their dispositions and characters, the other children of the family are not only dif ferent, but directly the reverse. They are mild in their tempers, affectionate and kind to everything around them, and pained at the very thought of giving pain or offense, or of injuring property. In another instance, some children of a family are irritable and passionate, resolute and fearless, perhaps enamored of danger, and, heroes in miniature, the brothers and sisters are slow in resenting injuries, peaceful and timid, and inclined to shrink from danger, rather than to seek it. Phrenology shows that the human brain is`under resentment, prone to combat. Of these composed of thirty-six or thirty-seven distinct and specific organs, each being the seat or instrument of a mental faculty also distinct and specific. These organs and faculties, however, are not independent, but exercise over each other a modifying and, to a certain extent, a controlling influence. They are not only, moreover, essentially different in their nature and tendency; some of them have bearings so directly opposite as to be checks on one another, should any one of them threaten to run to excess in their action. All these faculties are useful, and therefore valuable in themselves-equally consistent, under proper regulation, with morality and virtue, and necessary to the completion of the human mindnecessary, I mean, to fit man for the world he lives in, and to qualify him for the duties of the station he occupies. Vice and crime, In a third family, some children are covetous from their cradles. They greedily, and by instinct, grasp at everything within their reach, always illiberally, and at times unjustly; and, having gained possession of the object desired, they selfishly apply it to their own gratification, regardless of the wishes or wants of their associates. Others, again, of the same family, reared under the same roof, and the same external influences, manifest a spirit of unmixed kindness, generosity, and disinterestedness. Regardless, apparently, of their own gratification, their chief object seems to be the gratification of others. I should speak more philosophically were I to say that their grat ification consists in gratifying their companions. For the attainment of this, they cheerfully and even joyously distribute among their playfellows whatever they possess, that they may minister to their enjoyment. Some children, again, are prone to secrecy and concealment, equivocation, deception, and open falsehood; while others of the same household are frank, confidential, and communicative, and prefer punishment to a departure from truth. In a special manner they never permit their innocent comrades to sustain blame, or incur a penalty for faults which they have themselves committed. ers. My By no one of observation and experience in life will this statement be denied. On the contrary, its correctness is fully established by facts and scenes of hourly occurrence. reference for illustration and proof has been to children, because their native dispositions have not been yet materially changed by the influence of education. And the inference to be drawn from the contrast presented is, that though all men may be, by nature, more or less prone to vicious indulgences, the propensity is far stronger in some than it is in othAnd this is in accordance with the lessons of Scripture on the same subject. For these different degrees of propensity to vice, phrenologists assign an intelligible, and, as they believe, a veritable cause. Each propensity is the product of a specific organ of the brain; and, other things being equal, its strength is proportionate to the size of that organ. A large organ, a strong propensity, and the reverse. It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that, in common with muscles and other parts of the body, the size and strength of cerebral organs can be greatly changed by education and training. And while suitable excitement and exercise invigorate them, inaction and want of excitement debilitate them. pleasure, therefore, cerebral organs, when too strong, may be enfeebled, and strengthened when too weak. Thus may the balance between the organs be maintained. Though it is not contended that this balance can be in all cases rendered sufficiently complete for the security of morals and the promotion of virtue, it can be made highly available in the amendment of the disposition and the prevention of crime. At In the view of anti-phrenologists, this doetrine is eminently objectionable, because, as they assert, its issue is inevitable and unqualified fatalism. If, say they, man has a material organ of crime, that crime he must commit as certainly as he must see with his eye, hear with his ear, or breathe with his lungs. This objection being utterly wanting in strength, or candor, or both united, is no better than a cavil. The answer to it is correspondingly plain and easy. Man has no organ of crime, nor does such a doctrine make any part of Phrenology. He has several organs which may lead to crime, unless they are prevented from acting to excess, or if they be abused or misapplied. And what is, there that may not, by misuse, be productive of evil? But, as already mentioned, all excessive action, and all abuse and misapplication of the organs, which alone produce crime, may be in most instances easily prevented. The natural action of every organ, when under due regulation. is useful and necessary. The inference, therefore, which anti-phrenologists draw by analogy from our eyes, ears, and lungs, is groundless and futile. We do not see, hear, and breathe with those organs only when or because their functions are inordinate and excessive. On the contrary, it is the natural state of the organs alone that it is salutary to us. Their excessive or preternatural state is injurious, precisely as is that of our cerebral organs. Our physical, moral, and intellectual soundness and comfort consist in the correct regulation and condition of them all. It is a departure from such condition of them that does mischief. But this subject may be presented in another point of view no less fatal to the doctrine I am opposing. That man brings into the world with him a propensity to vice, has been already represented, is a tenet of Christianity, and will not be denied. In his mind or his matter, therefore, that propensity must be rooted. There is no third place of deposit for it. Antiphrenologists plant it in the mind-phrenologists in the brain. Are the former sure that their location of it furnishes the best guaranty against fatalism? Let a fair analysis of the matter be made, and the question will be answered. There are but two modes in which full security against the evils of a vicious propensity can be attained; the propensity must be eradicated