Another form of mental derangement, arising from internal excitement of the organs, is the tendency to involuntary and sometimes unconscious manifestation of the faculties. Some insane patients talk night and day to themselves; and in hysterical affections, the individual often alternately laughs and cries involuntarily. The last phenomena are explicable by the supposition of different organs becoming active and quiescent in turns, in consequence of spasmodic or some other irregular action in the brain. Dr. A. Combe saw a lady in Paris, who, when just emerging from insensibility, occasioned by a fit of apoplexy, manifested the faculties of Wit and Imitation quite unconsciously, but with so admirable an effect, that her relations were forced into fits of laughter, mingled with floods of tears for her unhappy condition: on her recovery, she did not know of the exhibitions she had made. The organs of Wit and Imitation were large. Phrenology accounts for such facts, in a simple and natural manner, by the effects of diseased activity of the organs.

DREAMING may now be analyzed. If the greater number of the organs remain inactive, buried in sleep, and two or three, from some internal excitement confined to themselves, become active, these will present the mind with corresponding conceptions, and being separated in their action from the other organs, which, in the waking state, generally co-operate with them, the result will be the creation of disjointed and fantastic impressions of objects, circumstances, and events; in short, all the various phenomena of dreaming. Thus, every circumstance which disturbs the organization of the body may become the cause of dreams; a heavy supper, by encumbering the digestive powers, affects the brain painfully by sympathy; and hence the spectres and hydras dire which affect the sleeping fancy. Fever, by keeping up a morbid excitement in the whole system, sustains the brain in a state of uninterrupted activity; and hence the sleeplessness which attends the higher, and the disturbed dreams which accompany the lower, degrees of that disease. Thus, also, is explained another familiar fact relative to the mind. If, during day, we have been excessively engaged in any particular

train of study, it haunts us in our dreams. During day the organs of the faculties chiefly employed were maintained in a state of action, intense and sustained, in proportion to the mental application. By a general law of the constitution, excessive action does not subside suddenly, but abates by insensible degrees;-on going to sleep, so much activity continues to stimulate the organ, that the train of ideas goes on; till, after long action, it at last entirely

ceases.

On inquiry I find, what indeed might have been anticipated a priori, that dreams in different individuals have most frequently relation to the faculties whose organs are largest in their brains. A friend, in whom Tune is large, and Language deficient, tells me that he has frequently dreamt of hearing and making music, but very rarely of composing discourses, written or oral. Another gentleman, in whom Language is full, and Tune deficient, states that he never but once in his life dreamt of hearing a musical note, while many a laborious page he has imagined himself writing, reading, and speaking in his dreams; nay, he has repeatedly dreamt of conversing with foreigners in their own tongue, with a degree of fluency which he could never command while awake. In the same way, a person in whom Locality is large assured me, that he had very frequently dreamt of travelling in foreign countries, and enjoyed most vivid impressions of the scenery; while another, in whom that organ is small, never dreamt upon such a subject. One friend, in whom Combativeness is large, told me that many a tough and long contested battle he had fought in his dreams; while another, in whom that organ is moderate, stated that he never dreamt of fighting but once, and that was when his imagination placed him in the hands of murderers, whose heads he attempted to break with a poker, and wakened in terror at his own combative effort.

A curious illustration of the principle now under elucidation occurs in Scott, who was executed in 1823, at Jedburgh, for murder. It is stated in his life, that some years before the fatal event, he had dreamt that he had committed a murder, and was greatly impressed with the idea. He frequently spoke of it, and recurred to it as something ominous, till at last it was realized.

The organ of Destructiveness was large in his head, and so active that he was an enthusiast in poaching, and prone to outrage and violence in his habitual conduct. This activity of the organ might take place during sleep, and then it would inspire his mind with destructive feelings, and the dream of murder would be the consequence. From the great natural strength of the propensity, he probably may have felt, when awake, an inward tendency to this crime, and joining this and the dream together, we can easily account for the strong impression left by the latter on his mind.

I presume, although I do not know it as a fact, that persons in whom Cautiousness is small, and Hope and Benevolence large, will, when in health, generally enjoy brilliant and happy dreams; while others, in whom Cautiousness is very large, and Hope small, will be wading in difficulties and wo.

