PSYCHOLOGIC ATTEACTION, FASCINATION, %timtt AS APPLIED to the PUKPOSES OF LIFE, with fall instructions to exert the influence upon the Human Mind as well as the brute creation ; being the suhstance of two lectures delivered in St. James Hall, London, by HERBERT HAMILTON, B. A. M Author of " Natural Forces," " Principles of Science," "Chemical Eesearches," etc. A CURIOUS BOOK FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE. USEFUL AND INTERESTING MISCELLANY. MULTUM IN PARm— FIRST EDITION. PHILADELPHIA : PUBLISHED BY T. W. EYAJN^S & CO., 1869. ' , ^v ^ .^-^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S69, By T. W. EVANS & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Penn'a. OOISTTEISTTS. PAGE. Preface 5 Psychological Inquiries 5 Psychological Attraction 47 My Side of the Scory 73 The Lumley Tragedy ; and what became of the Principal Actor 87 The Drawing-Master's Story 98 The Etiquette of Courtship and Marriage 115 The True Version of the Story of Blue Beard 128 Esryptian Oracle 131 A^Tale of Love 132 A Wedding Night-Shirt 133 Dreams 13-^ My Horse Trade 141 Choosing for Life 146 Young Men 147 Happy Hints to Ladies 151 Characteristics of Cities. 154 A Fortunate Kiss 154 Precious Stones 156 Three and Seven 163 Velocipedology 165 An Adventure with a Shark 171 The Doorstep 174 Troubles from Trifles 175 Black Diamonds 176 Valley of Jehosaphat 177 Hasheesh 178 Female Poisoners 179 Sleighing with a Girl 183 How Jimmy got the Mitten 183 A Cat Charmed by a Snake 184 A Word for Wives 184 Divination by Cards 185 St. Koch 187 Taking the Chances 199 A Modern Samson 199 To the Atheist 200 Love's Belief 201 Who Ate Roger Williams 2i)2 Miss Nightingale on Nursing 203 Two Sharpers 205 Care of Teeth 206 The Anniversary Present 206 Working and Waiting 211 A Favorite of Fortune 213 Early Rising 213 3 4 CONTliNTS. PAGB, Tom Toodle's Facts relative to Dogs 214 Clothing .'. 215 A Dilemma 216 The Metal-Fouuder of Manich 216 The Star and the Water-Lily 220 Loss and Luck; Or, The Master-Passion 221 The Deserted Hiit, and what 1 saw there 228 The Fairy Qaeen 237 Among Sharps 247 Magnitude of the Universe 2o4 On an Umbrella 255 Plan(;hette 256 The I'irst Doctor 257 Little Women 258 Now! 260 Omeiis 264 Jenkiu 268 The Wandering Jew 271 The Ideal Woman of Middle Age 274 Three Brave Men 276 Love a Giver 2S0 Too Many Beaux 286 My Treasures ^... 2S7 The Alchemists 2SS Who are Gentlemen ; 290 The Three Crimes 292 The Mysterious Bobberies ". 296 Beauty 301 A Duel or a Wedding 303 Honor your Business 30.0 Gardening for Profit 310 The Luur 316 "Home, Sweet Home" 32i Popular Proverbs 326 Helen's Good Work 328 Catharine 335 Adventure with the 'iVolves 360 Sheet Lightning 362 Flowers 363 The Family 364 A Good wife 367 The Tale of a Traveller 268 Mature Sirens 373 Adventure with a Cobra 379 Bingham Young's Harem 381 The Physician's Love 3S3 A California Yarn 388 Geology and the Creation 390 From Shore to Shore 390 PREFACE. Befoeb proceeding with the subject of Psy- chologic Attraction, &c., I am desirous that my readers shall become familiar with the meaning, phases, and signiiQcance of the term " Psy- chology," as applicable to the mental faculties ; to illustrate which, I annex the following criti- cism from Eraser's Magazine, of a book called "Psychological Inquiries, in a sei'ies of Essays, intended to illustrate the Mutual Relations of the Physical Organization and Mental Faculties." Published by Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans, London. It will be observed that the work criticized deals only with abstract theories ; while my effort is to apply Psychol- ogy to the practical purposes of life, so as to benefit the community at large. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. KNOW THYSELF, said the wise Grecian-— a simple but significant form of words, worthy, from its pregnant brevity, of the place which it occupied over the portico of the Delphic temple. Self-lvnow ledge is the first step towards the at- tainment of that greatest of all sciences — the science of human nature ; and the mutual re- lations of the physical organization and the mental faculties form a problem which must be solved, so far as it is capable of solution, at the very threshold of the investigation. "Some points may be considered as estab- lished with a sufficient degree of certainty ; there are others as to which opinions may reasonably differ ; while there is still a greater number of 5 6 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES, others as to wliicli we must be content to acknowledge that, with our limited capacities, we have no means of forming an opinion at all." When we read the last sentence, extracted from the advertisement of the valuable book before us, we felt satisfied that the volume Avas the production of no ordinary mind, but that it proceeded from a writer fullj' aware of the great difficulties of his subject, and honestly- confessing them. Every succeeding page satis- fied us that the author had brought to his in- teresting task talents and experience of no common order. With every wish to respect the feelings which induce an author to conceal his name, we could not long hesitate, in this case, before we pronounced it aloud in our solitary study. The mask is worn very loosely. We think we do know the fine Roman initial subscribed to the " Advertisemeni" aforesaid, and can trace the able hand that guided the pen, and that has relieved so much human suffering, as be- longing to one long in the front rank of sur- gical science, and now the foremost man among the helpers of men. This searching treatise is in the form of dia- logue ; and, in our opinion, is one of the best published in that form since the appearance of the late Sir Humphrey Davy's Consolations in Travel. You soon discover whether a supply comes from a stream or a tank ; and it is quite refreshing in these reservoir- days to find yourself in thie presence of a fountain clear and sparkling as that of Blandusia. None could have written well on this intricate sub- ject without great knowledge of disease and of mankind ; and none could have been better qualified to discuss it than "B. C. B." The plan of the work is this : Ergates and Crites go down at that season when'members of parliament begin to live for themselves, and PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 7 grouse to die, as visitors to tlieir friend Eubulus, who bad retired from active life to a property which he possessed at the distance of a hun- dred miles from the metropolis. But Ergates shall describe it : — ■ " Our friend's house had been built in the seventeenth century, and like many country houses of that date, was in a low situation, with a very limited prospect. But this defect was compensated by the beauty of the sur- roundins: country, which e:xhibited all that variety of picturesque scenery which, a varied geological structure usually affords. On one side were steep and lofty chalk hills, covered by a scanty herbage, and dotted with yews and junipers. On another side was a still loftier bill, but of a more gradual elevation, composed of sand with a thin soil over it, and covered with heath, with some clumps of Scotch firs scattered here and there. In the intermediate valley there were fields and meadows, with stubble and green pasture, and intersected by a stream of water; while at tlie foot of the chalk hills, and at no great distance from the house, there was an extensive beech, wood, which, from the absence of underwood, and the magni- tude and height of the trees, with their branches mingling above, might be compared to an enor- mous cathedral, with its columns, and arches, and ' dim religious light.' " To a congratulation on the luxurious '* per- fect leisure" enjoyed by the master of the house, he acknowledges, in reply, that he has reason to begrateful for many blessings. *' But do not," says he, " speak of perfect leisure as one of them." To a mind of any activity, idle- ness is terribl)'^ hard labor. Even to those who have been brought up in that listless condition, a life of leisure is, as Eubulus truly observes, bad enough. When a man is idle, we know what personage is on the watch ready to set him 8 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. to wovk ; nor can we imagine a more useless or a more wretched being than a man without business, or profession, arts, sciences, or ex- ercises. But if, observes Eubulus to Ergates, a life of leisure be painful to persons who have been brought up in idleness — " What must it be to one like you or me, who have advanced beyond the middle period of life, without having had any experience of it ? This is no speculative inquiry ; it may be answered from actual observation. Not a few persons who abandon their employments under the impression that they will be happy in doing so, actually die of ennui. It induces bodily dis- ease more than physical or mental labor. Others, indeed, survive the ordeal. But, where the body does not suffer, the mind often does. I have known instances of persons whose habits have been suddenly changed from those of great activity to those of no emploj'ment at all, who have been for a time in a state of mental excitement or hypochondriasis, border- ing on mental aberration. Moreover, it is with the mind as it is with the body — it is spoiled from want of use ; and the clever and intelli- gent young man, who sits doAvn to lead what is called a life of leisure, invariably becomes a stupid old man." Truer words were never written. Even the retired tallow-chandler begged, in his despair, to be allowed to revisit the establishment which he had left, on melting days, and derived some consolation from the permission— such conso- lation as a ghost may be supposed to derive from haunting the scene of its former pleasures. But, even refined pursuits will pall on the in- tellectual palate. Study, drawing, music, writing, soon lose their zest: "one cannot always be dancing, nowther," as the boatswain said. No, there must be some peremptory occupation ; something that is your master, to PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 9 give relish to the holiday : 11 fcmt cuUiver noire jardin. Eubulus, after noticing the pastimes to which the cabbage-planting Diocletian and the self-flagellating Charles the Fifth were reduced, thus continues : — " But I suspect that, in spite of his mis- fortunes, Lord Bacon was not altogether un- happy while engaged in completing his philo- sophical works ; and I cannot doubt that he was much less so than he would have been if he had shared the occupations and amusements of the Emperors." To this, Crites objects that Lord Bacon could not have been wholly and entirely occupied iu the way mentioned, but that he must still have had many hours of leisure on his hands; and Eubulus replies : " That is true. A man in a profession may be engaged in professional matters for twelve or fourteen hours daily, and suffer no very great inconvenience beyond that which may be traced to bodily fatigue. The greater part of what he has to do (at least it is so after a certain amount of experience) is nearly the same as that which he has done many times before, and becomes almost matter of course. He uses not only his previous knowledge of facts, or his simple experience, but his previous thoughts, and the conclusions at which he had arrived formerly ; and it is only at intervals that he is called upon to make any considerable mental exertion. But