Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 Part 3

JENNY LIND GOLDSCHMIDT, the famous Swedish singer, died at London Nov.

1st at the age of 69. She was born of poor parents and made her first appearance on the stage at nine years of age.

"MRS. RACHEL STILLWAGON, of Flushing, claims to be the oldest woman on Long Island. She has just celebrated her 102d birthday, surrounded by descendants to even the fifth generation. Three-quarters of a century ago the fame of Mrs. Stillwagon's beauty extended as far south as Baltimore."

CHAP. X.--THE LAW OF LOCATION IN ORGANOLOGY.

The primal laws applied to the brain--The four directions--The elements of good and evil--The horizontal line of division--Frontal and occipital organs and vertical dividing line--Preponderance of the front in certain heads--Gall, Spurzheim, and Powell--Contrast of frontal and occipital--Lat.i.tude, longitude, and antagonism--Location of Health and Disease, of Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Acquisitiveness and Baseness, Energy and Relaxation or Indolence, Patience and Irritability--Duality of the brain and its important consequences--Errors of old system--Self-respect and Humility--Modesty and Ostentation--Combativeness and Harmony--Love and Hate--Adhesiveness and Intellect, median and lateral--Religion and Profligacy--Laws of arrangement and Pathognomy--Physiological influences of basilar and coronal regions--Insanity--beneficial influence of coronal region.

To feeble minds, that excel only in memory, an arbitrary statement of facts to be recollected may be satisfactory, but to those who are capable of fully understanding such a science as Anthropology, arbitrary details, void of principle and reason, are repulsive. A chart of the human brain, without explanation of its philosophic basis and relations, embarra.s.ses even the memory, for the memory of a philosophic mind retains principles rather than details.

After many years of experimental investigation, I have long since fully demonstrated that the human const.i.tution is developed in accordance with the universal plan of animal life, and the human brain is organized functionally in accordance with those higher laws of life, which control all the relations of the spiritual and material worlds,--all interaction between mind and matter. These primal laws are easily comprehended, and their application to the brain removes all the perplexing complexity of organology.

Their application to the brain may be stated as follows: The upper legions of the brain, pointing upwards, relate to that which is above,--to the spiritual realm, to love, religion, duty, hope, firmness, and all that lifts us to a higher life. The lower regions point downwards, and expend their energy upon the body, rousing the heart and all the muscles and viscera, developing the excitements, pa.s.sions, and appet.i.tes.

The maximum upward tendency is at the middle of the superior region, and the maximum downward tendency at the middle of the basilar region, while organs half-way between them are neutral between these opposite tendencies. Hence every faculty or impulse has a location in the brain, higher or lower, as it has a more spiritual or material tendency, and as its influence on the character inclines to virtue or vice. The better the faculty, the higher its location,--the more capable of evil results, the lower it is placed. The higher position given to the n.o.bler faculties accords with their right to rule the inferior nature, the predominance of which is evidently abnormal, and the effects of which, in this abnormal predominance, are expressed by terms full of evil, although their functions in due subordination are useful and absolutely necessary.

In applying this principle, we realize that such a faculty as Conscientiousness must be near the very summit, and that propensities to theft and murder must belong to the base. That such propensities exist in many, we know, and it is an absurd optimism which would ignore such facts because they are abnormal. The world is full of human abnormality, because it is not yet above the juvenile age of its growth, which is the age of feebleness and folly, disease and crime.

The imperfect organism of childhood is incapable of resisting either temptation or disease. The twenty-five millions destroyed by the black death, in the fourteenth century, and the countless millions destroyed by war in all centuries, including the present, show how little we have advanced beyond the spirit of savage life. The ferocity of nations is as much the product of their cerebral organization, as the ferocity of the tiger, and springs from the same region of the brain,--lying on the ridge of the temporal bone,--a region that delights in fierce destruction, and is large in all the carnivora. It would be contrary to the spirit of science to ignore the fact that man has an element of ferocity similar to that of the tiger, because in the fully developed man that fierce element is overruled by the higher powers and confined to the destruction of that which does not suffer.

The unwillingness to recognize anything evil comes not from the spirit of science, but from the _a priori_ a.s.sumptions of sentimental theology, which presumes that it thoroughly comprehends the Deity (who is beyond all human comprehension), and, out of its imaginative ignorance, fabricates _a priori_ philosophies and doctrines that everything in man is good, or that everything in man is evil.

Anthropology has not thus been evolved from _a priori_ speculation, but presents its systematic doctrines as generalizations of the facts and experiments which have been carefully acquired and studied through the last half-century. The facts and experiments are too numerous to be recorded and published now, and had no channel for publication when they occurred.

