PHRENOLOGY.

Phrenology, derived from φpnv, the mind, and λoγos, discourse, is a term which has been recently applied to denote a new doctrine of mental philosophy, founded on a presumed knowledge of the functions of different portions of the brain, obtained by comparing their relative forms and magnitudes in different individuals, with the propensities and intellectual powers which these individuals are found respectively to possess. This term has of late years totally superseded the more unpretending titles of Craniology and Cranioscopy, by which this doctrine, in its earlier periods, and before it had aspired at effecting a revolution in psychology, was designated, and which simply implied the study of the external forms of the skull, both in men and animals, with a view to determine the size of the subjacent parts of the brain, and thence to derive indications as to the mental and moral qualities of each individual.

The original propounder of the doctrine which is the basis of phrenology was Dr. Gall, a physician of Vienna, whose system, matured in conjunction with Dr. Spurzheim, has attracted so much attention, and been so keenly discussed, both here and on the Continent, that we think it our duty to present our readers with a general outline of this pretended science.

Of the several parts which compose the human body, the mechanism of which has been so thoroughly unfolded by the diligence of modern anatomists, there are few whose use in the economy is wholly unknown. The intention and operation of every part of our frame subservient to the mechanical purposes of connexion, oflocomotion, and ofstrength, such as the bones, muscles, and ligaments, are, in general, sufficiently apparent; the functions performed by the abdominal and thoracic viscera are, for the most part, well ascertained; and we are able, in like manner, to discern the adaptation of the organs of sense to receive appropriate impressions from surrounding objects. One organ alone, and an organ of vast importance in the system, connected with every other, and essentially interwoven with our sensitive existence, has baffled all investigation, and still presents a wide blank in this rich and cultivated field of knowledge. The brain, that large mass of pulpy substance, which fills the cavity of the cranium, is, even at the present day, as incomprehensible in its functions, as it is subtle and complex in its anatomy. It appears, indeed, to be sufficiently established, that the brain is, in some unknown way, subservient to sensation and voluntary motion, and is thereby the immediate agent by which the soul and body mutually exert an influence over each other: and it has also been very generally supposed, that this organ is immediately concerned in all our mental operations, besides being the instrument by which we feel and act. But the phenomena comprehended under the operations of the mind are exceedingly various and complicated, and are also of very different kinds; so that before we can reason concerning them, it is necessary that they should be properly distinguished and arranged. Metaphysicians have, accordingly, classed them as referable to our sentient, our intellectual, our active, and our moral powers. Further subdivision again is required; and the intellectual phenomena, for instance, are arranged according as they relate to the faculties of con ∙ ception, association, memory, abstraction, judgment, imagination, invention, &c. Other phenomena are distributed under the heads of the different active principles, such as the propensities, the instincts, the affections, and the passions, which belong to our nature. Whilst we thus discover a great diversity in the functions of the mind, we observe also as great a complexity of structure in the organs by which they are performed. Shall we rest satisfied with an acquiescence in the general proposition, that the brain is the organ of thought? May we not rather regard it as a congeries of distinct organs, corresponding to the different faculties into which the mind maybe analyzed; each organ having its appropriate office, and being immediately subservient to some particular function of the mind? The question has, indeed, presented itself to many physiologists; but few have ventured farther in attempting its solution, than to throw out some vague and general conjectures as to the uses of certain parts, or as to the supposed habitation of the sentient principle. Thus, for a long period it was held, that the cerebrum was the organ of perception, and the cerebellum the organ of memory. The cavities which are met with in the interior of the brain have often been considered as the scene of the intellectual operations. Nemesius, the first bishop of Emesa, under the reign of Theodosius, taught that the sensations had their seat in the anterior ventricles, memory in the middle, and understanding in the posterior ventricles. Albertus Magnus, in the thirteenth century, went so far as actually to delineate upon a head the supposed seat of the different faculties of the mind. He placed common sense in the forehead, or in the first ventricle of the brain, cogitation and judgment in the second, memory and moving power in the third. Peter de Montagnana, in 1491, published the figure of a head, on which were indicated the seat of the sensus communis, the cellula imaginativa, cellula aestimativa seu cogitativa, cellula memorativa, and cellula rationalis. LudovicoDolci, Servito, and a great number of other writers, have hazarded similar hypotheses as to the locality of the different faculties. Both Haller and Van Swicten fancied that the internal senses occupy different places in the brain; but they considered its whole organization as too complicated, too intricate, and too difficult, to allow of any hope that the seat of memory, of judgment, or of imagination, could ever be detected.

In the pursuit of this speculation, no one has engaged with more ardour and perseverance than Dr. Gall, who, after many years of patient labour, and much fruitless wandering in search of the truth, conceived that he had at last discovered the clue which was to conduct us through the mazes of this labyrinth, and enable us to arrive at a more accurate knowledge of human nature, and of the means which may conduce to its perfection. The account which he gave of the circumstances that gradually drew his attention to the subject, and of his progress in this new path of discovery, is as follows: Brought up in the midst of a numerous family, and naturally gifted with the talent for observation, he was struck, even when a boy, with the diversities of disposition and of character amongst his brothers and sisters, and the companions with whom he was educated. He remarked, that each excelled in a particular study, or was distinguished by a peculiar turn of mind. One was noted for the beauty of his handwriting; another for his quickness at arithmetic; a third for his aptitude in learning languages; a fourth for remembering everything that he read in history. This diversity was apparent in all that they did; thus the style of composition of the one was remarkable for its flowing and elegant periods; of another for its [7:17:455]'baldness and dryness; of a third for its condensation and vigour. Many displayed talents for arts which had never been taught them; they excelled, perhaps, in drawing, or in the execution of works of mechanism; some sought for amusement in noisy sports, others preferred cultivating their gardens; a few placed their chief delight in rambling through fields and forests, and in collecting birds, insects, and flowers. One was of a social and affectionate disposition, another was selfish and reserved; a third was fickle, and not to be depended upon. The great facility with which some of his school-fellows could commit their tasks to memory, which to him was a work of immense labour, although in matters of reasoning and judgment he felt himself their superior, often proved a grievous source of mortification, and excited in him a strong desire to know the cause of this difference. He at length remarked, that all the boys gifted with this kind of memory had large and prominent eyes. He afterwards went to the university; and directing his attention to all those among his fellow-students, who presented the same peculiarity of feature, he learned that they were all distinguished by the tenacity of their memories; as, indeed, he soon found to his cost, for they were sure to leave him far behind in every competition, where the exercise of this faculty was essential to success. This observation gave rise to others; it suggested the notion, that other intellectual endowments might also be indicated by the features; and Gall, by degrees, came to imagine that he had discovered a number of external signs, which respectively indicated a decided turn for painting, for music, for mechanical arts, or other objects. He had by this time commenced the study of medicine; and, in the course of his academical instructions, he heard much about the functions of the muscles and viscera; but nothing was taught about those of the brain and its different parts. It then occurred to him, that the differences he had already noticed in the external configuration of the head, as connected with certain dispositions of mind, were occasioned by differences in the form of the brain. Delighted with the prospect which this idea opened to him of discovering the functions of particular parts of this organ, and of obtaining an insight into the connexion between the mind and the body, he formed the resolution of prosecuting the research, till he had either accomplished his object, or satisfied himself that it was not to be attained by that method. Natural history, which had long been his favourite study, furnished ample scope for the extension of these inquiries. He had been in the practice of collecting plants and animals of various kinds, and of arranging them, not according to the artificial methods of classification detailedin booksof science, but according to their more obvious resemblances. He now studied the relations between their external forms, and their natural habits and dispositions. Dogs showed him the greatest diversities in their capabilities of being educated. He remarked that some were naturally expert at the chace, while others, of the same breed, could not be trained without the utmost difficulty; that some perpetually lost themselves, while others found their way home from great distances. In birds, he observed that one would listen with attention to a tune which it heard, and immediately learn it; while another of the very same brood would sing nothing but the note that was natural to it. Whence, he would ask himself, can arise this wide diversity among individuals?

The solution of this difficult question was not to be hoped for, unless by means of observations conducted on the largest possible scale. He therefore set about examining all the skulls he could lay hold of, that had belonged to individuals whose history was known. He looked out for all persons in any way distinguished for a particular talent or moral quality. He examined their heads with great attention, and noted the peculiarities in their shape. He also collected observations on other individuals, who were remarkable for the weakness of any faculty, and then compared together the positive and negative indications. On the other hand, when he chanced to meet with a head that presented some singularity in shape, he was at much pains to obtain information as to the moral and intellectual character of the person to whom it belonged. When he had no other resource, he did not scruple, as Dr. Spurzheim informs us, to address his questions directly to the person in whose head he observed any distinct protuberance. We aré also told, that he was in the habit of collecting around him the boys he met with in the streets of Vienna, and of inducing them, by petty bribes, to confess their own faults, and betray those of their companions. He excited them, for instance, to fight together, in order to discover which possessed most courage, and thence drew inferences as to the organ which prompted that sentiment. In order to obtain more precise data for his conclusions, he endeavoured to procure models of the more remarkable heads that he met with, and generally got permission from the individuals themselves to take a cast of their heads in plaster of Paris. The Count of Sauran, then minister of police at Vienna, gave him material assistance in effecting these objects; and he was thus in no long time in possession of a very large collection of casts, all bearing more or less upon the several points of his theory. If he happened to hear of the death of any one whose head he had already moulded, he was at great pains to procure his skull, that he might compare the form of its different parts with the shape of the head during life. As it was soon known that the doctor aimed chiefly at those who possessed some remarkable talent, a very general alarm spread itself amongst the inhabitants of Vienna; and not a few were pursued with the terror of being selected as the subjects of cranioscopical investigation, and of their skulls being destined to make a figure in his anatomical cabinet. The aged Mr. Denis, librarian to the emperor, is said to have inserted an express clause in his will, to protect his head from the keen scalpel of Dr. Gall. Notwithstanding these fears and precautions, he contrived to amass an extensive collection of skulls, as well as of heads, in illustration of his doctrines. He next availed himself of the aid of comparative anatomy; and having no family to provide for, spared no expense in procuring skulls of all sorts of animals, with a view of tracing the form and size of corresponding organs throughout the whole series. Being physician to the establishment for the deaf and dumb at Vienna, he had opportunities of observing the natural features of uncultivated minds, and the various degrees in which they were susceptible of education. With the same view, he used to call together into his house persons of the lowest class, such as coachmen, and beggars in the street, and excite them to display their characters before him. His professional practice made him acquainted with a great number of families, and afforded him many opportunities of making valuable observations. He neglected no means of instruction that could be derived from the inspection of the heads of patients labouring under different forms of insanity. He was physician to the director of establishments for education, and was allowed to examine every child who excelled, or showed any remarkable disposition. He visited the prisons and houses of correction, as well as the hospitals for idiots and lunatics. He took casts of the heads of criminals, inquired into the offences for which they were confined, and collected the history of their lives; and thus derived from every quarter materials for bringing his theory to perfection.

