first revolution, the children were taken to executions by their nurses, as a forenoon recreation; the people changed their names, their offices, their days, the titles of the months of the year, their religion, and their very God. They were unhappy if anything whatever was the same as before. They even got tired of murder itself. Up to this hour they have followed after new changes, without object, aim, or end. Ennui is the most fruitful source of fretfulness, anger, mischief. Good temper in nations, as in individuals, is always secured by novelty. If we suppose the desire of change, either in circumstances, situation, or thought, in things external, or in the mode of action of the various organs, to be the legitimate use and function of Destructiveness, and anger to be its disagreeable affection, we can easily see that a man may possess a large developement of this faculty, and be by no means cruel or irascible. If he have the depressing passions in small endowment, or if he have large Hope and Benevolence, with only ordinary Cautiousness, and fair Combativeness, he will never be depressed; the other feelings will not be disagreeably affected; and thus the propensity which produces a change in the low state of the organs, will not be excited in the shape of its depressed form, which we have seen to be anger. With good health added, the individual will be gay, volatile, and pleasant; for ever on the qui vive, and always prepared to receive with avidity every novelty which presents itself for his gratification. He may be apt to fret a little at monotony, although that can seldom occur to a mind which can extract new features from the tamest countenance. If his Destructiveness be small, and the organs of gaiety large, the individual will be happy in the dullest and most tedious circumstances, enjoying all with tranquil placidity. If Cautiousness, Self-Esteem, Love of Approbation, and Acquisitiveness be large, with small Hope and Combativeness combined with feeble Destructiveness, there will be no anger to produce a change from the depressed state of the brain to rapid and healthy circulation, and the individual will become moping, listless, melancholy, and an idiotic maniac. If these first-named organs be large, and Destructiveness also very powerful, then their disagreeable excitement will produce the same state in Destructiveness, and the individual may go through all the stages of fretfulness, craving for effect, gnawing passion for excitement, anger, malice, rage, and fury.* Of course, this hypothesis is in the meantime only suggested for farther inquiry, and is not to be assumed as taking the place in our mind of settled conviction. In the skull sketched below, this organ is developed in a high degree. It is that of a chief of a band of robbers, remarkable for his cruelties and numerous murders. The moral region is very nearly obliterated. This man must have been an idiot, in so far as any ideas of virtue or accountability were concerned. He was only fit for the woods, and the society of the very lowest order of savages. THAT the desire for Food is in the mind or brain, not in the stomach, is a proposition which is very startling, and yet, upon consideration, very plain. A desire can be nowhere but in the mind. It is the man, not the stomach, that loves nutriment; * Where general depression is caused by impediment in the circulation, as in diseases of the heart, irritability, anger, and sudden bursts of unaccountable fury, are the result. A child of five years of age, under this complaint, had periodical fits of rage, in which it was excited to the most dreadful imprecations. This was probably a remedy of nature to recall activity in the cerebral circulation, and through that in the whole system. it is the mind that feels hunger, and craves to relieve it. The mere conception of disgusting food excites nausea. To invalids, the sight of rich meat, without tasting or smelling it, produces faintness. The bare idea creates the effect; and ideas are mental. When the stomach cannot receive or retain aliment, hunger is powerful. The infant sucks on long after it has begun to reject the milk. In inflammation, the patient feels a keen appetite, but the food is thrown up the moment it is swallowed. When we feel no hunger, the bare sight of food whets the appetite. When we grieve, we are no longer hungry. If we are about to discuss a hearty breakfast, and receive bad news, we can no longer eat. It is surely not the stomach that grieves! Hard study produces the same result. The stimulus is attracted to, and monopolised by, the organs of the intellectual faculties, and that part of the brain where the love of food is situated, is drained of its resources. But, if it were the stomach that felt hunger, it would desire to be filled whenever it was empty. It could not discriminate tastes till it had received the aliment, even assuming that the stomach can make its election of meats; and thus, the individual would have swallowed them before the belly had decided upon their acceptance or rejection. In the celebrated case reported by Dr. Gairdner of Edinburgh, a patient who had cut his throat, was perceived to secrete saliva whenever he saw food. The impression made on his mind, stimulated at once the appetite and the organs of salivary secretion, as was apparent by the spittle oozing out at the aperture of the wound in his throat. But the most conclusive proof of the mental character of this desire, is the fact of the existence of an idiosyncrasy of appetite. Some persons are gluttonous, others