with a hatchet, her mother, brothers and sisters. A cast of this skull is in the Phrenological Society's possession.

Dr Gall mentions also, that in the busts and portraits of Caligula, Nero, Sylla, Septimius Severus, and Charles the Ninth, this part of the head is represented as largely developed. Besides these, Dr Gall mentions several other cases, but the foregoing must suffice as an example of the kind of evidence on which he proceeded.

In the second place, we shall state part of the evidence on which our own belief in this propensity and organ is founded. The following facts may be verified by any person who has a mind to inquire. The organ of Destructiveness is very large, and that of Benevolence small, in the skull of Bellingham, who murdered Mr Percival. The temporal bones protrude at least half an inch in the situation of the organ of Destructiveness, on each side, and the frontal bone presents a receding surface at the organ of Benevolence, where the skulls of individuals remarkable for benevolence generally rise into an elevation of half an inch or more. A cast of Bellingham's skull may be inspected in the Phrenological Society's Collection, No 33. The organ of Destructiveness is also largely developed in the skull of Gordon, who accompanied a poor half-fatuous pedlar boy, and, in the middle of a muir, beat out his brains with the heel of his clog, and robbed him of his pack, not worth twenty shillings. The skull itself is No 59 of the Society's Collection, and the bones protrude nearly half an inch on each side at the region in question. It is large in Charles Rotherham (cast No 36), who pulled a stake from a hedge, and beat out the brains of a poor woman on the highway, and robbed her of some very trifling articles. It is large also in the skulls of Hussey (No 30), Nisbet (No 31), and Lockey (No 34), who were executed for murder. It, and the organ of Acquisitiveness, appear to have been very largely developed in the head of Heaman (No 15, busts), executed at Edinburgh for piracy and murder; also in the head of Robert Dean (No 18, busts), executed for murdering a child, without any rational motive; and in the head of Mitchell (No 21, busts), executed for murdering a young wo

man, whom he had seduced. In the heads of David Haggart (No 32, skulls, and No 17, busts) and Mary Mackinnon (No 31, busts), executed at Edinburgh, and of Booth (No 75, skulls), a poacher, executed at York, all for murders committed on the impulse of the moment, it appears considerably developed ; while in them Combativeness is also very large.

In the whole of these skulls and heads now enumerated, the distance in a direct line, measured by means of callipers, from the external opening of the ear to the middle of the surface of Philoprogenitiveness on the skull, i. e. about half an inch above the spinous process of the occipital bone, is equal to the distance from the external opening of the ear to the external surface of the head at lower Individuality, corresponding to the top of the nose; and the coronal surface is narrow. This indicates a great preponderance of the animal organs situate in the lower and back part of the brain, over the organs of the moral sentiments, and of intellect, situate in the coronal and frontal regions of the head. On the other hand, in several hundred individuals of gentle dispositions and good intellects, whose heads we have examined, we found, with few exceptions, the distance before the ear, according to the above measurement, to exceed the distance behind it to a considerable extent, in many cases amounting to an inch, and, in every instance, the coronal surface was large and ample in proportion to the base and posterior part of the brain. Any person who wishes to put this fact to the test, may try the experiment upon the casts of the criminals before alluded to, and upon the busts Nos 3, 11, 12, 26, 27, 29, 32, 36, 37, 38, and 39, of the Society's collection, the latter being casts of virtuous individuals. We may state, that the whole are open to public scrutiny every Saturday from one to three o'clock, in Clyde Street Hall.

The Society possesses casts of the skulls of five Caribs (Nos 12, 13, 14, 15, 16), who are well known to have been a ferocious tribe, and in all of them the organ of Destructiveness is decidedly large. On the other hand, Dr George Murray Paterson, surgeon in the Honourable East India Company's Service, mentions, as the result of three thousand actual exami

nations, that the organ is small in the heads of the Hindoos in general, who are known to be extremely tender in regard to animal life. In the skulls of fourteen Hindoos (Nos 60 to 73), twelve of which were presented to the Society by this gentleman, and two by Dr Combe of Leith, the development of the organ will be found to be decidedly less than in the skulls of Europeans in general.

