Human head

“ Their ACTIONS give birth to a set of Associations of the greatest importance, which remain to be considered under a Head by themselves. What the Affections are, which are generated by the association of our pains and pleasures, with the STATES of our Fellow-creatures, taken individually, or in groups, we have recently examined. ”

“ When a horse is standing still, or lying fast asleep in his stable, his shoes are, of course, firmer when wholly than when only half-nailed. So soon, however, as, mounted by say a heavy man, he begins to move, there commences, out of sight of every human eye, a desperate, and in deep ground a subterranean struggle between the works of Nature and of Vulcan the blacksmith, or, in plainer words, between the expansive efforts of the frog and hoof and the arbitrary metallic shoe that is restraining them. ”

“ The Nile was no more an object of anxious curiosity. Bruce had no longer to fly towards its source on the light wings of expectation; but, like the bee laden with its honey, he must now carry his burden to his distant hive; and, thus freighted, his shattered frame worn by fatigue, exhausted by a burning sun, and no longer supported by the excitement of his mind, he naturally trembled at the dangers which threatened to intercept him.
The texture of the human mind is so delicately fine, that it is often affected by causes which to the judgment are imperceptible ”

“ Strange as it may sound, I believe few people will, on reflection, deny, what a most remarkable difference exists between a man and what is termed mankind—in fact, between the intelligence of the human being and that of the species to which he belongs. ”

“ It is needless that the thought or the personality, holding the transferred picture, should be individually and consciously present. Though bodies are leagues apart, and the circumstances forgotten, they float in the general atmosphere of human mind. ”

“ The whole body is deranged; and the head, which ought to be the seat of sense and the temple of wisdom, is insensible to the wants of the body, and to the fact that, if the body sinks, the head must sink also. ”

“ As a railway carriage is constructed on springs to soften all ordinary jolts, and with buffers to alleviate any violent concussion;—as the human mind is gifted with a buoyancy which enables it cheerfully to meet any trifling vexation, and with sentiments of religion which maintain its serenity under the severest afflictions, so do the pastern above a horse's foot and the frog beneath it protect the body of the animal from the continual slight concussions and occasional severe ones to which, in ordinary and extraordinary exertions, it is liable to be subjected. ”

“ One sees but little,—yet that little, caught here and there, so much resembles some of the attributes of the Great Power which created us, that the mind, trembling under the immensity of the conceptions it engenders, is lost in feelings which human beings cannot impart to each other. ”

“ About forty years ago it was the general custom to dock the tails of all hunters, covert-hacks, and waggon-horses, so close, that nothing remained of this picturesque, beautiful ornament of Nature but an ugly, stiff stump, very little longer than the human thumb, which, especially in summer time, was seen continually wagging to the right or left, in impotent attempts to brush off a hungry fly, biting the skin more than a yard off. ”

“ Any one who has ever had the misfortune to witness an African slave-market, and for a moment to stand surrounded by its wretched, emaciated victims, must, after his first feelings have subsided, have found himself filled with astonishment that human nature could ever be induced deliberately to continue so guilty a traffic! ”

“ At the moments when these impressions arise, I see behind them and through them something which resembles a large and powerful man’s head, with a broad forehead, and the dark, sparkling, deep-set eyes of a thinker and seer, eyes which seem as though they were trying to creep inwards. ”

“ But if this labour sweetens the cup of human existence, by giving that health to the body, which invigorates the mind for its studies—in short, if this mixture of physical and mental exertion results in producing contentment, the labourer, however high his rank, without deigning to revile the philosopher, may justly return thanks to that Almighty Power which, by such simple means, has enabled him, by dulcifying his "domum," to produce for himself domestic happiness. ”

“ Those, on the other hand, who consecrate the brain to reasoning, say that the head has been built by nature as a kind of citadel of the whole body, and that in it the mind dwells like a king, with a bodyguard of senses surrounding it like messengers and shield-bearers. ”

“ His whole being, body and soul, is so delicately attuned to the harmony of the world that a touch of his hand or a turn of his head may send a thrill vibrating through the universal framework of things ”

“ Every indication was there of great strength and great activity, and the countenance also harmonised perfectly well with the figure, the broad high forehead giving that air of a powerful and active mind which we are all, whether physiognomists or not, inclined by nature to see in the expanse which covers and seems to represent the great instrument of the human intellect. ”

“ The most noticeable peculiarity relative to Salt Lake City, and the one which, more than all others combined, has given to it a world-wide notoriety, is its revival, in an Anglo- Saxon commonwealth, of a marriage system utterly at variance with our modern civilization.
It may with safety be assumed that the polygamic theory of marriage is contrary to human nature. Were men and
women entirely free from jealousy and selfishness, such a parceling out of the affections might be endured; but so long as Nature is unchanged, it must result in suffering and sorrow to the wife. ”

“ Now, if in return for this extraordinary alleviation, or rather annihilation of all sufferings under surgical treatment, man should deem it his duty to render public thanks to that Omnipotent Power from which it has proceeded, is it possible for him practically to perform any more acceptable act of acknowledgment than to allow the dumb creatures in his service to participate in a blessing which, by Divine authority, has been imparted to the possessors, not exclusively of human reason, but without favour or exception, of animal life? ”

“ The form of the human body can be imitated by taking a suit of old garments, stuffing them with straw, and covering them with buff cambric, on which hieroglyphics can be painted. A large mask, with artificial [Pg 93] hair, and crown made of gaudy-colored cloth, will answer for the head; a short frock of red Turkey cloth, trimmed with gold paper, should be fastened about the lower portion of the body. The idol should be seated on a pedestal sixteen inches high, which is placed on a platform three feet square and eight inches high. ”