at every step in the composition of his philosophical woi'ks Lord Bacon had to think ; and no one can be engaged in that which requires a sustained effort of thought for more than a very limited portion of the twenty-four hours. Such an amount of that kind of occu- pation must have been quite sufficient, even for so powerful a mind as that of Lord Bacon. Mental relaxation after severe mental exertion 10 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. is Bot less agreeable than bodily repose after bodily labor. A few hours of bona fide mental labor will exhaust the craving for active em- ployment, and will leave the mind in a state in which the subsequent leisure (which is not necessarily mere idleness) will be as agreeable as it would have been irksome and painful otherwise." We have heard physiologists, speaking on the labor of thought, declare that every effort consumed — burued, as it were — a portion of the vigor of the brain ; and that where the mental labor has been long and excessive, the nervous fluid of the over-worked organ has been deteriorated, and, in aggravated cases, ut- terly impoverished. To an inquiry by Crites, what limits may be placed to exertion of the kind above alluded to, Eubulus refers to the impofsibility of layiug down rules in that respect more than for the body ; so much must depend on the original powers of the mind, the physical condition of the individual, and his previous early training ; but he instances Cuvier as having been usually engaged for seven hours daiiy, in his scientific researches, these not Laving been of a nature to require continuous thop^bt : and Sir Walter Scott as having devoted about six hours daily to literary composition, and then his mind was in a state to enjoy lighter pursuits afterwards. When, however, after his misfortunes, he allowed himself no relaxation, there can be little doubt, as Eubulus observes, that his over- exertion contributed, as much as the moral Buffering he endured, to the production of the disease of the brain which ultimately caused his death. One day, when he was thus exerting himself beyond his powers, Sir Walter said to Captain Basil Hall, who also suffered and died from disease in the brain, — PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. II " How many hours can you work ?" " Six," answered the captain. "But, can't you put on the spurs?" "If I do, the horse won't go." "So much tlie better for you," said Scott, with a sigh. " When I put on the spurs, the horse will go well enough ; but it is killing the horse." The whole of the observations on the limits of mental exertion, the source of mental fatigue, and on the imagination in waking and in sleep, are most instructive. Take this illustration of the difference between attention and thinking : " Mere attention is an act of volition. Think- ing implies more than this, and a still greater and more constant exercise of volition. It is with the mind as it is with the body. When the volition is exercised, there is fatigue ; there is none otherwise ; and in proportion as the will is more exercised, so is the fatigue greater. The muscle of the heart acts sixty or seventy times in a minute, and the muscles of respira- tion act eighteen or twenty times in a minute, for seventy or eighty, or in some rare instances, even for a hundred successive years ; but there is no feeling of fatigue. The same amount of muscular exertion under the influence of voli- tion, induces fatigue in a few hours. I am re- freshed by a few hours' sleep. I believe that I seldom , if ever, sleep without dreaming. But in sleep there is a suspension of volition. If there be occasions on which I do not enjoy the full and complete benefit of sleep, it is when my sleep is imperfect ; when my dreams are be- tween waking and sleeping, and a certain amount of volition may be supposed to be mixed up with the phantoms of the imagination." When awake, we can arrest the current of imagination, uuless we indulge in one of those reveries or waking dreams, when we give the reins to our imagination, and build or visit our castles in Spain ; and even then we do not lose all control. But in the ordinary waking state — 12 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. " Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it ; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the greatest degree of perfection, will take cogni- zance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference which exists between the minds of different individu- als. This is the history alike of the poetic genius and of the genius of discovery in science. *■! keep the subject,' said Sir Isaac Newton, ' constantly before me, and wait until the first dawnings open by little and little into a full light.' It was thus that, after long meditation, he was led to the invention of fluxions, and to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were sugsrested to Davy which are propounded in the" Bakerian lecture of 1806, and which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalies." And it was thus that Owen arrived at the conception of the archetype, and those views which are working an entire change in anatom- ical teaching. Those dreams in which conversations or ar- guments are held with other persons, v/hen the dreamer must invent the arguments used against himself, without being aware that he has done so, naturally lead to the consideration of Dr. Wigan's somewhat ponderous but very ingen- ious volume. On the Duality of the Mind (lS4i), published to prove that each hemisphere of ihe cerebrum has a separate mind, and that on such occasions the two hemispheres might be con- sidered as conversing with each other — a cap- PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 13 tivating theory, which we have heard supported by some who had read the book, and declared that they felt, especially in determining some difficult question where the pros and cons were nearly balanced, conscious of two antagonistic internal powers, each advocating, as it were, opposite sides of the question. But they were obliged to confess that they ultimately decided the question ; and Avhen reminded that there must then have been a third mental power to give judgment after weighing the opposite ar- guments, if the theory were well founded, acknowledged the force of the observation, and thereafter valued the Doctor's work more for the many curious illustrations of mental phe- nomena therein contained than for the conclu- sion extracted from them. No, we agree with Eubulus in thinking that Pere Buffier has dis- posed of this heresy, and clearly made out " the oneness and individuality of the mind." And so the dialogue proceeds, gradually attaining to "thoughts more elevate," without ever losing sight of the fact that man is an ani- mal ; though we could mention an author of no mean attainments, who wrote a system of zoology and left the plumeless biped out, con- sidering him altogether as a superior being, who was not to be degraded to a place in it. The iofluence of enthusiasts and crazy fanat- ics over the masses is well touched. There are "epidemics of opinion." as well as of disease, and it is, indeed, a melancholy fact that a great extension of education and knowledge does not produce any corresponding improve- ment in this respect. A half-madman could set on foot a moral epidemic, and lead a mob to destroy Newgate, gut the houses of the most intellectual and elevated persons, and nearly burn down London. Such moral epidemics are more destructive in their way than typhus, small-pox, or the much dreaded cholera. But 14 PSTCnOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. let -not the age of table-turning and spirit rapping smile at the dupes of Peter tlie Hermit, Lord George Gordon, Joanna Southcote — her- self, we verily believe, the dupe of her own imagination — and Joe Smith. Without giviug any opinion on the subject, we may at least observe that the subscribers to the Mesmeric Hospital have no right to curl the lip at the sympatlietic powder of Sir Kenelm Digby. Upon the subject of Education we entirely agree with Eubulus. Crites asks — *' But does not what you have now stated tend to show that there is some defect in modern education ? Might it not do more than it does towards the improvement of the reasoning fac- ulty? ^'^Eubulus. — I doubt it. Education does a great deal. It imparts knowledge, and gives the individual worthy objects of contemplation for the remainder of his life. It strengthens his power of attention ; and such is especially the case Avith the study of mathematics ; and in doing so it cannot fail, to a certain extent, to assist the judgment. Still, it seems to me, that to reason well is the result of an instinct orig- inally implanted in us, rather than of instruc- tion ; and that a child or a peasant reasons quite as accurately on the thing before him and with- in the sphere of his knowledge as th-ise who are versed in all the rules of logic. With regard even to mathematics, I much doubt whether they tend to improve the judgment on those subjects to which they are not immediately ap- plicable." Without going so far as Dugald Stewart, who observes, that in the course of his own experi- ence, he had never met with a mere mathemati- cian who was not credulous to a fault, not only with respect to human testimony, but also in matters of opinion, we think that there is a great deal of truth in the observation. To say PSTCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 15 nothing of Sir Isaac Newton and others, whose minds, powerful as they were, were prone to credulity, we could name one of the ablest mathematicians of the day, who is said to be- lieve that he can communicate with disem- bodied spirits. Eubulus well explains this somewhat startling phenomenon : " The principal errors of reasoning on all subjects beyond the pale of the exact sciences arise from our looking only on one side, or too exclusively on one side, of the question. But in mathematics there is no alternative. It has nothing to do with degrees of probability. The truth can be on one side only, and we arrive at a conclusion about which there is no possibility of doubt, or at none at all. In making these ob- servations, however, do not suppose that I do not sufficiently estimate this most marvellous science, which, from the simplest data, has been made to grow up into what it now is by the mere force of the human intellect ; the truth of which would have been the same if Heaven and Earth had never existed ; would be the same still if they were now to pass away ; and by means of which those branches of knowl- edge to which it is applicable have been brought to a state of perfection which others can never be expected to attain." Nothing can be more fairly put than the following, which we recommend to the especial attention of parents and guardians : — "A high education is a leveller, which, while it tends to improve ordinary minds, and to turn idleness into industry, may in some instances have the effect of preventing the full expansion of genius. The great amount of acquirement rendered necessary by the higher class of exam- inations, as they are now conducted, not only in the universities, but in some other institutions, while it strengthens the poAver of learning, is by- no means favorable to the higher faculty of re- flection. But it must be borne in mind that in 16 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. this