abstemious, some drunken, others sober, some peculiar for quantity, and many for the quality of their aliment. This, too, is altogether irrespective of the capacities of the stomach, or of their powers of digestion. In those who exceed greatly in the pleasures of the table, it has been observed that a particular portion of the brain is largely developed. "The place," observes Dr. Hoppe, “where its different degrees of developement are manifested in the living body, is in the fossa zygomatica, exactly under the organ of Acquisitiveness, and before that of Destructiveness." Broussais and Vimont, consider it to be farther forward, and lower down. "It is concealed," says the former, "under the temporal muscle, and sensibly enlarges the head at that region, below the organ of Constructiveness, and in front of that of Destructiveness." This organ," observes the physician who reports a case in Edinburgh Infirmary, which we shall afterwards notice, "is nearly parallel to the zygomatic arch, which is often rendered prominent by it when large; but the distance of the arch from the proper parietes of the skull being variable, this is not a certain guide. The temporal muscle opposes an obstacle, but may itself be used as a means of removing the difficulty in part. When the organ is larger than its neighbours, the lower part of the temporal muscle is pushed outwards, making it appear as if lying on a pyramidal, instead of vertical sided cranium, the base of the pyramid being downwards; when small, the reverse occurs. If the organ be very large, it will affect the socket of the eye-ball, pushing the latter up and forward, not as in Language, down and forwards. When both are large, the eye looks imprisoned by a fulness, extending all round it." Being a faculty of the lowest kind, it was to be expected that it would be placed at the base of the brain. The direct evidence in favour of the organ is very strong. A patient in the Edinburgh Infirmary, awoke at six craving for food, and ate continually until twelve. Although his stomach was greatly distended, he complained that he was dying for hunger; became delirious, and then nearly insensible, crying only"Hunger! hunger! it's hunger!" He complained of a pain at the organ of Alimentiveness, but nowhere else. A patient of Messrs. Ombros & Penthelite, having exactly the same insatiable voracity, was bled with leeches at the seat of the organ, by Spurzheim, and instantly relieved. In a woman mentioned by M. Descuret, whose skull is in his possession, this organ is twice the natural size. She ate the rations of from fifteen to eighteen of the inmates of the Salpetriere, and when expelled, took every method of stealing bread and meat. Being stopped in this, she betook herself to raw vegetables, and devoured all the plants and roots that presented themselves to her; but having surfeited herself with noxious herbs, particularly some of the ranunculus tribe, excessively acrid and irritating, she was killed. "Every one is aware," says Vimont, "that gluttony is the peculiar vice of infancy. I have examined the heads of forty-eight children, of from five to twelve years of age, and can testify, that in the whole this organ is very apparent." "It is enormously developed in the skulls of two women which are in my collection. They were incurably addicted to spirits." A woman was seized with a fit of voracity, when, in consequence of a violent fright, she felt the blood rush up to the head, and leave the extremities. In three cases of death from long intemperance, distinct erosions of the two convolutions of Alimentiveness, were observed by the surgeons in the Hospice de la Charité. In two others (a town-crier and a juggler), the same propensity was accompanied with the same result. We know a person, who is frequently attacked with delirium tremens, in consequence of hard drinking, in whom the left side of the head, at the region of this organ, is so enormous as to produce a remarkable deformity. In two girls, Vimont found this organ very large. The one ate plentifully of cinders, and the other unground wheat, drinking quantities of the sourest and strongest vinegar. In a woman, who from infancy ate very little, and when an adult, confined her diet to water or a little milk, this organ is very small, and the temporal bones much sunken. In Charles XII. who forswore wine, and tried to live without food, the organ is also very deficient. The Germans and Americans, who are much addicted to drinking and eating, are equally singular for their passion for smoking. The organ in them is very marked. Snuff and tobacco are substitutes for food, and the habit of taking a pinch or a quid, probably has its origin in active Alimentiveness. Persons smoke, snuff, or chew most, when this organ has been stimulated by eating or drinking; and excess in both generally go together. Few habitual snuffers, or opium or tobacco chewers, are indifferent to the charms of a flowing bowl. Drunkenness is hereditary, from which it is certainly to be inferred, that it proceeds from an innate principle or desire. That hunger and thirst proceed from the same faculty, is rendered probable by the fact, that drinking excites a false appetite. "Vicit digna viro sententia: noverat ille Luxuriam imperii veterem noctesque Neronis Drink having a tendency to increase the flow of blood to the brain, stimulates it, "He had not dined. The veins unfill'd, the blood is cold, and then It also rouses the Destructiveness of the lion. The dog, while eating, is more apt to bite, and the horse to