Nugae literariae: prose and verse

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Thero have not been Wanting in Past ages men os genius, who have endeavoured to reduce craniological phaenomena toa system. Albertus Μagnus, Who flourished in tho thirtoonthcentury, in prosecuting his mechanical studies, formod a Woodenimage of man, sitiing it With springs and contrivances for motionand found . Ιt Will not surprise us to be informed, that tho Worthy Dominican was Suspected of harbouring a familiar. Having thus Wrought his curious imitation of the human shapo and iis functioris, he began to resect on Our nature itfel It is said that he proceeded lo map oui, upon the head, the various dispositions and faculties of the mind,--regarding the head as iis seat, and those divisions as iis manifestations. Jean de Ketham, Who lived belween the fourteenth and fifteenth century, Wrote a book in Which he anticipaled many modern opinions on the organology of the brain. Ηe particularly incisis on the partition of the brain into a twosold set ofenergies and convolutions. The Work is included in a collection

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os Modicat Tracts published by Petrus de Μontagnana. It is in Latin, printed by the Gregories at Venice, in Ulath Hetter, Maroli 28th, 1500. Tho titio is Incipit fasciculus medicinae

compositus per eXcellentissimiam artium ac medicinae Doctorem, Dominum Joannem de Ketham Alamanum ; tractans de una-thomia et diversis infirmitatibus corporis humani.' And thattho modern dis overy is abolit three hundred years too late is evident, Dom the contents of this Tractate. The ternis in bothare the Same, generalty ending in iva.-The locat seats of thomind aro as determinately indicated in ea ch. The ancient German spes ks of the cellula imaginatiVa, cellula communis Sensus, cellula ostimativa seu cogitatiVa et rationalis, cellula memora

tho Babylonish number of our Craniologisis, thirty-three, and Horscholi having given it the sinali addition os one thousandnino hundred and siXty-seven. So that by a Singular laW, Very distorsent froni that whicli Blachstone telis Us hors perpetuities, ' this conjecture is resuscitated age after age. The anatomy, Whicli this System pretendS to have originaled, Wasdemonstrated by Vesalius, the nomenclature in Whicli it trita iamplis Was assigned by Κetham, long before the Reformation lThe induction, however, is diae to the moderns; the pratse is alltheir own. Who can dispute their clatriis to originality8 AsWilhes once admitted, that a song Was Very good, With the exception of the words and the music,-so is this theory most novet, With the trissing reserve of having been discovered withiis local knobs and euphonic names at so distant an epoch that three centenaries might have been celebrated since iis solandors

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certainly Very curiousty anticipate Some recent Speculations:

Even What may bo termed a good or bad shape of the humanhead itself, appears determinable by this generat arid simple law

of iis adaptation to the erect postiare. For as this Ahape of the head, this expansion of the brain into beautilat wido hemispheres, with iis intornat formation to rationality and Deedom, Were consistent only with the erect form ;-as the proportion and gravitation of thD paris thenaseives, the degree of Warmih they possess, and the mannor in Which the blood circulatos through them,clearly shoW;-no other than the superior human form could result froni this internat proportion. Why does the croWn of tho Grecian head inclino so ploasingly forWard 8 Because it contains the amplest space for an unconsi ned brain, and indicates sine found concavities in the frontal bone, so that it may be considered as the temple of clear and youthfully beautiful thought. The hind pari, on the contrary, is smali, that the animal cerebellum might not preponderate. Ι am persuaded that on the agreement of these paris Will be erected a valvabie science, to whichphysiognomy, Proceeding on conjecture, Would not eastly attain. The grounds of the externat form lie within; for every skullhas been fashioned by the organic poWers operating Dom Within

Wo proceed noW to explain, by the structure of the brain, theseverat modes of thinhing. It is Well known to anatomisis thattho bra in is a congeries of gland8, that separate the siner paris

of tho blood, called animal spiriis; that a gland is nothing buta canal of a great tength, Variousty intortod and wound uptogether. Froin the arietation and motion of the spiriis in thoso canais, procoed ali the disserent soris of thoughis. Simplo idoasare produced by the motion of the spiriis in one simple canes: When tWO of these canals disembogiae themselves into one, they