worlcl none of onr schemes are perfect, and that in all human aflfairs we mnst be content to do that which is best on the whole. Geninses are rare exceptions to the general rule ; and a mode of education which might be well adapted to the few who think for themselves, would be ruinous to the unreflecting majority. As to making one system of education for one class of minds, and" another for another, there are, if I may be allowed to use a metaphorical expres- sion, mechanical diflSiculties in the way. Besides, who is to know what a boy's mind is, or what is his peculiar turn, until the greater part of his education is completed ?" No doubt the S3^stera pursued at our univer- sities, narrow as it still remains, is good train- ing for the business of life; and we may point to worthies high in the state and in the law who have borne away the brightest honors of the uni- versities of which they are ornaments; we could also indicate brilliant examples in the same de- .partments, who never shone till they appeared in their proper sphere. But how many senior wranglers and first-class men who went up like rockets have been as speedily extin- guished, or pass unheeded in the by-ways of fame. Eubulus refers to Sir Walter Scott's observation, that " the best part of every man's education is that which 'he gave himself." — True, Thomas never spoke more tritly — and Sir Humphrey Davy and John Hunter are brought forward as examples of men whose faculties might have been cramped and deranged, rather than improved by a more systematic education. It has been our privilege, and a great privilege it was, and still is, to have lived, and to be living, on intimate terms with some of the first philosophers, literary men, engineers, and artists of our time. The first among these have owed their high position to little or no extrinsic assistance. Like Davy and John Hunter, what they were, they made themselves. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 17 Crites, indeed, cannot altogether agree witb Eubulus, thoiio-h he does so to a great extent ; but he comforts himself with the prospect of the changes as to education now in progress in this conntry, of which the principal result will be the introduction of new branches of study into our schools and colleges ; so that those who have it not in their power to excel in one thing, will find that they may, nevertheless, excel in another. The second dialogue ascends to the more ambitions inquiry into the nature of mind and matter, considers natural theology, and gives reasons for regarding the mental principle as distinct from organization. It is urged that the influence of the one on the other is not suf- ficiently regarded by metaphysicians. " When (says Crites) the materialist argues that we know nothing of mind except as being dependant on material organization, I turn his argument against himself, and say that the ex- istence of my own mind is the only thing of which I have any actual and indubitable knowl- edge." By far the most interesting porlion of this dialogue is applied to the relations of the ner- vous system to the mental faculties ; and here the practical knowledge and great experience of Ergates come into play. He gives several remarkable examples, and" observes, that from them it seems to be a legitimate conclusion that the nervous system is instrumental in pro- ducing the phenomena of memory as well as those of sensation.; and that memory resides not in every part of the nervous system, but in the brain. This faculty, he adds, is injured by a blow on the head, or a disease affecting the brain ; but not by an injury of the spine, or a disease of the spinal cord. " The eyes mny be amaurotic, but Milton and Huber retained the memory of objects whicli 18 PSYCHOLOGICAL IKQUIRIES. they had seen previous to theii- blindness. It is not the spinal cord, nor the nerves, nor the eye, nor tlie ear, but the brain, which is the storehouse of past sensations, by referring^ to Avhich the mind is enabled to renew its acqiiain- tance with events which are passed, and at the same time to obtain the means of anticiiDatin_^, to a great extent, the events which are to come." Here are one or two Interesting examples of the disturbance of memory by a blow on the head, or a disease affecting the braio, the other functions remaining unimpaired : — "A groom in tljie service of the Prince Regent was cleaning one of some horses sent as a pres- ent to his Royal Highness by the Shah of Per- sia. It was a vicious animal, and he kicked the groom on the head. He did not fall, nor was he at all stunned or insensible ; but he entirely forgot what he had been doing at the moment when the blow was inflicted. There was an in- terval of time, as it were, blotted out of his recollection. Not being able to account for it, he supposed that he had been asleep, and said so to his fellow-servants, observing at the same time, that he must set to work to clean the horse, which he had neglected to clean in con- sequence of having fallen asleep, Again : — "A young man was thrown from his horse in hunting ; he was stunned, but only for a few minutes; then recovered, and rode home in company with his friends, twelve or thirteen miles, talking with them as usnal. On the fol- lowing day he had forgotten not only the acci- dent itself, but all that happened afterwards." In this last case, the etiect of the blow was not only to erase from the memory the events which immediately preceded the fall, but also to preA'Cut the retention of the impression of those events which immediately followed the accident. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 19 Then, as to the loss or impaired stren2:th of the faculty after fever or some other bodily ail- ment, we are presented with the following interesting cases ;— "A gentleman fonnd that he had lost the power of vision in one eye. Then he regained it partially in that eye, but lost it in the "other. Afterwards he partially regained it in the eye last affected. He could now see objects when placed in certain positions, so that the image might fall on particular parts of the retina, wliile he was still unable to see them in other positions. These facts sufficiently prove the existence of some actual disease. But observe what happened besides : his memory was affec- ted as well as his sense of sight. Although in looking at a book he recognized the letters of the alphabet, he forgot what they spelled, and was under the necessity of learning again to read. Nevertheless, he knew his family and friends ; and his judgment, when the facts were clear in his mind, was perfect." The next example is equally striking, if not more remarkable : — "In another case, a gentleman who had two years previously suffered from a stroke of apo- plexy (but recovered from it afterwards) was suddenly deprived of sensation on one side of his body. At the same tirrie he lost the power, not only of expressing himself in intelligible language, but also that of comprehending what was said to him by others. He spoke what might be called gibberisJi, and it seemed to him that his friends spoke gibberisJi in return. But ■while his memory as to oral language was thus affected, as to written language it was not affected at all. If a letter was read to him, it conveyed no ideas to his mind ; but when he had it in his own hand, and read it himself, he understood it perfectly. After some time he recovered of this attack, as he had done of that 20 • PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. of apoplexy fomierly. He had another similar attack afterwards." With reference to the organ of speech, what- ever that or its components may be, the case of a boy about five years old is referred to. The' faculty of speech was, in this child, limited to the use of the word pajja — a sound so simple that dolls are made by very simp!e mechanism to produce it distinctly. Erirates soon ascer- tained that the sense of hearius; was perfect, and that there was no malformation of the soft palate, mouth, and lips. Inclination to speak was not wanting, but the attempt produced wholly inarticulate sounds. Yet there was no deiiciency in the boy's powers of apprehension — nay, he seemed to be beyond the generality of children of the same age in this respect. He perfectly understood what was said to him by others, and answered by signs and gestures, and would spell with counters monosyllabic words which he could not utter. Tiie external senses and locomotive powers were perfect, and all the animal functions properly performed. The onl)' other manifestation of disease or im- perfection of the nervous system was that, for two or three years before Ergates saw him, he had been subject to fits or nervous attacks, at- tended with convulsions, but which his pro- vincial medical attendant regarded as having the character of hysteria rather than of epilepsy. Ergates was informed that eight years after- wards the boy could not speak, though he had made great progress otherwise ; and that among other acquisitions, he wrote beautifully, and was a very clever arithmetician. The case of a girl is also recorded. When Ergates saw her, she was eleven years of age, with no faculty of speech, uttering merely some inarticulate sounds, which her parents in some degree understood, but which were wholly un- intelligible to others. Here, again, the sense of rSTCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 21 hearing was perfect; and there was no defect in the formation of the external ornrans. A careful examination satisfied the observer that the parents were correct in their statement that she comprehended all that was said to her. Perfectly tractable and obedient, she did not differ either in appearance or general behavior from other intelliij;ent children. Little trouble had been taken with her education, for she was in humble life ; but when a book which she had never seen previously was placed before her, and she was desired to point out different let- ters, she did so readily and accurately, making no mistakes. Now, in this case, there had been no suffering from fits, no indications of cerebral disease, or other physical imperfection. As she was when Ergates saw her, the parents said she had been from the earliest age ; equally intelligent, but incapable of speech. In this case there was probably some latent defect in the nervous system. We agree with Ergates in thinking that the best writers on the philosophy of the mind have erred in con- sidering it too abstractedly ; not taking suffi- ciently into account the physical influences to which it is subjected. There are not wanting shrewd reasoners who consider that Schelling, Fichte, Cousin, and others of that school of mental science, have perverted psychology as completely, and perhaps more perniciously, than the Materialists. Descrates, Hartley, and that clever but somewhat"fantastic Uni- versalist. Dr. Hoolc, did take the physical in- fluences into consideration. Doctors Reid and Berkeley, who, as Crites observes, were cer- tainly anything but Materialists, considered them deeply. The inquiry of the first of th« two last-named into the human mind, is founded on a searching examination of the senses ; and the germ of Dr. Berkeley's metaphysical investigations is contained in his essay on the corporeal function of vision. -i 22 PSTCHOLOGICAL INQUIUIES. An inquiry into the structure and condition of the seusorium in man and the lower ani- mals thus becomes of great