by a change in the substance in which it is located, or it must be counterpoised and neutralized by a virtuous propensity. Is the substance in which the propensity to vice is located, mind or spirit? Then must the mind or spirit be changed and improved either wholly or in part, else will the evil propensity be permanent. Is the seat of location matter? Of it the same is true. It must be altered and amended in its condition, otherwise the vicious propensity which it harbors and cherishes will flourish. But the mind or spirit of man is believed to possess neither separate portions nor distinct localities. It is held to be perfectly simple and indivisible. It can not, therefore, in the way of improvement, be changed only in part. It must be changed in toto, or not changed at all. But, as respects a substance simple and partless, change and annihilation are the same. Such a substance can not be in the slightest degree altered without an absolute extinguishment of its identity. In the nature of things the case can not be otherwise. A moment's reflection on it will render the truth of the position self-evident. Hence it is already so clear and palpable, that an attempt to illustrate it farther must fail. Let a single effort, however, to that effect be received for what it be thought worth. A particle of light or of caloric is regarded as a simple body. Change either, and it is necessarily converted into something else. It is a particle of light or of caloric no longer. Change even a blue ray of light, consisting of a line of simple particles, into a red or an orange ray, and its identity is destroyed.. It is a blue ray no longer, nor does it manifest any characteristic properties as such. Of any other simple and indivisible substance the same is true. The slightest alteration in it is unconditional annihilation. To extinguish in an individual, therefore, a propensity to vice, change his mind or spirit in the slightest degree, and as far as that substance is concerned, you utterly destroy his personal identity. You effect in him a complete metempsychosis. Not more radically would you extinguish his identity by metamorphosing his body into that of a stork or an ibis. But suppose the case were otherwise. Admit that the spirit may be somewhat changed and reformed, and still remain the same spirit, what do anti-phrenologists gain by the concession ? Do they, in fact, gain anything by it ? Let them answer these questions for themselves. And to try their ingenuity farther in the solution of problems, I shall propound to them a question or two more. Are they sure that it is easier to change and improve the condition of a depraved simple spirit, than of an organ of compound matter? Do they really know that such condition of spirit can be changed and improved at all? No, they do not; because they have never witnessed the phenomenon, nor can they form the slightest conception of it Having no shadow of acquaintance with the nature, or any of the attributes of spirit, they know nothing respecting its susceptibility of change, the means of operating on it for the purpose of changing it, or the mode in which those means should be employed. To say everything at once, they are utterly ignorant of the whole concern, because it is beyond the comprehension of the human faculties. [TO BE CONTINUED.] PHRENOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS. FINDING in the head of a lady very large Order, Time, and Calculation, we described her as being strongly inclined to keep accounts in her head, and also to do everything by method, and to keep the time of day, and to count her steps, especially in going up and down stairs, and also to remember the strokes of the clock without having consciously counted them when they were made. This description seemed to strike her very forcibly, and she turned to her friends and remarked that it was literally true, but the fact had seemed so singular to her that she had declined to mention it to her friends, although she had often thought of so doing. She said she could go up and down hastily through three or four flights of stairs, no two of which had the same number of steps, and afterward could recall by reflection the precise number of steps of each flight of stairs-that is to say, could live it over again in memory; that she had even heard a clock strike in another room, and, being busily occupied with something, had not counted the strokes, the question would occur to her, What hour did the clock strike? and then, by throwing her mind back upon it, she could recall the number of blows given; and she had sometimes gone to the room where the clock was, to verify her correctness, and always found herself correct. The writer of this has been conscious of the same power, and is frequently awakened in the night by the striking of the clock, when the question arises as to the hour, and he throws his mind back, and, as it were, hears the sounds over again, and counts them; and, having another clock within hearing, which is generally two or three minutes slower, often waits till it strikes to verify his correctness as to the number of strokes struck by the other. We think a person will hardly be able to perform these things without an active condition of Order, Time, and Number, or Calculation. We have heard of men who became monomaniacs from the excessive activity of each of these organs. One man counted all his steps, and knew how many steps it required to go from his place to every place where he was accustomed to visit, and never went or returned without counting them. Another was accustomed to count all the panes of glass in the windows in a house on the opposite side of the street from his window, and would sit there by the hour counting. To such an extent do these habits tend to wear upon individuals, that they become exceedingly nervous, and abstracted from almost everything else. Some persons are Order mad, extra fastidious in regard to arrangements and neatness. One lady became so excessively tidy that she could not walk abroad for fear of coming in contact with something which would offend her order or disturb her sense of neat ness. We once knew a person whose faculty of Time was so extremely strong and active that he could be awakened at any hour of the night, and often has been awakened by his friends on a wager, and he would tell within fifteen minutes of the time of night, though he had been sleeping three hours soundly. He would also tell the day of the month when anything had occurred of an apparently trivial character for months and even years back; and, what is perhaps a little singular to the common mind, this man was nearly idiotic in everything else. But the whole State in which he lived probably did not possess another individual who was his equal in memory of Time. |