Everything in the lower half of the brain has a tendency to evil, in proportion to its over-ruling power, and everything in the upper half operates in proportion to its elevation with that controlling influence against evil, which uplifts him toward angelic or divine superiority.

The brain may be divided by a horizontal line from the center of the forehead into its coronal and basilar halves, and by a vertical line from the cavity of the ear, into its frontal and occipital halves.

The vertical line separates the more pa.s.sive and the more active faculties. The posterior half of the brain is the source of the backward forces by which the body is advanced, as the anterior half is the source of the forward movements by which our progress is checked.

The posterior half would make blind, unceasing, irrepressible action--the anterior half would produce a state of relaxed and feeble tranquillity and sensibility--the condition of a helpless victim. The concurrence of the two is indispensable to human life, and the necessity of their more or less symmetrical balance is so great that nature balances the head upon the condyles of the occipital bone, at the summit of the neck, which are so located as to correspond very nearly with the opening of the ear.

The contour of the head is very nearly that of a semicircle, with its center an inch or more above the cavity of the ear. Thus wisely has nature arranged in well-balanced individuals the symmetrical proportion between the active and pa.s.sive elements of life. In the head of the writer there is a preponderance of the pa.s.sive over the active elements, which gives him the attraction to a studious, rather than active or ambitious life.[1] In nations or races of ambitious character, the head is long, or _Dolico-cephalic_, and the occipital measurement is larger than the frontal, but in those of peaceful, unambitious character, like the ancient Peruvian and the Choctaws of the United States, the occipital measurement is less than the frontal.

[1] The head of Dr. Gall shows the same frontal preponderance, which led him to the pursuits of intellect instead of ambition, but also shows an immense force of character derived from its extreme breadth and basilar depth. The head of Spurzheim, whose skull I have often examined, shows even a greater preponderance of the front, and a predominance of the coronal over the basilar region, producing his marked amiability, with sufficient basilar breadth to give him physical force.

Each had a large brain. In Dr. Wm. Byrd Powell, who had a long head, and who was a man of restless ambition and fiery energy, the occipital predominated over the frontal development decidedly, producing, although the frontal development was not large, much activity and force, or brilliancy of mind, but not the calm temperament most favorable to philosophy. His opinions were more bold and striking than accurate. Dr. P. made a valuable collection of crania, and was almost the only American scientist who gave much attention to the _cultivation_ of phrenology.

From these remarks the reader will understand that force belongs to the occiput and gentleness to the front. The occipital region is a.s.sociated with the spinal column and the limbs, in which regions the vital forces reside. Hence the occipital action of the brain generates vital force and diffuses it in the body, while the frontal region, in its aggregate tendency, expends the vital force--the greatest tendency to expenditure being in the most extreme frontal region. Both the front lobe and the anterior extremity of the middle lobe tend to the expenditure of vital force and destruction of health, and it is absolutely necessary to life that the action of the front lobe should be suspended one-third of our time by sleep, without which it would exhaust vitality.

We shall therefore find that organs are located farther backward in proportion to the energy and impelling power of the faculty, and farther forward in proportion to their delicacy and intellectuality--the extreme front being the region of maximum intelligence.

With these two rules, giving the lat.i.tude by the ethical quality and the longitude by the active energy, I have been accustomed to require my pupils to determine the location of the various elements of human nature, bearing in mind that organs of a.n.a.logous functions are located near together, and organs of opposite or antagonistic functions occupy opposite locations in the brain; and thus in proportion as one is above the horizontal line the other is below it, and in proportion as one is forward the other is backward,--in proportion as one is interior or near the median line, the other is exterior or toward the lateral surface.

With this introductory explanation, I begin by asking, Where should we locate the faculty which has the maximum degree of healthy influence, and is therefore called Health? They will readily decide that it belongs to the posterior half of the head, but not the most posterior, as it is not of restless or impulsive character. Then as to its lat.i.tude they readily decide that it must be considerably above the middle zone and in the upper posterior region where, after comparing locations, they generally agree that its position corresponds to the spot marked by the letters He.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We then inquire where the faculties should be located which give us the least capacity to resist disease, the least buoyant health, and the greatest liability to succ.u.mb to injuries. This being opposite to the last faculty must be located diametrically opposite, in a position anterior and inferior, which would bring it to the anterior end of the middle lobe. As this organ gives so great a sensitive liability to disease, it is not improper to call it the organ of Disease, if we recollect that that is its abnormal action, as murder is the abnormal action of Destructiveness. Its normal action gives a very acute interior sensibility by means of which we understand our physical condition and are warned of every departure from health.

