206 SALMOXIA. [ninth day. 



be called the organ of courage as the projection below 

 the frontal bone : but these animals have no more 

 what is called courage in man, than they have what 

 is called reason : they face danger when they are 

 hungry, but almost always fly when their appetite is 

 satisfied : a hen, in defending her chickens against a 

 powerful dog, or the game cock, in fighting for the 

 female, or the timid stag in the rutting season, shows 

 quite as much of this quality as the most ferocious 

 royal tiger. Courage is the result of strong passions 

 or strong motives ; and in man it usually results from 

 the love of glory or the fear of shame ; and it appears 

 to me a perfectly absurd idea, that of connecting it 

 with an organ which is merely intended to assist the 

 predatory habits and the mastication of a carnivorous 

 animal. 



HAL. — I agree with Physicus in this view of the 

 subject. I once heard a physiologist of some reputa- 

 tion deducing an argument in favour of craniology, 

 from the form of the skull of the beaver, which he 

 called a constructive animal, and contended, that 

 there was something of the same character in the 

 skulls of distinguished architects : now, the skull of the 

 beaver is so formed, that he is able to use his jaws 

 for cutting down the trees with which he makes his 

 dam ; and if this analogy were correct, the architect 

 ought unquestionably to employ Ins teeth for the 



