Mr CARMICHAEL also furnished the Phrenological Society with a cast of it, and in it the organs of Secretiveness and Firmness are decidedly large. The North American Indians alto are celebrated for their power of enduring torture, and the same combination occurs in casts of two of their skulls in the Society's collection.

Dr MURRAY PATTERSON mentions, that the Hindoos manifest Secretiveness in a high degree, in the form of cunning and duplicity, and the organ is very large in their heads.

This propensity, when predominantly active, produces a close sly look; the eyes roll from side to side; the voice is low; the shoulders are drawn up towards the ears, and the footstep is soft and gliding. The movements of the body are towards the side. Sir WALTER SCOTT accurately de lineates the look produced by this faculty and Cautiousness in the following lines.

Speaking of CORMAC DOIL, he says,

"For evil seemed that old man's eye

Dark and designing, fierce yet shy,

Still he avoided forward look,

But slow and circumspectly took

A circling never ceasing glance,

By doubt and cunning mark'd at once;

Which shot a mischief-boding ray,

From under eye-brows shagged and grey."

Lord of the Isles, Canto iv. p. 24.

When this organ is very large in the head of an author, it produces a curious effect on his style. The different members of his sentences are involved, parenthetical, and often obscure, as if he were in doubt whether he selected the proper place for his expressions, and hesitated between what he ought to put down and what he might leave to be understood. He is also liable to quaintness. POPE's style occasionally indicates this quality, and the faculty is strongly manifested in his character. Dr THOMAS BROWN's style, also, is characterized by Secretiveness, and the organ was

large in his head. CROLY'S poetry presents the expression of it. GOLDSMITH's writings display a moderate endowment. This faculty, by enabling an author skilfully to work up his incidents and events, and to conceal the denouement of his plot or story, till the most appropriate time and place for the elucidation, greatly aids him in producing effect.

It prompts, says Dr GALL, the General of an army to the use of stratagems to deceive the enemy, while it leads him to conceal his own forces and enterprizes, to make false attacks and counterfeited marches.

This organ is possessed by the lower animals, and Dr GALL remarks, that it requires a particular study in each species. In the common species of ape, for example, it commences above the origin of the zygomatic arch, and extends forward to nearly the middle of this bone. Its situation is the same in the tiger, cat and fox. In graminivorous animals, and in birds distinguished for cunning, this region will also, in general, be found large.

Manifestations of this propensity, clearly attributable to disease of the organ, are described by authors on insanity. The cunning shewn by many of the insane, especially in concealing their true state, has often excited astonishment. FODERE' speaks of two patients who had been long confined in the asylum at Marseilles. After an apparent cure of considerable duration, their friends demanded their dismissal. He, however, suspected deception, and determined to hold a long conversation with them. For an hour and a half, during which he avoided the kind of ideas in regard to which he knew them to be insane, they spoke, reasoned, and acted like men of sound judgment. But when he introduced the subject which excited their diseased faculties, their eyes began to sparkle, the muscles of the face to contract, and an evident agitation took place, accompanied with an effort to preserve calmness. They were ordered to be detained. PINEL mentions the cunning and tricks of

some lunatics as remarkable. Dr MARSHALL* notices the case of a man in Bethlem Hospital in 1789, who fancied he was a great man. "He was very crafty, and used much flattery to the keepers, calling them fine men, gentlemen,' especially when he wanted any indulgence; but when his complacent looks and genteel expressions did not avail him, he became revengeful, made up some plausible story against them, and slyly told it to the steward. When fresh patients came into the house, he always introduced himself to them; he was very civil to them, and, after gaining their confidence, he tried to get their money from them, which, if he could not do by other means, he had recourse to stratagem to get possession of it."

The regular metaphysicians have not admitted any faculty corresponding to this propensity, nor am I aware that they give any theory of cunning, although it is an obvious ingredient in human nature. The quality, however, is familiarly recognised by a variety of writers. Lord BACON, in his Essay on Cunning, graphically describes a number of the abuses of Secretiveness. "We take cun

ning," says he, "for a sinister or crooked wisdom, and certainly there is a great difference between a cunning man and a wise man, not only in point of honesty, but in point of ability. There be that can pack the cards, and yet cannot play well; so there are some that are good in canvasses and factions, that are otherwise weak men."

In Peveril of the Peak, we have the following dialogue. "Your Grace holds his wisdom very high," said the attendant. "His cunning at least, I do," replied BUCKINGHAM," which, in Court affairs, often takes the weathergage of wisdom."

The organ is established.

8.-ACQUISITIVENESS.

THE organ of this faculty is situated at the anterior inferior angle of the parietal bone. By Dr SPURZHEIM it was called Covetiveness; Sir G. S. MACKENZIE suggested the more appropriate name of Acquisitiveness, which Dr SPURZHEIM has since adopted.

The metaphysicians have not admitted a faculty in the mind, the function of which is to produce the propensity to acquire, and which is gratified by the mere act of acquisition, without any ulterior object. Dr HUTCHESON says, "Thus, as soon as we come to apprehend the use of wealth or power to gratify any of our original desires, we must also desire them; and hence arises the universality of these desires of wealth and power, since they are the means of gratifying all other desires." In like manner, we are told by Mr STEWART, that, "Whatever conduces to the gratification of any natural appetite, or of any natural desire, is itself desired, on account of the end to which it is subservient; and by being thus habitually associated in our apprehension with agreeable objects, it frequently comes, in process of time, to be regarded as valuable in itself, independently of its utility. It is thus that wealth becomes with many an ultimate object of pursuit; though, at first, it is undoubtedly valued, merely on account of its subserviency to the attainment of other objects *."

The same author says in another place, that "avarice is a particular modification of the desire of power; arising

Elements, p. 388.

from the various functions of money in a commercial country. Its influence as an active principle is much strengthened by habit and association *."

Dr THOMAS BROWN† admits the desire of wealth to be a modification of the desire of power, but he endeavours to shew, that Mr STEWART's theory is defective in accounting for avarice, and enters into a most ingenious speculation, to explain how that feeling arises from association. He takes Time into account, as an ingredient; and takes the example of a boy purchasing an apple. "Before the boy lays out his penny in the purchase of an apple or an orange," says he, "it appears to him valuable, chiefly as the mode of obtaining the apple or orange. But the fruit, agreeable as it may have been while it lasted, is soon devoured;—its value, with respect to him, has wholly ceased; and the penny, he knows, is still in existence, and would have been still his own, if the fruit had not been purchased. He thinks of the penny, therefore, as existing now, and existing without any thing which he can oppose to it as equivalent; and the feeling of regret arises,-the wish, that he had not made the purchase, and that the penny, as still existing, and equally capable as before of procuring some new enjoyment, had continued in his pocket." This produces

a slight terror of expense, which the habits of many years may strengthen into parsimony."

Nothing can be more ingenious than this speculation, and it is a beautiful instance of the nature of metaphysical science; but it is not sound. The question occurs, Why is this "slight terror of expense" experienced only by some boys and some men, since association and the love of enjoyment are universal qualities of human nature?

It is proper to mention, however, that Lord KAMES (who has been censured by the regular metaphysicians for admitting too many faculties), recognises the existence of this feeling as a primitive propensity in man, and calls it

* Outlines, p. 92.

+ Vol. iii. p. 474.