“ There are other external things which nature intended for signs; and we find this common to them all, that the mind is disposed to overlook them, and to attend only to the things signified by them. Thus there are certain modifications of the human face, which are natural signs of the present disposition of the mind. ”

“ During that long period of time, the most delicate gradations of human personality, divinised, idealised, were presented to the contemplation of the consciousness which gave them being, in appropriate types. ”

“ We turned humanity inside out, and then I walked in day-time in the streets with a lamp in my hand in search of a normal man, of a human being. If you vitriole a person's face or character first, how can you expect him to have unscathed features? ”

“ In health or sickness, infancy or age, at home or on our travels, nothing is so generally useful, so sustaining and invigorating. Far better than the majority of vaunted substitutes for human milk as an infant's food, to supplement what other milk may be available; incomparable as a family drink for breakfast or supper, when both tea and coffee are really out of place unless the latter is nearly all milk; prepared as chocolate to eat on journeys, and in many other ways, cocoa is a constant stand-by. ”

“ Such conduct resembles theirs who should abstract the eyes of an individual man, and term them the man himself, and the ears, another man, and so the head: or again, by an effort of thought should separate the neck, the breast and shoulders, the feet and hands, or other members, nay, the very powers of sense, and thus pronounce an individual to be a multitude of men. ”

“ The other head contains the rest of you, your early memories and your earlier experience. You argue subtly and craftily across the threshold of your pitiful consciousness, but your misfortune is that you have only one head. ”

“ Those which concern his mind, again, concern either his understanding or his affections. To the former head belong the circumstances of quantity and quality of knowledge, strength of understanding, and insanity. ”

“ But the real kernel of the phenomenon is not the inhibition but the dynamogeny;—not the abstraction of attention or imagination from other topics, but the increased power which imagination gains under suggestion;—the development of faculty, useless, if you will, in that special form of imagining the baby, but faculty mentally of a high order—faculty in one shape or another essential to the production of almost all the most admired forms of human achievement. ”

“ When we speak of the ego, do we mean the self of to-day, or of yesterday, or of some years back—or possibly some years in the future when we shall have found the expression now unhappily denied us? Do we mean the self of boyhood, or even of babyhood? or do we mean that of maturity, or of old age? Do we mean the self indicated by the mind alone, or by the spirit, apart from the body? ”

“ For when 'tis seen to drive the members on, To snatch from sleep the body, and to change The countenance, and the whole state of man To rule and turn,—what yet could never be Sans contact, and sans body contact fails— Must we not grant that mind and soul consist Of a corporeal nature?—And besides Thou markst that likewise with this body of ours Suffers the mind and with our body feels. ”

“ After all, what you carry on your back or on your feet or in your hands does not matter half so much as what you carry in your head and heart—your eye, and spirit, and purpose. For instance, when you go into the fields have some purpose in your going besides the indefinite desire to get out of doors. ”

“ And in that day shall be discovered every inward working of every human soul: every appetite, passion, inclination, affection, with the various combinations of them, with every temper and disposition that constitute the whole complex character of each individual. ”

“ The general capacities of perception, and desire, and expectation, and voluntary command of certain muscles, which, on every view of the phenomena of attention, we must allow the mind to possess, are, of themselves, sufficient to explain the phenomena, and preclude, therefore, any further reference. ”

“ He stood and gazed, then, with his arms folded on his chest, while the people walking to and fro passed and repassed him, and many a one commented as they went, and assigned him a history and a character from their own imagination. How seldom is it, in the busy world with which we mingle, that any of the conjectures regarding our thoughts, our feelings, our state of existence, are correct! ”

“ It is the body, namely, that contains the habit and readiness on which understanding hangs; and the sense of understanding, the instant rejection of whatever clashes and makes nonsense in that context, is but a transcript of the body’s education. ”

“ Of these great divisions of our subject, the Physiology of the Mind, or the consideration of the regular series of phenomena which it presents, simply as states or affections of the mind, is that to which we are first to turn our attention. ”

“ We inhabit these separate organs, these distinct personalities, simultaneously, and ordain their movements and gather in their perceptions by the act of attention. Attention in the world of the spirit corresponds to extension in the physical world. ”

“ The Brain is a center of consciousness with avenues of perception and impulse and departments that by aggregation, separation or association, enable the Individual Intelligence to determine the relation in time, or duration, force and orderly relation of perceptions, desires, motives, actions (or thoughts and feelings) as to sequence or results.
This whole conscious realm is the Mind. It is the inner chamber of the Soul. It is in no sense an entity. The actor, the real entity, is the Individual Intelligence. ”

“ What is always reckoned the mystery by pre-eminence is the union of BODY and MIND. How, then, should we treat this Mystery according to the spirit of modern thought, according to the modern laws of explanation? The course is to conceive the elements according to the only possible plan, our own sensibility or consciousness; which gives us matter as one class of facts—extension, inertness, weight, and so on; and mind as another class of facts—pleasures, pains, volitions, ideas. ”

“ These three materials are the Intelligence, the human heart (as distinguished from intelligence or mind) , and the World or elemental space suited for the proper action of Mind and Heart on each other for the purpose of forming the Soul or Intelligence destined to possess the sense of Identity. ”

“ Is the development very large, and equally so in all the departments of the brain, animal, moral, and intellectual, giving to the head unusual size? The individual possessing it has a lofty and powerful character, is capable of attaining the highest renown, and making an impression, not to be erased, on the age and country in which he lives. ”

“ For them the soul is only a succession of fields of consciousness: yet there is found in each field a part, or sub-field, which figures as focal and contains the excitement, and from which, as from a centre, the aim seems to be taken. ”