eration with its object, simply because the faculty of Benevolence, the function of which is to manifest this emotion, is a primitive mental power, having the same relation to external misery or pain, as light has to the eye; and as such it is as instantly and irresistibly roused by presentment of a suffering object, as the eye is by the admission of light, or the ear by the percussion of sounds. In witnessing another's misery, we, in virtue of this constitution of mind, first feel the emotion of pity, and, in proportion to its strength, fancy to ourselves the pain which he endures: But the pity always precedes, and the effort to conceive the pain is the effect, and not the cause of the pity. Hence those who are remarkable for a moderate endowment of Benevolence, although possessing superior intellectual or conceiving powers, never even try to fancy themselves placed in the situation of the sufferer, because they feel no motive impelling them to the attempt. The benevolent idiot, on the other hand, with scarcely any power of conception, feels the most poignant distress.

The same principle explains our shrinking from a blow impending over another. The feeling then experienced is a compound of Fear and Pity, Cautiousness and Benevolence. Fear sees the danger, and Pity looks to the consequent pain. Danger is the direct stimulant of Cautiousness, and suffering that of Benevolence; and, therefore, when these objects are presented to the mind, we can no more help feeling the corresponding emotions, than we can help seeing or hearing. The direct end or function of Cautiousness is the care and preservation of self; therefore, when it is excited by the aspect of danger, we look exclusively to self, and necessarily draw in our own leg or arm as parts of ourselves; but this results directly from the constitution of the faculty, and not from putting ourselves in the place of another. The direct end or function of Benevolence, again, is the good and happiness of others, and therefore, when it is excited by the misery of another, it necessarily, from its very constitution, feels for them, and not for us.

An active temperament greatly conduces to sympathy, by producing vivacity in all the cerebral functions, but this does not supersede the laws of sympathy before explained.

HABIT. Next to Association, Habit makes the most conspicuous figure in the philosophy of Mr. Stewart. He refers the incapacity of some individuals to discriminate colors to habits of inattention. The powers, also, of wit, fancy, and invention in the arts and sciences, he informs us, are not the original gifts of nature, "but the result of acquired habits."* "The power of taste, and a genius for poetry, painting, music and mathematics," he states, "are gradually formed by particular habits of study or of business." And not only does habit execute these magnificent functions in the system of Mr. Stewart, but, in the estimation of individuals in private life, it appears to be viewed as almost omnipotent. On reading to a friend the account of the boy Gibson's early atrocities, he attributed them all to bad habits formed in the Charity Work-house of Glasgow; on exhibiting an individual whose mental character was directly opposite, he attributed the difference to good habits, formed under the tuition of his parents. Thus, there are no talents so transcendent, and no dispositions so excellent or so depraved, but habit is supposed by many, at once, to account for them in such a manner, as to supersede the necessity of all further investigation. What, then, is HABIT, and what place does it hold in the Phrenological System?

Every voluntary action is a manifestation of some one or more faculties of the mind. "Habit" is defined to be "a power in a man of doing any thing acquired by frequent doing it." Now, before it can be done at all, the faculty on which it depends must be possessed; and the stronger the faculty, the greater will be the facility with which the individual will do the thing at first, and with which he will learn to repeat it. George Bidder, for example, he celebrated mental calculator, has acquired the habit of solving, in an incredibly short time, the most extensive and intricate arithmetical problems, without the aid of notation. Before he could begin to do such a thing, he required to possess the organ of Number; possessing it largely, he made great and rapid acquisitions of skill; and at seven years of age established the habit which struck us with so much surprise. Other individuals are to

* Elements, vol. i. chap. v. p. 1. sect. 4.

be found endowed with a small organ of Number, who, although forced by circumstances to practice the use of figures, never succeed in acquiring a habit of performing even the simplest arithmetical questions with facility and success. This illustration may be applied to painting, poetry, music and mathematics. Before the habit of practising these branches of art and science can be acquired, the organs on which they depend must be largely possessed; and being so, the habits result spontaneously from exercising the powers. If a boy at school acquire a habit of quarrelling and fighting, it is obvious that as these acts are manifestations of Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Self-Esteem, he will the more readily acquire the habit the larger these organs are, and the less controlled by others. If these organs are small, or if the higher organs decidedly predominate, the boy will be naturally indisposed to quarreiling, and will acquire the habit of it with great difficulty, wherever he may be placed. He may repel unjust aggressions made upon him, but he will not be the promoter of mischief, nor leader in the broils of his companions.

