ice *" Iceland, in the words of Malte-Brun, "is, strictly speaking, nothing but a chain of immense rocks, the summit of which is "covered with snow ;" a country where," within the space of one century, the inhabitants reckon forty-three bad seasons, among which there were fourteen years of famine:" yet they sound its praises in terms absolutely ridiculous, and are so much attached to it as to be miserable everywhere else +. In like manner, as Dr Robertson informs us, the inhabitants of Labrador, "with that idea of their own superiority which consoles the rudest and most wretched of nations, assume the name of keralit, or men ‡." Nor have the Caribbees a less ample endowment of self-complacency: “We alone are a nation," they say proverbially; "the rest of mankind are made to serve us §." The Chipewyans of North America, as Captain Franklin relates ||, "assume to themselves the comprehensive title of The People,' whilst they designate all other nations by the name of the particular country." ""Tis true," says Crantz, "the Greenlanders live a poor toilsome life in our eye; but they are cheerful under it, and they have all that nature requires in the little they possess. Therefore they think they have no cause to envy but to pity us, because we have multiplied our wants so exceedingly, that we cannot subsist with their little and homely stores. And again : They have a good share of what we may call rustic or peasant's pride, set themselves far above Europeans, or Kablunæt, as they call them, and make a mock of them among themselves **." Captain Cook tells us in the Narrative of his First Voyage, that the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego are "the most destitute and forlorn, as well as the most stupid, of all human beings; the outcasts of nature, who spend their lives in wandering about the dreary wastes where two of our people perished with cold in the midst of summer; with no dwelling but a wretched hovel of sticks and grass, which would admit not only the wind, but the snow and rain; almost naked; and destitute of every convenience that is furnished by the rudest art, having no implement even to dress their food: yet they were content. They seemed to have no wish for any thing more than they possessed, nor did any thing that we offered them appear accept 66 *Ross's Voyage, pp. 123, 134. This reminds us of a notion of the New Zealanders, that "their country comprises all the habitable globe, and that the men who come to it in ships live always upon the waters."-See Lib. of Ent. Knowledge, vol. entitled The New Zealanders. + Malte-Brun's Universal Geography, vol. v. pp. 100, 103. Robertson's Hist. of America, b. iv.—“ The people on the north shore of Hudson's Strait also style themselves "mankind.” Lyon's Brief Narrative, p. 40. § Humboldt's Personal Narrative, vi. 29. || Journey from the shores of Hudson's Bay to the mouth of Coppermine River, p. 159. History of Greenland, i. 184. ** Ib. p. 134. able but beads, as an ornamental superfluity of life. What bodily pain they might suffer from the severities of their winter we could not know; but it is certain that they suffered nothing from the want of the innumerable articles which we consider, not as the luxuries and conveniences only, but the necessaries of life. As their desires are few, they probably enjoy them all; and how much they may be gainers by an exemption from the care, labour, and solicitude which arise from a perpetual and unsuccessful effort to gratify that infinite variety of desires which the refinements of artificial life have produced among us, it is not very easy to determine; possibly this may counterbalance all the real disadvantages of their situation in comparison with ours, and make the scales by which good and evil are distributed to man, hang even between us *." The high estimate which savages form of their own importance, is undoubtedly to be ascribed to the activity of SelfEsteem, a faculty which, when "powerful, and ill-regulated,” -as it generally is among uneducated and ignorant individuals, -"fills the mind with unbounded sentiments of self-excellence, without reference to merit +." The absence of that extent of misery which civilized nations are apt to look for in circumstances so wretched as those above described, may, we think, be accounted for, by attending to the constitutional qualities which savages seem to possess. We have already seen that the Esquimaux are distinguished not only by moderate organs of the intellectual faculties and Ideality, but also by a lymphatic temperament, indicative of little activity of the nervous system, including the brain; and it is highly probable that the same constitution will be found to prevail among such tribes as the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego and New Holland. Now, as desire is the effect of, and in proportion to, the activity of the faculties, these savages, possessing feeble and sluggish intellectual powers and Ideality, have few or no desires thence originating; their moral and intellectual faculties are, as it were, half asleep; their sensations are blunt; and they suffer little uneasiness from exposure to influences which, in the case of men with active nervous systems, would be productive of acute suffering. As their means of gratifying desires are scanty, so those desires are few. "Happiness," in the words of Spurzheim, "depends on the gratifica tion of active faculties, and unhappiness on their non-satisfaction." "He who has many faculties active which he can sa*Hawkesworth's Collection of Voyages, ii. 174.-The concluding reflections were probably added by Dr Hawkesworth, who prepared the papers of Captain Cook for publication. tisfy, is more happy than he who has no desire whatever; it is, however, better to be without desire than to possess very active faculties, with no means of ministering to their cravings The happiness of savages seems to consist more in the absence of disagreeable sensations, than in the experience of a variety of pleasurable emotions. Nearly the whole of their enjoyments have reference to their animal nature alone; their minds have no longing after unattainable felicity; and when the few desires which they possess are satisfied, they experience perfect contentment. Civilized man has many desires, to the cravings of which he frequently cannot administer; and, in consequence, he suffers misery. If he could satisfy them all, he would have a greater amount of happiness than the savage at the limit of his felicity; for enjoyment is great in proportion to the number of satisfied desires. We have frequently expressed a conviction that the misery which at present scourges civilized nations is in a great measure the result of ignorance and folly; and that, by attending to the conditions prescribed by the Creator for the attainment of happiness, the amount of human suffering may be incredibly diminished. By the extension of knowledge, men will be enabled to regulate their desires to a much greater extent