that applause itself springs from the same source in the human mind, modified only by the change of position from actor to spectator.

A person distinguished for combativeness must have both the ingredients now specified: the energetic temperament and the keen sense of manifested power, with little or nothing to mar the enjoyment of another person's discomfiture. Supposing, therefore, that Gall's allocation of the propensity was tolerably well founded, which of the ingredients are we to consider the principal in the case, so as to localize that in the organ assigned? Undoubtedly the most essential element is the feeling; for if that were absent, the spontaneous energy would flow in other channels; but as the feeling is universal, although not equal, the possession of the active element is likely to be followed out into this special gratification, perhaps as one of many applications. On this supposition, the protuberance behind and above the ear might be taken as an indication of an actively disposed mental system; the more so that courage and persistent energy in general are ascribed to it, qualities that have no necessary connexion with the grosser delights of power. When Combe says that the propensity is necessary even for philanthropic schemes, he cannot mean the pure pleasure of fighting; for the predominance of that peculiar temperament would. lead one to enter on a benevolent enterprise merely because there was scope for pugnacity, and to abandon it when there was no longer any one to contend with.

6. Destructiveness.-This propensity is very much of a kindred with the foregoing, and presents an opportunity for pursuing the observations just made. It was designated by Gall the disposition to kill, and the locality of it was suggested by comparing the skulls of carnivorous animals with herbivorous, and those of murderers with average human beings. In the former classes there was a fulness over the external opening of the ear.

Mr. Robert Cox, in an elaborate

examination of Destructiveness (Phren. Journal, vol. ix. p. 402), regards the primitive feeling as the 'propensity to injure,' sometimes with malice, at other times not. He remarks that it is 'a law of the human constitution that, when any of our faculties is pained, or disagreeably active, this propensity comes into play; that is to say, there is immediately excited in the mind of the sufferer an inclination to injure, having for its object the inflicter of the pain, if one exist, but not unfrequently vented, when the feeling is uncontrolled by the moral sentiments and intellectual powers, upon neutral individuals, or even inanimate objects.' We have here, in fact, merely another name for the irascible emotion, although Combe asserts that metaphysical authors do not treat of any power resembling the destructive propensity.

Proceeding as in the case of combativeness, we must here also recognise the element of spontaneous activity directed by a feeling which, in the present instance, is a pleasure or gratification resulting in great part from the infliction of pain or injury upon sentient beings, but also prompting to destroy things inanimate. It is true, as Mr. Cox observes, that we are more especially prone to invoke the gratification when under pain ourselves; but it must be grateful to us at other times, if it is to serve us on those occasions. The operation of pain in a fit of irascibility is in all probability twofold: in the first place, we crave for a soothing application of some sort to neutralize the sting; and in the second place, under pain, the benevolent impulses are for the moment quashed, and do not, as in other moments, offer any check to the infliction of injury. There must be in our minds a positive delight in causing suffering, provided none of our tender or benevolent sympathies come into play; and this delight must be in a great measure resolved into that comprehensive sentiment of power already alluded to. Any striking effect caused by our agency gratifies us intensely;

and few effects are more striking than the putting sentient beings to pain or destroying their life. Our benevolent sentiments, when well developed and actively excited, may mar the delight or convert it into loathing; but let these be wanting or submerged for the time, and the reality of the pleasure of malevolence is made unmistakeable. The destruction of inanimate things reflects upon the agent's sense of power in the same way, especially when attended with éclat: a conflagration, a smash, a noise, a tumble, a grand subversion of the existing order of things, is intensely gratifying from earliest childhood. The cruelties and wantonness of Nero show that both the animate and the inanimate come under the sweep of the one common craving for telling effects in answer to the exercise of power.

Thus both the combative and the destructive propensities are phases of the delight in manifested power; and if we admitted the observations of phrenology as establishing the existence of a protuberance behind and over the ear in connexion with extreme intensity of those feelings, we might suppose that this comprehensive emotion of our nature had a location in that part of the brain, or in some part producing an eminence there. Or we might interpret the case differently. As both feelings imply a considerable abundance of the spontaneous central energy, we might look out in this quarter of the head for an indication of that energy in unusual measure; and there would be no intrinsic improbability in supposing that great natural vigour is apt to be accompanied with the pleasures of exercising it in the most telling forms, unless the more humane sentiments so far predominate as to elevate the character of its workings.