The pupils generally locate this organ very nearly as is shown by the letters Di.

We have now gained an additional rule for guiding the location, viz., that in proportion as a faculty is of healthy tendency it is located nearer to Health, and in proportion as it is of morbid tendency it must be located nearer to Disease.

Let us now take two such faculties as Benevolence or good will and Integrity or Conscientiousness. They will readily decide that Benevolence must be in the superior anterior region, as it is a virtue of the weak or yielding cla.s.s, and that Conscientiousness, which makes us just and honest, must be among the highest organs, much farther back than Benevolence but not so far back as Health. There is no difficulty in agreeing upon the locations, shown by the letters Be.

and Con.

If now we seek for the opposite faculties, which lead to selfish and dishonorable action, the antagonist of Benevolence will be unanimously located below and behind the centre, where it is represented by the letters Ac., as Avarice or Acquisitiveness is the leading manifestation of the selfish faculty.

As the faculty of Conscientiousness gives us the control of our impulses and selfish or sensual inclinations to qualify for the performance of duty, its antagonist gives the vigor to the sensual, violent and selfish pa.s.sions, and prompts to the utter disregard of duty. The one being vertically above the centre of the brain, the other must be vertically below it; one being on the upper the other must be on the basilar surface. This brings it below the margin of the middle lobe, which is above the cavity of the ear. Hence through the cavity of the ear we reach underneath the basis of the middle lobe, where it rests on the petrous ridge of the temporal bone, and the external marking would correspond to the cavity of the ear or meatus auditorius. For this organ and faculty, the name which would express its unrestrained action is Baseness, as it would lead to the commission of many crimes and the violation of all honesty and justice. For its moderate and restrained activity, the term Selfishness would be sufficient as it induces us to heed our selfish appet.i.tes, interests, and pa.s.sions, in opposition to the voice of duty. Its more normal activity is to invigorate our animal life generally and prevent us from going too far in the line of duty, patience, forbearance and benevolence. Let it be marked Ba. Its position will be recognized on the vertical line between the frontal and occipital, as it is not an element of energy and success, nor of debility, but simply an element of debasing animalism, which is not dest.i.tute of force.

There are in the human const.i.tution the opposite elements of untiring energy or industry, and of indolent relaxation. To the former we must give an exalted position, as it is the sustaining power of all the virtues; and it must evidently be farther back than conscientiousness as it is of a more vigorous character. It is favorable to health and therefore near that organ, and being free from selfishness it is not far behind Conscientiousness. The letters En. show its location.

Energy being thus behind Conscientiousness, its antagonist Relaxation, the source of indolence, must be anterior to Baseness, where we locate the letters Re.

The opposite elements of Serenity or Patience, and Irritability are easily located; the former is obviously ent.i.tled to a high position.

From its quiet nature it cannot be a.s.signed to the occiput, and from its steady, unyielding and supporting strength, it cannot be a.s.signed to the frontal region. It must, therefore, be in the middle superior region, where the letters Pa. locate it. Irritability must be on the median line of the basilar range (and antagonizes Patience on the middle line above), but not as low as Baseness, for one may be honorable though irritable and high-tempered, but such temper is not compatible with very strict conscientiousness.

In locating organs we are to remember that the brain is not a single but a double apparatus--a right and a left brain, each complete in all the organs; consequently, we are in this instance locating our organs in the left hemisphere alone, in which the median line where it meets the other hemisphere is on its right side, and the exterior surface is on its left. An organ located at the median line, or inner surface, as Patience, must have its antagonist at the external or lateral surface, as Irritability.

The right hemisphere has the organs of the left side along the median line, and the organs of its right side on the exterior surface. The left hemisphere has the reverse arrangement. Consequently, the right side of each hemisphere and the left side of the other are identical in function. How then does the right side of one compare with the right side of the other, and the left side with the left? Dr. Gall and his followers have overlooked these questions, and fallen into very great errors in consequence. Gall, for this reason, was mistaken in the natural language of the organs, as will be hereafter shown, having spoken of it as if we had a single brain, and also mistaken in many of the organs concerning which a knowledge of the relations of the two hemispheres to each other would have corrected the errors. There is a striking a.n.a.logy, or coincidence of function between the two right sides and between the two left sides never suspected prior to my investigations and experiments.

Let us next look for the sentiment of Pride, or Self-respect, which has been called Self-esteem. It is a sentiment of conscious ability.

Its character is dignity, rather than selfishness. We readily perceive that it must be in the upper region, but considerably behind the vertical line, where we place the letters S.R.

The question may now arise whether it should be nearer to the right or the left side of the hemisphere, its inner or outer surface. The law governing this matter is that organs of external manifestation are at the median line, but those of more interior and spiritual character are generally at the lateral or exterior surface. Self-respect, or Pride, is an organ of strong exterior manifestation, and is, therefore, at the median line between the hemispheres. Its antagonist must, therefore, be sought at the external or lateral surface, as far below the horizontal division, as Self-respect is above it, and as far forward as Self-respect is backward. Hence we find Humility where the letters Hu. are located.

The idea of a specific antagonist to Self-esteem was never entertained in the phrenological school, but it is obviously indispensable, for Humility, which gives an humble or servile character, and disqualifies for any high position, is as positive an element as the opposite, and is very common in the dependent and humble cla.s.ses of society. This organ diminishes our psychic energy in proportion to its distance in front of the ear and qualifies for submission instead of command.

If we look for the seat of Modesty, we should look in front of the ear, but not so far forward as for Intellect. We would look near the horizontal line, not to the upper surface, and would see the propriety of locating it in the temples at the letters Mo. For its antagonism in Ostentation we should look to the occiput. That species of modesty which produces a bashful and yielding character will be found just below the horizontal line, while that form of modest sentiment which produces the highest refinement rises into connection with love at the upper surface. The organ thus runs obliquely upward, corresponding to the position of the convolutions. The antagonist, Ostentation, extends above and below the letters Ost. on the occiput.

If we seek the organs that impel to contention and combat, we would naturally look to the lower posterior region, but not the lowest. We find Combativeness behind the ear, marked Com. Its antagonist, which shuns strife and seeks harmony, must evidently be in the superior anterior region, and near the intellectual organs which it resembles in function by facilitating a mutual understanding, and giving a spirit of concession. The location is marked Har. for Harmony. It embraces a group of organs of harmonious tendency, such as Friendship, Politeness, Imitation, Humor, Pliability and Admiration, as the Combative group is hostile, stubborn, morose and censorious.

For the sentiment of Love we look to the upper surface of the brain as the seat of the n.o.bler sentiments. Being a stronger sentiment than Harmony, it should be located farther back where we place the letters Love. Its antagonism must be on the basilar surface, and a little behind the vertical line, as Love is before it. This antagonistic faculty would domineer and crush. Its extremest action would result in Hatred. Its location is marked by the letters Ha. and Do.

Upon the principles already stated, the intellect occupies the extreme front of the brain--the anterior surface of the front lobe. Its general character will be represented by its middle--the region of Consciousness and of Memory (Memory). The faculties that relate to physical objects, the intellect common to animals, would necessarily occupy the lower stratum along the brow (Perception), while the higher species of intellect would occupy a higher position at the summit of the forehead. Sagacity, Reason, and other similar forms of intellect, marked Understanding, are above--physical conceptions below--Memory, which retains both, lying between them.

The perceptive power, with the widest exterior range, is at the median line, where we find clairvoyance; and the interior meditative power, such as Invention, Composition, Calculation, and Planning, belongs to the lateral or exterior surface of the forehead, according to the principles just stated. Adhesiveness (Adh.) is the centre of the antagonism to the intellect.

Religion, which relates to the infinite exterior, to the universe and its loftiest power, must evidently be upon the median line and in the higher portion of the brain, farther back than Benevolence, as it is a stronger sentiment, but not so far back as Patience and Firmness.

Its antagonism must be at the lower external surface, behind Irritability, (as Religion is before Patience,) but before Acquisitiveness. The tendency of such a faculty must be toward a lawless defiance of everything sacred, a pa.s.sionate, impulsive self-will and selfishness, resulting in lawless profligacy. Profligacy would, therefore, be the name for its predominance (Pr.), while executive independence and energy for selfish purposes would be its more normal manifestation.

Thus we might go over the entire brain, showing that all the locations of functions which have been learned from comparison of crania with character, and which have been absolutely demonstrated by experiments upon intelligent persons, are arranged in accordance with general laws which are easily understood. The perfection of divine wisdom is made fully apparent when we see the vast complexity of the psychic phenomena of man.

"A MIGHTY MAZE BUT NOT WITHOUT A PLAN,"

subjected to laws of arrangement and harmony that make it so clearly intelligible. Far more do we realize this when we master the science of PATHOGNOMY, and discover that all the attributes or faculties of the human soul, and all its complex relations with the body, are demonstrably subject to mathematical laws.