As his observations multiplied, he became sensible that he had fallen into many errors in the earlier periods of his inquiries, and was forced to give up many of his favourite opinions, which he found had been too hastily adopted, with regard to the general form of the head, as connected with«.
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the character of the individual. He felt the necessity of being in future more on his guard, and resolved to institute a separate examination of the different regions of the skull; and although he was here, also, frequently obliged to shift his ground in assigning the function of each part, his researches were, on the whole, attended with more uniform success. By degrees he acquired greater confidence in the stability of his conclusions, and at length ventured to announce them to the public, by the delivery of lectures on his new science. His doctrines were eagerly received, and much canvassed at Vienna; but their fame had no sooner reached the Austrian court, than a violent outcry was raised against them by the bigoted priests, who controlled all the operations of that weak and misguided government, and who represented these doctrines as tending to materialism and atheism. The consequence of this senseless clamour was, that Gall was interdicted from lecturing. But the number of those to whom he had communicated the principles of his art, and in whom he had infused a strong desire to continue to profit by his instructions, was by this time very considerable, especially among the strangers who happened to be at Vienna. They formed a strong party in his favour, and made such interest at court, principally through the medium of the foreign ambassadors, that the doctor was again permitted to resume his prelections, on condition that he delivered them to foreigners only; as it was wisely considered that their being exposed to the dangers of knowledge, would not be of any material consequence to the state, as long as care was taken that the infection did not spread farther; the emperor kindly preserving the bliss of ignorance for the exclusive enjoyment of his Austrian subjects.

It was long before Gall committed himself by writing on the subject that had procured him so much celebrity. He merely announced, in 1798, in a letter addressed to Baron Retzer, which appeared in the Deutsche Merkur of Wieland, his design of publishing a large work on the new theory, of which he affords his readers only an imperfect glimpse. A detailed account was afterwards given by Μ. Froreiss, one of his pupils, in the second volume of Voight’s Magazin Physique ; and an amusing outline appeared from the pen of Μ. Charles Villers, in a letter addressed to Cuvier. Various surreptitious copies of his lectures were also circulated throughout the protestant states of Germany, where they excited so much curiosity, that Dr. Gall was at length induced to make a tour for the purpose of delivering them himself at the principal universities in the north of Germany. With this view he visited Dresden, Berlin, Hallé, Jena, Weimar, Göttingen, Hamburgh, &c. and every where met with the most flattering reception, being invited to the several courts of the states through which he passed, and treated with the honours due to a distinguished literary character. By frequenting the first societies, and conversing with the best informed persons, he had ample opportunities of extending his observations, and he was attentive to improve these opportunities to the utmost of his power. Dr. Spurzheim, who had at an early period been associated with him in these inquiries, and who had devoted himself particularly to the anatomical researches they comprised, accompanied him in this tour, and participated in all his labours. Dr. Gall at length settled in Paris, where he continued his pursuits and lectures, and united with them the practice of his profession.

In 1810 Drs. Gall and Spurzheim published, in conjunction, the first volume, in quarto, of the work they had announced, and which was to contain a full account of their doctrines, under the title of Anatomie et Physiologie du système nerveux en general, et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnoitre plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’ homme et des animaux, par la configuration de leurs têtes. The first part of the second volume appeared in 1812. This work, together with the one published in 1815, by Dr. Spurzheim, entitled The Physiognomical System of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim,founded on an anatomical and physiological examination of the nervous system in general, and of the brain in particular, and indicating the dispositions and manifestations of the mind, contain the most authentic account of their system. Information on the subject may, however, be derived from the following books, besides those of Froreiss and Villers, already mentioned. The best of the foreign works is that of Professor Bischoff, entitled Darstellung der GalΓ schen Gehimund Schadellehre, nebst Bemerkungen über diese Lehre, von D. W. Hufeland, Berlin, 1805. At Dresden, in 1806, Bloede published a similar work, viz. Galls Lehre uber die Verrichtungen des Gehirns, nach dessen zu Dresden gehaltenen Vorlesungen; and at Paris, in the same year, we have, from the pen of Démangeon, Physiologie intellectuelle, ou developement de la doctrine du Professeur Gall. A small tract in English, entitled Some Account of Dr. GalΓs new Theory of Physiognomy, founded upon the Anatomy and Physiology of the Brain, and the Form of the Skull, appeared in London in 1807, and is chiefly taken from Dr. Bischoff’s work, including the critical strictures of Dr. Hufeland. Soon after the publication of Dr. Spurzheim’s book, a small volume, principally reprinted from a short tract in the Pamphleteer, was given to the public by Mr. Thomas Forster, under the title of Sketch of the New Anatomy and Physiology of the Brain and Nervous System of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim, considered as comprehending a complete system of Zoonomy, with observations on its tendency to the improvement of education, of punishment, and of the treatment of insanity. Two pamphlets in opposition to these doctrines were published by Professor Walter of Berlin, in 1805, of which, as well as of Bischoff’s work, a short account is given in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for July 1806. Dr. Spurzheim having conceived that he was unfairly attacked in some of the Reviews, thought proper to publish a reply, in a pamphlet which made its appearance at Edinburgh in 1817, entitled Examination of the Objections made in Britain against the Doctrines of Gall and Spurzheim. These, together with the lectures delivered in London by Dr. Spurzheim, are the sources which have supplied the materials for the following summary.

It is laid down both by Gall and Spurzheim as the foundation of their doctrines, that the nature of man, like that of all other created beings, is determinate, and that the faculties with which he is endowed are innate ; that is, that they are implanted in him at his first formation, and are not the result merely of the external circumstances in which he may afterwards happen to be placed, nor of the wants and necessities to which these circumstances may have given rise. They warn us that this opinion is by no means at variance with that of Locke, who argues only against the in-nateness of ideas, and not of the faculties or capacities of receiving ideas. Education, doubtless, has a powerful influence in modifying and giving certain directions to these faculties; but the faculties themselves, that is, the capacities of feeling, of intellect, and of action, must have already pre-existed before they could be called into play, and thus produce the various phenomena which diversify the scene of human life. Savages have at different times been found in woods destitute of all the ordinary faculties of rational beings. Their resemblance to brutes has been supposed to be the consequence of their total want of education; but, when we come to examine into their real condition, we shall find that they are wretched beings, with great bodily defects; for the most part deeply tainted with scrofula, and almost always complete idiots. In general, they appear to have been abandoned in their childhood by their parents, to whom they were burdensome. The pretended savage of Aveyron, who was [7:17:457]kept in the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Paris, was almost completely idiotical. He was quite deaf, and his head and body were incessantly in motion from side to side, even when he was sitting.

In estimating the causes of that diversity which we see prevailing in the characters and faculties of individuals, much has been ascribed to the influence of diet, mode of living, and the impressions received in early infancy, while the organs are yet tender, and highly susceptible of every kind of external influence. But the operation of these causes, as well as the power of education in general, is much too limited to explain the immense differences we observe among different men, and even among different children of the same family. Helvetius and other bold metaphysicians have maintained the paradox, that all men are born originally the same, and are moulded into what they afterwards become solely by the force of external circumstances. Genius, according to this doctrine, is a mere creature of the fancy, and originally belongs no more to one man than to another. Train all men alike, and their powers, their attainments, and their actions, will all be similar. Accident, more than design or premeditation, has fixed the destinies of great men, as well as disposed of those who are unknown to fame. “Demosthenes,” say these philosophers, “became eloquent, because he heard an oration of Callistratus, whose eloquence made so deep an impression on his mind, that he aspired only to acquire this talent. Vaucanson excelled in mathematics, because, being obliged, when a child, to stay alone in the waiting room of his mother’s confessor, he found there a clock, examined its wheels, and endeavoured, with the help of a bad knife, to make a similar machine of wood. He succeeded; and one step leading on to another, he arrived at the construction of his wonderful automatons. Milton would not have composed his Paradise Lost, had he not been deprived of his place of secretary to Cromwell. Shakspeare composed his tragedies because he was an actor, and he became an actor because he was forced to leave his native place on account of some juvenile errors. Corneille fell in love, made verses for the object of his passion, and thence became a great poet. An apple fell from a tree at the feet of Newton, while Re was in a contemplative mood: this event, so trivial in itself, led him to the theory of gravitation.” Reflections of a similar kind are often met with in the writings of poets and moralists. Those contained in Gray’s Elegy must be familiar to all our readers. Dr. Johnson considered talents or genius as a thing that, when once existing, might be directed any way. Newton, he thought, might have become a Shakspeare, for, said he, a man who can run fifty miles to the south, can run fifty miles to the north.