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malis What we cali a proposition: and When tWo of these propositionat channeis empty themselves into a third, they forni asyllogism. Memory is performed in a distinct apariment of thobrain. Some peopte think Wrong and perversely, Whicli proceeds om the had consiguration os those glands. Some are bornwithout the propositiones or syllogistical canais: in othors that reason ili, they a re of une luat capacities : in duli sellows, of too great a tength, Whereby the motion of the spiriis is retarded,

and so of the rest.

added to the proud catalogiae of thosse Who have ventured onthese grave discussions. There is in the brain an eminent sensorium, and in it a re the inmost recesses, to Whicli, and no fur-ther, the sensual rays of the body ascend: in those recesses thesout resides, ornamented with tho most distinguished organical clothing, and in this abolle, as it Were, meets the ideas Whichemerge so far, and receives them us her guesis.

si Xty-eight organs or ratios. There is a complete division oflabour. One even enabies a man to die, called Expiratio. Thoinventor describes his traveis ; at longili he arrives in Dublin. Ηo is surprised to hear, in quite common conVerSation, of a ne ratio, mahing a siXty-ninth, of Which he had never besoro readnor heard. He immediately notes it doWn, and , as he wrote in Latin, he enters it by the denomination- organum Botheratio, sive ambarum rationum mistura fortuita, effervescens, bullas gignens.' But as this may not be a serious Work, it Would beinconsistent to introduce any more quotutions froni it in so Seriousa dissertation as these pages proseSS. Let US not, toO, Drget, among the abettors, a no mean authority, the ogre Caliban. Heos ali things dreads a conversion into the forna of apes, Withsor eads villainous loW.VGall, a native of Swabia, and a student of Strasburg, has, Within these feW past years, claimed a monopoly of these dis-

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tunity to apply it in the hospitals of that metropolis. But

Sinco when that enlightened and paternat governinent interposed, it was only consistent With iiseis. For it clatins the prorogative of mahing genti emen, notaries, and poets : and has declared, by imperiat odiet, that it does not destre profound scholars biit submissive subjecis. Such a science might liave elicited knowledgo, sostered genius, excited emulation ; and thus the j0wol of tho imperiat prerogative might have been dimmed or stitvered. But Magnates and Ecclesiastics Were perfectly reconcileti, by a royalassurance that the professo 's hands and callipers should borestricted to the foreton heads Whicli might bend themsolvos to

with tho sear of change.' Such proportions banish politicaldisquietude, ali persons and ali heads necessari ly Leeping in

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had Korthy heads or not, they did not attempt to conceat them. It was stili only consistent in the boasted descendant of the

Berlin and Dresdeia, hoWeVer, Welcomed our philosopher, theono with the favour of the colari, the other With the enthusiasmos the people. About this time Spurghelm hecame a Warmadmirer of the theory, associaled himself with the traveller, rose to be a sori os demon Strator to his lectures, and perhapsat the present time, and certainly in this country, more thansharos his fame. The German illuminati took up the causo with singular ardour; though it Was dolabilessty in Groat Britain that some of iis stalanchest adherenis Were found. Woare proverbialty candid and credulous: and while tho exotic philosophy bugged in every conVergatione, and adorned eve boudoir, of fashion te lisse; whilo it acquired favour with tho quidnunc and the bas-bleu ; it ranked among iis supporterssome of the truly learned: and the very multitude probablybscauso the fifi many headed V) paused ere they condemned. Scarcely have We a city, containing an UniverSity, or a toWnboasting a lunatic asylum, but it has addod tho bonosciat institution of a Phrenological Society lIt may be proper to state the originality and amount of the discoveri es assumed to be made by this Human Naturalist.