than is now practicable, and at the same time to provide more complete gratification to such desires as they possess. We shall return to the Esquimaux in next Number. ARTICLE II. ON MORBID MANIFESTATIONS OF THE ORGAN OF LANGUAGE, AS CONNECTED WITH INSANITY. By Mr W. A. F. BROWNE. (Continued from p. 260.) WE now approach a new class of facts, depending upon similar causes, though presenting different phenomena. There is at present in the hospital at La Salpetrière a woman of a swarthy complexion, with dark hair and eyes. Her expression is wild, agitated, and anxious, but not malignant. Her age is about thirty years, a considerable number of which have been spent in her present melancholy prison-house. Her air, countenance, and moral deportment, bespeak a high degree of excitement of Cautiousness, Secretiveness, and the lower propensities; yet, either from the still unimpaired action of a large Benevolence, or from its predominating through diseased influence in the general confusion of her mind, that feeling of repulsion is not experienced which such a combination is so apt to produce in the spectator. Whenever she encounters the physi Philosophical Principles of Phrenology, pp. 177-8. cian, or other of the attendants, or when her anger is provoked or the jarring chord of her mind touched, she bursts forth into an address, which is sometimes an appeal to the humanity and sympathy of her hearers, but more generally an abusive or ironical declamation against the tyranny, cruelty, and injustice to which she is exposed. The quality, however, which chiefly deserves attention in this maniacal oratory, is the frightful and almost incredible rapidity and vehemence with which it is uttered. Our term volubility is insufficient to convey a just conception of the impetuosity with which the words, distinctly enunciated and perfectly significant, rush forth. They appear to outstrip the swiftness of thought itself. Another character, which, if clearly established, is still more calculated to excite astonishment and claim philosophical examination, is-that, when they once flow in a particular direction, or, to write more correctly, in accordance with a specific morbid train of feeling, their utterance is so irresistible, as to be almost beyond the control of the will and inclinations of the speaker. That, to a certain extent, it is in her power to command or prevent this manifestation of derangement, is demonstrated by the fact of her intercourse with the obnoxious individuals whose presence generally calls it forth, being sometimes unmarked by any thing save the natural language which accompanies the exacerbation. But there is a circumstance which would lead us to believe, that, after the feelings which accompany-if they do not produce-the paroxysm have assumed dominion over the less diseased faculties, her efforts to arrest the progress of either her thoughts or her words are unavailing: The tenor of all the entreaties, requests and declarations-interspersed parenthetically, but spoken in the same exalted tone and hurried manner as the context-is, that she does not mean what she says; that though she vows vengeance, and showers imprecations on her medical attendant, she loves him and feels grateful for his kindness and forbearance; and that, though anxious to evince her gratitude and obedience by silence, she is constrained by an invisible agency to speak. While speaking, and even when unexcited, she walks backwards from the person to whom her address is directed. This retrograde movement appears to indicate extensive disease of the parts at the base of the brain, independent of that organic lesion to which the other symptoms are to be traced. Let us, however, carefully distinguish between what we actually know and what we conjecture. Beyond the conclusion, that the power by which we recognise and apply artificial language, has become involved in the general mental affection, and is on certain occasions excited to preternatural activity over which the patient possesses no control, we are not entitled to proceed. Nor is it probable that further observation or patho 1 logy will convey to us the concluding history or the explanation of this interesting case; for during my attendance at the Hospital, the patient was declared by the arbitrary, and, in this as in almost all circumstances, unjustifiable fiat of the physicians, to be incurable,-and consigned to a department of the establishment, where, from the absence of all pretence to treatment, and from association with the furious, the imbecile, and the fatuous, she will, in all probability, be reduced to that condition. In this, the most humiliating and heart-breaking of all scenes of human misery-where suffering, in its most exquisite form, is pronounced to be without hope, without cure, and without alleviation-and where the boasted powers of human knowledge are lethargic or unexerted, because pronounced by the same authority to be erring, unavailing, and presumptuous-no record whatever is kept of the origin, progress, or termination of the individual cases. The duration of many is so great, and the changes of aspect so considerable, that, were it not that the name of the patient remains on the books of the Institution, no means would exist of ascertaining whence they come, their age, their profession, or aught concerning them. When one of the number dies, the body is of course carefully dissected, but by men totally ignorant of the history of the case, and without reference even to the characteristic symptoms existing at the period of dissolution. Cases very closely resembling that above related have recently fallen under my observation. There is resident at Charenton (an asylum near Paris) an old lunatic, who has occupied a long series of years in collecting the pebbles with which the gardenwalks are covered, or the shreds of paper he may discover in the passages, and which he regards either as pieces of money, ingots of the precious metals, or bank-bills of enormous value. The floor of his apartment is cumbered with large heaps of these imaginary coins, while his table and escritoire present an equally extensive assortment of paper-money. His time is devoted to the calculation of the wealth he has accumulated, and to determining the amount of his gains, when it is lent out on usurious interest. In accordance with that spirit of benevolence which distinguishes the treatment pursued by M. Esquirol, his treasures are unmolested, and his privacy almost undisturbed; but occasionally, when it is absolutely incumbent on the superintendents to ascertain the old miser's condition, a singular scene takes place. I may mention, that if instances of what are popularly designated imbecility or general mania are excepted, it would not be easy to find a case in which the whole brain appears so completely to participate in long-continued diseased action, as in the one under consideration. The intellect of the individual is incapable of recognising the relations in which he |