When these patients recover, they begin to count the time from the moment, when they regained the distinct perception of their existence. After twenty-seven years of seclusion and of mania, a lady experienced a revolution favorable to her moral state. Her delirium and madness continued during this space of time, to the extent of tearing her clothes, of remaining naked, &c. At the moment of the cessation of her delirium, she appeared to come out as from a profound dream, and asked after two young children which she had previous to her alienation, and could not conceive, that they had been married several years previous. Can animals measure time?

"Animals," says Buffon, "can have no idea of time, no knowledge of the past, no notion of the future." C. G. Leroy has already well refuted this assertion of Buffon.

What constitutes in us the measure of time, is the succession of the ideas or sensations with which we have been struck, and which leave some trace in our memory. It is certain, that animals having fewer ideas than we have, there must be fewer degrees marked on the scale with which they measure time; but they must necessarily have some idea of it, since they foresee and mark its periodical returns.

All animals which rise at certain hours to eat, and there are many, are faithful to them, not however as a clock which strikes the hours, but with the modifications, which the circumstances of the season or even of the day may occasion in their will.

When the ground uncovered by the harvest now completed, has forced the pheasants to collect in the covers in which they are kept, that is about the first of September, they live collected in flocks, and then they leave the wood twice a day to seek their food, which is called going to pasture. Nearly all start together at sunrise. When the sun begins to appear above the horizon, they soon finish their repast, there being an abundance of food, the heat which is felt, invites

them to return to the woods. They leave them again between five and six o'clock, and their supper continues until sunset. If the heat is less intense, and provision less abundant, they take their departure so much the earlier. When food becomes scarce, and the days are shorter, the pheasants go out only once a day, between nine and ten o'clock, and their meal continues until sunset. How should these birds execute these regular processes, if they did not measure the intervals of time?

The red partridges, though less intimately united, have the same habits as the pheasants: and the experienced fowlers know whether to look for them in the woods or the plains, according to the hour. Rabbits have this peculiarity, that the experience of the past gives them in some respects, in a more marked manner, a knowledge sufficiently correct for the future. During the summer they usually go out of their burrows some time before sunset, remain out a part of the night, and rise again generally about eight or nine in the morning, when it is not warm. But if you find almost all of them gone out, at two or three in the afternoon, if they eat very eagerly, if the attention they give to this, makes them more bold and less cautious than usual, you may be certain, that it will rain in the evening or in the night. The marked avidity of the rabbits is therefore an act of prudence; that is to say, in consequence of a sensation, which they have experienced and which they still experience, they judge of the future by the past.

Domestic animals have likewise a measure of time. The knowledge of the past enables them to judge of the future. The hour for their supply of grain is marked by the impatient neighing of the horses. Those who are either feeble or of vicious disposition, do not fail to make the greatest efforts to pass out of the places, where they have been accustomed to repose. They have therefore the consciousness of their past existence. Dogs, especially those ac

customed to be led to the chase at an early hour, announce the moment by cries of impatience whenever any delay occurs. That of the departure is hailed by the liveliest cries of joy. The hunter is often annoyed by them, and has much trouble to control their impatience, especially when armed with his gun, he intimates to them the return of the sport of which they have so lively a recollection. Who does not know, that dogs and all domestic animals mark with impatience the moment, at which they are accustomed to receive their food? It is certain therefore, that they measure time.

But is there a peculiar organ for this measure, and where is its seat? Spurzheim is inclined to think, that its organ is placed above that of order, and near melody, to which it furnishes especial aid. When we shall have collected numerous observations of persons, who devote themselves with ardor to the pursuit of chronology, to time and dates, and carefully compound them with those made on the arithmeticians, we shall be better able to form a judgment in this matter.

XIX. Faculty of Constructiveness.

Bau-sinn.)

History of the Discovery.

(Kunst-sinn,

The same thing has happened to me respecting the faculty of constructiveness and its organ, as in regard to the faculty and organ of music. When I was first

engaged in this subject, I was not, fully persuaded, that each quality and each faculty depended on a particular part of the brain. It was this which induced me to give my attention to the whole form of the head of great mechanics. I was often struck by the circumstance, that the heads of these artists were as large in the temporal region as in that of the cheekbone. This was not indeed a positive sign, but I often found it, and I was at last more and more convinced,

that the faculty of mechanism is also a particular fundamental faculty.

I applied myself principally to discover a certain external development. I every where sought to make the acquaintance of distinguished mechanicians: I studied the form of their heads and moulded it. I soon met with some, in whom the diameter from one temporal to the other was much more considerable, than that from one zygomatic arch to the other. I finally met two very remarkable mechanics, in whom the temples were swollen into a large round cushion. These heads convinced me, that it is not the equality of the temporal and zygomatic diameters, which determines the genius for mechanics, but rather a large rounded protuberance placed in the temporal region, sometimes immediately behind the eye, sometimes a little above it. When I had assured myself of the seat of the organ and of its external appearance, I multiplied my observations; wherever I cast my eyes I found, both in our species and in animals, the most undeniable proofs, that the faculty of mechanics is a fundamental power. I will proceed to indicate the proofs.

Natural History of the Faculty of Constructiveness in Animals.

The tissue of the snail, the web of the spider, the hexagonal cells of the bee, the subterraneous galleries of the ant, of the mole, of the rabbit, the nests of birds. and of the squirrel, the cabin of the beaver, &c., are so many masterpieces. What is the power which has created them?

The dog and the horse, so superior in many respects to the animals I have just named, have never, even in the moments of the greatest distress, manifested the least trace of instinct for building, or of any mechanical aptitude whatever. What, then, is the power which suggests to beings, so limited, the most inge

nious means for their own preservation and that of their family?

Instinct? yes; without doubt an instinct; that is, an internal impulse; but it is not that instinct, which is the usual resource of closet philosophers and naturalists, in love with their own speculative ideas. It is a particular instinct, absolutely independent of every other species of internal impulse, and calculated expressly according to the peculiar relations, in which the animal is placed with the external world. The tissue of the snail is to secure it from the rain and the cold; the spider's web is to secure him his victim; the subterranean galleries of the mole are to serve for refuge and abode to her and her young. It was therefore necessary, that the organization of these beings should be in accordance with their wants, and reveal the primordial type of the works, which they were to execute abroad. Here again, therefore, there exists the same harmony between the laws of the external world and the internal organization of the animal, as in all the other fundamental qualities and faculties; here, again, we see in a small living organization, the type or the impress of a part of the external world.

Such is the only reasonable idea of the innate mechanical aptitudes. What would it avail the swallow and the thrush, to knead with water the clay which must give solidity to their nests, if the clay in drying was reduced to dust? It were in vain for the magpie to surround her nest with thorns, if the thorns did not prevent her enemies from approaching. It is the harmony, between the mechanical aptitudes of the animal and the objects without, which alone enables them to secure their existence against the dangers, which threaten them.

The action of this faculty, even in animals, is not subjected to the laws of a blind necessity. They vary, according to circumstances, the structure of their nests, of their galleries. The squirrels greatly modify their nests, and especially their habitations, in winter: