Of beauty and deformity, as inherent circumstan ces which have an effect upon the mental trains, much will not be necessary to be said. Illustrations will occur to every body, to prove, that their power is mot inconsiderable ; so little, however, has been done to ascertain the facts, and record them in the best pos sible order, that any thing which deserves the name of knowledge on the subject hardly exists ; and the principal service we can render is to point it out for study; to exhort future to observe gently the trains which flow from (rarity and defor mity as their source, and to trace to the largest possible sequences, as above described, the connec tions which take place between them. Beauty and deformity, it may be observed, operate upon the mental trains in somewhat a different way from health and disease ; rather mediately than immediately. It is the idea of their effect upon other people that is the more immediate cause of the trains to which they give occasion. The idea that beauty commands their favourable regards, is apt to introduce the well-known trains, denoted by the terms, vanity, pride, contemp tuousness, trains not very favourable to the virtues. The idea that deformity IS apt to excite their unfa vourable regards, is often observed to lead to acute ness and vigour of intellect, employed as instruments of protection, but to moroseness, and even malignity of temper. The mode, however, in which beauty and deformity operate upon the Mental trains, name ly, through the idea of their effect upon other peo pie, is common to them with a pmt sassy ether ad vantages or sfirodvantages, which derive their mane dielly from their indoors upon other people; and arterials for the llInstration of this subject have been various writers upon the human mind. tte word Tempenanent, no very precise idea has hitherto been anneuxl. It may be coneived in the following mourn The buddy structure, the comportion &demesne in the body of every indi vidual, is different from that in the body dairy other. It is observed, however, that the coospossbon is more nearly resembling in sane, than in others ; that those who thus resemble may bearriniged in groups; and that they may all be wmprth.. - in four or five greet daises. The ciranurances, in which their bodily composition agrees, so as to constitute one of those large dares, have been ailed the Tempera Meld ; and each of those mote remarkable charac ters of the body has been observed to be attended with a peculiar dsaracter in the train of ideas. But the illustration ofthe trains of ideas, and hence of the qualities of mind, which are apt to be introduced by temperament, and by the diversities of age and of sex, we are obliged, by the rapid absorption of the space allotted us, wholly to omit The subject in itself is not very mysterious. Accurate observation, and masterly recordation alone are required. To be sure, the same may be mid of every object of human inquiry. But in some macs, it is not so easy to concerve perfectly what observation and recorda tion mean. On these topics, also, we say, that Cabimis really affords very helps.
We come now to the second sort of physical cir cumstances, which have the power of introducing habitually certain trains of ideas, and hence of im pressing permanent tendencies on the mind,—the cir cumstances which are external to the body. Some of these are of very great importance. The first is Aliment.
Aliment is good or evil, by quality, and quantity. Hartley has remarked to ago, that though all the impressions from which idess are copied, are made on the extremities of the nerves which are ramified on the surface of the body, and supply the several organs of sense, that other impressions are neverthe less made on the extremities of the nerves which are ramified on the internal parts of our bodies, and that many of those impressions are associated with trains of ideas; that the impressions made upon the extremities of the nerves which are ramified on the alimentary canal, are associated with the greatest number of those trains; and of such trains, that some are favourable to happiness, some altogether the reverse. If the quantity and quality of the ali ment be the principl cause of those impressions, at tended by such important effects, here is a physiolo gical reason, of the greatest cogency, for an accurate observation and recordation of the events occurring in this part of the field ; of what antecedents are attended by what consequents, and what are the largest sequences which can be traced. Cabanis confirmed this doctrine with regard to the internal impressions, and added another class. He said that not only the extremities of the nerves which termi nate internally, but the centre of the nervous influ ence, the brain itself, received impressions, and that thus there were no fewer than three sources of the mental and corporeal movements of man; one ex ternal, from Which almost all our distinct ideas are copied; and two internal, which exert a very great influence upon the train of ideas, and hence upon the actions of which these trains are the antecedents or cause.
