will be variable, sometimes enjoying the most splendid dreams of prosperity, at other times desponding, and dejected, and ready to sink in despair. The tone of hope is most happy and delightful, and its activity is increased by a nervo-sanguine temperament. It is common to speak of sanguine expectations. The innateness of this sentiment is generally admitted. It seems to be appropriate to a rational being, whose intellect can penetrate the future. It does not belong to brutes. It has much to do with religious feeling, and is situated outward of reverence and between conscientiousness and marvellousness. According to Dr. Spurzheim, it also borders on acquisitiveness. My observations incline me to believe that it does not extend to acquisitiveness, but that ideality intervenes. In the location of this organ, my observations agree more nearly with those of Mr. Combe, than of Dr. Spurzheim. When hope is not too strong, it serves to excite the mind to those reasonable expectations of the future, which will be verified by the reality, and also to check too active cautiousness, which might otherwise produce despair, melancholy, and gloom. When hope is small and firmness large, a person may mistake the one feeling for the other. I have multiplied observations upon this organ to a great extent. Among those who have it large, I have noticed bold speculators and dealers in lottery tickets. Those, who deal in foreign commerce, and who engage in splendid public works, usually have the organ large. In adversity, we need a great deal of it. In prosperity, we should constantly watch its activity. I have usually found small hope and small self-esteem in the same head, and those often com bined with large cautiousness and reverence; when this is the case, the character is sadly out of balance. I know a gentleman who has been in great despair, whose organization is this. With large ideality, it would produce the poetic feeling. The sentiment is beautifully described by Goldsmith. "Hope, like a glimmering taper's light, Adorns and cheers the way; And still, as darker grows the night, The organ was large in the head of Sir Walter Scott. 66 Some time before the writer had ever heard of the doctrines of Phrenology, he had made the remark that Many are so prone to believe the marvellous, and do believe such strange things upon so slight evidence, that their belief is rather to be considered as a desire, or emotion of the mind, than as a conclusion of the understanding. Hence a person under the influence of this passion may be plied with any marvellous tale upon the slightest evidence, and he will believe it; and he may also be led to the belief of any doctrine. The Rev. John Wesley, though a very great man, was also a person of unbounded credulity. Curiosity is also undoubtedly a passion." I have made the above extracts from my private writings, not as proof of the existence of an organ, but merely to show that, unassisted by phrenology, I had made the discovery of the feeling, and had cited as an instance of it an individual, in whom the organ was extremely large. I have since traced the analysis of this sentiment with some care, and have come to the conclusion that, in its simplest form and habitual activity, it is the feeling which enables us to believe whatever is presented to the mind for belief. We could not believe our own senses, if we were destitute of this sentiment. When duly active, the organ assists us to believe, on reasonable evidence; when too active, it leads to belief on slight proof; when not sufficiently active, it requires undue amount of proof. As it is a sentiment, its higher stages of activity are accompanied by certain lively emotions; when it is suddenly excited, it is surprise. Wonder, astonishment, and consternation are names given to its higher emotions. The emotion of terror seems to be a compound of cautiousness and of marvellousness. It is more peculiarly the character of this, than of any other sentiment, to excite the perceptive organs to the formation of false and deceptive images, when any thing comes suddenly upon us, or when it is feared as dangerous. When travelling in dangerous places, as in woods, where we may be likely to meet with wild beasts, marvellousness acting with cautiousness is very apt to turn an inanimate object into the creature so much dreaded. This feeling is excited much by cautiousness, hope, and other feelings, when active; so that what we strongly fear, or ardently expect and desire, we are more ready to believe. The difference in individuals in relation to this sentiment is quite remarkable. Some will scarcely believe the evidence of their senses; others again will believe things the most absurd, and on the slightest evidence; and are delighted to invent improbable stories, or to hear and read them. Sir Walter Scott says, in his tales of witchcraft and demonology, that the belief in them dies away by the age of forty, and that every one before that time must take his share. The organ was, very large in Sir Walter Scott, as may be seen on the busts of him sold in the shops. We are all familiar with his powers of invention. Notwithstanding the danger of being misled by this feeling when too active, it has always characterized great spirits. We need its warming and life-giving influence, to excite us to great and noble deeds. When active, it has a peculiarly vivifying influence upon all the feelings, and imparts wonderful energy to the system. It temporarily increases the pulsation, and invigorates the whole system, especially when connected with any great enterprise. Let an army believe they shall be conquerors, and they will become irresistible; let them become disheartened, and believe they shall be defeated, and defeat will be likely to follow. The organ is large in children, in naturalists, and in those who believe in tales of wonder and supernatural events. Phrenologists have noticed this sentiment as one active only when excited by something unexpected, strange, or wonderful; and the names given to it indicate these higher manifestations. It will be seen that I have regarded it rather as a constantly active, every-day, necessary feeling, called into action by every new acquisition in knowledge and act of belief. A constant course of reading fiction, research in science, or of ardent faith in religion, are calculated to increase the size of the organ. Hence its higher activity seems to attend upon all that is great, good, or romantic. Some recent facts seem to give reason for the conjecture, that, with the organ of this feeling and the perceptive organs, there is a more intimate connexion than with any other, and here is ordinarily more heat and a stronger nervous influence than at any other point. Baldness usually commences in this region. In the case of Jane C. Rider, known as the Springfield somnambulist, (the facts of which case are beyond question authentic,) a small spot, on the left side of the head, near the region assigned to this organ, has, since her earliest recollection, been tender, or painful on pressure, and the sensibility is much increased when she suffers from headache. And during her paroxysms the pain in her head was sometimes obtuse and general, but more often acute and confined to a small spot on the left side of the head near the coronal suture. How far the morbid excitement, accompanying the inflammation in this region, influenced the eyes and the perceptive organs, giving to them that peculiar power by which she could see through many bandages, when her eyes were closed, so as to read; and how far it deceived her as to the place she was in, and the people that surrounded her, it is impossible to say. I have no doubt but those spectral illusions, of which we have so many recorded cases, are uniformly characterized by the morbid activity of the organ of marvellousness, and that the organ, when large and spontaneously active, excites the perceptive organs to conjure up those objects and scenes which gratify it. It is also spontaneously active in connexion with cautiousness, and the other feelings in dreams, by which the perceptive organs call up objects of terror. |