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6A. Alimentiveness.-It may well be conceded that the appetite for food is a distinct and irresolvable propensity of our nature, and therefore on that score a suitable instance for phrenology to lay hold of. The differences between individuals in respect of the enjoyment of eating and drinking must be due in part to the digestive organ, as we know that the relish for food varies with the condition of the stomach in the same person. But mere inequality of digestive power will not explain the whole difference. Indifference to the pleasures of the table often co-exists with a good digestion, and a high epicurean relish will be found along with a feeble stomach. That intense love of good eating, rising to a passion and serious pursuit, and giving birth to fond anticipations of each coming feast, may most reasonably be ascribed to a cerebral peculiarity, not less so than the amative propensity. The phrenologists profess to have established the locality of it on the basis of a very wide induction. They place it in front of the top of the ear, adjoining destructiveness. As there does not attach to this feeling the ambiguity that we have occasion to complain of in other members of the phrenological classification, the case is simply one for prolonged observation, which will at last settle the question as to locality one way or other.

It

The organ of the LOVE OF LIFE in the abstract is put forward by Combe, but not with much confidence, and need not detain us. would be no light undertaking to prove the existence of such a feeling as a primitive element of our nature, independent of all the other feelings, pleasurable and painful, that go to form our estimate of the value of life.

ALEXANDER BAIN.

VOL. LXII. NO. CCCLXIX.

A A

I

Upon my word,' said the Doctor to himself, a very good-looking, respectable set of young men. do not know what the others may have to say for themselves. They behaved like a Greek chorus. They left their share of the dialogue to the coryphæus. He acquitted himself well, more like a Spartan than an Athenian, but none the worse for that. Brevity, in this case, is better than rhetoric. I really like that youth. How his imagination dwells on the family party at Christmas. When I first saw him, he was fancying how the presence of Miss Dorothy would gladden his father's heart at that season. Now he enlarges the circle, but it is still the same predominant idea. He has lost his mother. She must have been a good woman, and his early home must have been a happy

one.

The Christmas hearth would not be so uppermost in his thoughts if it had been otherwise.

This

speaks well for him and his. I myself think much of Christmas and all its associations. I always dine at home on Christmas day, and measure the steps of my children's heads on the wall, and see how much higher each of them has risen, since the same time last year, in the scale of physical life. There are many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas. The halcyon builds its nest on the tranquil sea. "The bird of dawning singeth all night long." I have never verified either of these poetical facts. I am willing to take them for granted. I like the idea of the Yule log, the enormous block of wood, carefully selected long before, and preserved where it would be thoroughly dry, which burned on the old-fashioned hearth.

It would not suit the stoves of our modern saloons. We could not burn it in our kitchens, where a small fire, in the midst of a mass of black iron, roasts, and bakes, and boils, and steams, and broils, and fries, by a complicated apparatus, which, whatever may be its other virtues, leaves no space for a Christmas fire. I like the festoons of holly on the walls and windows; the dance under the mistletoe; the gigantic sausage; the baron of beef; the vast globe of plum-pudding, the true image of the earth, flattened at the poles; the tapping of the old October the inexhaustible bowl of punch; the life and joy of the old hall, when the squire and his household and his neighbourhood were as one. I like the idea of what has gone, and I can still enjoy the reality of what remains. I have no doubt Harry's father burns the Yule log, and taps the old October. Perhaps, instead of the beef, he produces a fat pig roasted whole, like Eumaeus, the divine swineherd in the Odyssey. How Harry will burn the Yule log if he can realize this day-dream of himself and his six friends with the seven sisters! I shall make myself acquainted with the position and characters of these young suitors. To be sure, it is not my business, and I ought to recollect the words of Cicero: "Est enim difficilis cura rerum alienarum: quamquam Terentianus ille Chremes humani nihil a se alienum putat." I hold with Chremes too. I am not without hope, from some symptoms I have lately seen, that rumour in the present case is in a fair way of being right; and if, with the accordance of the young gentleman as key-note, these two heptachords should harmonize into a double octave, I do not see why I may not take my part as fundamental bass.'

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