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spective and, in the majority of landscapes, the mere linear perspective cannot be so well or so accurately applied.

The visual parallax also is not sensible when applied to remote objects, though extremely useful when applied to those which are near, on which account the illusions of painting cannot be produced with respect to objects within a certain degree of proximity. Because those illusions depend merely on the linear and aërial perspective, and are corrected by the visual parallax when brought within a certain distance.

The second, therefore, is the most general measure of the true relative magnitude of visible `objects, namely, the proportion between the angular magnitude of an object, and the vividness of the perception of its colour, which is affected by the body of air interposed. That is, we make an allowance for the diminution of the image on the retina, proportioned to the diminution of the intensity of its colour. That this is really the case, is practically proved by the illusive effects of well managed aërial perspective in painting. Hence, also, it happens that we over-estimate the magnitude of bodies seen in a mist, because the regular allowance for the diminution of the image, is, in this case, much too great.

From these considerations it follows, that the power of accurately estimating the size and distance of visible objects, depends chiefly on the

same circumstance with the accurate perception of colour, namely, the fulness of the arch of the eye-brow; but is also affected by the same circumstance which influences the habit of remarking and remembering forms; and is promoted to a great degree, by the general habit of individuality.

V. Is not our estimate of the degree of muscular force required for a particular action, as poising a weight, sustaining momentum, or overcoming resistance, dependent on experience, and the general habit of individuality? And is not the maintenance of equilibrium acquired by long and repeated trials, aided by our perception of distance and relative position? The last circumstance is probably what has led phrenologists to devise what they absurdly term the organ of Weight, and to place it as they have done.

If these queries be answered in the affirmative, (as, I apprehend, there is much probability,) then it follows, that the external indices of the five intellectual powers or habits which they respect, do not arise from any appropriate cerebral functions, such as phrenologists have supposed, but are mere dependencies of the organs of vision. Nor let it be said that the causes which I have suggested are too slight to produce any very perceptible intellectual habits. The continual operation of slight causes may produce a very great effect. The continual falling of a drop of water is known to perforate the hardest rock.

To these queries I add a sixth, which is of a different nature from the preceding, as it supposes a true function of the brain.

VI. Is not the general habit of Imitation dependent on the emotion of sympathy? By sympathy we enter into the feelings and characters of others, and assume their natural expression. A facility in this, together with that acuteness which remarks peculiarities of character, is the basis of mimicry. When the emotion of sympathy is united with strong imagination, we invest even inanimate objects with ideal emotions, and sympathise with them. This is beautifully illustrated by Lord Byron in these inimitable stanzas:

I live not in myself, but I become

Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture: I can see
Nothing to loath in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshy chain,

Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

*

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wide world I live in, is a thing
Which warns me with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

All heaven and earth are still though not in sleep,

But breathless as we grow when feeling most ;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep :--
All heaven and earth are still from the high host
Of stars, to the lulled lake and mountain coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

Excellence in the higher imitative arts is dependent on this quality of sympathy combined with imagination, and the direction which it assumes is regulated by the combination of other emotions. Genius for painting receives its impulse from sympathy united with the emotions arising from the perception of form and colours; music from the emotions connected with the harmony of sounds: for "There is in souls," says the poet, "a sympathy with sounds."

This being the case, there is a connected gradation among the phrenological indices of these mental habits-Ideality, Sympathy (or Imitation), Benevolence. And, instead of having marked lines of boundary, they seem to melt and blend into one another.

OF

CHAPTER X.

AUTOMATIC AND VOLUNTARY

ACTION.THE NATURE OF

INSTINCT, AND THE PROGRESS OF THE MIND IN KNOW

LEDGE AND POWER.

ALL the varieties of motion in animals are produced by muscular contraction; and, according to the kind of motion which each member is destined to perform, the arrangement, figure, and size of the muscles are adapted in a very admirable manner, as well as the shape and construction of the bones and joints, which form the frame-work on which the muscles operate. Every muscle contracts on the application of a certain stimulus and there is observable in them all a tendency to alternate contraction and relaxation, which is, however, in some of them more striking, in others more obscure, but most strongly exemplified in the action of the heart.

This very complex machinery is farther wonderful, from the arrangement and order of contraction of different muscles in complex actions; in which

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