importance. We have seldom seen a more correct view of this most important part of the subject than that laid before the reader by Ergates, who sets out by safely assuming, as an established fact, that it is only througli the instrumentality of the central parts of the nervous system that the mind maintains its communication with the external world. The eye, the ear, and all the other organs of sense, are necessary communi- cants ; but it cannot be denied, that the eye does not see, and that the ear does not hear; for however perfect those organs may be, if the nerve which forms the communication be- tween any one organ of sense and the brain be divided, the corresponding sense is des- troyed. On the other hand, all the impulses by which the mind influences the phenomena of the external world, proceed from the brain. Divide the nerves which extend from the brain to the larynx, and the voice is gone ; sever the nerves of the limb, and it becomes paralytic, or, in other words, is withdraw^n from the infleuce of the will. Cut through the spinal chord, and all sensibility and power of voluntary motion is lost below the divided part. We shall now let Ergates speak for himself, because no form of words can bj more lucid than his own. "If we investigate the condition of the vari- ous oiders of vertebrate animals, which alone admit of a comparison with our own species, we find, on the one hand, great differences among them, with regard to both their physical and mental faculties, and on the other hand a not less marked difference as to the structure of their brain. In all of them the bi-ain has a central organ, which is a continuation of the spinal chord, and to which anatomists give the PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 23 name of medulla ohlonqata. In connection with this, there are other bodies placed in pairs, of a small size and simple structure in the low- est species of iish, becoming gradually larger and more complex as we trace them through the other classes, uutil they reach their greatest degree of development in man himself. That each of these boaies has its peculiar functions, there cannot, I apprehend, be the smallest doubt; and it is, indeed, sufficiently probable that each of them is not a single organ, but a congeries of organs, having distinct and sepa- rate uses." Experiment and observation of changes pro- duced by disease have thrown some light on this field of research, where so much darkness still re juires to be enlightened ; and thongh we are among those who hold that cruelty, or the infliction of unnecessary pain on the animals subject to ns, is not to be tolerated, but to be repressed, if need be, by the strong hand of the law, we cannot join in the condemnation of those experimental physiologists whose opera- tions have, in some degree, rendered this mys- terious subject less obscure : — "There is reason to believe that, whatever it may do besides, one office of the cerebellum is to combine the action of the voluntary muscles foi' the purpose of locomotion. The corpora quadrigemina are four tubercles, which connect the cerebrum, cerebellum, and onedulla oblongata to each other. If one of the uppermost of these bodies be removed, blindness of the eye of the opposite side is the consequence. If the upper part of the cerebrum be removed, the animal becomes blind and apparently stupefied ; but not so much so bat that he may be roused, and that he can then walk with steadiness and pre- cision. The most important part of the whole brain seems to be a particular portion of the central organ or medulla oblongata. While this 24 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. remains entire, tlie animal retains its sensibility, breathes, and performs instinctive motions. But if this small mass of the nervous S3'stem be injured, there is an end of these several func- tions, and death immediately ensues. These facts, and some others of the same Icind, for a knowledi!:e of which we are indebted toinodera physiologists, and more especially to M. Ma- gendie and M. Flourens, are satisfactory as far us they go, and warrant the conclusion that there are various other organs in the brain, de- sitrned for other purposes, and that if we can- not point out their locality, it is not because such organs do not exist, but because our means of research into so intricate a matter are very limited." Now if the speculation as to the existence of special organs in the brain, for the purpose of locomotion and speech, be correct, it would ap- pear probable that there is a special organ for that of memory also. Ergates acknowledges the truth of this observation, which is given to Crites, but honestly adds that there our knowl- edge ends : — "We may, I suppose (says Ergates), take it for granted that there is no animal whose mem- ory is equally capacious with that of man ; and we know that, with the exception perhaps of the dolphin (of Avhose faculties we know noth- ing), there is no other animal in whom that portion of the cerebrum Avhich we call hemis- pheres, and which are bounded externally by the convolutions is equally developed. It may be said, and not without some show of reason, ' Do not these facts seem to indicate Avhere the faculty of memory resides ?' Willis answered the question in the affirmative.* But observe how it is in birds. In them there are no con- volutions ; an d the only part of the brain which * De Anatome Cerebri, cap. 10. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIKIES. 25 can be said to correspond to the cerebral hemispheres of man, is merely a thin layer of cerebral substance expanded over some other structures, which are developed to an enormous size. Yet we know that birds which are do- mesticated exhibit sip;ns of considerable mem- ory, parrots and cockatoos recognizing indi- viduals after a long interval of time ; and that birds in their natural state return to their old haunts after their annual migrations. The ex- ploits of the carrier-pigeons cannot be explained Avithout attributing to them no small powers of observation and of recollecting what they had observed. Perhaps future observations on the effects produced by disease of the brain in con- nection Avith affections of the memory may throw some light on this mysterious subject. At present we must be content to acknowledge that we know nothing as to the locality of the function, nor of the minute changes of organi- zation which are connected with it." In the third dialogue the subject of memory is continued, and we easily pass to the consid- eration of the sequence and association of ideas, and to the suggestion of them by inter- nal physical causes, acting on the brain by the nerves, or through the medium of the blood. And here we enter the land of dreams, and are interested by anecdotes illustrating the power of local disease or injury, in producing the phantasms which distress us, when we are sub- ject to the dominion of Queen Mab. Acci- dental pressure on a tumor in the leg gave rise to a frightful dream ; and children, who are often prevented from falling asleep, by the local pains which accompany disease of the hip- joint, and painful starting of the limb, are tor- mented, when, worn with watching they at last fall asleep, by distressing dreams. A gentle- man dreamed that a great dog was tearing him, awoke in terror, and found that his left 26 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. arm was in a state of complete numbness, from which it afterwards recovered. Ergates well accounts for such xjheuomena, by stating that an impression is made on a nerve, producing in its minute structure certain changes, which affect the mind itself. But, as he truly ob- serves, the same effect may be produced with- out the intervention of the nerves, by the sub- stitution of dark -colored venous blood for that scarlet or arterial blood whose influence Bi- chat has shown to be so necessary for the due performance of the functions of the brain. Blood of improper quality, or containing some- thing which blood should not contain, may not only disturb the cerebral functions, but even influence the mind. Hence the soothing and luxurious apocalypse of the habitual opium- eater, and the mad energy of the Lascar, who runs a muck at all he meets, under the influ- ence of hashish. In like manner the poison of small-pox, fermenting and accumulating, brings on severe fever, with not unfrequeutly its train of delirious phantasms. A young gentleman, coming from the country, under the influence of this contagion, fancied that he was beset by a swarm of bees, knocked at the door of the chamber of a friend, in a half- dressed state, and when admitted walked to the sofa, and, after complaining of the annoy- ing s\vai-m, which existed only in his imagina- tion, lay down on it, as he was, and, evidently supposing that he was in bed, said, ' Doctor,' — the mode of address which he generally used towards his friend, who had known him from childhood, but who was, however, no M. D., — 'tuck me up.' On his way down the youth was under the delusion that the coach- man by whose side he sat, was his servant, whom he had left behind, described to coachee's great annoyance, the places which they passed, and among- other pieces of information pointed PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 27 out to liini tlie Peacock at Islington , where lie had changed horses for some twenty years, as something new. The uncomfortable thoughts and fretful pee- vishness which make tlie gouty man a trouble to himself aud to every one about him, have been traced by Dr. Garrod, to the superabundance of lltbic acid in the blood. How much of moral and physical evil do we bring upon ourselves, by our lazy and luxurious habits. " Happiness, after all, is not so unequally distributed in this world as to a superficial ob- server it seems to be. Poverty is terrible if it be such as to prevent the actual necessaries of life. But the agricultural laborer who has enough of wholesome food and warm clothing for himself and his family, and who has the advantage, which cannot be too highly estimated, of living in the open air, has more actual enjoyment of life than the inheritor of wealth, living in a splendid mansion, who has too much of lithic acid in his blood." We commend the following to the notice of those who think that schools (where, by the way, we seldom find the poorer classes taught those arts which would enable them to be good servants and useful members of society,) are the sovereign remedy for all social ills. Hear Ergates again : "Much is said at present as to the necessity of extending education, as the means of im- proving the condition of the multitude. I am not so great a heretic as to deny the advan- tages of knowledge and of early instruction, especially if it be combined with a proper train- ing of the mind, so as to give the pupil habits of self restraint. But there is much to be de- sired besides. Nothing can tend more to every kind of moral and intellectual degradation than the vice of gin-drinking, so prevalent in some, but not in all, of the lower classes of society. 