represent. Thus, the Greek and French languages have a greater number of tenses than the German and English.' If the English language possessed no other means of expressing time than by its two tenses, then would its signs for expressing time be inferior in number to the Greek and the French, and there would be valid ground to infer a superiority in their notions of time. But the phrase, I have struck, is an exact equivalent to the Greek tense rérupa; and it is a current expression in our literature, and in our common speech. And all the phrases which are set down in the Greek grammars as equivalent to the Greek tenses are familiar expressions in the language. The time-signs of the Greek language, then, consist of tenses; those of the English consist of tenses, and also of those phrases which are arranged and termed tenses in most elementary grammars.

In the present paper I have drawn attention to the views of the leading philologers of Europe, on the mode of abbreviating speech by constructing polysyllabic words with the fragments of other words. Attention has been drawn also to different modes of verbally expressing certain complex ideas, and which have been illustrated rather fully, in order to correct an error into which Dr Spurzheim had fallen, in not including the uncoalesced words of a phrase with the true tenses, as time-signs.

II. CASES AND FACTS.

I. Case of Vision-seeing, accompanied with Headach and a sense of Pressure in the region of the Perceptive Organs, and rendered more vivid by application of the Finger over those organs. By WILLIAM GREGORY, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh.

A lady, recovering from a severe attack of general febrile cold or influenza, accompanied with sore throat and with intense headach, mentioned to me, that when in bed with her eyes shut, she saw objects of the most vivid colours, and frequently of very distinct forms. I resolved to examine the phenomena, but first ascertained that the patient felt convalescent, but very weak; that the sore throat was not removed; and that there was still headach to some extent, with sensations of pressure in certain parts of the head. She stated, fur

*Spurzheim's Philosophical Principles of Phrenology. sec. vi. chap. i. p. 159 of the third edition.

ther, that she had all her life been subject to headaches, and had very often noticed the visions when in indifferent health. She has a general acquaintance with Phrenology, but is not able to point out the situation of the smaller organs in the anterior lobe correctly.

It occurred to me that possibly the excited condition of certain organs might depend on a state analogous to the mesmeric state, and that it might be modified by the contact of the finger. I accordingly, after the patient had closed her eyes, asked her what she saw. Her answer was-" Beautiful colours." She could only describe these, however, as floating before her; indicating the excitement of Colour without Form. I then applied the fingers over the organs of Colour, without making any remark. At the first contact she said, "All the colours are gone;" but instantly added, "They have come back ;-ah! they are now far more bright and beautiful-how exquisite !" Here I placed another finger on the organ of Number, when she at once exclaimed, "I see the whole room full of things of the most brilliant rainbow colours; there must be a million of them!" I now touched Order also, when she said, "I see a multitude of the most beautiful patterns of all colours, like the figures in the kaleidoscope." The fingers were now removed, and after an interval of a second or two she declared." that all the colours had faded into a sombre grey," and in no long time the patterns also vanished.

I now touched Form, but could observe no distinct separate effect, the patient repeating that she saw nothing. The same took place with Individuality. But when I again touched Number and Order, she at once described multitudes of specified objects arranged with regularity; for instance, stones arranged on shelves, glass ornaments on shelves also; and when I added Colour, the stones and glass acquired the most heavenly tints, set off by gilding,-and after a very short period numerous fruits of all colours, exquisitely arranged, presented themselves; a nursery garden, with numerous beds of brilliant flowers, appeared; and finally, a crowd of ladies in gaudy bonnets and dresses were described.

I subsequently touched Number again, when a multitude of feathers was seen: Colour again dressed them in splendid hues, and Order caused them instantly to arrange themselves into baskets of symmetrical form. Weight, when first touched, caused no change; but on a subsequent trial, the objects instantly began tumbling down, one after the other, in endless succession. Size, being accidentally touched, caused the exclamation of "Oh! what an immense cathedral with beautiful coloured windows! I cannot see to the end of it." Then came

interminable lines of the most gaudy fishes of all colours gowns without end, marked with beautiful patterns; and other visions. When Locality was touched, either separately or along with other organs, no effect was perceptible; and the same negative result was obtained when Eventuality, Time, and Tune, were tried.

I repeated the experiments above described several times, and always with the same success; and the removal of the finger was always instantly followed by the disappearance of the visions then present, although others might afterwards arise without the finger when the eyes were shut, as was originally observed by the patient. The result of my observations on this occasion was, that the excitability was confined to the inferior range of the organs in the anterior lobe; and that of these, Colour, Size, Order, and Number, were very highly excitable; Form, Individuality, and Weight, much less so; while Language was not examined.

I was much struck with the fact, that the patient, before any experiments were made, when asked to point out those parts where a sense of pressure or fulness was felt, placed my finger first on a space including Colour and Order, and after that on Individuality.

