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ARTICLE V.

ELEMENTARY PHRENOLOGY.

BY OS. FOWLER.

To present any science in a plain and simple manner, so that the amateur can readily and fully understand it, requires a better knowledge of its elementary principles than even to treat it learnedly and profoundly. Hence, scientific authors have generally been too philosophical and abstract, to be comprehended by the great mass of mankind, and writers on phrenology have too often fallen into the same Though they have described the different faculties, they have not defined them, whereas a clearer and better idea of their primary functions can be given in a very few brief definitions, than in pages of descriptions. Phrenologists have also classified the faculties, before the learner knew what was to be classified. These two defects the writer proposes to remedy, by substituting definitions for descriptions, as well as by showing what constitutional provision in man's nature, or in his relations to the external world, his mental faculties are adapted to, following, at the same time, what he has considered for many years an improved classification.

1. Amativeness.-Reciprocal attachment, and love of the sexes as such; with Adhesiveness, connubial love, and the matrimonial relations. Adapted to man's condition as a reproductive being, and to the continuance of the species. Abuses: licentiousness, obscenity, &c.

2. Philoprogenitiveness.-Parental love; attachment to one's own offspring; love of children generally, pet animals, &c. Adapted to the dependent and helpless condition in which man enters the world, and to his need of parental care and protection. The organ is largest in the mother, on whom this duty chiefly depends. Abuses: spoiling children by excessive indulgence; idolising and pampering them, &c.

3. Adhesiveness.-Friendship; sociability; fondness for society; susceptibility of forming attachments; inclination to love, and desire to be loved; propensity to associate together in families and neighbourhoods. Adapted to man's capability of aiding and receiving assistance from his fellows, and to mutual happiness, by means of reciprocal affection. Abuses too great fondness for company, indiscriminately; grieving excessively at the loss of friends, &c.

4. Inhabitiveness.-Love of home and country as such; attachment to the place where one has lived; unwillingness to change it; desire to locate, and remain permanently in one habitation; patriotism. Adapted to those advantages to be derived from having a permanent home, thereby preventing the evils of numerous and constant changes.

These faculties are called the Domestic Propensities, and constitute man a gregarious animal; render him a social and domestic being; create his family attachments and relations, terminating in the marriage state, and originating its duties and its pleasures. The proper, or improper, exercise of the domestic feelings have a most powerful influence on all the other faculties. When these organs are large,

they cause an elongation and fulness in the middle and lower portion of the back part of the head; but when small, this part of the head presents a flattened and depressed appearance.

5. Concentrativeness.-Unity and continuity of thought and feeling; power of connected and concentrated application to one, and but one, thing at a time. Adapted to man's need of patient, prolonged, and thorough investigation of one thing, as well as of continued application to one subject, in order to complete any difficult or tedious undertaking, or to arrive at correct results in complicated and abstruse matters. Abuses: prolixity; tedious amplification of the feelings and mental operations, and inability to change one's occupation, or divert one's feelings. This faculty is referable to no particular class, but acts as a general regulator or modifier of all the other faculties.

6. Combativeness.-Self-protection; defence; resistance; defiance; resentment; spirit of opposition; determination; boldness; resolution; willingness to encounter; it originates the feeling implied in the phrase, "let me and mine alone." Adapted to man's existence in a world, where difficulties are to be met and overcome, as well as where his person and his rights must be protected and defended. Abuses: pugnacity; a quick, fiery temper; a contrary, fault-finding, contentious disposition, &c.

7. Destructiveness.-Executiveness; indignation; sternness; harshness; a pain-causing, retaliating, exterminating disposition; hatred, and bitterness of feeling. Adapted to a state in which pain must be inflicted and endured, and many things must necessarily be destroyed. Man, in this world, is placed under the dominion of certain physical and moral laws. Without such laws, life would be valueless, and, without a penalty attached to their violation, that is, without the institution of pain, these laws would be null and void. Pain is, therefore, productive of good; and even necessary in man's present state of existence. Abuses: rage; revenge; malice premeditated; animosity; wars; cruelty; malignity; murder, &c.

8. Alimentiveness.-Appetite; hunger; desire for nutrition; gustatory enjoyment. Adaptation:-Man is an eating animal. By the laws of his nature, the exercise of both body and mind causes an expenditure of the vital energies. This expenditure presupposes a re-supply, or a speedy exhaustion would ensue, and this supply is received partly through the medium of the digestive apparatus, to which this faculty is adapted. Abuses: gluttony; gormandising; living merely to eat and drink; drunkenness-though this last vice depends much on the temperament, habits, &c. of the individual.