kick. "I'll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman, and how much he hath eaten; they are never cursed but when they are hungry." Acting upon its neighbour Secretiveness, it produces that extraordinary concealment of eating for which some women are so remarkable. Mr. Simpson found the organ large in a young gentleman who had periodical fits of inordinate voracity, accompanied by an irresistible propensity to steal everything within his reach. In combination with Acquisitiveness, it may prompt the bee, ant, and beaver, to hoard their food. Persons who steal, or who commit riots, plead drunkenness in mitigation of punishment. With regard to the exact function of this organ, many conjectures have been hazarded, in which accurate philosophy has been entirely overlooked. Some have supposed it to produce taste or appetite, in contradistinction to mere hunger; while others deem it the faculty which enables each animal to discriminate the food peculiarly fitted for its constitution, and to reject what is unwholesome or poisonous. To us it appears plain, that appetite is just an enlarged sense of hunger. We conceive, that a communication exists betwixt the brain and the belly, in the shape of nerves, which proceed from the organ of Alimentiveness to the stomach. When the latter is empty, it is probable that the end of the nerve is irritated, and stimulates the former, and produces the sense of hunger. But when the stomach is filled, the sense still exists, because the organ which produces the sense is still unsatisfied. If the organ of Alimentiveness were that whereby animals were enabled to choose the food fitted to their constitution, and to avoid poisonous substances, it would possess a discriminating and intellectual, not a merely animal function. Besides, wherever it was largest, the power of choice would be greatest. But this is just the reverse of the fact. The infant possesses it in enormous endowment, yet cannot discriminate one substance from another, and will take poison readily. The shark, whose voracity is proverbial, has no sense of taste, but swallows whatever it sees before it in the water. The woman mentioned by Broussais, as labouring under an acute state of inflammation of this organ, was so little capable of choosing betwixt aliments, that she poisoned herself on a ranunculus. And there is no difficulty whatever in poisoning any animal; set down noxious food, and it will be immediately consumed by dog, cat, rat, cow, horse, hog, or bird. The whole hypothesis is, therefore, a plain absurdity. Animals, like man, derive a knowledge of their proper nutriment by experience. As man seldom poisons himself, in consequence of his taking the precaution to adopt an active exercise of his perceptive faculties in detecting what hurts and what benefits the constitution, so the lower animals, by the same process, escape poison. They also teach their young to select proper nutriment, feed them, unfold food to their eyes, cry to them to approach it, and show them an example. The constitution of their palatic nerves, their organization in teeth and claws, their olfactory senses, climate, and situation, do the rest. It would be about as rational to expect an organ of flight, of tearing, or cud-chewing, as of alimentary discrimination. The discovery of the function of this organ, is calculated to be of the utmost benefit to society, and especially in the direction of education. From its known phenomena we may observe, that the sensations of hunger and thirst proceed from the action of the same organ; that, therefore, gluttony and drunkenness are derived from the same source; and that, if the organ be stimulated by food, and tempted by racy condiments, it may proceed to that state of inflamed action which produces the sot and drunkard. By this we learn, also, that the easiest method of educating a child to future debauchery, is to tempt, pamper, and inflame Alimentiveness with food to any greater than a most moderate extent, either in quantity or quality. We are also taught by this analysis, that we ought no more to give others or ourselves, as much as they or we incline to eat, than we should permit our Destructiveness to put us in a rage, or Acquisitiveness to pick pockets. The appetite of hunger and thirst being a mental desire, and not a mere craving of the organic system, cannot be infallible in its objects or indulgence, any more than that of the other passions. Hence the desire is capable of being educated, castigated, and put under complete control of the intellect, so that we can produce, by the simple training of the cerebral part, enduring abstinence, and a permanent natural temperance and moderation. The insensibility, irrationality, and evil concupiscence, which result from drunkenness, being caused by over-stimulating Alimentiveness, and irritating thereby the neighbouring organs sympathetically, it follows that an abuse of the organ by gluttony, will create over-action also, and thus, in the same manner, excite the action of the neighbouring propensities, Destructiveness, Combativeness, Amativeness, and Acquisitiveness. A Temperance Society for Eating is, therefore, as loudly demanded as one for Drinking. That this organ has been grossly neglected in education, and demands universally in civilised society a great deal more indulgence than is necessary either for sustenance or health, is illustrated by the fact, that if we gradually diminish our diet, we at last cease to have any inclination for even so much as one-half of the food which we formerly deemed absolutely