PECULIAR FACULTY IN MAN. 
333 
sessed by man, (at least by those individuals whose 
faculties are in due development) of directing his 
course in any required direction of the compass. 
Having once acquired a knowdedge of the position 
of one point, the minds of such persons ever after 
retain a continued impression of the same, and in 
consequence, of the rest. Let such persons be where 
they may, or have their countenances directed 
anywhere, they can with the rapidity of thought, 
intimate or recognise the actual position of the four 
points. My own experience informs me that this 
power is retained after a long succession of turnings 
and windings in all possible directions, and what 
is more I have further noticed that the mind, or one 
especial portion of it, continues engaged in ascer¬ 
taining or observing the direction being pursued 
through all these deviating courses, without our 
consciousness of the activity of this sense, and in 
short it operates while the aggregate of the reflect¬ 
ing powers are abstracted on some given question. 
On reverting from the abstracted condition of the 
mind, this ever-watchful faculty is ready to acquaint 
us with our relative position as respects the cardinal 
points. I acknowledge that this sense cannot be 
purely instinctive ; we cannot fancy that if trans¬ 
ported instantaneously to some desert we should 
still have the advantage of this faculty, indeed 
occasional disasters happening to us, and exposure 
to unknown localities, inform us that since in these 
cases we are utterly at a loss, this sense cannot be 
of the instinctive order. Moreover we are peculiarly 
liable to err when abroad in the dark, and it some¬ 
times happens that under even ordinary circum¬ 
stances we are occasionally subject to mistakes, and 
again, particularly so when surrounding appearances 
are found on moving situation to be similar, with at 
the same time a contrary direction in the heavens. 
Although therefore it is most probable that this is 