On this, too, as on most of the other topics, be longing to the physical branch of education, we must note, as still uncollected, the knowledge which the subject requires. It is understood in a general way, that deep impressions are by this means made upon the mind; but how they are made, is a knowledge which, in any such detail and accuracy as to afford useful practical rules, is nearly wanting. There is a passage in Hartley, which we esteem it important to quote: " The sense of feeling may be distinguished into that of the external surface of the body, and that of the cavities of the nose, mouth, fences, ali mentary duct, pelvis, of the kidneys, ureters, blad der of urine,-bladder follicles, and ducts of the glands, &c. The sensibility is much greater in the
last than in the first, because the impressions can more easily penetrate through the soft epithelium with which the internal cavities are invested. In the mouth and nose this sensibility is so great, and attended with such distinguishing circumstances, as to have the names of taste and smell assigned re spectively to the sensations impressed upon the pa pine of these two organs." " The taste may also be distinguished into two kinds ; viz. the general one which extends itself to the insides of the lips and cheeks, to the palate, fences,ces0Phagus• stomach, and whole alimentary duct, quite down to the anus. The pleasures of the taste, con sidered as extending itself from the mouth through the whole alimentary duct, are very considerable and frequently repeated; they must, therefore, be one chief means, by which pleasurable states are in troduced into the brain and nervous system. These pleasurable states must, after some time, leave mini atures of themselves, sufficiently strong to be called up upon slight occasions, viz, from a variety of as sociations with the common visible and audible ob jects, and to illuminate these and their ideas. When groups of these miniatures have been long and closely connected with particular objects, they coa lesce into one complex idea, appearing, however, to be a simple one; and so begin to be transferred up on other objects, and even upon tastes back again, and so on without limits. And from this way of reasoning it may now appear, that a great part of our intellectual pleasures are ultimately from those of taste; and that one principal final cause of the greatness and constant recurrency of these pleasures, from our first infancy to the extre mity of old age, is to introduce and keep up plea surable states in the brain, and to connect them with foreign objects. The social pleasures seem, in a particular manner, to be deritred from this source, since it has been customary in all ages and nations, and is in a manner necessary, that we should enjoy the pleasures of taste in conjunction with our tions, friends, and neighbours. In like manner, nau seous tastes, and painful impressions upon the ali mentary duct, give rise and strength to mental pains. The most common of these painful impressions is that from excess, and the consequent mdigestion. This excites and supports those uneasy states, which attend upon melancholy, fear, and sorrow. It ap pears also to me, that these states are introduced in • a great degree during sleep, during the frightful dreams, agitations, and oppressions, that excess in diet occasions in the night. These dreams and dis orders are often forgotten ; but the uneasy states of body which then happen, leave vestiges of them selves, which increase in number and strength every day from the continuance of the cause, till at last they are ready to be called up in crowds upon slight occasions, and the unhappy person is unex y, and at once, as it were, seized with a great of the hypochondriac distemper, the obvious cause appearing no ways proportionable toe the ef. feet. And thus it may appear that there ought to be a great reciprocal influence between the mind and alimentary duct, agreeably to common observa tion." Cann* in like manner, says, " Quoique les medecins aient dit plusieurs chores hazardees, tou chant reffet des substances alimentaires sur les or gans de la penes, ou sur les principes physiques de nos penchans, it n'en est pas moans certain que les differentes causes que nous appliquons joumellement a nos corps, pour en renouveller les mouvemens, agissent avec une grande efficacite sur nos disposi tions morales. On se rend plus propre aux travaux de l'esprit par certaines precautions de regime, par rusage, ou la suppression, de certains alimens. Quel.. ques personnes out ete gueries de violens acces de colere, auxquels elles etoient sujetes, par la genie diete pythagorique, et dans le cas meme ou des de lires furieux troublent toutes lea facultes de fame, remploi journalier de certaines nourritures ou de certaines 'boissons, l'impression d'une certaine tem perature de fair, respect de certaines objets; ed un mot, un systeme dietetique particulier suffit sou vent pour y remener le calme, pour faire tout rentrer dans rordre impossible for us here to attempt a full account of the mode in which aliments operate to produce good or bad eflbcts upon the train of ideas, we shall single out that case, which, as operating upon the greatest number of people, is of the great est importance; we mean that, in which effects are produced by the poverty of the diet; proposing, under the term poverty, to include both badness of quality, and defect of quantity. On badness of quality, we shall not spend many words. Aliments are bad in, a variety of ways, and to such a degree as to impair the health of body. Of such, the injurious effect will not be disputed. Others, which have in them no hurtful ingredient, may contain so insignificant a portion of nourishment, that to afford it In the re quisite degree, they must produce a hurtful disten tion of the organs. The saw-dust, which some northern nations use for bread, if depended upon for the whole of their nourishment, would doubtless have this effect. The potatoe, where solely depend ed upon, is not, perhaps, altogether free from it. Bad quality, however, is but seldom resorted to, except in consequence of deficient quantity. That is, therefore, the principal point of inquiry.