Yet these are but the ingenious speculations of the theorist, more calculated to dazzle than to convince, and obviously in contradiction with the daily experience of mankind. Original differences in the constitution of the mind exist as certainly as in that of the body; and doubtless are dependent upon differences in organization. Children often show, from their earliest infancy, the germs of those peculiarities of character which adhere to them through life, which hardly any education can alter, and which no condition of life or variation of circumstances can afterwards affect. It is needless to expatiate on the subject of the diversities of intellectual powers exhibited by different individuals under the very same circumstances of birth and education; diversities which, as we have already seen, first directed the mind of Dr. Gall to his physiognomical researches. Many of these peculiarities are unquestionably derived from the parent, and are observed to prevail in certain families, and to descend through several successive generations.

That no sensation, or other affection of the mind, and that no operation of intellect can take place without a certain condition of the nervous system, is a position established by so many direct proofs, that its truth must be generally admitted. The question becomes more difficult when we come to inquire what part of the system it is that exercises these functions. It is quite clear that the sentient principle does not reside in the nerves, or in the part which receives the first impression from the external cause of sensation. The opinion which has been embraced by many physiologists, and particularly Bichat, that while the brain is the organ of the intellectual faculties, the nerves of the great viscera of the abdomen and thorax are the seat of the moral sentiments, is at variance with a multitude of facts in comparative anatomy. There are animals endowed with the faculties ascribed to these nervous plexuses, or ganglions of the great sympathetic nerves, distributed to certain viscera, which have not the viscera in question. On the other hand, most quadrupeds have viscera analogous in their whole structure to those in man, without having the faculties of which in man it is pretended they are the seat. We have a complete series of proofs that the nerves, of themselves, and without an uninterrupted continuity with the brain, can produce neither sensation nor voluntary motion. Compression of the brain, by any cause, produces an entire suspension of all sensation and consciousness, and puts a complete stop to every operation of intellect. All the other parts of the body, on the other hand, may be wounded or destroyed, and even the nervous mass of the spinal marrow may be compressed or injured, at a certain distance from the brain, without the immediate destruction of the feelings and intellectual faculties. In tetanus, produced by a cause remote from the brain, the other nervous systems are affected in the most violent manner, while the functions of the mind continue unimpaired.

In children, Dr. Spurzheim observes, the brain is yet pulpy, and the faculties imperfect; its growth accompanies their improvement; its maturity marks their greatest degree of vigour. If its developement has been considerable, the manifestations of these powers are energetic; if small, they are comparatively weak. In proportion as the organization of the brain decreases, the strength of the moral sentiments and intellectual faculties decreases also. If the developement of the brain take place too early or too late, the faculties exhibit corresponding variations. Certain faculties are more active in men, and others in women, according to the difference of their cerebral organization; and peculiarities of character are hereditary, according as the corresponding organization of the brain, on which they depend, is propagated from parents to their children.

Although many facts show that considerable injuries may be sustained by the brain without detriment to the mental faculties, yet as a general principle, it is contended by Dr. Spurzheim, that these faculties are weakened or destroyed in proportion as the brain is mechanically altered. It is, however, certain, that physiologists are by no means agreed as to this point; and that innumerable cases might be quoted in direct contradiction to this principle. These are attempted to be explained away by the general supposition, that most of them are the result of very inaccurate observations, in which the statement of the facts has been distorted and vitiated by ignorance, prejudice, or credulity; and that the rest are inconclusive as to the general question, from the observers not being aware of the real functions of the injured parts, and being inattentive to the circumstance, that almost all the parts of the brain being double, the loss of those on one side would scarcely be felt, as long as the corresponding organs on the other side remained entire. On the other hand, it should be recollected, that a derangement in an organ may occur of such a nature as that our senses cannot enable us to discover it. How often is this exemplified in fatal diseases of the nervous system, such as hydrophobia, tetanus, and atonic gout. Analogy shows us other parts where apparently no proportion is pre [7:17:458]served between the injury and the derangement of function. Sometimes large abscesses are met with in the lungs without much disturbance of the function of respiration; and ossification of the heart, without any sensible affection of the circulation. In persons possessed of great irritability, very slight wounds of the brain may produce serious effects, while considerable wounds in others, who are less irritable, shall be attended with no bad consequences. This consideration will go a great way towards explaining the fact, that in many cases of insanity, instead of our discovering any change in the brain, a diseased state has been observed in the liver, the bowels, and other viscera; and may serve as an answer to the assertions and objections of Pinel, who states that the most accurate dissections have not taught us any thing with regard to the seat of mental alienation, and that we have no sufficient data to conclude, from diseases of the brain, that it is exclusively the organ of the intellectual faculties.

Those who have opposed the theory of the subserviency of the brain to the operations of mind, have laid great stress upon an argument derived from the phenomena of hydrocephalus. In patients afflicted with this disease, the brain appears to be destroyed and replaced by water; and yet the intellectual and moral faculties have remained perfect to the last. Drs. Gall and Spurzheim conceive, that the facts have been very erroneously represented; and that the only alteration which the brain sustains in these cases, is a displacement of its parts, and not an absorption of its substance. The effused fluid, by accumulating in the ventricles, gradually unfolds the convolutions of the hemispheres of the brain, and expands them to such a degree, that they are reduced to a thin stratum of substance, constituting a sort of bag, within which the fluid is still contained. This stratum of brain is sometimes not more than a line in thickness, and is generally lacerated in attempting the dissection; in which case the water rushes out, the real structure escapes notice, and the fluid is erroneously supposed to have been accumulated between the brain and its membranes.

It has been advanced, as another objection to the same theory, that monsters are sometimes born without any brain, who yet suck and perform various movements. Actions of this kind, however, are purely automatic, and appear to be unattended with consciousness; with such actions the brain has no concern whatever. Some have founded their opposition to the theory, on the result of some experiments of Duverney on pigeons, which, it is alleged, continued to perform all their animal functions after the whole of the brain had been removed from the skull. But Dr. Spurzheim, on repeating these experiments on birds and rabbits, found, indeed, that the destruction of the superior parts of the brain does not destroy the functions of the five senses and of voluntary motion, but that it is impossible to take out all the cerebral mass without killing the animal. As soon as the corpora striata and optic thalami are wounded, convulsions and death ensue; consequently he does not hesitate to pronounce the account given by Duverney to be entirely false. He, in like manner, wholly discredits the stories related by Morgagni, Zacutus, Lusitanus, Bartholine, Haller, Vallisneri, Moreschi, Giro, Dr. Simson, Soëmmerring, and others, concerning petrified or ossified brains being found in individuals, without prejudice to the exercise of their intellectual faculties. He admits it to be doubtful, how far, in perfect animals, the brain may be necessary to the passive consciousness of the external senses; but deems it certain, that the exertions of the will, including voluntary motion and reflection, depend entirely upon the brain; no phenomenon of this kind ever taking place without that organ.

1 Concluding, therefore, that the brain is the organ of the sensitive, the intellectual, and the moral faculties, we have next to inquire, whether these faculties are exercised in common by the whole, or any particular portion of the brain, or whether, on the other hand, they are more especially the offices of different parts of that organ. Dr. Gall adopts the latter of these opinions, and upon this view of the subject is the whole of his system founded. The following is the reasoning on which be builds it.

Physiologists, influenced by the metaphysical tenets of the schools, have often maintained, that the soul, being simple, its material residence must be simple also, and that all the nerves must end in one point; or, which amounts to the same, that they can have but one common origin, because each individual has but one soul. Bonnet, Haller, and others, who had extended its seat to the whole substance of the brain, were opposed by these metaphysicians, who did not reflect that a little more or less room could not enable them to explain any better the nature of the soul; nor that, as Van Swicten and Tiedemann remark, a material point, in which all ideas and sensations should centre, is inconceivable, in consequence of the confusion and disorder that would result from such an arrangement. It appears ridiculous, indeed, that the physiologist, to whom all nature is open, should direct his researches and inductions by the guidance of such frivolous speculations. Great pains were, however, taken to determine this central point, or sensorium commune ; but it is enough to enumerate the various and contradictory opinions that have been held with regard to it, in order to be satisfied of the utter futility of this research. Descartes, in his treatise on the Passions, labours to prove that the soul is concentrated in the pineal gland. This hypothesis continued in fashion for some time, till it found an enemy in a follower of Descartes, the Dutch physician Boutekoe, who dislodged the soul from its narrow watch-tower in the pineal gland, and confined it in the more spacious prison of the corpus callosum. Lancisi, Maria, and La Peyronie, successively declared themselves in favour of this new opinion; and the latter of these anatomists wrote a memoir in support of it, which was printed by the Academy of Sciences in 1741, and which has since been republished separately. Digby next transferred the soul to the septum lucidum in place of the corpus callosum. Vieussens allowed it greater latitude, assigning for its boundaries those of the centrum ovale of the medullary substance. Willis, again, restricted it to the corpora striata ; Serveto, to the aqueduct of Sylvius. Wharton and Schellhammer placed it in the commencement of the spinal marrow; Mol-inetti and Wrisberg in the pons Varolii ; Crusius and Meig in the origin of the medulla oblongata ; whilst Drelincourt and others lodged it altogether in the cerebellum. Lastly, Soëmmerring imagined the soul to reside in the serosity which moistens the inner surface of the ventricles, to which he had traced the extremities of many nerves from the organs of sense; and conceives that the different motions or oscillations of this fluid are the immediate material cause of our sensations.

