overcharges the minute bloodvessels which supply that part of the brain where the small organs of the knowing faculties are placed. Language usually fails the intoxicated first, not only in its articulation, but in its application, and then follow the other phenomena which we have mentioned. The excitement makes its way into the larger organs of the propensities and sentiments, and the prevailing ones manifest themselves with great unreserve, * and to the great amusement of the sober spectator,-a -an advantage formerly held a breach of all convivial confidence,— till at last all the vessels are surcharged, the functions of the brain for the time suspended, and the victim lies, what is emphatically called, dead drunk, till profound and protracted sleep restores him. The most valuable end of papers like that which we have now finished, is to point out those departments of observation in which all the friends of Phrenology can make themselves useful. Every phrenologist will be grateful for facts of the kind now detailed; and the existence of a Society, and of a Phrenological Journal, leaves no one at a loss as to the quarter where his information will be received and duly appreciated. Like a museum, which, with a sort of centripetal force, attracts detached articles in its own way, from all quarters where they are valueless because detached, so are the institutions I have mentioned calculated to attract detached facts, and convert them from mere perplexing marvels into the illustrations, and, in sufficient number and authentication, the demonstrations of the true science of human nature.† * Vide scene in Mrs Macleary's, in Waverley. + Bayle, in defending Hobbes from the belief of ghosts imputed by his biographers, makes a singular guess at the phrenological doctrine now delivered. He says, A man would not only be very rash, but also very extravagant, who should pretend to prove, that there never was any person that imagined he saw a spectre; and I do not think that the most obstinate and extravagant unbelievers have maintained this. All that they say comes to this, that the persons who have thought themselves eye-witnesses of the apparition of spirits, had a disturbed imagination. They confess, then, that there are certain places in our brain, that, being affected in a certain manner, excite the image of an object which has no real existence out of ourselves, and make the man, whose brain is thus modified, believe he sees, at two paces distance, a frightful spectre, a hobgoblin, a threatening phantom. The like happens in the heads of the most incredulous, either in their sleep or in the paroxysms of a violent fever. 69 DUGALD STEWART, ESQ. ON MILTON'S GARDEN OF EDEN.* THE application of phrenology, as an analytic instrument, has interested many of our readers; but the phrenologists cannot boast of the honour of originating this use of the philosophy of mind. Long before our science had raised its head, Mr Stewart had presented his readers with an Will they maintain after this, that it is impossible for a man awake, and not in a delirium, to receive in certain places of his brain an im pression almost like that which, by the law of nature, is connected with the appearance of a phantom ?-If they are forced to acknowledge that this is possible, they cannot promise that a phantom will never appear to them; that is, that they will never, when awake, believe they see either a man or a beast when they are alone in a chamber. Hobbes then might believe, that a certain combination of atoms agitated in his brain might expose him to such a vision, though he was persuaded that neither an angel nor the soul of a dead man was to be concerned in it. He was timorous to the last degree, and consequently he had reason to distrust his imagination when he was alone in a chamber in the night; for, in spite of him, the memory of what he had read and heard concerning apparitions, would revive, though he was not persuaded of the reality of these things. These images, joined with the timorousness of his temper, might play him an unlucky trick; and it is certain, that a man as credulous as he was, but of greater courage, would be astonished to think he saw one whom he knew to be dead enter into his chamber. These apparitions in dreams are very frequent, whether a man believes in the immortality of the soul or not. Supposing they should once happen to an incredulous man awake, as they do frequently in his sleep, we allow that he would be afraid, though he had never so much courage; and, therefore, for a stronger reason, we ought to believe, that Hobbes would have been terribly affrighted at it.". BAYLE'S Dict. voce Thomas Hobbes, Note N. The ancients also had their apparitions : 66 Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, * Quid te exempta juvat, spinis de pluribus una?" The nocturni lemures were phantasms which infested a house Pliny gives an account of one, lib. 7. epist. 27. "Erat Athenis spa tiosa domus sed infamis et pestilens. Per silentium noctis, sonus ferri, et, si attenderes acrius, strepitus vinculorum, longius primo, deinde proxime reddebatur; mox apparebat idolon, senex macie et squalore confectus, promissa barba, horrenti capillo, cruribus compedes manibus catenas gerebat, quatiebatque. Inde in habitanti bus tristes diræque noctes per metum vigilabantur." &c. * By George Combe.