2S PSTCHGLOGICAL INQUIRIES. In a conversation which I had with a very intel- ligent person employed by the ' City Missionary Society,' whose location was in London among the inhabitants of St. Giles's parish, he said, ' I assure yon that there is scarcely any one of them who might not obtain a comfortable live- lihood if he could leave off drinking gin.' But see how one thing hangs upon another, and how one evil leads to another evil. Mr. Chad- wick has shown that many are driven to drink- ing gin as affording a temporary relief to the feelings of depression and exhaustion produced by living in a noxious atmosphere ; and he gives instancesof individuals who had spontaneously abandoned the habit, when they were enabled to reside in a less crowded and more healthy locality, where they could breathe the pure air, instead of noxious exhalations. The case of such persons is analogous to that of others who become addicted to the use of opium, as the means of relief from bodily pain. Schools and churches are excellent things, hut it is a vast mistake to suppose that they will do all that is reqnired. There can be no feeling of content- ment where there is an iusuffi'.'ient supply of wholesome food, and the 'Temperance Soci- ety' can make few converts among those who live in crowded buildings, unventilated, and with imperfect drainage.^ Our late legislation has accomplished much, and as much as it can reasonably be expected to accomplish, towards the attainment of the first of these objects : and measures are now in progress which justify the expectation that eventually much good may be done in the other direction also." May a blessing attend the efforts of those benevolent men who, through good report and evil report, have persisted in this labor of love. None but those whose offices bring them in con- tact with the dwellings of the London poor can form any notion of the squalid wretchedness in PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 29 which they exist, frequently within bow-shot of gilded palaces. No wonder the wretched in- mates there huddled together have recourse to alcohol — that curse to which we owe nine-tenths of the crime which hUs our jails. On some of these criminals the fire-water seems to act so as to cauterize every good and to inflame every bad propensity. Burke and Hare prepared themselves for their task by copious libations of gin. In others, it almost entirely — in some cases, entirely — obliterates the memory of what passed when they were under the intoxicating influence. The forgeifulness seems as complete as if they had drunk of Lethe ; and we have seen numbers who had committed the most brutal assaults under the excitement of ardent spirits, who, when called on for their defence, have said, and as we believe truly, that they had no recollection at all about the matter. The subject of false perceptions simulating realities is well haniled, and the phantoms seen by Nicolai and others discussed. The case of a gentleman, eighty years of age, who had been for some time laborins,- under hypochondriasis, attended with other indications of cerebral dis- ease, is mentioned : " On a cold day in winter, while at church, he had a fit, which was considered to be apo- plectic. He was taken home and bled, and re- covered his consciousness, not being paralytic afterwards. He died, however, in a few days after the attack. During this interval, though having the perfect use of his mental faculties, he was haunted by the appearance of men and women, sometimes in one dress, sometimes in another, coming into and loitering in the room. These figures were so distinct that, at first, he always mistook them for realities, and wondered that his family should have allowed such per- sons to intrude themselves upon him. But he soon, by a process of reasoning, corrected this 30 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. error, and then talked of thera as he would have talked of the illusions of another person," Such spectral illusions, some of them ghastly enough, are not uncommon; and those who feel interested in this part of the subject will find an ample phantasmagoria in the works of Alderson, Ferriar, Hibberr, Scott, Esquirol, Brtwster, and others. Id many of these cases the patient, like the gentleman whose mental state is noticed in the volume before us, is sen- si le that the spectra are illusions, and in almost all who recover, the spectra become gradually more and more faint till they vanish altogether. We know a gentleman of strong mind, and a most accomplished scholar, who" was for many years subject to such phantasms, some suffi- ciently grotesque, and he would occasionally laugh heartily at their antics. Sometimes it appeared as if they interrupted a conversation in v\iiich he was engaged ; and then, if with his family or intimate friends, he would turn to empty space, and say, "I don't care a farthing for ye, ye amuse me greatly sometimes, but you are a bore just now." His spectra, when so addressed, would, to his eye, resume their an- tics, at which he would laugh, turn to his friend and continue his conversation. In other re- spects he was perfectly healthy, his mind was of more than ordinary strength, and he would speak of "his plmntoms," and reason upon their appearance, bmgg perfectly conscious that the whole was illusive. Many a ghost, we suspect, is raised by indi- gestion or disturbance of the nervous system, arising from a vitiated state of the blood, pro- duced by stimulants, disease, or narcotics. There are few who are not familiar with the visions of the "Opium-eater." '" Mr. Coleridge,' said a lady to the author of Chriatabel, one day, 'do you believe in ghosts ?' '* PSYCHOLOGICA.L INQUIRIES. 31 " ' No, madam, I have seen too many of them,' " was the reply. Swedenborg" was an exception to the general rule that persons haunted by similar spectral or auditorial illusions do not mistake the decep- tions for real objects. He was in his fifty-eighth year, wlicn, says he, "I was called to a holy office by the Lord, who most graciously mani- fested himself in person to me his servant, in the year 1745, and opened my sight into the spiritual world, endowing me with the gift of conversing with spirits and angels." This event, according to his own account, happened at an inn in London, in April of that year, but not on the first day of the month. He appears to have been sincere in his belief that he con- versed with Moses and Elias, was never seen to laugh, but his countenance always wore a cheer- ful smile. He was a man of no ordinary tal- ents and attainments, upright and just as a public lunctionary ; and so far from being an eccentric person in society, he was easy in his manners, accommodatmg himself to his com- pany, conversing on the topics of the day, and never aliudin^; to his peculiar and extraordinary principles unless he was questioned, when he would answer freely, just as he had written of them. Any disposition to impertinence or ban- ter was met with a manner and answer that silenced the querist withou^atisfying him. By an easy step we are mw led to the awful consideration of mental derangement, and the question, so vitally interesting in a social point of view, of " moral insanity," as it is called. We entirely agree with C rites in the certainty that it is dangerous to admit the plea of irre- sponsibility for those who labor under this affec- tion, to the extent to which Dr. Pritchard and others have claimed it for them ; and we would earnestly entreat those who are concerned in 33 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. the administration of justice — ^juries especially — to consider the remarks which follow : " Observe (says Crites) tliat I use the term Moral Insanity not as comprehending cases in which tliere is a belief in things that do not exist in reality, or cases of idiocy, or those ap- proaching to idiocy ; but limiting it strictly and exclusively to the deflnition given by writers on the subject. The law makes a reasonable allow- ance for the subsiding of passion suddenly pro- voked. But we are not, therefore, to presume that the same allov»'ance is to be made for those in whom a propensity to set fire to their neigh- bors' houses, or commit murder, is continued for months, or weeks, or even for hours. Is it true that such persons are really so regardless of the ill consequences which may arise, so in- capable of the fear of punishment and so abso- lutely without the pov\^er of self-restraint, as they have been sometimes represented to be? If not, there is an end of their want of respons- ibility. Let me refer here to the instance of the gouty patient Under the influence of his disease, every impression made on his nerv jus system is attended with uneasy sensa- tions. If such a person has exerted himself to acquire the habit of self-control, the evil ends with himself, but otherwise he is fractious and peevish ; flies into a passion, without any ade- quate cause, with those ai-ound him, and uses harsh words whicli the occasion does not jus- tify; conduct of which he can offer to himself no explanation, except that he cannot help it ; and for which, if he be a right-minded person, he is sorry afterwards. If he were to yield to the impulse of his temper so far as to inflict on another a severe bodily injury, ought it to be admitted as an excuse that Dr. Garrod had ex- amined, his blood, and found in it too large a proportion of lithic acid ?" If there be any one — except always the school PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES, 33 of Moral Insaiiitists — so perverted as to answer in the affirmative, we beg him to read a little further : " Yet, wher Oxford yielded to what was prob- ably a less violent impulse, which caused him to endeavor to take away the life of tiie Queen, the jury acquitted him, on the ground of his being the subject of 'Moral Insanity.' It seems to me that juries have not un frequently been misled by the refinements of medical wit- nesses, who, having adopted the theory of a purely moral insanity, have applied that term to cases to which the term insanity ouglit not to be applied at all." Some of our readers may remember the case of Captain Johnson, which made no little noise at the time. This man, on his arrival in England, charged his crew with mutiny on the hiyh seas, but, ou the hearing by the magistrate at the I'hames Police Court, the tables were turned, and he was charged with the murder of more than one of his crew, and with wounding others of them with intent to murder. It appeared that, on the voyage, he had fallen in with a French ship, from which he had obtained a supply of wine and brandy, that he drank to excess, and com- mitted the crimes, with which he was charged, at intervals. No person could appear to be more sane than he was when at the bar of the police court ; but he had uttered some doggerel about the battle of Bannockburn while he was hacking and hewing the mate and the crew, and the jury found him not guilty, on the ground of insanity. He cut tne mate almost to pieces — one of the witnesses said that the captain "cut a piece off him every half hour" — killed the wretched man by inches, and the jury pro- nounced him to be a madman. Mad drunk he probably was when he committed the savage crue ties laid to his charge ; but if every man 84 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. who excites a naturally brutal temperament by stimulants is to be considered an irrespoosibie agent, who is safe? Every one may be said to be beside himself when he commits a crime. But laws are made for the very purpose of checking such im- pulses. The Esher murders still reek in the recol- lection of all. Aune Brougli's case may be shortly stated as that of a wickedly vicious woman, who, having been found out and up- braided