Discarding the notion that the functions of sense and intellect are concentrated in any particular point or portion of the brain, let us next examine the opinion that all the faculties are exercised by the whole mass of brain considered as one organ. We may, in the first place, remark, that the analogy of other parts of the system is adverse to this hypothesis. Every different secretion has its appropriate gland, the offices of which are never interchanged. The liver never secrets urine, nor the kidneys bile. The five external senses are distinct and independent of one another. Every where do we observe that nature, in order to produce various effects, has varied the material organs. The structure of the brain in its different parts, is far from being simple and uniform; it is composed of two substances; the one soft, pulpy, and ash-coloured; the other white, opaque, and fibrous in its texture. The fibres of the latter run parallel to each other, having, at the same time, various collateral connexions, but by no means uniting in any one central part [7:17:459]which can be considered as their common origin or termination. The parts of the brain are numerous, and distinct from one another, bearing evidence of a very complex and artificial construction. They are constant in their general arrangement in different subjects, shewing in this respect a striking contrast with the distribution of blood-vessels, or even the disposition of the muscles and viscera, in which it is so common to meet with variations. Comparative, as well as human anatomy, furnishes strong analogical arguments in favour of a plurality of the cerebral organs, corresponding to the plurality of faculties. However defective may be our knowledge of the structure of these organs in the lower animals, still a general comparison of their faculties, as we ascend in the scale of being, shows us that the number of these faculties increases in proportion as the cerebral parts are multiplied. The immense augmentation of the powers of intellect which we behold in man, when compared with the limited instincts of animals, is neither in proportion to the increased size of the five external senses, nor of any other part of the body, but to the increase of the cerebral organs only. It is the great size of the hemispheres of the brain, more especially, that characterizes this organ in man, and establishes its superiority, as an instrument of intellect, over that of all other animals. Man unites in himself all the organs which are variously scattered and distributed among the brute creation; but he has also organs in his brain, which no other animal besides himself possesses; and these are the seats of faculties of a higher order, peculiar to him alone.

'Considerations arising from the differences in the proportional energy with which the faculties manifest themselves in different individuals, are also in favour of the plurality and independence of the organs. If the brain were one simple organ of mind, and alike instrumental in all its faculties and operations, wherever we met with any one faculty in a state of high energy, we must suppose the whole organ adapted to produce this degree of energy, and ought to expect its other operations to be equally energetic. Yet we may find the same individual remarkably deficient in other faculties, which are equally dependent on this organ. One person shall excel in verbal memory, while he cannot combine two ideas philosophically; another is a great painter, but a bad musician, or a wretched poet; another is a good poet, but a bad general. If the brain be a single instrument, it cannot be at once both weak and strong; it cannot exhibit one faculty in its perfection, and another in a very limited extent. But all difficulty vanishes if we admit it to be an assemblage of many organs; for the combinations of these organs may be as infinitely diversified as the actions and powers of man. The argument derives additional force from the readiness with which this theory may be applied to explain the diversity of character we meet with in the brute creation, and especially to the varieties of disposition observable among some of our domestic animals, which, under the same circumstances of education, exhibit such different qualities. In like manner, the diversity of character in the same individual, at different periods of his life, are most readily explicable on the supposition of distinct organs, which have their respective periods of growth, maturity, and decline. The analogy of the external senses is also strongly in favour of the same doctrine. Thus the taste and smell appear earlier than the senses of seeing and hearing, because their respective organs are earlier developed. This reasoning will be confirmed when it is found, as will afterwards be shown, that the proportional size of the different parts of the brain is very different in different individuals. Is it not, therefore, reasonable to suppose, that the different energies of the several functions of the mind are connected with these differences in the structure of the organs which respectively produce them?

The faculties of animal life are incapable of long continu ed exertion; rest is necessary for the renovation of their powers. Fatigue is the consequence of the prolonged action of the muscles of voluntary motion; but when one set of muscles are fatigued, the power of others is still unimpaired, and they are ready to be employed in a different action, without any additional fatigue. When we have been long sitting, we are relieved by standing; and even the bed-ridden find ease from a change of posture. Our eyes, in like manner, may be fatigued by looking at pictures; but we can then listen to music, because there is one organ for seeing, and another for hearing. It is well known that study, long protracted, produces fatigue; but we can continue to study, provided we change the object of attention. If the brain were a single organ, the whole of which is employed in performing all the functions of mind, a new form of study should increase instead of relieving the sense of fatigue. Thus the analogy is complete between the phenomena of mental and bodily exertion. Are we not, then, justified in extending it to the instruments by which these operations of mind and body are effected?

The phenomena of sleep are also readily accounted for on this hypothesis. During this state all the organs do not remain inactive; but sometimes a particular organ enters into action, and this constitutes dreaming. The state of vigilance is that in which the will can put in action the organs of intellectual faculties, of the five senses, and of voluntary motion; but it is incorrect to define it as the state in which all these organs are active, for it is impossible that all the faculties should be active at the same moment. Somnambulism may be regarded as a state of still more incomplete sleep, or one in which several organs are watching. If, during sleep, the action of the brain is partial and is propagated to the muscles, locomotion takes place; if to the vocal organs, the sleeping person speaks. All this may take place in different degrees. Some persons dream and speak in their sleep; others dream, speak, hear, and answer; others, besides dreaming, rise, walk, and do various things. This latter state is called somnambulism; that is, the state of walking during sleep. Now as the ear can hear, so the eyes may see, while the other organs sleep; and there are undoubted facts which prove that several persons in the state of somnambulism have seen; but it has always been with the eyes open. There are also convulsive fits in which the patients see without hearing, or vice versa. Some somnambulists do things of which they are not capable in a state of watching; and dreaming persons reason sometimes better than they do when awake. This phenomenon is not astonishing. If we wish to reflect upon any subject, we avoid noise, and all external impressions; we cover the eyes with our hands, and we put to rest a great number of organs, in order to concentrate all vital power in one, or in a few. In the state of dreaming and somnambulism this naturally happens; consequently the manifestations of the active organs are then more perfect and more energetic; the sensations are more lively, and the reflections deeper than in a state of watching.

States of disease are also adduced as proving the plurality of the cerebral organs. In many cases of insanity we find only one faculty deranged, whilst all the rest are in a perfectly sound state. Lunatics, on the other hand, are met with, who are reasonable only while pursuing some particular train of thought. There was a chemist, for instance, who was insane on every subject except chemistry. An embroiderer, during her paroxyms of insanity, while uttering the greatest absurdities, calculated correctly how much stuff was necessary to such or such a piece of work. The effects of blows, or other injuries on the head, supply facts of a similar kind, which afford still more convincing proofs that the brain is susceptible of being very partially affected. Some persons lose from this cause the memory of proper names, while they preserve the memory of words [7:17:460]which indicate the qualities of objects. One Lereard of Marseilles, after having received a blow from a foil in the orbit, lost entirely the memory of names; sometimes he did not recollect those of his intimate friends, or even of his father. Cuvier, in his historical eulogium on Broussonet, states that this celebrated botanist, after having recovered from an apoplectic fit, never could recollect proper names nor substantives, though he had recovered his prodigious memory with respect to other objects. He knew plants, their figure, leaves, and colours; he recollected the adjectives, but could never recover the generic substantives by which they were designated. These and similar instances of partial affections of the faculties support the supposition of their being owing to different conditions of various parts of the brain subservient to these faculties.

Lastly, the doctrine that different portions of the brain exercise different mental functions, is countenanced by numerous authorities in former as well as in modern times. It is expressly stated in the writings of Boerhaave, Van Swicten, Haller, Prochaska, Soëmmerring, &c.; and the Academy of Dijon long ago proposed it as a prize-question, to determine the situation of these different cerebral organs. Charles Bonnet, indeed, went the length of maintaining that each fibre of the brain is a particular organ of the soul.

It seems hardly necessary to expose the absurdity of the accusation that these doctrines tend particularly to materialism, although the dread of such a consequence has been sanctioned by royal edicts. There are two opinions only, which, in respect to this question, stand opposed to each other; namely, that which asserts perception to take place by the intervention of a material organ, and that which asserts it to take place immediately by the energies of the mind itself, or at least without the intervention of the body. The doctrines of Gall are unquestionably incompatible with this last opinion, that is, with pure immaterialism, which may in fact be regarded as denying the existence of matter altogether. This sceptical spiritualism can be avoided only by the admission of the necessity of a material organ; and if this be admitted, any modification of such opinion, that does not exclude mind as the ultimate percipient, must be equally remote from absolute materialism. The immaterialist believes that it is the soul which secs and the soul which hears, as much as that it is the soul which judges and the soul which imagines; and since he does not condemn, as impious, the allotment of different organs of sight and hearing, what greater heresy is there in the allotment of different parts of the sensorium, as the organs of judgment and imagination? If, indeed, any one were to say, that the affections of these parts are themselves judgment and imagination, he would be a materialist; but he would be as much a materialist, if he should say, that the affections of the organs of sight and hearing are themselves the ideas of colour and sound.

Supposing it, then, established that each function of the mind is exercised by a separate portion of the brain, let us next inquire whether observation can furnish us with any means of determining the precise nature of the function, to which each particular organ is subservient. Although it is clear that the adaptation of each organ to the performance of its office, must be wholly dependent on its particular organization, yet it is equally evident that no consideration of its general structure as shewn to us by anatomy, can teach us a priori what such function really is, and still less what may be its degree of energy, or its peculiar quality and modifications. The energy of the function must in all cases depend on certain conditions of the organ, such as the perfection of its original constitution, its elaborate texture, its relative size, and the degree of exercise it has received; and will also be regulated by the influence which other faculties may exert on its operations. The only one· among these conditions, which is open to observation, is the relative size of the organ. In general, we find that the properties of bodies act with an energy proportionate to their size. A large loadstone attracts a greater mass of iron than a small loadstone. A large muscle, in like manner, is stronger than a small one. If the nerves of the external senses be larger on one side of the body, the functions on that side are also stronger. Comparative physiology shews us that the olfactory, optic, and auditory nerves of those animals which are distinguished for the excellence of their smell, sight, or hearing, are marked by being numerous and large, evincing a more elaborate developement. The coincidence is so uniform as to justify the general inference, that wherever any organ is met with in a higher state of developement, we may there expect to find the power dependent on it increased in energy in the same proportion. May not this analogy be fairly extended to the organs which compose the brain? Our present object, it must be recollected, is not to determine every degree of activity existing in a’ cerebral part, but merely the nature of its function; and for this purpose the indication afforded by its comparative size, in different cases, will suffice.

