design of this work will not permit me to dwell upon the uses and abuses of this feeling with its combinations.

The instinct is manifested in brutes.

and cats sometimes manifest the feeling.

Foxes, dogs,

The fox, in

approaching the poultry, will not go in a way to be observed. The dog conceals his bone, the cat secretly steals upon her prey. Birds build their nests so as not

to be discovered.

VIII.

ACQUISITIVENESS.

Innateness and analysis. · An attentive observer of the actions of mankind must have noticed conduct, which could not have sprung from any motive, but a peculiar and primitive, instinctive desire of acquiring, hoarding, or of self-appropriation, without limitation of manner or of object. Cases of petty theft are numerous, committed by those, who must have done it purely from the abuse of a primitive instinct. The instinct to acquire belongs to dogs, squirrels, bees, &c., and not to many other animals. Although active in infancy, there are after periods before early manhood, in which the feeling is little excited, and loses much of its force. But in later life it becomes strong, and often acquires an ascendency over the whole character in old age. Numerous individual cases might be named, which would tend to demonstrate the existence of the propensity. Petty theft is not so unusual as we should imagine. I know of a beautiful young lady, well educated, always accustomed to the first society, and never in a condition of want, and who, nevertheless, was guilty of little thefts from her youth. These were winked at, and no exposure made, until she took another lady's pocket book, as it lay upon

the counter of a store, where both had happened for the purpose of trade. Goods are frequently stolen from the stores of merchants; - clerks frequently take small sums from their master's drawers for spending money. Some men too, devote their whole lives to the acquisition of gain, declaring that the pleasure consists more in the acquisition, than any one could enjoy in spending it. Many remarkable cases of theft have been collected by Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, from a king to the lowest subject, ranging through all classes, not even escaping ministers of religion.

The organ, and its location. — The organ, as located by Spurzheim, may be looked for above secretiveness, and between cautiousness and ideality. The general position will always be found to be essentially the same; but in low heads, in which the propensities all decidedly predominate, the organ is likely to be pushed out most in its lower edge, and in high heads, in which the higher sentiments predominate, the upper portion will appear most distinct; and as the organ is large, this may appear to affect its position. Hence the slight difference between Dr. Spurzheim and Mr. Combe. The facts collected to establish the organ are as numerous as those which prove the propensity. They are both positive and negative. Those, who have the organ large, are never found to be indifferent to acquisition-it may be money

it may be property in general, it may may be antiquities, or curiosities, or scientific collections, according to the influence of external circumstances, habit, employment, or the predominance of other organs. I cannot believe that the gathering of knowledge directly gratifies the feeling, although it may do so indirectly. Theft is

always to be considered as an abuse of that organ, although it is not necessarily large in all thieves. Thieving may arise from a deficiency of conscientiousness and other higher sentiments.

Remarks.-Law writers and philosophers have puzzled themselves much to determine whence the first notions of property were derived. Blackstone, in his Commentaries, has an ingenious, elaborate chapter on this subject. But an analysis of the instinctive feeling of self-appropriation explains it readily. The desire of property is an original instinct of our nature, and the laws on this subject should be made so as not to do violence, either to this feeling, or to any of the higher principles. The necessity for this primitive instinct may be inferred from the fact, that it is connected with self-preservation. We have constant wants to be satisfied by the uses of what may be brought within the comprehensive idea of property. An instinct seems necessary to excite the intellect to a suitable degree of activity in reference to property, and thereby balance the force of other strong impulses.

With those who can reason, acquisitiveness is not the only organ which may excite the mind to the accumulation of wealth. The possession of property furnishes an indirect gratification to many of the feelings. It is to the trappings and glitter of wealth, that the blind reverence of the most numerous classes is turned, while in other countries it looks to the throne and titled nobility. Talents and learning are objects of respect, especially in connexion with wealth and rank. So are birth and office, but it was the sentiment (perhaps somewhat prejudiced sentiment) of Fisher Ames, that our citizens have

not been accustomed to look on rank, or titles, or birth, or office, as capable of the least rivalship with wealth, mere wealth, in pretensions to respect. "Of course," says he, "the single passion which engrosses us, the only avenue to consideration and importance, in our society, is the accumulation of property. Our inclinations cling to gold, and are bedded in it as deeply, as that precious ore in the mines."

Innateness and analysis. That there is in men a propensity to construct, without limitation of manner or object, and in several brute animals a limited and peculiar instinct, to construct after a determinate and specified manner, it is presumed no one will doubt. Children early manifest this feeling in those little rude structures, which occupy their playful moments. And we cannot look abroad for a moment without noticing the wonderfully multiplied trophies of man's skill, from the simplest household implement up to the splendid ship of war, or the temple erected to the Most High. If we look abroad among the brute creation, we shall be struck with the constructive power of the bird, the bee, and the beaver.

The power being admitted, our evidence, that it springs from a peculiar instinct bestowed for that purpose, rests principally on the following considerations. The power belongs to one kind of animals, and not to another. The different degrees, in which different individuals possess the desire and the power of constructing, is not commensurate with any other faculty of the same individual. It is capable of becoming diseased, and descends, as a peculiar family trait, from one generation to another. In childhood the feeling is more active than in after life.

The organ, and its location. -The precise location of the feeling in ordinary heads would not be obvious to learners in the practice of the science. It is seldom so full as to present a protuberance. And where the talent seems to have been hereditary, the development does not always fully indicate its predominating influence on the character. I have found it safe therefore to say, that the talent exists where the organ is large, but not to deny it, where it externally appears no more than average. We must not forget that the province of the organ is only to manifest the desire, and excite the intellect to its gratification. Hence the power of constructing results from the size of the organ in question, the adaptation and extent of intellectual power, and the force of habit or experience. We should distinguish between construction and invention. Invention requires superior intellect, as well as an active organ of constructiveness. Merely to construct, what others have invented, requires less of intellectual power in general, and more of the force of habit or skill.

I know a young artist who possesses the organ to a remarkable degree, and in him its effect is to excite and direct his intellect to execute very perfectly, what he undertakes in his profession. I also know a young man, in whom the talent seems to have been hereditary. He has wonderful inventive genius, but does not execute what he has contrived. In him the organ is not very large, but the intellectual faculties are remarkably fine, and he has a fine, sanguine, and nervous temperament.

There is no point of character so intimately connected with high civilization, as that of constructive power. The New-Hollanders have not sufficient mechanical skill