by her injured husband, cut the throats of her six children to feed her revenge. The jury found her not guilty, on the ground of insanity. It is hardly too much to say that neither the murderer nor the murderess were so insane as the two dozen of wrongheads who acquitted them on account of the accumulated enormi- ties which they had commuted. It is as if these juries had said to evil-minded persons, " Don't murder o)ie only, or you will stand a chance of being hanged ; murder many — the more cruelly the safer — and you are sure to get off, and be kept at the expense of a benevolent govern- ment for life." Even in cases of actual insanity, it has al- ways struck us as a most mischievous absurd- ity that, in criminal cases, this question should be left to the determination of a common jury. Twelve men, respectable in their station, but whose minds have seldom been applied to any- thing beyond the ordinary business of life, are called upon to inquire into the most mysterious part of our organization, and to decide otF-hand a question which is difficult to those who have studied the subject most deeply. But hear Crites in continuation : " It is true that the ditference in the character of individuals may frequently be traced to difference in their organizations, and to dilferent PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 35 conditions as to bodily health ; and that, there- fore, one person has more and another has less difficulty in controlling his temper and regu- latiag his conduct. But we have all our duties to perform, and one of the most important of these is that we should strive against whatever evil tendency there may be in us arising out of our physical constitution. Even if we admit (which I do not admit in reality,) that the impulse which led Oxford to the commission of his crime was at the time irresistible, still tlie question remains whether, when the notion of it first haunted him, he might not have kept it under his control, and thus prevented himself from passing into that state of mind which was beyond his control afterwards. If I have been rightly informed, Oxford was himself of this opinion ; as he said, when another attempt had been made to take away the life of the queen, 'that if he himself had been hanged, this would not have happened.' We have been loldo:- a very eminent person who had acquired the habit of touching every post that he met with in his walks, so that at last it seemed to be a part of his nature to do so ; and that if he found that he had inadvertently passed by a post with- out touching it, he would actually retrace his steps for the purpose. I knew a gentleman who was accustomed to matter certain words to himself, (and they were always the same words, ) even in the midst of company. He died at the age of ninety, and I believe that he had mut- tered these words for fifty or sixty years. These were foolish habits ; but they might have been mischievous. To correct them at last would have been a very arduous Undertaking. But might not this have been easily done in the beginning ? And if so — if, instead of touching- posts, or muttering unmeaning words, these individuals had been addicted to stealing or stabbing— ought they to have been absolved 36 PSVCirOhOGJCAL reQCilUES. from all respousibility ? It lias been observed by a physician who has had large opportunities of experience on these matters, that 'a man may allow his imagination to dwell on an idea imtil it acquires an unhealthy ascendency over his intellect.'^ And surely, if under such cir- cumstances, he were to commit a murder, he ought to be held as a murderer, and would have no more claim to be excused than a man who has voluntarily associated with thieves «nd murderers until he had lost all sense of right and wrong ; and much less than one who has had the misfortune of being born and bred among STich malefactors." Those who are addicted to the morbid sympa- thy which is so indulgent to criminals, and especially to that class who have committed crime, but, to use the language of their apolo- gists, "couldn't help it," will do well to study Dr. Mayo's Croomian Lectures on Medical Tes- timony and Evidence in Cases of Lunacy, wherein the whole subject is treated with lucid ability, and a just theory is supported by practical knowledge, the result of great and well-applied experience. The fourth dialogue treats of the different functions of the brain and spinal cord, and the continuance of life in some animals without the brain, as in the case of the headless lizards of Le Gallois, and of the tortoise whose brain had been entirely removed from the skull by Eedi, if such automatic existence may be dig- nified by the name of life, which may, indeed, be present without anything bearing the most remote relation to the mental principle — as in the living organized " extraordinary product of human generation," in which was neither brain, spinal marrow, nerves, heart, noi lungs, recorded by Dr. John Clarke.! The whole of * " Anatomy of Suicide," by Forbes Winslow, M. D, t Phil. Trans., 1793, p. 151. PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 37 this chapter is most interesting, full of informa- tion and well-expressed thought. The origin of the nervous force and the narcotic eifects of venous or dark-colored blood on the brain, as depriving it of that something which exists in the scarlet blood but not in the venous blood, and which is necessar}" to the generation of the nervous force, are forcibly- laid before the reader. Alcohol, cliloroform, opium, and the woorara poison, when intro- duced into the circulation, produce the same effect, even though the supply of the scarlet blood is not interrupted ; but Ergates himself confesses, that of the modus operandi of such terrible agents we are wholly ignorant : " All that we know is the simple fact, that when their operation is complete, they render the brain insensible to the impressions made on the external senses, and incapable of transmit- ting the influence of volition to the muscles. Pressure on the brain or a stroke of lightning may produce the same effect." Ergates purposely avoids the use of the word "unconsciousness," for as to that, he truly says, we know nothing : " The mind may be in operation, although the suspension of the sensibility of the nervous system, and of the volition of the muscles, destroys its connection with the ext'^rnal world, and prevents all communication with the minds of others." But who shall say when the external senses are completely and absolutely closed ? "An elderly lady had a stroke of apoplexy; she lay motionless, and in what is called a state of stupor, and no one doubted that she was dying. But after the lapse of three or four days, there were signs of amendment, and she ultimately recovered. A'ter her recovery, she explained that she did not believe that she had been unconscious, or even insensible, during 38 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. any part of the attack. She knew her situation, and heard much of what was said hj those around her. Especially she recollected obser- vations intimating that she would very soon be no more, but that at the same time she had felt satisfied that she would recover ; that she had no power of expressing what she felt, but that nevertheless her feelings, instead of being pain- ful, or in any way distressing, had been agree- able rather than otherAvise. She described them as very peculiar; as if she were constantly mounting upwards, and as something very different from what she had ever before expe- rienced. Another lady, who had met with a severe injury of the head, which caused her to be for some days in a state of insensibility, described herself as having been in the enjoy- ment of some beatific visions, at the same time that she had no knowledge of what had actu- ally happened, or of what was passing around lier." Such was the euthanasia of Queen Katherine, as described by him who was not of an age, but for all time : — "Saw you not even now a l)lesse:i troope lavite me to a banquet, whose bright faces Cast a thousand beams upon me like the sun? They promised me eternall happinesse, And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feele I am not worthy yet; to weare: I shall assuredly. ****** Do you note How much her Grace is altered on the sodaine? How long her face.is drawne? how p:ile she lookes, And of an earthly cold? Mark her eyes? Griffith. She is going, wench. Pray, pray!"* Intelligent observers, " who do attend the i dying," are satisfied that even where an ordi- j nary bystander would conclude that the mori- i * "The Life of King Henry the Eighth." Actus ' Quartus. Scaana Secunda. (Folio.) | PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. 39 bund individual is in a state of complete stupor, the mind is often active, ay, even at the very moment of death ; and the remarkable case of I>r. Wollaston is alluded to. The decease of that eminent man was occasioned by a tumor of the brain, about the size of half a hen's egg, Vv'hich, by encroacliina,' on the ventricles, caused an eifusion of fluid into them, and produced paralysis of one side of the body. There was ample evidence that the mental faculties were perfect during his last illness, and even in hia last moments : — " Some time before his life was finally ex in- gnished, he was seen pale, as if there was scarcely any circulation of blood going on, motionle s, and to all appearance in a state of complete insensibilit5^ Being in this condition, bis friends who were watch ng around him observed some motions of the hand which was not affected by paralysis. After some time, it occurred to them that he wished to have a pencil and paper ; and these having been sup- plied, he contrived to write some figures in arithmetical progression, whicli, however im- perfectly scrawled, were yet sufficiently legible. £t was supposed that he had overheard some re- marks respecting the state in which he was, and that his object was to show that he preserved his sensibility and consciousness. Something like this occurred some hours afterwards, and immediately before he died, but the scrawl of these last moments could not be deciphered." Indeed this accomplished philosopher and acute and accurate observer appears to have been employed in making observations on his own case, even in extremis. Before the occur- rence of the acts above related, but when he was lying speechless and motionless, his mouth was moistened with a morsel of pine-apple. He made some sign which induced his friends to furnish a pencil and paper, and he wrote 40 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. the words "pine," " good," as if to show that ihe nerves of taste still did their duty. One of the effects produced by the sudden and apparently close approximation of death is illustrated by the well-known case of the amiable and efficient Admiralty hydrographer. Sir Francis Beaufort, when he was preserved from being drowned, and when — " Every incident of his former life seemed to glance across his recollection in a retrograde succession, not in mere outline, but the picture being filled with every minute and collateral feature, forming a kind of panoramic view of his entire existence, each act of it accompanied by a sense of right and wrong." * A similar effect was produced on an officer in the Company's service, when cauu-bt on board a Burmese canoe in the late territ)le hurricane, which caused such extensive de- struction. The frail bark had been lightened by throwing the whole of his property over- board ; hope was gone ; the franiic, despairing Burmese crew were calling on their gods, and death stared them in the face. The officer de- clares, that, though in those awful moments he entirely retained his self-possession, every act of his life came before him with the most vivid intensity. He and the crew were miraculously saved, when larger vessels near them were swallowed up. When about eight years old, the writer of this imperfect notice had a narrow escape lYoni drowning. Some big boys of the school where he was, threw him, before he had learned to swim, into water far beyond his depth, and he sank. After the first confusion occasioned by the fright and "hideous noise of waters in his cars," €;very passage of his young life glanced before him. Then his sensations became far from unpleasant, and his last remembrance was * Autobiographi2al Memoir of Sir John Barrow, Bart. PSYCHOLOGICAL IKQUIKIES. 