necessary for support; while, at the same time, we discover that our strength is as great as, if not greater than, ever it was before. In the Indian Journal of Medical and Physical Science, it is recorded that a man in India, by long practice, "acquired the art of holding his breath, by shutting his mouth and stopping the interior opening of his nostrils with his tongue; he also abstains from solid food for some days previous to his interment." "The place in which he was buried at Jaisulmer is a small building about twelve feet by eight, built of stone; and in the floor was a hole about three feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide, and the same depth, or perhaps a yard deep, in which he was placed in a sitting posture, sewed up in his shroud, with his feet turned inwards towards the stomach, and his hands also pointed inwards towards the chest. Two heavy slabs of stone, five or six feet long, and broad enough to cover the mouth of the grave, so that he could not escape, were then placed over him, and I believe a little earth was placed over the whole, so as to make the surface of the grave smooth and compact. The door of the house was also built up, and people placed outside, so that no tricks might be played, nor deception practised. At the expiration of a full month, that is to say, this morning, the walling of the door was broken, and the buried man dug out of the grave; Trevelyan's moonshee only running there in time to see the ripping open of the bag in which the man had been enclosed. He was taken out in a perfectly senseless state, his eyes closed, his hands cramped and powerless, his stomach shrunk very much, and his teeth jammed so fast together that they were forced to open his mouth with an iron instrument, to pour a little water down his throat. He gradually recovered his senses and the use of his limbs; and when we went to see him, was sitting up supported by two men, and conversed with us in a low gentle tone of voice, saying that we might bury him again for a twelvemonth if we pleased." "Previously to his interments he takes milk only, and of that, no more than is sufficient to support life." This case establishes beyond a doubt the capability of the appetite to be trained and educated. It shows that the patient, discovering by experience that a gradual diminution of the stimulus which the cerebral organ generally received, in the same ratio decreased the desire for aliment, lessened the supply of the food which gratified the appetite, until at last the craving of hunger ceased altogether. If a man who does nothing can live for a month without food, it is clear that the idle gentleman can never require five meals every day. only reason why men die so soon of hunger, is, that the organ of Alimentiveness in their case is not gradually trained to abstinence, but that the objects which gratify a ravenous appetite are removed all at once. Hence madness is so often the result of starvation. SECTION IV.-Love of Life. The To take care of one's self," says M. Vimont, "is an innate feeling which belongs to all animals. All functions, in the ordinary sense of the word, doubtless contribute to the preservation of the race; but the expression is employed here in a much more limited sense, to indicate a mode of action of the cerebro-nervous system, having all the characteristics of a fundamental faculty; it consists in my opinion, in an impression purely instinctive, which induces animals to take to flight, or to be upon the watch, when any appearances from without seem to threaten their existence. This faculty is one of those which manifest themselves very early. I am inclined to think, that it is to this, to which ought to be referred the cries of the new-born infant, and those of the young of other animals, when any strange object alarms them. It is the sudden disappearance of certain species of animals upon the slightest noise, or on the presentation of any object seen for the first time, which has suggested to me the idea, that their manner of proceeding in such cases, depends on some fundamental faculty. I have seen foxes, rats, mice, and cats, disappear like lightning, upon the approach of a strange person or noise." "At the commencement of my inquiries, and for long afterwards, I supposed that the conduct of these animals might be explained by the assumption of a considerable developement of one or two faculties (Secretiveness and Cautiousness), of which I shall speak afterwards, but numerous observations conspired to destroy this supposition. I have found by ample experience, that animals deficient both in Cautiousness and Secretiveness, will scarcely suffer themselves to be approached, and have a singular tendency to run away or otherwise preserve themselves." He then proceeds to state, that the result of a great number of observations and experiments, has been to convince him that there is an instinct of Conservation, the cerebral organ of which is situated in the hollow at the side of the head, immediately above the sphenoid bone. "Observations," says Broussais, "have been made upon suicides. It has been found that those who kill themselves without hesitation, have this part of the brain extremely depressed. M. Dumoustier has gathered a sufficient number of facts upon the subject, to warrant him, as he thinks, in stating, that the organ is feebly developed in gratuitous suicides, and remarkably protuberant in those whose whole thoughts run upon self-preservation, who are profound egotists, and are occupied only with themselves." În an old 66 |