Mr. Andrew Carmichael of Dublin, in a pamphlet on Dreaming, which he wrote some years ago, suggests the idea that sleep may be the occasion, when the waste of substance in the brain is repaired by the depositation of new particles of matter. There is no direct evidence of the truth of this conjecture; but the brain, like every other part of the animal structure, is furnished with blood-vessels and absorbents, and is known to waste like them. That the waste should be repaired, therefore, is a fact of necessary inference; and that the period of sleep, when the mental functions are suspended, would be particularly suitable to this operation, is also matter of very plausible conjecture; but here the point at present rests, and I mention it merely as a suggestion.

This view of the phenomena of dreaming gives a death-blow to the superstitious notion of warnings and supernatural communications being now made to the mind in sleep; while it explains naturally the occasional fulfilment of dreams, as in the case of Scott.'

Thus the internal excitement of the organs of intellect produces conception; the ideas conceived bearing relation always to the particular organ or organs called into action. This excitement, when morbid and involuntary, produces fixed conceptions or ideas, which is a species of insanity; and the same excitement taking

place in some organs during sleep, while others remain in a state of inactivity, produces dreams. Hence these phenomena are all connected in their cause, however dissimilar in their external appearance.

IMAGINATION. The metaphysicians frequently employ the words Imagination and Fancy, but neither of them are synonymous with the phrenological term Ideality. Imagination is defined to be, "The power of forming ideal pictures; the power of representing things absent to one's self or others." In this sense, which I hold to be the primitive and most correct, there is scarcely a shade of difference betwixt Conception and Imagination. Locality, Size, Coloring, and Individuality, being active by command of the will, we may call up in our mind the features of a landscape, and we may then be said to conceive it. If to this act the word imagine were applied, and we were said to imagine a landscape, it would not be felt as improper. Mr. Stewart, therefore, if he had confined Imagination to the limits here pointed out, viz. "of representing things absent to one's self or others," would not be blameable for doubting if it were a faculty distinct from Conception, which he has ranked as such. At the same time, his notion, that "Imagination is not the gift of nature," but formed "by particular habits of study or of business," is even on this supposition erroneous; for there is no mode of activity of the mind which is not the gift of nature, however much it may be improved by judicious exercise. There is, however, a difference between Conception and Imagination; the former is the cool and methodical representation of things absent, as they exist in nature, to one's self, or to others. Imagination is the impassioned representation of the same things, and not merely in the forms and arrangements of nature, but in new combinations formed by the mind itself. In Phrenology, therefore, Conception is viewed as the second degree of activity of the Knowing and Reflecting Faculties, and Imagination as the third. Imagination is just intense, glowing, forcible, conceptions, proceeding from great activity of the intellectual faculties, not confined to real circumstances, but embracing as

many new combinations as they are capable of calling forth. In this way, Imagination may be manifested without ornament, or illustration; and this is the case when such faculties as Form, Locality, Order, Coloring, or Causality act by themselves, unaided by Ideality and Comparison. Hence, the assertion of D'Alembert,* that "metaphysics and geometry are of all the sciences belonging to reason those in which Imagination has the greatest share," is quite intelligible, and may have been seriously said. If in this individual, Form, Size, Locality, Order, Number, and Causality, in short, the faculties which go to constitute a genius for mathematics and metaphysics, were very active, he would be conscious of imagining, with great interest and vivacity, many new relations of space, magnitude, and causation, and looking to the usual definitions of Imagination, he was entitled to designate these acts as exercises of that faculty.

The metaphysicians attach a different and more extensive meaning to the word "Fancy;" and, according to my understanding of the functions ascribed by them to this supposed power, it embraces a wider range than Imagination, and necessarily implies ornament and illustration. Hence, Comparison and probably Ideality require to be combined with the Activity of the Knowing and Reflecting Faculties to constitute Fancy. The latter faculties will call up ideas of objects as they exist in nature, Ideality will invest them with beauty, Comparison will cull similes and trace analogies throughout the boundless fields of space, and the intellectual compound may be designated as the Creation of Fancy. The significations commonly attached to the words Imagination and Fancy, are, however, by no means precise. The conceptions of the Knowing and Reflecting Faculties, illustrated and diversified by Comparison alone, are frequently designated Fancy; and in this sense an author or orator may be said to possess a brilliant fancy, although Ideality be by no means a predominant organ in his head. On the other hand, many passages of Milton are the result merely of the Knowing Faculties, and Causality imbued with intense Ideality, and in them Comparison supplies but few illustrations;

*

Stewart, Prelim Dissert. to Sup. Encyclop. Brit. Part I. p. 6.