41 a fancy that he was lying" in the lap of his mother, in a lovely meadow, enamelled with cowslips, hlue-bells, violets, and oiher bright spi ing flowers. All the remarks tipon the state of mind pre- ceding death are most interesting ; and we are presented with the consoling and as we believe, true oi)servation, that the mere act of dying is seldom, in any sense of the word, a painful process ; and that, with regard to the actual fear of death, it sei ms that the Author of our existence, lor the most part, gives it to us when it is intended that we should live, and takes it av/ay from us when it is intended that we should die. Claudio's eloquent horror of a violent death is natural enough, especially in a mind capable of consenting to purchase life upon such terms as he proposes to his sister ; but Ergates, whose experience must have been great, declares that he never knew but two in- stances in M'hich, in the act of dying, there were manifest indications of the fear of death, and tliose were cases of hemorrhage, in which the depressing effects arising from tlie gradual loss of blood seemed to intlueuce the minds of the sufferers. "Seneca might have chosen," adds Ergates, " an easier deaih than that from opening his arteries." Death from mere old age is compared to falling' asleep, never to awaken ag'ain in this world; and hence the transition is easy to a lucid consideration of the phenomena of sleep, " nature's soft nurse," so necessary to our ex- istence. Death or madness must be the result of a long-continued absence of this great re- storer ; so felt and said, in his last illness, the noble poet who had done so much for fame at so early a period of his life, and whose untimely death too truly verified one part of his asser- tion.* Ergates mentions the case of a gentle- * l.^oKjLti'6 Life of Lord Lyruu. 42 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. man who, from intense anxiety, passed six entire days without sleep. At the end of tliis time he became alfeeted with illusions of such a nature that it was necessary to place him in confinement. After some time he recovered perfectly. He had never shown any sif^ns of mental derangement before, nor had any one of his family, and he has never been similarly affected since. Those who have been subjected to cruel tortures have declared that the most intolerable was the deprivation of sleep ; and as this was one of the modes of treating the un- liappy old women who fell into the hands of the witch-finders, it may account for some of their illusions, and the crazy confessions that they made. The siclc-nurse has frequently re- course to stimulants, which indeed remove for a time tlie uneasiness and languor occasioned by the want of sleep. But the temyjorary re- lief is dearly purchased, and those who have recourse to alcohol on such occasions, should know that it does not create nervous power, but only enables the recipients to use up that which is left, leaving them in more need of rest than ever, when the stimulus has ceased to act. There are not wanting those who look upon Dream-land as sacred ground ; and we could say much upon the warnings which such be- lievers recount in proof of their faith. But though every dream that " comes true " is caiefuUy recorded, the failures are not so faitlifuUy registered. We are too apt to keep a list of the prizes in the dream-lottery, and to forget the' blanks. But whether dreams de- scend from Jove, and are prophetic, or tlie mere va2,-aries of the uncontrolled imagination, the rapidity of the incidents which arise, and the multitude of scenes in the visionary drama which appear to pass in a given time, cannot be denied. They " come like shadows— so de- part." An anecdote, related of himself, by the PSTCHOLOGICAL I>;QUI11IES. 43 late Lord Holland, is alluded to. He declared that, on one occasion, being much fatigued, he fell asleep while a friend was reading aloud, and had a dream, the particulars of which would have occupied him a quarter of an hour or longer to express in writing. Yet, when he awoke, he found that he remembered the be- ginning of one sentence, while he actually heard the latter part of the sentence immedi- ately following it, so that he could have slept only for a few seconds. This reminds one of ISIohammed, who, on his return fj'om a journey through space with the angel Gabriel, found the water still running from the pitcher which he had overset with his foot as he was setting out. That memory is a principal sour'ce whence the incidents of dreams are drawn there can be no doubt. The older we grow, the more we live, in our dreams, with departed spirits. As we advance in life, time, too, passes more rap- idly. Poor, dear, Theodore Hook, in his last years, would sadly say, when Spring returned, "Here are the leaves again!" The effect of external agencies and internal bodily affections on our dreams is generally admitted ; but we agree with Ergates, when he doubts Lord Brougham's axiom that we never dream except while in a state of transition from being asleep to being awake. We cannot, however, concur with Crites, when he doubts whether Coleridge composed " Kubla Klan " in his sleep. No per- son could appear to be more certain of anything than was the poet that such was the case, and we are of those who deeply regret the interruption that disturbed his remembrance, ami deprived us of the rest of that most melodious verse. The fifth dialogue treats in a masterly man- ner of the mental faculties of animals, and of the relation of those faculties to the structure of the brain. In this inquiry the cerebral or- gans connected with the animal appetites and 44 PSYCHOLOGICAL INQUIRIES. instincts are passed in review. Ttie importance of tlie posterior iobes of the cerebrum, wliich are almost peculiar to tlie liuman race, cannot be doubted. "Ttie only other animals in which they exi-t are those of the tribe of monkeys, and in them they are of a much smaller size than they are in man. The absence of the posterior lobes in- cludes the absence of what seems to be a spe- cial organ situated in the lower part of the posterior elongation of the lateral ventricle, known by anaiomists under the name of the hipjjocampus minor. The corjnis callositm is the name given to a broad, thick band of ner- vous fibres which unites the cerebral hem- ispheres, as if for the purpose chiefly of bringing them into harmonious action with each other. In the kangaroo, which I have already mentioned as having a very low degree of intelligence, the corinis callosum is altogether wanting. This fact in itself might lead us to conjecture that some important office is allot- ted to it ; and the opinion is confirmed by ob- servations made on the human subject. Cases are on record in which this organ was wanting, either wholly or in part. In none of them could it be said that the intellectual faculties were altogether deficient. J ut in all of them there was an incapability of learning, producing an apparent dulness of the intellect, so that the individuals were unfit for all but the most simple duties of life." * You may make almost anythincr of a man with a well-developed brain ; not so with a monkey, elephant, dog, or seal ; though you may do a good deal with them. In the brutes there is a certain limit beyond which you can- not go. * See Mr. Paget's and Mr. Henry's observations in the " Medicj-Gliirurgical Trausaccious," vols. xxix. and xi^i. PSYCIIOLOGrCAL INQUIRIES. 45 The intelligeuce and instinct of insects is ad- mirably illustrated ; for example : "Their habit (Ergates is speaking of bees) — is to build their honey-comb from above down- wards, attaching it to the upper part of the hive. On one occasion, when a large portion of the honey-comb had been broken off, they pursued another course. The fragrment had somehow become fixed in the middle of the hive, and the bees immediately began to erect a new structure of comb on the floor, so placed as to form a pillar supporting the fragment, and preventing its further descent. They then filled up the space above, joining the comb which had become detached to that from which it had been separated, and they concluded their labors by removing the newly-constructed comb below ; thus proving that they had in- tended it to answer a merely temporary pur- pose." No human architect could have proceeded more rationally. The sixth and last dialogue, which deals with the science of human nature, crowns the inter- esting series ; and in it the pretensions of Phrenology, with its theories of proud rats who live in hay-lofts, humble rats who live in gut- ters and sewers, the thirty-three faculties, and all the rest of it, come under searching descrip- tion. When phrenologists refer the mere ani- mal propensities in man chiefly to the posterior lobes, they forget that they are absolutely want- ing in quadrupeds. Again, the brain of birds is essentially diiferent in structure not only from the brain of man, but from that of all other mammalia. It has no convolutions, and can present no phrenological organs, as they are termed, corresponding to those which are said to exist in the human brain. Yet few an- imals are more pugnacious than a fighting cock, or more destructive than an eagle ; and 46 psrcnoLOGiCAL inquiries. all will allow that no creatures are more attaclied to their homes and young than birds, to say nothing of their musical and imitative powers. Though a large development of the cerebral organs in man will generally be found to be ac- companied, by large powers of mind, the size of the head is a very unsafe criterion. The powerful and energetic Daniel Webster had ap- parently brains enough to fill two hats. The mighty Newton's head seems, from the memo- randa lefc to us, to have been beloAv the average size ; and Byron's head was small. The expe- rience of Ergates, that some very stupid per- sons, within his own knowledge, have had very large heads, corresponds with our own. But space forbids our further pursuit of this most interesting topic. We must brealc off, and leave the consideration of what may be the capabilities of the mental principle, independ- ently of organization, or how much belongs to the one and liow much to tlie other, confessing witli Ergates, that in this, as in other matters belonging to this order of inquiries, our actual knowledge goes a very little way : " ' We see these things through a glass dark- ly,' and must be content humbly to acknowl- edge that the greater part