I must not forget to mention that the variety of objects described was enormous, a few only being mentioned above; but that on no occasion was the same vision mentioned twice, that is, at two distinct touchings, during these experiments.

The headach and fulness indicate increased circulation as the cause of these phenomena in this case; but the action of my finger, in exciting or exalting the visions, forms a link of connexion with the mesmero-phrenological phenomena which is worthy of careful investigation.

Visions, such as occurred spontaneously to this patient, the eyes being shut, are far from rare; and I have no doubt that in many cases they will be found as much under the influence of the finger as was the case here. I heard, before this case occurred, of a gentleman, much engaged in intellectual pursuits, who is almost nightly in the habit of seeing, after he retires to bed, visions of various objects, which he describes minutely to his wife, and which are often a source of amusement from their unexpected nature. One, I recollect, described by him, was a large turkey-cock, strutting about in a very ludicrous manner. It is quite possible that his visions may be modified by the contact of the finger.

Finally, I have simply described the facts as I observed them, or rather as they were described to me. I can answer for the entire trustworthiness of the patient; and besides, I

not only carefully abstained from leading questions, or indeed any questions, but frequently led her to suppose I was touching a different organ from that which was really tried at the moment. I also combined two, three, and four together, in different order, and suddenly, but the results were always equally distinct in the case of the excitable organs; while the nonexcitability of the others was quite unexpected by me, and, in fact, disappointed me a good deal.

About a week after the above observations were made, I had an opportunity of confirming them again, and it further occurred to me to try the following experiment:-I made the lady apply her own finger to some of the organs, and found that they were excited exactly as when I myself touched them, at least in the case of several organs. Colour, for example, was strongly excited in this way. Without entering into any theory of this fact, it must be admitted to be an interesting one, and worthy of more careful investigation. When the lady herself excited the organs, she did not know which she was touching.

30th January 1844.

II. On the Character and Skull of Sir Thomas Browne. By ROBERT Cox.

Sir Thomas Browne was a studious and learned physician of Norwich, where he died in October 1682, at the age of seventyseven. His works are well known to the lovers of old English literature, more especially his Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, or Urn-Burial, and Treatise on Vulgar Errors. Of his dispositions and opinions, our means of judging consist of the Montaigne-like communications made by himself in the Religio Medici, and a character drawn by his friend and panegyrist Mr Whitefoot, nearly the whole of which is quoted by Dr Samuel Johnson in his Life of Sir Thomas. From these it would appear, that in none of the three great departments of his mind-animal, moral, and intellectual-was there any general deficiency of endowment; and that, when the excitability of youth had passed away, his lower feelings were so much under the control of the moral, religious, and intellectual powers, that their suggestions were firmly and habitually resisted. "He had," says Mr Whitefoot, "no despotical power over his affections and passions (that was a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of the use of it), but as large a political power over them as any Stoic or man

of his time, whereof he gave so great experiment, that he hath very rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them. The strongest that were found in him, both of the irascible and concupiscible, were under the control of his reason." On this subject he himself says: "To do no injury, nor take none, was a principle which, to my former years and impatient affections, seemed to contain enough of morality; but my more settled years and Christian constitution have fallen upon severer resolutions. I can hold there is no such thing as injury; that if there be, there is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of an injury; that to hate another is to malign himself; that the truest way to love another is to despise ourselves. I were unjust unto mine own conscience if I should say I am at variance with anything like myself. I find there are many pieces in this one fabric of man; this frame is raised upon a mass of antipathies. I am one, methinks, but as the world, wherein, notwithstanding, there are a swarm of distinct essences, and in them another world of contrarieties; we carry private and domestic enemies within, public and more hostile enemies without. The devil, that did but buffet Saint Paul, plays, methinks, at sharp with me. Let me be nothing, if within the compass of myself I do not find the battle of Lepanto; passion against reason, reason against faith, faith against the devil, and my conscience against all. There is another man within me that is angry with me, rebukes, commands, and dastards me. conscience of marble, to resist the hammer of more heavy offences; nor yet too soft and waxen, as to take the impression of each single peccadillo or scape of infirmity." And in another place he says: "Ipsa sui pretium virtus sibi, that virtue is her own reward, is but a cold principle, and not able to maintain our variable resolutions in a constant and settled way of goodness. I have practised that honest artifice of Seneca, and, in my retired and solitary imaginations, to detain me from the foulness of vice, have fancied to myself the presence of my dear and worthiest friends, before whom I would lose my head rather than be vicious; yet herein I found that there was nought but moral honesty, and this was not to be virtuous for His sake who must reward us at the last. I have tried if I could reach that great resolution of his, to be honest, without a thought of heaven or hell; and indeed I found, upon a natural inclination, and inbred loyalty unto virtue, that I could serve her without a livery; yet not in that resolved and venerable way, but that the frailty of my nature, upon easy temptation, might be induced to forget her. The life, therefore, and spirit of all our actions, is the resurrection, and a stable

I have no