ARTICLE VI.

SOME REASONS FOR CONCLUDING THAT THE FACULTY HITHERTO NAMED TUNE, WOULD BE MORE PHILOSOPHICALLY DENOMINATED THE FACULTY OF SOUND.*

ONLY inferior to the happiness of ascertaining a primitive faculty of mind, by demonstrating a special portion of the brain to be its instrument, is the privilege of throwing farther light, whether in the way of extension or limitation, on the function of a faculty already partially ascertained. There is much to be done in this department of Phrenology. In the degree of our knowledge of the functions of the faculties, there is an obvious difference. We feel assured that we have got at the radical functions of some of the faculties; we have obtained a base. of such depth and breadth as to sustain a variety of qualities or manifestions, but all related essentially to that base; while in others we have as yet only arrived at a few qualities or manifestations unquestionably related to the organ, but too narrow and specific to form the comprehensive and radical function of the faculty.

Fortunately for the pneumatology of the science, a great majority of the phrenological faculties do rest on sufficiently broad functional bases. However manifested, we can trace the base of Amativeness, for example, of Self-esteem, of Benevolence, and I am inclined to say, though diffidently, of all the faculties-animal, moral, and intellectual-with the following exceptions, in which I believe it is agreed we have not arrived at the root:-Inhabitiveness and Concentrativeness, Constructiveness, Destructiveness, Size, Order, Tune, Wit, Comparison, and Causality. These it is desiderated to trace to their bases; the others, of which the bases are obvious, ought to be treated conversely, and followed out to their various modifications. One test of our not having arrived at the functional root of a faculty, is dissatisfaction with the name which ought to designate the radical power. We are dissatisfied with the name Destructiveness, for example, as expressing a manifestation not radical to the faculty. Perhaps there is no word in the language for

• We are indebted to Mr Simpson for this paper, which offers to phrenologists a new speculation. We are not yet quite prepared to take a side in the argument, but consider Mr S.'s views well worthy of phrenological discussion.-Editor.

+ Some have thought that the radical idea of Destructiveness is that of something opposed to Constructiveness; and bearing relation to analysis, or reduction to elements. This, however, does not satisfactorily include irascibility and resentment, justly imputed to this faculty.

this feeling in its fundamental essence; or, more likely, we have not yet got a clear idea what that essence is. It is certain, however, that a propensity to destroy will not explain all its manifestations. That word expresses too high an activity of the propensity, although it is no doubt itself a mitigation of the original denomination, a propensity to kill; but it requires yet greater reduction to entitle it to the character of a functional root. If we had space, we think we could shew that the like uncertainty of base characterizes the other faculties above enumerated; and that these hold out so many problems for phrenologists to solve. Indeed the Metaphysics of Phrenology is in its infancy, and requires yet more deliberate comparison with nature, and even with the doctrines of the schools, than it has perhaps hitherto received.

In the following remarks we shall make a humble attempt to find a fitting base for the faculty called Tune.

It is easy to see whence the tendency to overname arose. Extreme development of distinct portions of the brain was looked for; and as the specific manifestation connected with extreme development was naturally noted, that manifestation, as in the instance of the impulse to kill, was not always the radical function. This seems to be true of Tune. A certain organization observed in Haydn, Mozart, and other highly gifted musicians, and generally, though in different degrees, in persons possessing a talent for Music, had its name from that quality. The error would have been of the same kind, had the organ of Colouring been called the organ of Painting, from being found in extreme development in Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, and Claude. In consequence of the error now described having given a name to the faculty of Tune, there is no part of the organology which has more perplexed phrenologists; and which has with more avidity been seized upon by their opponents, as a weak point in the system, and a source of anomalies not always easily explained. Mr Scott brought a great defensive force to this breach, by demonstrating that although Tune alone is sufficient to feel and enjoy, several other faculties must act in combination with Tune to produce, music, either instrumental or vocal. But as he still held Tune, or perception of musical combinations, to be the fundamental function of the faculty, he left another class of difficulties unremoved. Let us then try to discover some more elementary function which may be concluded to be a base not only for musical endowment, but for manifestation of a more radical and necessary character.

We may assure ourselves that we are inquiring in the right direction, when we look for a function which the whole human race shall be found in some degree to manifest-in conformity

with the phrenological doctrine, that every faculty, in a greater or less endowment, is part of the constitution of every sane individual. The faculty sometimes called Weight, was latelyinvestigated in this retrogressive way. The faculty of Tune, every phrenologist knows, has hitherto been treated of solely as the perception and enjoyment of musical relations and combinations. It has been so treated in the writings of Gall, Spurzheim, Mackenzie, Combe, and Scott; so that the present inquiry has not, so far as we know, been anticipated. We maintain that the perception of musical relations cannot be per se a primitive faculty, inasmuch as every primitive faculty must in some degree appear in every sane human being; yet of musical perception there are vast multitudes in whom there is not a trace. As, on the other hand, it is found in many, it seems to follow as a phrenological consequence, that it must be a higher degree of a faculty of a more elementary kind which shall be found in the whole race. The root will of course be the lowest degree of manifestation-a power necessary to man. What then is that humbler endowment of which musical perception is a higher? With due diffidence we venture to propound the thesis, that SOUND is the radical and therefore universal perception of this faculty; and that for the following reasons..