We may observe in different individuals a considerable variation in the proportional devclopement of different parts of the brain. It is reasonable to suppose, that the functions which are more developed in one person than in others, will be more active, and manifest themselves with more energy, than those which are less developed. Those which are comparatively small we may expect to be less active, and their powers more feebly exerted. Let us then select as the subjects of observation such persons as are marked by strong peculiarities of mind or character, and especially such as are endowed with a partial genius, as it is called; that is, who manifest in a very high degree any particular faculty of mind: let us note the peculiarities in the form of their heads, and observe what organs in them are of an unusually large size. By repeated comparisons we shall arrive at the knowledge of the particular organ in which that faculty resides. The converse method, oh the other hand, must be pursued with those who betray a singular deficiency of power in any faculty. With such persons we must endeavour to discover what particular part of the brain exhibits an imperfect developement. The results of both these modes of determining the functions of each organ, when compared together, will correct, and, if just, will ultimately corroborate each other. Experience, multiplied and extended, will finally confirm and establish our conclusions, and complete the system in all its parts.

But the living brain can never be exposed to observation, and, from the nature of its substance, loses much of its form and texture soon after death. It may appear impossible to discover the form or size of particular parts of the brain during life, since the whole mass is inclosed in the bony case of the skull, of which the thickness varies in different parts; and since the skull itself cannot be immediately inspected, being covered by muscles and integuments, which, by contributing to smooth all the inequalities of its surface, must preclude us from forming an exact estimate of its real shape. This obvious objection to the proposed inquiry, Drs. Gall and Spurzhcim labour to remove by the following considerations. If we attend to the successive stages of the growth of the skull, we find that its ossification begins at different points; and the bony processes extend in divergent lines, adapting themselves exactly to the form and size of the cerebral parts they are destined to inclose and protect. Whatever violence may be done to the bones of the skull during birth, they soon return to their natural state, partly from their elasticity, and partly from the inherent powers of the brain, which tend constantly to restore its original shape. The compression[7:17:461] of the brain is besides of too transient a nature to produce any permanent change in the primitive forms either of the skull or of the brain. If it ever amounted to what could irrecoverably derange the organization, and hinder its future developement, the necessary consequence of such a degree of violence would be death or idiocy.

In the progress of its growth, the increasing dimensions of the skull keep pace with those of the brain. All the cerebral parts do not increase simultaneously; and this partial developement is equally observable in the skull. The forehead, for instance, which at birth is narrow and flat, grows wider and more prominent from the age of three months to that of eight or ten years. After this period, the middle part of the forehead is less developed in proportion to the other parts. The neck of the child is very small, because the cerebellum, which is situated at the inferior occipital fossae, is not yet developed; but in proportion as this organ increases in size, the skull grows prominent at that part. The same happens with all the other cerebral parts which increase progressively. The shape of the skull cannot be in any degree influenced by external causes, such as occasional pressure in one direction, as happens in carrying burdens on the head, or artificial modelling of the heads of infants, as is asserted to be practised among the Caribs and other savage nations. In other parts of the body we may remark, that whatever soft parts are inclosed in bones, the shape of the latter is adapted to the dimensions of the former, and is regulated by the changes they undergo; the ribs, and even the spine, yield to the pressure of an abscess, or the enlargement of an aneurism; and the bones of the face, in like manner, make way for the increase of tumours, and adapt themselves to the new form these render necessary. By experience in feeling the living head, we may readily learn to distinguish the form of the bones which lie beneath the integuments. The observation of the shape of the skull, or of the head, is therefore capable of giving us exact information as to the relative size and shape of the different parts of the brain, and on the knowledge thus obtained is founded the art of Cranioscopy.

In practising this method, however, it is necessary to guard against several sources of error. We must take into account several protuberances, which belong to the natural state of the skull, and which had some particular destinations foreign to the immediate functions of the brain; such as the mastoid processes behind the ears, the crucial spine of the occiput, the zygomatic processes, and the frontal sinuses. The cerebral parts, situated behind the orbits, indeed, require some exercise on the part of the organos-cope, in order to be exactly determined. The developement may be perceived by the configuration and position of the eyes, and by the circumference of the orbits. It is therefore necessary to examine whether the eyeball is prominent or hidden in the orbit, whether it is depressed or pushed sideward, inward, or outward. According to this position of the eyeball, we may judge that such or such parts of the brain, which is situated against such or such part of the orbit, is more or less developed. The functions of those organs, which lie wholly at the basis of the brain, can be ascertained only by examination after death.

It may be objected, that the organs are not confined to the surface, or convolutions of the brain; but although this be the case, and although they really extend from the surface to the basis of the brain, or medulla oblongata, yet the degree in which they are expanded at the surface, where they form the convolutions, will indicate, in general, the relative magnitude of the whole organ. The analogy of the five senses, of which the peripheric expansions indicate the developement of their respective nerves, shews the reasonableness of this supposition. From a large eye, implying a large retina, or peripheric expansion of the optic nerve, we naturally infer that the nerve itself is of considerable magnitude: may we not draw the same conclusion with regard to the organs of the moral sentiments and intellectual faculties, whenever we find that the convolutions, which are their peripheric expansions, are much developed?

In feeling for the organ, Dr. Gall recommends the use, not of the fingers, but of the middle of the palm of the hand; and declares that habit, as well as a certain natural delicacy of tact, is necessary to qualify a person to make these observations with certainty of success. We are warned, also, to confine our observations to young and grown-up persons in the flower of their age; for at an advanced period of life the brain diminishing by degrees, and retiring from the skull, leads to the recession of its inner table, and consequent inequality in its thickness, which renders it impossible to judge exactly of the size or shape of brain from that of the head. Analogous changes occur in the skulls of some lunatics, and occasion similar difficulties in applying the rules of cranioscopy. It is also to be considered, that our aim is to distinguish the size, and not the mere prominence of each organ. If one organ be much developed and the neighbouring organ very little, the developed organ presents an elevation or protuberance, but if the neighbouring organs be developed in proportion, no protuberance can be perceived, and the surface is smooth.

We have already stated the mode in which Dr. Gall proceeded to apply and to verify these principles; it is now time that we should present our readers with the result of his labours.

He aιτanges the faculties of the mind, with their corresponding organs, according as they relate to the feelings and to the intellect: the first class comprehending the propensities, all which are common to men and animals, and the sentiments, which constitute what the French denominate tame, and the Germans gemuth; and the second class comprising the faculties by which we acquire knowledge, or the knowing faculties, as he terms them; and also the reflecting faculties, which last compose what the French call V esprit, the Germans gkeist, and what we should generally understand by the term intellect. He finds that the organs of those faculties which men possess in common with animals, are situated towards the basis and back part of the brain; while those of the superior faculties, which are peculiar to man, are placed somewhat higher; and the organs subservient to the intellectual faculties occupy exclusively the forehead. The total number of special faculties is thirty-three, as may be seen by the following enumeration.

1. Of the faculties common to men and animals, the first is that physical propensity which has for its final purpose the continuance of the species. The cerebellum, a part which occupies the lowest situation in the encephalon, is affirmed to be the organ, the actions of which give rise to this propensity. Accident led Dr. Gall to this discovery, by his noticing the size of the back of the neck in a lady whose character, in respect to this passion, was not equivocal: and subsequent observation on an extensive scale, both in the human subject and in the lower animals, have abundantly confirmed him in his opinion. The following are the leading arguments on which he has rested it. First, the great size of the organ indicates the importance of the function to which it is subservient, and there is no cause, except the existence of such an organ in the brain, that is adequate to account for this propensity. The function of copulation takes place only in those animals which have a nervous mass or cerebellum. Throughout the whole class of quadrupeds, the neck of the male is thicker than that of the female, as may be observed particularly in the bull, the ram, and the stallion. It is also remarked that vigorous pigeons are distinguished by the size of their necks.
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The developement of the cerebellum is simultaneous with that of the genital organs at the period of puberty, and early castration prevents its developement, as well as that of the beard, and the organs of the voice. Wounds of the neck have been observed by Hippocrates to be sometimesfollowed by impotency. In other cases, however, they produce erotic excitement. Apollonius Rhodius, in speaking of the love of Medea, represents her as suffering a violent pain in the back of her neck. A case occurred to Professor Reinhold, at Leipsig, in which an excitement of the genital organs succeeded the introduction of a seton in the neck, in a boy who laboured under ophthalmia. Spirituous frictions on the neck in hysterical fits are very useful. Lastly, the position of the cerebellum is supposed to prove its destination. After hunger and thirst, no fonction is more necessary than that of propagating the species. This function is the most common in animals after nutrition, and the cerebellum is in the inferior part of the head. Hence it is probable, that it is destined to the propensity of propagating, or that it is, as Dr. Spurzheim expresses it, the organ of amativeness.

