Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The principles of phrenology / By Sidney Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
![, spiritual, when, in truth, he was turning every day nearer the state of an idiot.* Section I].—The Doctrine of the Temperaments.—Are they a condition of Power ? WHILE size alone can produce what we have attempted to describe under the general term Power, it is said that there exist other conditions in the physical eco- nomy, which modify or determine the action of that power, according to the differ- ent degrees in which they prevail in the individual. These conditions are styled by physiologists, Temperaments, and are, says Mr. Combe, “indicated by -external signs, which are open to observation. “ The first, or Lymphatic, is distinguishable by a round form of body, softness of the muscular system, repletion of the cellular tissue, fair hair, and a pale skin. It is accompanied by languid vital functions, with weakness and slowness in the circula- tion. The brain, as part of the system, is also slow, languid, and feeble in its action; and the mental manifestations are proportionably weak. * We feel convinced, that the rudiments of the science of Phrenology will be defective, until the astonishing facts, recorded in the annals of Animal Magnetism, are more carefully inves- tigated, and reduced to some great common principles. There are phenomena in the science which forms the subject of this work, altogether unaccounted for; and yet the existence of which, until solved, forms a barrier in the way of successful progress. The causes which make light and heat such powerful elements in increasing all our mental susceptibilities, it is evi- dently of vast importance to ascertain. Aboveall, before every other department of the study, we should endeavour to discover the principle by which an effort of the will, an excitement of the feelings, or-a powerful action of the mind, produces either death of the body, or its restoration to long lost health and vivacity. We shall probably be met with the usual answer, ‘* Tt is the influence of the imagination.” But this does, if any thing, increase the difficulty ; because, how the fancy should destroy all structure, or revive and re-erect structure which has been impaired, is a question as remote from solution as any in the whole Tusculum of Psycho- logy. How was it that the Prince of Orange, at the siege of Breda, by a few phials of sham medicine, restored thousands of his army, who had been long lingering under the most acute diseases? How was it that Davy cured a man of palsy of long standing, by simply making him believe in the salutiferous effects of a thermometer? How is it that hundreds of real cures have been effected at the tombs of saints, and that the sacred wells of Ireland are every year the witnesses of the entire restoration of pilgrims to health, from the most obstinate and en- during maladies? If the cuckoo note, ‘‘ Imagination,”’ be still sounded, our answer is, that fancy is the ablest physician of the faculty. The disease real, the cure real, and the doctor credulity. Wonder has’its seat in a cerebral organ; this organ communicates a healing action to the rest of the system, and the malady is obliterated. Thus the action of faith, in a mental organ of the brain, actually alters, by renovation, the corporeal structure. Again, the confidence of the physician gives confidence to the patient; and the doctrine of Burton, Hyperius, and Comineus, ‘‘that no physicians can hope for success, unless with a true faith they call upon God, and teach their patients to do the like,” is perfectly good even in a physi- cal sense; for faith, by both doctor and patient, in the efficacy of the means of cure, through the blessing of God, is nearly an essential of success—by its powerful effect on the imagina- tion—a faculty that has often made men and women.take fever from the mere fear that they would take it; and has as frequently protected them, by their own sense of security against its contagion. The brave resolves of one man, inspire dauntless resolution in another; fear is epidemical; suicide and hysteria become contagious; religious enthusiasm prevails for a time in an entire nation; the thirst of blood seemed to animate the whole of France; and every man in England suddenly became a hero. Why, and how was this? We shall be fa- voured with the usual reply, ‘‘ Sympathy.” How can there be a mental contagion, and a sen- timental plague, sweeping over an entire country? How is it, that if an assembly consist of a dozen persons, each feels languid, and without interest, but that if the place be filled, the mutual energy and animation is increased a thousand-fold? How is it, that a man, to excite rage, or fear, or pity in others, must frown, and tremble, and weep himself—that he may use all the same words and in the same manner, but if he want his enthusiasm, his exertions will be abortive? How is it, that a man of a small brain may say the same thing much better, and with as intense feeling as he can command, than a man with a large brain, and that the former will, in a few sentences, not be attended to; while the latter will rivet every eye and every mind, as was well exemplified at the O’Connell banquet in Edinburgh? We see no such ex- travagant impossibility in the idea that all this action by one mind, and will, and voice, on another—in the same way as palsy is cured by the action of wonder, or some other organ on the nerves of the individual system—is produced by some cerebral emanation, only capable of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33095632_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