is not only beyond the limits of our observation, but probably be- yond those of our comprehension." We trust however, that the gifted author will coutiuae the "Psychological Inquiries;" and, in that hope, close this most instructive and amusing book. He must be very accom- plished and very good who does not rise from the perusal of it a wiser and a better man. PSYCHOLOGIC AnRJCTIOK. The word Psychol 02:7 is derived from the Greek if^vxn, signifying the soul, spirit, or mind, in its widest sense ; and embraces under it the brandies of Rhetoric ; Logic; Phrenics, or Mental Philosophy ; Ethics, or Moral Philoso- phy ; and Education. It comprehends, there- fore, that important study inculcated by Thale?,the ancient sage of Miletus ; knoiu thy- self, (Tvcodi (jEavTov) • inscribed on the temple of Apollo, at Delphi. It stops not, however, at the boundaries of ancient or classic wisdom ; but soaring at once to the source of all intel- lectual truth, the book of Divine Revelation, it there derives sublimer views of the nature and destiny of man, and may be considered as introductory to all the divisions of human knowledge ; since the mind is the agent which embraces and pursues them all. Thus, Psy- chology is the immediate basis of the studies of Law, Government, and Religion; Among the many historical personages who understood, in a measure, the principles of Psy- chology, and were in the full tide of successful l^ractice, we will commence with the ancient Astrologers, Priests, Soothsayers, Magicians, &c. By adverting to the history of the primi- tive ages of the world, we find many of these men were possessors and practitioners- of Psy- chology ; and they often, as it was thought, per- formed remarkable cures of diseases, l;hrough Charms, Incantations, Magic, &c., as well as by Herbs and Roots. History hands us down 47 48 PSYCHOLOGIC ATTRACTION. these most remarkable records, that Acribides, an Astro]o<2;er, who lived ia Damascus, pre- dicted, by his art, the overflow of the Euphra- tes ten successive times, and the destruction of Tripoli by fire — that Castimeuo Talliasi, a Priest of Rome, by distilling an ethereal vapor from the spleen of the Bison, mixed with the ex- pressed juice of the Manioc, or Cassava Root, and then sprinkled on the paralyzed, the deaf, palsied, and sick, he cured. His reputation and influence spread with such rapidity, that crowds arrived from all parts of the world to witness and be benefited. He vcas ultimately destroyed, while sleeping-, by auassassin pour- ing molten lead in his ear. It'%as supposed his death was instigated by the Church, who feared his influence over the people. Again, Jacobi Mans, another Priest, was poisoned by Catherine de ]\ledicis, for inventing -a subtile Ether, which he gave to one of th6 ladies of the Queen's Court, which animated those who partook of its odors, and rendered their fea- tures beauteous. In consequence of Mans re- fusing to give Her Majesty the secret of its raao-ical mixtures, there is no doubt he. was secretly poisoned by her einissaries. Of the Soothsayt-rs very little is known, except that they existed and were believed in from the very earliest history of the world; and those who read the Book of Daniel will find sufficient to convince them. Thousands, and tens of thous- ands, of individuals of the present day, haye received and believed in the truths of the Gyp- sies, or Wandering Tribes, who have no fixed habitation, but roam from one end of the world to the other. At a later period we find, as science progressed, the Magicians, who com- bined in themselves all the knowledge of their predecessors, with that of the later magic. Wc find Sylvestus apparently as yountr at four hun- dred years, as a man at twenty-five ; and Zol- PSYCnOLOGIC ATTRACTION. 49 lick, when chased by King Torlobosk, who ordered him to be destroyed, appearins; in three cities in Asia in one day, namely, Mecca, in Arabia, Irlvutsk, in Siberia, and Lassa, in Thibet. Ralsquel was destroyed in England, for making gold ; Lemanuel, in Sweden, for possessing the King's nephew with a spirit ; and later on, Frankenstein, in Germany, who made a man that was so monstrous, that he nltimately destroyed him. It is now over half a century since the city of Paris was thrown into the wildest state of excitement by the astounding effects produced by a person who called himself Mesmer. Whether this was a real or assumed name is quite a matter of indifference ; suffice it to say, that he was the first to establish that doctrine known as iVlesraerism, and which, at the pres- ent day, is familiar to us as Animal Magnetisai, Electro-Biology, &c. It appears, from what we are able to gather, that upon tlie first arri- val in Paris of Mesmer, he occupied obscure lodgings outside the Barrier, or beyond the limits of the city. Here he first began a prac- tice for the cure of some diseases, particularly those of a meutal and nervous nature, which will hand down his name for aires hence. Having performed a series of cures without any internal medicament, many of the people began to invest him with celestial jDowers, whilt the greater number credited him with being in league with a nameless individual, whose sala- manderic propensities towards fire and sulphur are well understood. Men of learning and hiuii pretension listened with incredulity, and oth- ers did not hesitate in scouting these popular rumors, and crying charlatan. All this time the rooms of Mesmer were crowded by visitors clamorous to be restored to health, or to witness the proceedings and manipulations of the man ; in fact, so great Iiecame the mob that officers 50 PSTCHOLOGIC ATTRACTION. •were stationed at convenient points in the neighborliood, to i-estrain the people's impetu- osity. Mesmer not only cured many diseases, but spoke truly of circumstances that were occurring to persons in parts far remote. This only added to the excitement, and his name and acts became the sole topic of conversation, not only in the cafe and lodging of the artisan, but in the saloons of nobility, and even in the Tuilleries of the King. Many of the aristoc- racy were anxious to secure ttie services of tliis man, but a sense of ridicule, or fear of being imposed upon, and consequently becoming the butt of the Avhole Court, restrained them ; and none cared to take the initiatory step until the the old Viscountess of Gouchelain, -who had been suffering for many years from a partial paralysis, concluded to see this ninth wonder, Mesmer. She called upon him, and by the exercise of his art, and a rude voltaic pile, in six weeks Madame not only entirely recovered from the disease under which she labored, but seemed to have acquired a new lease of her life. Mesmer having now firmly obtained a warrant for the recognition of the nobility, was waited upon by a deputation of high oflicials, and in- vited to take up his residence in a magnificent building, the property of the government, lo- cated in the Place la Concord. Here he took pupils and instructed them in his theory, as the number that daily visited him was so great that it was impossible for him to more than superintend them. The carriages of princen, dukes, prelates, generals and ministers might be daily seen before his door, who waited for hours to obtain an interview, which frequently on that day only resulted in failure. The means employed by Mesmer in bringing about these remarkable results, was, according to his own statements, which are considered satlyfac- tory, that he only exercised within himself a PSYCHOLOGIC ATTRACTION. 51 deterniined will upon another incliviclimal, male or female, which threw them into a state of physical incapacity, leaving- the mentality free scope ; that is to say, to chain the body and let the mind remain free. Whenever he strongly exercised this will or determination, he gener- ally succeeded in producing this result, and then, by guiding the thoughts of the individual in whatever direction he thought proper, by his own determined mental ^vlU—he would ask them verbally what questions he desired ; and if he received from those who were in a state of coma, unsatisfactory replies, he would carry their mind in an opposite direction, and through every point of the compass, until they were enabled to discover the person or persons he was desirous of obtaining a knowledge of, or the scenes that were being enacted by indi- viduals or communities in countries far distant. For diseases he merely applied his electrical or galvanic batteries to the patient, and then put- ting them to sleep by first taking the two hands of the patient in his, placing the points of his thumbs opposite to theii's, and look them stead- fastly in the eyes the whole time, determining in his mind, that they shotild become comatose, or sleep, and at the same time mentall}'^ deter- mining that the nervousness, or whatever the disease might be, should be cured ; continuing this vMl during the whole period that he was Avith the patient, both before and after sleeinng. Though, after this latter phenomena took place, he dropped the hand, made j^asses by carrying his hands over the eyebrows, fore- head, and the points of his fingers down the patient's arms. Mesmer frequently remarked, that in chronic diseases, he suffered himself from similar symptoms to which the person had labored under, for severtil days after the patient had recovered. {This^ no doubt, was sympathy.) 53 ' PSYCHOLOGIC ATTRACTION. The practice of Mesmer was not confined to the city of Paris ; he received hundreds of let- ters daily, some enclosing a glove, a necker- chief, a ring, and even a lock of false hair, describing their disease. These he magnetized by his witl and returned to their writers ; and in the majority of cases he cured, or relieved the diseases, particularly those of a neuralgic char- acter. About this time, when Mesmer and Mes- merism was in the zenith of its popularity, its founder was killed by the running away of his horses, and the precipitating of his carriage over an embankment, which crushed him, and he died instantly. Thus, unfortunately, de- stroying a useful, benevolent and good man, who, no doubt, had he lived, would have devel- oped the science of animal magnetism to what it is, at least, at the present day, if not beyond. However, he left many industrious pupils who are now laboring in the same field. The late Cardinal Wiseman, by the power of his will alone, could psychologize a whole congregation at one time, and hold them spell-bound. He made more converts to the Church of Rome, probably, than any other man in England ; and it was all owing to his psychological powers. He was undoubtedly a learned man, but as an orator, was inferior to the most ordinary speakers ; and he attributed his success, in a great measare, to his knowledge of Psychology. ISpencer, the celebrated author of the Princi- ples of Psychology, says it is possible to psy- cholgize a person a thousand miles away ; in fact, distance is not an object. The atmos- phere, he maintains, is a conductor of sound, light, and mental electricity ; hence the mind can, in an instant, revert to scenes, persons, or iplaces thousands of miles away. He mentions an instance, where a person living in Melbourne, Australia, was compelled, as he himself says, to return to England, by the psychological PSYCHOLOGIC ATTRACTION. 53 power of a brother, arrested on a charge of forgery, and whose presence was necessary to acquit his brother. He arrived in En