2. Philoprogenitiveness, or the love of progeny, the στοργή of the Greeks, has its seat in those convolutions of the brain situated immediately above the hind part of the tentorium, and corresponding, therefore, on the outside of the skull with the crucial spine of the occiput. Dr. Gall had observed a distinct protuberance on this part of the head in women, and comparing the skulls in his collection, found a similar elevation on the skulls of children, and on those of monkies. During five years he was in search of a faculty that was common to all the subjects of those observations, and was in the habit of suggesting this difficulty to his auditors. At length a clergyman who attended, observed that monkies have much attachment to their progeny. The Doctor pursued this idea, and found that it applied perfectly to the observed appearances, as the developement of this part coincided always with the energy of this propensity. In animals it is generally larger in the females than in the males of the same species. This rule holds good in the human subject, although it is liable to occasional exceptions; for there are men who manifest the strongest propensity to associate with children, and in whom we accordingly find this organ larger than in the generality of women. In negroes we find this organ more prominent than in Europeans. In the cuckoo, the crocodile, and other animals to whom nature has not appointed the office of rearing their progeny, this organ is extremely defective. The crime of infanticide is more likely to be perpetrated by mothers in whom this organ is deficient in size; and accordingly out of 29 women who were guilty of this crime, Dr. Gall found 25 who had this organ extremely small. On the other hand, a female, who, being seized with delirium during child-birth, imagined that she was pregnant with five children, was found to have this organ unusually large. It must, no doubt, have been of gigantic dimensions in the lady, who, stricken by the curse of the gipsey whom she had refused to relieve, was impressed with the belief that she was about to give birth to as many children as there are days in the year·.

3. The organ of Inkabitiveness, or the propensity which some animals, such as the chamois and the wild-goat, have to inhabit high situations, is placed still higher in the occiput than the former, in a line proceeding towards the top of the head. In animals of the same species which live in low countries, we do not meet with an equal degree of protuberance in this part of the brain, as is observable in those which prefer living in elevated and mountainous districts. This is seen even in the rat, some varieties of which choose for their dwelling corn-lofts or the higher parts of a house, while others prefer living in the cellars. This faculty is not very active in man; but Dr. Gall conceived that it was in him allied to pride and haughtiness. Dr. Spurzheim, however, disclaims this doctrine; as he thinks it impossible to confound the

“instinct of physical height” with the moral sentiment of self love and pride. Mr. Combe, conceiving that this organ has a more extensive sphere of action, and that it confers the power of being conscious of every thing going on in the mind, and of concentrating the attention, terms this power Concentrativeness.

4. The organ of Adhesiveness, or the propensity to attach, ourselves to persons, animals, or other objects, is situated on each side of the former, immediately under the lambdoidal suture, and gives a fullness to the lateral and posterior part of the head. This organ is the source of friendship, moral love, society, marriage, and attachment of all kinds. Dogs have it in an eminent degree, especially those races whose fidelity and constancy are characteristic, as the terrier, spaniel, and lap-dog. It is less prominent in the butcher’s dog, greyhound, and mastiff. It was very large in a notorious highwayman at Vienna, distinguished equally as a robber and a friend, and who chose rather to die than to betray his confederates.

5. Combativeness, or the propensity to fight, results from the operation of an organ, situated immediately behind the ears on each side, at a part corresponding to the posterior inferior angle of the parietal bone, and behind the mastoid process. It is the seat of anger, as well as of pugnacity; and its locality is fully established, in Dr. Gall’s estimation, by an extensive series of facts. His first discovery of the seat of this faculty, was from his observation of the head of the Austrian General Wurmser; and it was subsequently confirmed by the experiments we have already mentioned which he made on boys he had collected from the street. The breadth of the occiput is a criterion of the spirit and courage of horses, dogs, &c. The bull-dog and pug-dog are in this respect superior to the mastiff. The hyaena is strongly contrasted with the hare, and the guinea-hen with the robin red-breast.

6. Destructiveness, or the propensity to destroy in general, but more especially to destroy life, has its seat just above the ears; the prominence of which part will account for the strange pleasure which some people take in killing or tormenting animals, in seeing executions, and for their inclination to commit murder. Among animals, this instinct for blood is strongly marked in the carnivorous tribes, especially in the lion, tiger, and others of the feline tribe; and the breadth of their skulls in this part shows us the great size of this organ, compared with that of their victims, the sheep, the goat, or the hare. The heads of murderers have in general been found to possess a visible prominence at this place. When the band of ferocious robbers and assassins, who so long infested the left banks of the Rhine, under Schinderhanns, had been caught, and a number of them executed, Dr. Gall found this organ strikingly developed in the heads of these banditti. This propensity is frequently strong in children, in idiots, and in madmen. Its object, in the lower animals, is evidently to procure the food on which nature destined they should live; yet some animals kill more than is necessary for their nourishment. In man this propensity presents different degrees of activity, from a mere indifference to the pain of animals, to the pleasure of seeing them killed or tortured, or even the most imperious desire to kill. Dr. Gall called this faculty murder ; but Dr. Spurzheim thinks it produces the propensity to destroy in general, without determining the object to be destroyed, or the manner of destroying it. “It gives,” says he, “the propensity to pinch, scratch, bite, cut, break, pierce, devastate, demolish, ravage, burn, massacre, strangle, butcher, suffocate, drown, kill, poison, murder, and assassinate.” It would seem, therefore, that this organ has a great deal to answer for.

7. Constructiveness, the propensity to build, or the disposition to the mechanical arts, is indicated by the developement of the brain at the temples. Dr. Gall found this to be the case in great mechanicians, architects, sculptors, [7:17:463]and designers; and also in the skulls of the beaver, marmot, field-mouse, and rabbit, which construct habitations. Hares, on the contrary, which lie in the fields, have this organ defective, although in general they resemble rabbits. He possesses the skull of a milliner of Vienna, who had a good taste, and understood perfectly the art of changing the forms of her merchandises; in this skull the organ in question is prominent. It is by means of this faculty that birds build nests, savages huts, and kings palaces. It produces also fortifications, ships, engines of war, manufactures of all kinds, furniture, clothes, toys, &c. There was a lady at Paris, who, every time she was pregnant, felt the greatest propensity to build. The excessive size of this organ may lead a man to ruin his family by building, or to coin false money.

8. Covetiveness, or the propensity to covet, gather, and acquire, without determining the object to be acquired, or the manner of acquiring it, has its organ situated at the temples, on the anterior inferior angle of the parietal bone. This faculty gives a desire for all that pleases; money, property, animals, servants, land, cattle, or any thing upon earth. It produces egotism and selfishness, and may, when abused, lead to usury, plagiarism, fraud, or theft. The instinct of stealing, it is asserted, is not always the effect of bad education, of poverty, idleness, or the want of religion and moral sentiment. This truth, says Dr. Spurzheim, is so generally felt, that every one winks at a little theft committed by rich persons, who in other respects conduct themselves well. Mr. Combe terms this faculty Acquisitiveness.

9. The organ of Secretiveness, or the propensity to conceal, or to be clandestine in general, is situated in the middle of the side of the head, above the organ of the propensity to destroy. Dr. Gall first observed this organ in a person who had many debts, - but who had the address to conceal his real situation, so that the creditors could have no knowledge of each other. He ascribes to this faculty cunning, prudence, the savoir faire, the capacity of finding means necessary to succeed, hypocrisy, lies, intrigues, dissimulation, duplicity, falsehood; in poets, the talent of finding out interesting plots for romances and dramatic pieces; and finally, the quality of slyness in animals, as in the fox and the cat, who conceal their intentions, and are clever in hiding themselves.

To the second genus of the order of feelings, namely, Sentiments, belong the following faculties :—

10. Self-love, or self-esteem. Dr. Gall first noticed this organ, which lies in the middle of the upper posterior point of the head, in a beggar, who stated that he was reduced to his present condition by his pride, which made him neglect his business. The animals endowed with this organ are the turkey-cock, peacock, horse, &c. Dr. Gall thought this organ is the same as that of the faculty which makes certain animals dwell upon mountains; but Dr. Spurzheim, as we have already observed, draws a line of distinction between them. The two great activity of this faculty is the cause of various abuses, as pride, haughtiness, disdain, contempt, presumption, arrogance, and insolence. The want of it disposes to humility. It is said to be more active in women than in men, and that its excess is sometimes the cause of madness.

11. Love of Approbation. Persons fond of the good opinion of others, have the upper posterior and lateral part of the head much developed. This may be called the organ of ambition or vanity, according to the object, which may be of various kinds. A coachman endowed with this faculty is pleased if his manner of conducting horses be approved; and a general is elated if he be applauded by his nation for leading his army to victory. This faculty is more active in women than in men, and even in certain nations more than in others. More women become mad from this cause than men.

12. Organ of Cautiousness. Two persons at Vienna were known to be remarkable for their extreme irresolution. One day, in a public place, Dr. Gall stood behind them, and observed their heads. He found them extremely large on the upper posterior part of both sides of the head. Hence he derived the first idea of this organ. Circumspect animals also, as the stag, roe, pole-cat, otter and mole, and those which place sentinels to warn them of approaching danger, as the chamois, cranes, starlings, and bustards, have this cerebral part much developed. This faculty produces precaution, doubts, demurs; and, in general, exclaims continually “take care? It considers consequences, and produces all the hesitations expressed by the word but. When excessive, it produces uncertainty, irresolution, unquietness, anxiety, fear, melancholy, hypochondriasis, and suicide. Dr. Gall finds this organ more strongly marked in children than in grown persons.

13. The organ of Benevolence in man, or of meekness in animals, is situated on the superior middle part of the forehead. In most animals it is restrained to a passive goodness; but in man its sphere of activity is very considerable, producing all the social virtues, or in one word, Christian charity.

14. The organ of Veneration, or of Theosophy, occupies the centre of the uppermost part of the os frontis. Dr. Gall: had observed in churches, that those who prayed with the greatest fervour were bald; and that their heads were much elevated. The pictures of saints show the very configuration which he had thus noticed in pious men; and the head of our Saviour, also, is generally represented of this shape. It is by this faculty that man adores God, or venerates saints, and persons and things deemed sacred.

15. The organ of Hope is situated on the side of that of veneration. Dr. Spurzbeim considers the sentiment of hope as proper to man. and as a sentiment necessary in almost every situation; it gives hope in the present, as well as of a future life. In religion it is called faith. Its excessive developement produces credulity.

16. Ideality, or the poetical disposition. The heads of great poets are enlarged above the temples, in an arched direction. The sentiment inspired by this organ is the opposite of circumspection; it renders us enthusiasts, while circumspection stops our career by saying “take care.” If the part of the head above this organ, and a little backward from it, be very much developed, the person is disposed to have visions, to see ghosts, and to believe in astrology, magic, and sorcery.

17. The faculty of Righteousness, or Conscientiousness, which produces the sentiment of just and unjust, right and wrong, has its organ situated a little more forward than the organ of approbation. It produces the sentiment of duty, and constitutes what is called conscience or remorse. Dr. Spurzheim admits farther an organ of justice, which he seeks for on the side of the following organ.

18. F)eterminateness, or Firmness. Dr. Gall observed that persons of a firm and constant character have the top of the brain much developed. Lavater had made the same observation. This faculty contributes to maintain the activity of the other faculties by giving constancy and perseverance. Its too great activity produces infatuation, stubbornness, obstinacy, and disobedience. Its deficiency engenders fickleness and inconstancy.

To the order called Intellect, and the first genus of that order, viz. the knowing faculties, belong the following species:

19∙ Individuality, or the faculty which procures us the knowledge of external beings, after we have received impressions from them by the external senses, occupies the middle of the lower part of the forehead. Dr. Gall found this part very prominent, indicating a great developement of the anterior and inferior part of the brain, in all persons, who, from their extensive, but superficia! knowledge in the [7:17:464]arts and sciences, were capable of shining and taking a lead in conversation. It has been not unaptly, though satirically characterized as the blue-stocking faculty. Tame animals have the forehead more developed than wild ones, and are more or less tameable in proportion as the forehead is more or less developed; Dr. Gall, therefore, calls this organ that of educability. Dr. Spurzheim, however, objects to this term, and has substituted that of individuality; he also remarks that the organ is early developed in children, because they are obliged to acquire a knowledge of the external world.

20. The organ of Form leads us to take cognizance of the forms of objects, with the existence of which the preceding faculty had made us acquainted. Persons endowed with it in a high degree, have a great facility of distinguishing and recollecting persons; they are fond of seeing pictures, and if they make collections, they collect portraits. Crystallography is the result of this faculty. The conception of smoothness and roughness also belongs to it. This of ’ gan is placed in the internal angle of the orbit, and, if much developed, it pushes the eyeball toward the external angle, that is, a little outward and downward. The Chinese appear to have it in perfection.

21. Size. After the existence and figure of any body, the mind considers its dimensions or size, for there is an essential difference between the idea of size and that of form. The organ must therefore be different; it is probably however in the neighbourhood of the former.

22. Weight. The ideas of weight and resistance, density, softness and hardness, cannot be attributed to the sense of feeling, and require, therefore, a particular faculty for their conception. Its organ must be situated in the vicinity of the two last.

23. Colour. The faculty of conceiving colour is, in like manner, totally distinct from the sense of vision, or the faculty of perceiving light. Its organ is placed in the midst of the arch of the eye-brows, giving them, when expanded, a vaulted and rounded arch. This configuration is characteristic of painters, and is strikingly displayed in the Chinese, who are well known to be very fond of colours. This faculty is generally more active in women than in men.

24. Space, or Locality. The faculty of local memory, by which we recollect localities, and find our way to places where we have been before, is much stronger in some persons than in others. Animals are also endowed with it, and it enables them to return to their dwellings and their progeny, when obliged to leave them in search of food. It is conspicuous in some dogs; while others are very deficient in this respect. The migration of birds is the result of this faculty. The pictures and busts of great astronomers, navigators, and geographers, as of Newton, Cook, Columbus, &c. present a great developement of this organ, which is situated under, but extends a little beyond, the frontal sinuses. The swallow, the stork, and the carrier-pigeon, have all this organ. This faculty conceives the places occupied by the external bodies, and makes space not only known to us, but inspires a fondness for this kind of knowledge. It makes the traveller, geographer, and landscape painter; it recollects localities, judges of symmetry, measures space and distance, and gives notions of perspective.

25. Order. This faculty enables us to conceive order. It gives method and order in arranging objects as they are physically related. Its organ is probably situated outward, but not far from the organs of size and space.

26. Time. Ideas of time are the result of a distinct faculty; for they may exist without those of order and number. They seem to be higher in the scale, and their organ, accordingly, occupies a higher place in the brain.

27∙ Number. All the ideas that are concerned about unity or plurality, that is, about number, belong to a faculty whose organ is situated in a part of the brain near the external angle of the orbit. The object of this faculty is cal-: culation in general. When much developed, the arch of the eye-brows is considerably depressed, or is elevated at the outer extremity. This conformation is apparent in the portraits and busts of great calculators, as Newton, Euler, Kaestner, Jedediah Buxton, and Pitt. The heads of negroes are very narrow at this part; and, in general, they do not excel in this faculty.

28. Tune. The perception of musical tone is distinct from that of sound, and implies a different faculty from that of hearing. Its organ is placed on the lateral parts of the forehead. Its form varies according to the direction and form of its convolutions. In Gluck and Hadyn, it has a pyramidal form; in Mozart, Viotti, Zumsteg, Dusseck, and Crescentini, the external corners of the forehead are enlarged but rounded.

The heads and skulls of singing birds, especially the males, exhibit this organ fully developed. Monkeys are absolutely destitute of it.

29∙ Language. The organ of the faculty of learning the artificial signs for the operations of the mind, of perceiving their connection with the thing signified, and of remembering them, and judging of their relations, occupies a transverse situation in the midst of the knowing faculties, and presses upon the basis of the orbit of the eye, so as to project the eye forwards when much developed. This produces what is commonly called a goggle-eye, denoting strong verbal memory. Sometimes the eyes are not only prominent, but also depressed downward, so that the under eyelid presents a sort of roll, or appears swollen. Such persons are fond of philology, that is, they like to study the spirit of different languages.

The second genus of the order Intellect, viz. the reflecting faculties, contains the following species :—

30. Comparison. This faculty compares the sensations and ideas of all the other faculties; and points out their difference, analogy, similitude, or identity. Dr. Gall observed various persons, who, in every conversation, had recourse to examples, similitudes, and analogies, in order to convince others; and seldom to reasoning and philosophical arguments. In them he found, in the midst of the superior part of the forehead, an elevation which presented the form of a reversed pyramid, and he named this organ, according to its functions, the organ of analogy. Nations who have this faculty in a high degree are fond of figurative language.

31. Causality. This faculty examines causes, considers the relations between cause and effect, and always prompts men to ask, Why ? Persons fond of metaphysics have the superior part of the forehead much developed and prominent in a hemispherical form, as Mendelsohn, Kant, Fichte, and others. The ancient artists have given to Jupiter Capitolinus a forehead more prominent than to any other antique head.

32. Wit. Persons who have this faculty, who write like Sterne, Voltaire, Piron, &c. have the superior external parts of the forehead elevated. The essence of this faculty consists in its peculiar manner of comparing, which always excites gaiety and laughter. Jest, raillery, mockery·, ridicule, irony, &c. are its offsprings.

33. Imitation. Persons who have a considerable elevation of a semi-globular form at the superior part of the forehead, have the faculty of imitating, with great precision, the gestures, voice, manners, and, in general, all the natural manifestations of men and animals. They have a disposition to be actors, and are prone to gesticulation. This organ is, in general, more developed in children than in adult persons.

To the above catalogue of the organs enumerated by Dr. Spurzheim, Mr. Combe has since added the two following, namely, [7:17:465]34. The organ of Wonder, (situated immediately above Ideality, in the lateral parts of the anterior regions of the vertex,) which occasions the belief in the reality of ghosts, and other mysterious apparitions and visitations, and inspires a love for all that is marvellous and supernatural, and also a taste for novelty and fashion. When largely developed, it excites young men, born and bred in inland situations, to choose the sea as a profession.^[1. System of Phrenology, fourth edition, p. 381. ]

35. The organ of Eventuality, which, when large, gives prominence or a rounded fulness to the middle of the forehead. “The function of this faculty is to take cognizance of changes, events, or active phenomena, indicated by active verbs. In such expressions as the rock falls, the horse gallops, the battle is fought, the substantive springs from Individuality, and the verb from Eventuality. It prompts to investigation by experiment, while Individuality leads to observation of existing things. Individuality gives the tendency to personify abstract ideas, such as Ignorance and Wisdom; and Eventuality to represent them as acting. An author in whom Individuality is large, and Eventuality small, will narrate actions, but deal little in physical description.”^[2. Fid. p. 518. ]

Two other primary facul ties are mentioned by Mr. Combe; one, which he terms Alimentiveness, or the desire of eating and drinking; and another, which had been called by Spurzheim Vitativeness, or the Love of Life ; but the seat of these powers has not been exactly determined.

Excepting in the case of idiots, all the thirty-five organs above described are possessed by every person, but they exist in greater or less perfection in different individuals. Peculiarity of character is the result of irregularity in the original structure, or inequality in the relative developement of the several organs; circumstances which, according as they are diversified, lay the foundation of every excellence, as well as constitute the fatal sources of vice and depravity. These doctrines should, however, by no means be understood as lending their sanction to the latter; for crimes are considered as flowing from the abuse of certain faculties, and as still requiring for their prevention the counteracting influence of morality, and the salutary coercion of Iaw. It must be of importance to every individual to know, if such knowledge be attainable, what is the degree of energy of the propensities and other faculties with which he may have been naturally and originally endowed; because every organ and corresponding faculty may be invigorated by proper exercise. The business of education will accordingly consist in exciting or restraining their developement, according to their natural deficiency or exuberance. Phrenology, by pointing out what are the strongest faculties in a child, will enable us to adopt the best plan of intellectual, as well as moral discipline; will assist us in regulating his passions, and maintaining a due balance between all his moral sentiments; and guide us in the choice of a profession for our pupil, conformable to the particular bent of his genius. “What benefit would arise to society,” says Mr. Forster, the zealous advocate of these doctrines, “should we be enabled to make a just election of objects in youth, to be placed in situations capable of ripening their naturally energetic faculties. Phrenology will lead to important considerations regarding criminal punishment, particularly in houses of correction. It will enable us to distinguish, not only between those who have naturally strong evil propensities, from those whom distress or other contingencies may have hurried on to crime, but will point out the particular nature of the evil propensities to be corrected.” It will also tend, he conceives, to establish important distinctions between different kinds of insanity, and enable us to discover the treatment appropriate for the cure of each. Lastly, it may prepare the way to a radical improvement of the human race, by pointing out those conformations of the head which it is desirable to eradicate or to perpetuate, and which should therefore be avoided or preferred in the choice of marriages. “It is certainly a pity,” says Dr. Spurzheim, “that, in this respect, we take more care of the races of our sheep, pigs, dogs, and horses, than of our own offspring.”

