262 



KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



expunged, the better will it be for the world 

 at large. 



Previously, however, to entering on this 

 important Inquiry, we purpose (in compli- 

 ance with the wishes of many of our readers) 

 to treat of the " Aviary and its Occupants." 

 The subject is as interesting, as our remarks 

 connected with it will be useful. 



PHRENOLOGY FOR THE MILLION. 



No. XXXIV. PHYSIOLOGY OF THE 

 BRAIN. 



BY P. J. GALL, M.D. 



{Continued from page 232.) 



Men have always regarded as very 

 important, the researches which have for their 

 object to determine the organs, by which ani- 

 mals and man receive the material impressions of 

 the external world. Will it be less interesting, 

 less noble, to try to discover the organs of the 

 superior faculties of the mind? 



In fine, I will ask, if the five senses, and the 

 faculties of which we have spoken, can serve to 

 explain the various inclinations, the different 

 instinctive aptitudes of animals, as well as all the 

 propensities and all the powers of man; how, by 

 this means, will you explain why the seal, the 

 chamois, and the wild-goose place sentinels? 

 Why the bird, the beaver, the rabbit, the ant, 

 construct their abodes with so much skill? Why 

 the quail and the stork migrate and return to the 

 same places? Who can explain to us the love of 

 females for their young, and the indifference of 

 the males of many sorts of animals, while in 

 other species, the males share with their mates 

 the care of the young? Who can explain to us 

 the sociability of the rook, and the inclination of 

 the pie to live in solitude? the exclusive jealousy 

 of the cock and the bull, and the reciprocal com- 

 patibility of hens and cows? Who can explain 

 to us what we call cunning, courage, boldness, 

 rectitude, morality? Is it experience? But all 

 these sentiments preceded experience. The spi- 

 der weaves, the beaver builds, the nightingale 

 migrates, before having any experience. Is it 

 attention, reflection, induction? But why does 

 each species of animal direct its attention to a 

 different and peculiar object? Why do all in- 

 dividuals of the same species fix theirs always on 

 the same object? Why, even, does it not depend 

 on man to acquire a high degree of attention or 

 faculty of induction for certain objects? Do 

 we not see that it is in all nature, as in the ex- 

 ample of the monkey, who has attention suffi- 

 cient for filling his pouches with fruits, but knows 

 not how to keep up afire? 



Education perfects, deteriorates, re- 

 presses, AND DIRECTS THE INNATE FACUL- 

 TIES, BUT CAN NEITHER DESTROY NOR PRO- 

 DUCE ANY. 



Since we have ventured to regard animals no 

 longer as mere machines, many philosophers 

 maintain, that not only man, but animals also, 

 are born without instincts, propensities, primi- 

 tive determination, faculties; that thev are in- 



different, equally susceptible of everything; and, 

 finally, that we must regard them as tabulce 

 rasae. Their ingenious aptitudes, instincts, pro- 

 pensities, and faculties, it is pretended, are the 

 result of accidental impressions, received by the 

 five senses, or of those which education gives 

 them. Even insects, say they, display their 

 natural aptitudes only as an effect of instruc- 

 tion. The builder- wasp has already learned, 

 while yet a larva, the masonry of his mother ; 

 the bird learns from those who have given him 

 life, to build his nest, to sing, to migrate; the 

 young fox is carried to school by his father ; 

 and man would not become man, would remain 

 a savage and idiot, without the means furnished 

 by education. 



Let us first examine this hypothesis, so far as 

 it concerns animals. It is true, and I shall give 

 numerous proofs of it in this work^that the greater 

 part of animals are not limited wholly to the 

 means of their own preservation. They are sus- 

 ceptible of much more extended instruction, than 

 their immediate wants require. We teach all 

 sorts of tricks to birds, squirrels, cats, dogs, 

 horses, monkeys, and even swine. They also 

 modify their own mode of action with reference 

 to the position in which they find themselves. 

 But, this faculty of receiving education is always 

 proportionate to their primitive faculties; and 

 they cannot, any more than man, learn things, of 

 which they have not received the first impress 

 from nature. I admire the setter, couching in 

 the pursuit of the pheasant; the falcon in chase 

 of the heron ; but the ox will never learn to run 

 after mice, nor the cat to browse on grass ; and 

 we shall never teach the roe-buck and the pigeon 

 to hunt. 



If animals were susceptible of impressions from 

 all that surrounds them, in a manner to derive 

 lessons from them to the degree supposed, why 

 does not the chicken learn to coo with the 

 pigeon? Why does not the female nightingale 

 imitate the song of her mate? How does each 

 animal, notwithstanding the intercourse of other 

 species, differing the most from his own, preserve 

 his peculiar manners? Why do birds and mam- 

 mifera, even when hatched or suckled by strange 

 parents, always manifest the character of their 

 species? Why does the cuckoo imitate neither 

 the nest where he is hatched, nor the note of the 

 bird who has reared him? How do we teach 

 the squirrel which we have taken blind in his 

 nest, and who has never seen another squirrel, to 

 climb and leap from one branch to another? 

 How do we inspire the ferret with the instinct of 

 seeking the rabbit in his burrow ? Who has 

 taught ducks and beetles to counterfeit death, as 

 soon as they are menaced by an enemy ? Who 

 has given lessons to the spider, which, hardly 

 escaped from his egg, weaves a web and en- 

 velopes the captive flies, that they may not dry 

 up? Of whom has the ichneumon fly learned to 

 attach with a thread to the branch of a tree, the 

 caterpillar, in which she has deposited her eggs ? 

 And how do the caterpillars, as soon as they are 

 hatched, roll themselves in a leaf to escape the 

 cold and dampness of the winter? In fine, why 

 do animals do things, which they have never seen 

 done; and why do they almost always do them 

 as well the first time, as their progenitors? 