9. Acquisitiveness.-Love of possessing and acquiring property as such; the feeling of mine and thine-of claim and rightful possession;

an economical, saving, frugal disposition, which is pained by seeing waste and extravagance. Adaptation:-Man requires to lay by, in store, at the proper season, the necessaries and comforts of life, such as food, clothing, &c. An exchange of property, also, between man and man, is often beneficial to both, and even necessary. Acquisitiveness has its counterpart in this demand for, and exchange of, property. It tends to restrain that waste and prodigality, which the other faculties would otherwise lead to; promotes industry, as well as prevents idleness and vice.

10. Secretiveness.-Policy; management; evasion; cunning; acting under assumed aspects; and disguising one's real sentiments and purposes. Adapted to man's need of this means of defence; to the necessity, sometimes, of his concealing his feelings, and of indirectly effecting his purposes. Abuses: hypocrisy; deceit; lying; dupli

city, &c.

These faculties are denominated the Selfish Propensities. They stand intimately related to the body, being so located as to facilitate as much as possible the intercommunication between them and the body. Their primary adaptation is to man as an animal-to man in his physical wants and conditions, giving rise to his merely animal necessities, desires, and gratifications, thus begetting Selfishness, and terminating solely on the interests and happiness of their possessor. The organs of these faculties are located upon the sides of the head, around the ears, and, when large, give it a thick and rounded appearance, and make the sides of the head spherical; but when small, the head is thinner, and more flattened in this region. These faculties receive their direction and modification chiefly from the relative influence of the sentiments and intellect.

11. Cautiousness.—Provision against want and danger; solicitude about consequences; fear; care; anxiety; taking precautionary measures; fleeing from foreseen evils, &c. Adapted to man's existence in a world of danger, as well as to his need of care and foresight. Abuses: procrastination; irresolution; timidity; cowardice; melancholy; want of promptness and enterprise.

12. Approbativeness.—Regard for character and reputation; desire for a "good name," and to be esteemed; love of praise, popularity, fame, and notoriety; pride of character; feeling of shame; ambition to distinguish one's self. Adapted to the praiseworthy and the disgraceful qualities of actions. Abuses: vanity; following the fashions at all hazards; extravagantly decorating the person; making too great display and show; artificial manners; formal politeness, &c.

13. Self-esteem.-Self-respect; love of freedom, liberty, and independence; self-confidence; self-complacency and satisfaction; high

sense of honour; love of power; nobleness; dignity; a high-toned manly feeling, which despises meanness and commands respect. Adaptation :-Man holds an elevated rank in the "great chain of being," especially in his mental and moral relations. This faculty gives him a consciousness that he is what he is, and disposes him to conduct in accordance with his high capacities and relations. Abuses: pride; egotism; swaggering pretensions; haughtiness; an aristocratical, domineering spirit, &c.

14. Firmness. Decision of character; stability; fixedness of purpose, opinion, &c.; perseverance; an unwillingness to change. Adapted to man's necessity of meeting and overcoming difficulties, giving him fixedness, perseverance, &c. Abuses: obstinacy; wilfulness; a blind adherence to present opinions, and in opposition to

reason.

This class of faculties, denominated Selfish Sentiments, like the selfish propensities, also terminate upon their possessor, and by disposing him to seek his own individual interest and happiness, make him selfish; yet their character and manifestations are far superior to those of the selfish propensities, especially when the religious and reasoning faculties are strong. They are located together in the superior posterior, or back part of the upper portion of the head. When these organs are large, this portion of the head is extended upwards and backwards; and when the moral sentiments are deficient, this region of the head is then conical.

15. Conscientiousness.-Moral principle; sense of justice; integrity; regard for duty; perception of right, and a feeling of wrong as such, and that right should be rewarded, and wrong punished; sense of moral accountability, of guilt and incumbency; love of truth; penitence for sin; disposition to reform; gratitude for favours; desire of moral purity and blamelessness of life. Adapted to the great principles of right and wrong, of duty and justice, established by the Creator in the very nature of things. Abuses: excessive scrupulousness; self-condemnation; making too little allowance for the faults and follies of mankind. This faculty enforces what the other faculties regard as right; does the fair thing between man and man, and makes one see and endeavour to correct his faults.

16. Hope.-Anticipation; expectation of future happiness and success; enterprise; cheerfulness; tendency of mind to magnify advantages, and to overlook or underrate difficulties. Adaptation :-Whilst the other faculties desire things, Hope assures us that they can easily be obtained; prompts the efforts required for obtaining the anticipated good, and prevents discouragement. Abuses: a visionary, chimerical, castle-building disposition, &c.