THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 34-7 



before our mind any present feelings connected with it, it sooner 

 or later springs up through association, perhaps very compli- 

 cated: and in this way, by keeping up impressions connected with 

 certain propensities, we can excite even our propensities. The 

 other mode in which our will operates, is by causing muscular 

 contraction. We can will attention, and will muscular motion. 



We are able to compare feelings of all kinds, and to infer one 

 thing from another. This is called judgment. The animal, with 

 but two external senses, taste and touch, judges of the quality of 

 what it tastes and touches, whether the object is like that to 

 which he is accustomed. An animal with sight also judges if 

 the aspect of food or drink is like that to which it is accustomed. 

 With the faculty for the feeling of the relation of tones, it judges 

 of music ; with that relating to numbers, it judges of them. 



To draw large inferences, see the relation of many feelings, and 

 judge of cause and effect, seems a peculiar faculty; and, like all 

 the rest, may exist in various degrees of force. 



All these powers, of course, tend to action ; and the various 

 mere propensities are so many tendencies to action. Their im- 

 pulse is 'called instinct*; and their highest tendency to excite- 

 ment, passion. But instinct and passion are common to them 

 all. 



These modes or different operations of faculties were considered 

 by old writers, and are still considered by those whose knowledge 

 is but the remains of the ignorance of former days, as fun- 

 damental faculties. Every faculty, when it acts, acts in the way 

 of one of them ; so that they are nearly common to all our 

 faculties; and, except attention, which is an act of volition, they 

 are all modes only of action. Gall, therefore, instead of dividing 

 them into perception, attention, memory, judgment, &c., as fun- 

 damental faculties ; and viewing " the Power of Taste, a genius 

 for Poetry, for Painting, for Music, for Mathematics," &c., as 

 "more complicated powers or capacities, which are gradually 

 formed by particular habits of study or of business b ;" regards 

 these last powers as distinct faculties, and perception, atten- 

 tion, memory, judgment, &c., merely as modes or varieties com- 

 mon to the action of each faculty. He contends that, when 

 we see a boy, brought up exactly like his brothers and sisters, dis- 



* Some limit the term instinct to the natural tendency to an act, without any 

 knowledge of its purposes. 



b Dugald Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 10. 