First, There must be a faculty for the perception of sound, because sound is the result of a quality or condition of matter; and each of the elementary conditions or qualities of matter is related to a faculty in man. Sonorousness is one of those qualities of matter called secondary by the metaphysicians, which differ from primary qualities, such as form, size, and colour, inasmuch as matter cannot be conceived, by the mind, disjoined from these qualities, but may be conceived without being connected with sonorousness. This merely metaphysical distinction, however, is of no consequence in our present inquiry, seeing that sonorousness is a quality of matter really as inseparable from it as form, size, or colour, however we may, by an effort, conceive a disjunction; and a quality to be perceived, must be the object of a percipient faculty. What is the sound, or sonorousness, of a material body? Writers on acoustics are agreed, on the most unequivocal. experiments, that it is the body's power, when itself impelled, of impelling the air by the vibratory motion of its particles; the undulations of the air impinging on the apparatus of the ear, and proceeding by the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are perceived by a faculty of the mind. The vibrations, and their inseparable motions, can be seen on the surface of the water in a glass, on

*See vol. ii. p. 297, 412, 645; iii. 211, 451; iv. 266, 314; v. 222; vi. 134, 343; vii. 106; ix. 142, 624, and (embracing the whole discussion) 193.

the rim of which we create sound with a moistened finger; or in the motions and figures called acoustic figures, in powder agitated by a sonorous body.* It is also well known, that the sounds occasioned by different bodies vary according to their density, tension, &c.; in other words, according to the disposition of their component particles. Infinite are the sounds which are produced in nature. Metals, as most elastic, are the most sonorous bodies known, and accordingly bells are metallic; but each metal, when struck, has its own peculiar sound. Different woods have different sounds. Even soft bodies cannot be struck without producing sound. Some of these in a state of tension, as cords, paper, parchment on the drum, are very sonorous; nay even water and air are sonorous; air confined in a tube, as in the case of a wind instrument, is itself a part of the sonorous body. This sound-producing quality in matter, is so much expected, that it is appealed to as one of the modes of the identification of various kinds of matter. The form, size, and colour of a crown-piece or sovereign, are all three often distrusted till the metal is rung upon the table, the best test perhaps of the four.

As the result of a quality or condition of matter, Sound has the channel of a sense fitted to convey it, by a nerve for the purpose, to the brain; just as the quality of colour addresses itself first to the eye and the optic nerve, before it is perceived by the mind.

Secondly, The perception of sound is manifestly the function of a knowing faculty, as much as the perceptions of form, size, and colour; and as such ought like them to have an organ in the anterior lobe of the brain. An organ for perceiving the relations of sounds, or music, has been established to exist in the anterior lobe of the brain; but if the simple perception of sound, and the mere power of discriminating one sound from another be a faculty differing in kind from that which perceives melody and harmony, it must have a distinct organ, and that, by analogy with Form, Size, and Colour, in the anterior lobe. Yet it may safely be predicated, that in that lobe there is no portion of brain, possessing the well-known characteristics of an organ, which, after the scrutiny of forty years on thousands of the human race, has been even suspected to have the slightest connection with sound, save that hitherto called the organ of Tune. But it is something-it is much in this argument, that it is sound and its combinations, these combinations being but sounds after all, which that faculty called Tune perceives.

Savart, Chladin, and Wheatstone, have published some curious experiments on acoustic figures. The last mentioned produced them by means of small bright beads on the top of vibrating wires. Mr Wheatstone was some time Secretary of the London Phrenological Society, and is now Professor of Experimental Physics, King's College, London.

Thirdly, The perception of sound, though in various degrees of discriminating power, is given to the whole human race, who have the external inlet or sense of sound, and the brain, free from disease. Some degree of power to discriminate sounds, is as necessary to man, as to perceive forms, sizes, and colours. Safety as well as comfort depends on it. A large class of our warnings of danger come to us in the way of alarming sounds. Most dangerous physical and mechanical motions premonish us, to keep our bodies out of the way of their power, by loud and threatening sounds; the volcano, for example, the cataract, the hurricane, and, as the work of man, ordnance, and powermachinery. How many of our feelings are approached by cries. Witness the effect of the infant's cry upon its mother, who cannot mistake any other sound for it, and is constrained by it to approach as quickly, as by the lion's roar or tiger's growl she would be warned to fly. Now, where is the healthy human being who does not possess power of discrimination in sounds to this most necessary amount, however deficient in musical perceptions? There are many who, on hearing a sound, can go farther, and say, without the aid of either sight or touch, “That is the voice of such-a-one, that is an infant's cry, a boy's voice, a lad's, a man's, a woman's; a horse's neigh, a cow's low, a sparrow's chirp, a cock's crow; that is the pattering of falling rain, the sound of a bell, a drum, money, paper, silk, leather, clapping the hands, a whisper, a horn, a flute, a stringed instrument, a carriage on the pavement." Nay, each sound has a name, as neighing, lowing, chirping, crowing, ringing, rustling, creaking, twanging, &c. It would be interesting to observe very minutely a case of extreme deficiency of the organ called Tune, such as appears in Ann Ormerod, in the blind school at Liverpool; and, by experiments with different sounds, to note if there be also a defect in power of discrimination. We recommend to our friends of the Liverpool Phrenological Society to put this to the test; and we shall be grateful for a communication of the results. To a certain extent, even Ann Ormerod must perceive and discriminate sounds.

Fourthly, There is a power possessed not by all but by a portion of mankind, which perceives the minutest differences in sounds, and in their musical relations. These relations we know exist, and are reduced to rule with mathematical precision. Now, as already said, it is contrary to sound phrenological doctrine to hold that this high power is the exclusive function of a faculty, when we see that it is entirely wanting in a very great number of human beings.

Fifthly, The perception and discrimination of sounds in general, and of musical relations in particular, are powers differing in degree, and not in kind. This will be granted, we should