-Vol. i. No. 2. p. 195. analysis of the powers necessary to the conception of Milton's Garden of Eden. In his Outlines of Moral Philosophy, Part I., he says, "The most important of these (the intellectual powers of man) are comprehended in the following enumeration: "Besides these intellectual faculties," continues Mr Stewart," which in some degree are common to the whole species, there are other more complicated powers or capacities which are gradually formed by particular habits of study or of business. Such are the POWER of TASTE, a GENIUS for POETRY, for FAINTING, for MUSIC, for MATHEMATICS; with all the various intellectual habits acquired in the different professions of life." Here, then, IMAGINATION is mentioned as a "faculty in some degree common to the whole species ;" and TASTE as a "power gradually formed by particular habits of study or of business." In the Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, chap. vi. sect. 1, Mr Stewart states, that "what we call the power of imagination, is NOT the gift of nature, but the result of acquired habits, aided by favourable circumstances. It is NOT an original endowment of the mind, but an ACCOMPLISHMENT formed by experience and situation, and which, in its different gradations, fills up all the interval between the first efforts of untutored genius and the sublime creations of Raphael or of Milton." As this doctrine concerning imagination appears to differ from that previously cited, we hold the latter passage, which is the more elaborately written, to contain Mr Stewart's profoundest views on this part of our constitution. According to him, therefore, neither TASTE nor IMAGINATION is the gift of nature, but both are formed and acquired by habits. The following is his analysis of the faculties which contributed to the formation of Milton's Garden of Eden: "Let us consider," says he, "the steps by which Milton must have proceeded in creating his imaginary Garden of Eden. When he first proposed to himself that subject of description, it is reasonable to suppose, that a variety of the most striking scenes which he had seen crowded into his mind. The ASSOCIATION of ideas suggested them, and the power of CONCEPTION placed each of them before him with all its beauties and imperfections. In every natural scene, if we destine it for any particular purpose, there are defects and redundancies, which art may sometimes, but cannot always correct. But the power of IMAGINATION is unlimited. She can create and annihilate, and dispose, at pleasure, her woods, her rocks, her rivers. Milton, accordingly, would not copy his Eden from any one scene, but would select from each the features which were most eminently beautiful. The power of ABSTRACTION enabled him to make the separation, and TASTE directed him in the selection. Thus he was furnished with his materials; by a skilful combination of which he has created a landscape, more perfect, probably, in all its parts, than was ever realized in nature; and certainly very different from any thing which this country exhibited at the period when he wrote." (Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, chap. vii. sect. 1.) The Garden of Eden, then, was created by Milton by the aid of the powers of ASSOCIATION, CONCEPTION, ABSTRACTION, IMAGINATION and TASTE. Of these the first three are possessed by the whole human race; and Milton's superiority in the last two was the result of his " particular habits of study or of business." Hence it seems to us to follow, that any individual who possessed the three primitive faculties of association, conception, and abstraction, in the same degree as Milton, might have acquired his habits, and by these have formed powers of imagination and taste equally admirable, and then have written the Garden of Eden, or even Paradise Lost itself, if he had happened to turn his attention that way. Now, the phrenologist would form a different theory. He perceives in Paradise Lost manifestations of Ideality, of great reflecting faculties, and much Veneration, together with Language, Individuality, Locality, and other powers; and he would infer, that the poem itself, and even the description of the Garden of Eden in particular, was the result of the activity of these faculties, improved by exercise and education,and that without these natural gifts, Milton's habits could not have been acquired, nor similar manifestations of intellect have been produced. In To elucidate the value of Mr Stewart's theory and ours, we may compare with Milton an author in whom the primitive faculties of association, conception, and abstraction will be generally admitted to have been equal in vigour and cultivation, and see whether he could have been trained to write such a poem. Locke will serve as an example. the three original powers in question, he appears to have been fully equal to Milton. In vigour of conception, scope of association, and intensity of abstraction, the Essay on the Human Understanding may be placed in the opposite scale with Paradise Lost, without danger of depreciation. Equal taste and imagination certainly are not displayed in it; but according to Mr Stewart, Locke, by possessing the primitive powers, could have acquired these secondary qualities, and rivalled Milton in the very points in which he is reckoned almost inimitable! In the portraits of Locke we perceive a great development of the organs of Comparison and Causality, with rather |