Several years ago, Peter Somners was tried before the High Court of Justiciary, and found guilty of wantonly murdering, in a fit of intoxication, an old man with whom he was amusing himself on the road. We were informed by a gentleman, who had an opportunity to know the fact, that this young man had manifested great cruelty to animals at previous periods of his life. We saw him in prison, and his organs of Destructiveness were very large. In the country, we saw a boy, who had watched the progress of a brood of swallows, and when they were fully fledged, delivered them alive, one by one, into the mouth of a sow, without any other motive than the barbarous pleasure of seeing them devoured; and in him the organ was very large. We have read a full account of this case in the Society's MS. Book of Reports, which we found open to public inspection in the Society's Hall. In the collection of Dr Barclay, there is the skull of a Negro who committed several murders, and in it Destructiveness is very large.

Hitherto, however, we have contemplated Destructiveness only when acting with excessive and uncontrolled energy, and producing abuses of its legitimate function. We have seen it raging, in brutes and in man," without check or limitation, "without either pity or remorse." It is quite obvious that it was precisely in such cases that the organ and the propensity were most likely to force themselves upon the notice of the observer, because they were present in that high degree of development and activity, which produced a predominance of this feeling over the other faculties of the mind. Destruc tiveness, however, when directed by the higher sentiments, serves a valuable purpose in the mental economy. The form in which it manifests itself when opposed by obstacles from with

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out, is the passion of anger. When combined with Benevo lence, or a strong sense of justice, it gives rise to a virtuous indignation, some degree of which is absolutely necessary to the true dignity of man. Nothing is more necessary or more becoming a perfectly virtuous character, than a just degree of severity and anger against every species of vice, fraud, deceit, and cruelty. When we witness any signal instance of these, not to be angry is a proof of a mean and contemptible spirit. It is this faculty which gives to the character its greatest energy and power. It lends a peculiar force to the accents of command. Every command so enforced implies in it a threat: "Do thus, or thus, as ye "shall answer." It is an intimation of the will of the speaker, coupled with the farther intimation, expressed or implied, that disobedience will be attended with fatal or inconvenient consequences. This power, accordingly, is highly necessary to the chiefs of savage or uncivilized nations, and even among a more refined people to all in situations of command. Robert Bruce in former days, and Buonaparte in our own, had this organ largely developed. The cast of the skull of Bruce is in the collection of the Phrenological Society (No 1), and may be inspected by those who wish to verify the statement. Destructiveness also gives edge to sarcasm and satire, and prompts the fancy to the conception of all those images of terror, which become sublime or horrible, according as they are clothed with ideality, or presented in naked deformity. Now, we state as a positive fact, that we have measured with calliper, and noted in inches and tenths, the development of this organ in a great variety of individuals, and that we have found the presence of the peculiar kind of energy now mentioned, to bear a regular proportion to its size. In several eminent public characters in particular, whose heads we have examined, but whose names, for obvious reasons, we forbear to mention, who manifest, in a striking manner, this mental quality, we found the organ large, and we never found a single individual who manifested this power, in whom the organ was small. When, on the other hand, the organ of Destructiveness is small, and the higher sentiments are powerful, there is want of fire in the character: there is a softness

which is little fitted to awe or control a fiery spirit in others,— an effeminacy which does not make itself felt in the contests of life, and a tendency to listless insipidity, from the want of a spur within; and those characteristics are greatly aggravated if Combativeness also be small. In private life, we have met with individuals who were noted for this undue softness and effeminacy of disposition, who, with fair talents, were unable to make themselves felt in the circles in which they moved, and whose own exertions were never able to carry them through the difficulties of life; and in them we found the organ in question small. These differences amounted to at least half an inch on each organ of Destructiveness, or a whole inch on the general breadth of the head across the temporal bones.

The facts now adverted to may be viewed as positive proofs of the existence of this organ and faculty; but, in the third place, we proceed to advert to some phenomena in human nature, recorded without any view to phrenology, from which some inferences may be drawn concerning the existence of this propensity. We may premise, that metaphysicians and ordinary observers of human nature, admit the existence of instinctive tendencies in the human mind, quite distinguishable from mere intellect or reason. Thus, for example, no one confounds the feeling of love with mere intellectual ideas. The intellect perceives the objects which excite this passion, but the feeling itself is not intellectual. The same observation applies to the sentiments of Hope, Benevolence, Fear, and many others, which are generally admitted to be different from, and not immediately dependent upon, the intellectual powers. Now, these feelings are known to become diseased; and the effect of the diseased excitement on the feelings of Love, for example, is to produce ungovernable desires,—on the sentiment of Hope to give rise to extravagant joy, without any adequate external cause. But in these cases, a sane feeling is admitted to exist which disease excites into inordinate activity, but does not create. Now, if we find patients under mental alienation displaying the most irresistible impulse to destroy, we are entitled to argue, upon