Exercise causes the organs to act with greater facility, and it is in this way that the real effects of habit on the mind, which are important, may be accounted for; but still the organ must possess considerable natural power and activity, to render it susceptible of the exercise by which habit is formed. The practice of debate by advocates at the bar, gives them great facility in delivering extempore harangues, compared with that enjoyed by persons whose avocations never lead them to make speeches; and this facility may be said to be acquired by the habit of speaking; but it will always bear a proportion to the original endowment of the faculties, and we shall find, that, while habit gives to one individual great fluency and copiousness of diction, it often leaves another in much poverty and embarrassment of utterance. The powers of both will be greatly superior to what they would have been without the practice of speaking; but disparity in eloquence will continue to characterize them, owing to differences in their original constitution.

The metaphysicians, as we have seen, attribute many important

mental phenomena to the effects of habit, and yet they altogether neglect the influence of organization on the mind: According to our views, it is the organ which acquires activity and superior facility in performing its functions, by being properly exercised, just as the fingers of the musician acquire rapidity and facility of motion by the practice of playing; and hence the effects of habit in giving readiness and ease are accounted for, in a manner that is at least intelligible and supported by analogy. The metaphysicians, on the other hand, must imagine that it is the immaterial principle itself which improves by exercise, and gains strength by habit, a notion which is altogether inconceivable, and in opposition to the attributes of a purely spiritual Being. The doctrine of a plurality of organs also, explains why, by practising music, we do not acquire the habit of speaking or writing with facility, or why, by studying mathematics, we do not acquire the habit of reasoning deeply in moral or political science. It teaches that the organ of Tune is distinct from that of Language; that the organs of Size, Order, Locality, Individuality, and Comparison, on which mathematical talent depends, are different from the organ of Causality, by which general reasoning is performed; and that it is quite possible to exercise one organ, and leave another in inactivity. Those physiologists, however, who hold the brain to be a single organ, and every part of it to be employed in every act of the mind, require to explain how it happens, that exercising it in one way does not improve it in all; or, in short, (to use an illustration applied by Dr. Johnson to genius,) to inform us why the man who can walk east is unable to walk west: If the organs by means of which he walks east be different from those by which ne walks west, no difficulty will occur; but if they be the same, the question certainly will require some portion of ingenuity on the part of the disciples of the old school for its satisfactory solution.

TASTE. Mr. Stewart speaks of Taste as a power or faculty, and, as already mentioned, supposes it to be acquired by habit. I am not aware that any other metaphysician coincides with him in these views; but a great deal has been written upon the subject,

and no satisfactory theory of it yet exists. I shall point out the manner in which it might be treated phrenologically, but the subject is too extensive to allow me to enter into it in detail.

In the first place, every act of the mind must be a manifestation of some faculty or other; and every act must be characterized either by good or bad taste, or be wholly indifferent in this respect. Let us inquire into the origin of bad taste, and this will lead us to distinguish its opposite, or correct taste. Bad taste, then, appears to arise from an excessive or improper manifestation of any of the faculties. Lord Byron is guilty of very bad taste in some passages of Don Juan, in which he exhibits the passion of love in all the grossness of an animal feeling this arises from an excessive manifestation of Amativeness, not purified and dignified by the moral sentiments and reflection. In the same work, there is a scene in a boat, in which Don Juan and his companions are made to devour his tutor. To a being under the sole dominion of Destructiveness, such a representation may perhaps be gratifying; but unless this propensity be very powerful, it will be impossible for any mind deliberately to invent and enjoy such a picture of human misery. No thoughtlessness, levity, freak of fancy, or other folly, could produce it, without a predominant Destructiveness. This great defect of taste, therefore, may be ascribed to an excessive manifestation of this faculty, unrelieved by Benevolence, or other higher feelings. Moore, also, in his earlier verses, was guilty of sins against taste, from excessive manifestations of the amative propensity; but this error he has greatly corrected in his later productions.

Faults in taste, however, arise not only from unbecoming manifestations of the lower propensities, but also from an inordinate expression of the sentiments and intellectual faculties. In Peter Bell and Christabell, and in the productions of the Lake School of Poetry in general, much bad taste springs from mawkish and infantine manifestations of Benevolence, Philoprogenitiveness and Adhesiveness. Even Ideality itself may be abused. It is undoubtedly the fountain of beauty, but in excess it degenerates into bombast, rant and exaggeration; or that species of composition