I speah not of his physiognomy, for this is not justly a partos his system. Obscure authors, by the names of Theophrastus and Aristolle, thought of this besere. It is unlairly mixed up With a system Whicli is too Woli calculated to discredit and deform it. Wo are made to bE assected with a fine hoad; thochissesed broW, the Speaking eyel But Who over thought of

cerebrat convolution amidst this admiration 8 The love of proportion strihes Us. The pride os our nature is stirred, When, notWithstanding frequent degeneracies of sige and eXPreSSion, the grandeur of the 6rst modes is reneWed. An association of

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cineritious matter as iis matrix, and be supported by it asiis pabulum : Whether the sirst be nervolis, and the lalter a Surrounding ganglion, Whicli connecis theso fibriis: whether theso flaments bo ali excurrent anil diverging or recurrent and converging: Whether the spinal marroW be their universat fourceor their termination: whether it can dignify the thinking facul-ties to unito them With that cord Whicli is common to ali vertebrated animais. I leave to others Whether We should begin withthe sursace of the brain, or unwind it Dom What this systsem

faculties and assections : that their strength resis principalty in their sige, though partly in their activity, whicli again is determined by temperament: that the bony case or shelt we cali thoheati, has protuberances and depressions corresponding to the organs, Whether fully or Debly developed, on the brain : and that theso indications Will readily consess themSelves to the eXpe

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given sigias that precious ores of cogitation and passion areburiod within it; it me cannot sind this to bo the case, his crucibi e proves it triae; and 8o accurate liave his observations hecome, that, reSigning the wand of the enchanter for thehumbio lask of the furveyor, he cari at once decide froin thesoil,-the nature, bed, and dip of the intellectuat strata, Wherothe truest level can be driven, or the most oligibio sitast besunt . A nil, there re, though man has nominalty but ono

head, it is so has pily multiplied into itself, that he may claim

the virtual possession os many. He is eleven times richer than Cerberus. Anil, as neW organs discover themselves, hemay hereaster acquire the faculty of Hydra itself. His headis a Divan and Senate: there are various parties and disserent tribunes: ostentimes there are opinion S Without Votes: astandin9 Order de ais a session: and a 8ub8equent motion,

The genius, and the mortat instruments, Are then in councit; and the state of man, Like to a litile hingdom, suffers then The nature Os an insurrection.

enable man to enter in to tho externat world; his secorid, thoSe

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by which we acquire a more familiar linowledge of objecis that ars known to Us by means of the externat senses; his third, those that are strictly intellectual. Spurghelm dividos them into tWo genera,-Delings and intellect: the Delings into the species of propensities and sentimenis; tho intellect into the species of knowing and reflecting faculties.

dear to our hearis. Still, should we find a Romeo, me mightontortain hope of relieving him, a knowledge of the diseasoboing half the cure,-and Cornelia, by a reduction of heroccipital projection, might have been spared her solicitudo fortho Gracchi.

Ignis mollibus ardet in medullus. ' Catullus. Carm et xliii.

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Inhabitivenes8.-Lying just above the affection Wo have sor our ossspring, the locality it self impresses the useful morat, that those who have families Ahould keep much at homo. Itis sald to bo found in animais os various kinds: and Dr. Spurghelm, in his recent coui se of lectures, stili maintains that, under this influence, Englisti rais live in garreis, while Nor-Wogian ones prefer doWn-stairs. Μr. Combe thinks it might bocalled concentrativeness; but it is stili the samo With the other; only, instead os impelling man simply to obtain a Settiement, it equalty assisls him to connect his arguments, and generaliseliis ideas. A recent advocate imputes to the fulness of inha

and companies of trade; and ought alWays to bo weli lookod toere articles of partia ership are Signed. On leni ing money, We cannot be too scrupulous in inspecting the adhesive organ ;and should always require a note of head, in addition to a note

the school of Warriors, and shows that, amongst the benevolent desigiis of nature, the mortat strife is not to be forgoiten. Pe haps Alexander Was very Great here; and, in a modern hero,