that solid form. Thus the violent impulsive energy which appears in our vigorous language, emphatic gestures, ultra sentiments, and threatening expressions, if it could be isolated from its psychic combination, would appear in its isolated purity as an impulse to the destruction of life and everything else that stands before us.

Hence the term Destructiveness has been very properly applied to this organ by Spurzheim. Yet even this term expresses too much for its average daily action, and Violence, Impulsiveness, or Vehemence would come nearer to expressing its ordinary manifestation.

The reader will now perceive that the psychic functions of certain organs can seldom be adequately expressed by one word, and that three words are required to express fully the moderate, the active, and the abnormal manifestations. Fortunately, however, this difficulty of nomenclature applies only to that portion of the brain which tends to the abnormal. Man’s nobler faculties belonging to the upper region of the brain are essentially good and normal. The abnormal difficulty does not come into their description.

Its operation is limited to the region lying around the ears, the basilar region, the tendency of which is to exhaust the spiritual vitality of the brain in ministering to the body. This will be clearly understood when we understand the fundamental law of all cerebral action, the law of direction, or

PATHOGNOMIC LAW.

This law is the grandest generalization of science that was ever conceived. It is the fundamental law of the relations of the two worlds, the psychic and the physical. The spiritual and material worlds unite in man, in whom the eternal spirit is combined with a transitory material body, and the law of their interaction is the law of the universe.

In its application to man, the law is simply this, that all organs of the brain act in accordance with their position,—in accordance with their pathognomic line, or line of action, which is the line of their central fibres, the tendency of which is toward the surface of the brain, where they reach the interior of the cranium. It will be a sufficient approximation to the mathematical truth if for the present we say that the pathognomic line may be indicated by a perpendicular to the surface of the cranium where the organ is located.

When we establish the pathognomic line, we establish a perfect criterion of the organic action, for the action is always in accordance with the line; and this fundamental law gives a key to all psychology, and gives it a geometrical simplicity.

In accordance with this law, the frontal or intellectual organs act toward the front, and maintain our relations with that which is before us. Acting in that manner, they throw out or expend the vital forces, and exhaust the energies which belong to the posterior part of the brain and posterior part of the body. The posterior half of the brain acts in the opposite direction, and thus draws in, acquires, and energizes. The posterior action impels the body to advance, as the anterior portion checks our progress and causes us to yield. Hence if we erect a perpendicular from the ear, we shall find all the energetic impelling faculties behind it, and all that moderates, checks, and enlightens before it. Thus the occipital development makes a powerful, domineering, conquering character, as the frontal makes a passive, unselfish, yielding one.

Hence all organs in proportion to their energy are located nearer to the posterior region of the brain, and in proportion to their delicacy or weakness have a more anterior location.

There are four classes of pathognomic lines, as there are four aspects of the brain, which may be represented on a plane surface, and which are sufficient for this incomplete introductory statement—the anterior and posterior—the superior or upward, and the inferior or downward. The anterior and posterior tendencies may be separated by the vertical line through the ear. The superior and inferior, or upward and downward, may be separated by a nearly horizontal line from the forehead backward, which nearly coincides with the lateral ventricles that separate the superior and inferior convolutions. The lateral ventricles (cavities the walls of which are in contact,) are the central region of the brain around which the convolutions are formed. Dividing the brain thus into superior and inferior halves, we find that the major portion of the superior has an upward line which is fully expressed at the upper surface of the brain, while the lower half has downward lines which are most fully expressed on the basilar surface of the brain, which is covered by the face and neck.

Intermediate between these coronal and basilar surfaces are lateral organs which participate in the upward or downward tendency as they approach the highest and lowest surfaces.

The tendency of the coronal region is upward, that of the basilar downward. The latter operates downward upon the body, rousing the muscles and viscera to activity, but exhausting the brain and the spiritual life. Hence, while they vitalize the body, they are the source of all that is sensual, violent, beastly, and criminal,—all that degrades human nature,—when they become the controlling power, which is an abnormal condition.

The coronal organs tend upward; they withdraw excitement from the body, quiet the muscles, and diminish the energy of the appetites and passions, while they originate all noble and lofty impulses. Their tendency is toward heaven, toward the highest possible condition of humanity, the performance of every duty, the enjoyment of happiness and health, the perfection of love and fidelity. They make the life on earth resemble the life in heaven, and consequently bring us into sympathy with all holy influences. They make religion a reality, and produce a character which we cannot but admire and love. Their tendency is to draw life upward from the body to the head and the upper part of the chest, and thereby to energize the soul, which has its home in the brain, and which is the essential seat and source of life, and is in interior connection with the infinite source of life. Hence the coronal half of the brain is the home of spiritual life, the antagonist of disease, the promoter of longevity, by which the harmonious love of the upper world is realized on earth, and that divine quality of the soul which frees it from disease and death is to a limited extent imparted to the human body.

The excessive action of the basilar region exhausts the brain, degrades the soul, and thereby impairing the fountain of life and health, introduces disease and death. Gluttony, drunkenness, sensuality, passion, and violent exertion are the processes that exhaust the soul power. Excessive and prolonged muscular exertion without rest exhausts the brain. But the normal action of the basilar organs is essential to all the processes of life, and maintains the union of soul and body. Hence their good development is necessary to longevity.

On the other hand, excessive predominance of the coronal region, although it heightens the spiritual nature, withdraws life from the body, and culminates in trance, ending in death by the ascension of the soul from the body. But so