Such is the body of doctrines, and such the reasonings in their support, which have emanated from the school of Gall and Spurzheim, and which they have dignified with the appellation of a new science. A host of opponents, as might be expected, have arisen against a system so much at variance with common notions, leading to conclusions so remote from vulgar apprehension, and admitting so easily of being held up to ridicule by partial or exaggerated statements. We have already noticed the objection founded upon its supposed tendency to favour materialism, and shall pass over others of a similar nature, which proceed upon the presumption of a greater knowledge of the laws of the creation than we really possess, or which are derived from imperfect or mistaken views of the theory itself. We shall also refrain from employing the weapons of ridicule against a system so vulnerable to its attacks, and which would have been so capable of affording Swift a new incident for the history of the philosophers of Laputa. The simple exposition of the sandy foundation on which it has been built, of the flimsy materials of which it has been composed, and the loose mode in which they have been put together, will suffice to enable our readers to form their own conclusions as to the soundness and solidity of the edifice.

It is, in the first place, obvious, that nothing like direct proof has been given that the presence of any particular part of the brain is essentially necessary to the carrying on of the operations of the mind. The truth is, that there is not a single part of the encephalon, which has not, in one case or other, been impaired, destroyed, or found defective, without any apparent change in the sensitive, intellectual, or moral faculties. Haller has given us a copious collection of cases, which bear upon this point; and a similar catalogue has been made by Dr. Ferriar, who, in a paper in the fourth volume of the Manchester Transactions, has selected many of Haller’s cases, with considerable additions from other authors. The evidence afforded from this mass of facts, taken conjointly, appears to us to be sufficient to overturn their fundamental proposition. This evidence is not impeached by the feeble attempts of Dr. Spurzheim to evade its force, by a general and vague imputation of inaccuracy against the observers, or by having recourse to the principle of the duplicity of each of the cerebral organs; a principle of very dubious application, on a subject of so much uncertainty as the physiology of the brain. Poor, indeed, must be his resources, when we find him resorting to the following argument, in proof that the brain is the organ of thought, namely, that “every one feels that he thinks by means of his brain.” We doubt much if any one has naturally that feeling.

It requires, also, but a slight attention to perceive, that the very ground-work on which the whole of the subsequent reasoning proceeds, namely, that the different faculties of the mind are exercised respectively by different portions of the brain, is in no respect whatever established. The only arguments in its favour which bear the least plausibility, are derived from analogy. Now, analogy, in reasoning concerning the unknown operations of nature, is, at best, but slippery ground; and when unsupported by any other kind of evidence, cannot lead to certain knowledge, far less constitute the basis of an extensive system. The utility of analogical deductions as to what takes place in one department[7:17:466] of nature, from our knowledge of what occurs in another, consists chiefly in their affording indications of what may possibly happen, and thus directing and stimulating our inquiries to the discovery of truth by the legitimate road of observation and experiment. But to assume the existence of any such analogy as equivalent to a positive proof, resulting from the evidence of direct observation, is a gross violation of logic. Yet it is upon assumptions of this kind that Drs. Gall and Spurzheim have ventured to found all the leading propositions of their doctrine. In the secretions of the body, they observe, the preparation of different fluids is consigned to different glands, having different appropriate structures; and they consider this analogy as a demonstrative proof of what happens in the operations of thought, and the phenomena of the passions, which, because they differ as much in their nature as milk does from gall, must, accordingly, be the result of actions in different portions of the brain; which portions are, therefore, to be regarded as so many different organs, rather than as parts of one organ. Even in a case where all the analogies are favourable to one side of a question, such a loose mode of reasoning would be entitled to little confidence; but how fallacious must it not prove, when analogies can be pointed out which apply in the opposite direction? It requires no extensive knowledge of the animal economy to perceive, that modifications of functions equally diversified with those of the intellect, are, in many cases, the result of actions taking place in the same organ. Does not the same stomach digest very different and even opposite kinds of aliment? Yet we do not find that one portion of that organ is destined for the digestion ofmeat, and another for the digestion of vegetable matter; although the operations required for the conversion of such different ingredients into the same chyle, cannot possibly be the same. Nervesperform the double office of volition and sensation; but the different bundles offibres which convey each impression, the one to the muscles, the other to the sensorium, are wrapped up in the same sheath, and are so intimately intermixed during their course as to constitute a single cord. The same organ serves for the hearing of acute and of grave sounds. The whole retina, and not merely different portions of its surface, receives the impression of different kinds of colour; there is not one organ for the perception of blue and another for the perception of red rays. Guided by such analogies as these, might we not be equally justified in concluding, that the same part of the brain may serve for the memory of words, as for the memory of things; and that the same portion of that organ which enables us to conceive the idea of figure, may also suggest to us that of size?

The same doctrine of the plurality of cerebral organs, is endeavoured to be supported by another analogy, equally vague and loose with the former, namely, that the sense of fatigue from long continued muscular exertion, resembles, in its circumstances, the effects of long continued study on the mind, and is equally relieved, in both cases, by a change of action. To us, however, it appears, that this analogy might, with equal justice, have been adduced, as favouring the opposite view of the subject; for we can just as readily conceive the sense of fatigue to take place from the exercise of the whole organ in a particular mode, as from that of any part of the organ; and relief must equally, in both cases, be experienced from the ceasing of that action, or from the substitution of one of a different kind. The muscles admit only of one kind of action; and the energy which each derives from the nerves, when once exhausted, is not so readily replaced from the general stock belonging to the system. In the finer textures of the body, which approach more to that of the brain, the analogy not only fails of giving support to the doctrine, but has an opposite tendency. The same retina, when fatigued by the continued impression of a particular colour, is still as ready as before to receive the impression of another colour. The circumstance of partial fatigue with regard to one set of actions, may, therefore, exist, without implying the necessity of a separate organ for the performance of these actions. Indeed, if the brain have any laws similar to those of muscular motion, it must have a much greater number peculiar to itself, and all such distant analogies as those we have been considering, must be perfectly inconclusive. Similar observations will apply to the explanation of the phenomena of sleep, of dreams, of somnambulism, of partial losses of memory, and of insanity. It is equally conceivable, that they should result from the imperfect or differently modified actions of one organ, as from the separate activity of different parts of that organ, whilst the other parts are inactive. Analogies may be equally adduced in support of both sides of the question, and can certainly prove nothing on either.

Drs. Gall and Spurzheim appeal with great confidence to anatomy, and particularly to their own anatomical discoveries, as affording a solid support to their doctrines. “We never,” say they, “separate anatomy from physiology, for physiology without anatomy is unfounded; while anatomy without physiology is useless. A physiological system of the brain would necessarily be false, were it in contradiction with its anatomical structure.” This conclusion, which at best is but a negative one, is totally inapplicable to the theories in question. The anatomy of the brain is so complex, and so void of apparent adaptation to any purpose we can understand, that it will suit any physiological system nearly equally well; at least it can never be adduced in contradiction of any hypothesis, however wild, that can be framed as to the mutual operation of soul and body. All that these anatomists have done, in this respect, is to show that there is no appearance of a common centre of departure or of a collection of nervous filaments. The separation of the parts of the brain and their diversity of shape, can no more be evidence of a diversity in their functions, than the multitude of distinct and separate lobules which compose the kidneys of birds, and of a great number of quadrupeds, arc indications that each part performs a different office. Comparative anatomy, indeed upon which so much is made to hinge, is of all guides the most fallible in questions of this nature; since we behold, in numberless instances, a great variety of ways in which nature accomplishes the same function and the same purpose, in different departments of the animal creation. But on a comparison of animals with each other, it may even be doubted, whether there is any connexion or proportion observable between their intellect or inclinations and the number of parts in their brains.

The possibility of discovering the size and the shape of the different parts of the brain from the external examination of the head, is also discountenanced by anatomy. There are often considerable impressions on the interior of the skull, where the corresponding exterior surface does not exhibit the slightest appearance of projection, and is sometimes even depressed; and there are frequently large prominences without, where ther® are no corresponding concavities within; so that when the outer surface of the bony case is compared with a mould in plaster or wax of the cavity itself, they exhibit considerable differences, and, from the great variation which may take place in the thickness of the bones, this difference is not the same in degree in any two skulls.

Hollow as are the foundations of this theory, the mate-rials which compose the superstructure will prove, on examination, to be still more frail and unsound. The whole fabric rests upon the validity of a single proposition, which in itself is extremely questionable, namely, that the size of an organ is in general a criterion of the energy with which its function is performed. If any doubt should remain as to its truth, the whole of the pretended discoveries relative to the functions of the several parts of the brain are shaken, [7:17:467] and the fantastical edifice has no auxiliary prop to arrest its fall. So essentially, indeed, does the whole of this system depend upon the truth of a number of independent propositions, that if any one of them should turn out to be incorrect, the whole fabric must give way. The evidence in its favour, instead of being cumulative, is disjunctive. Where each proposition must be sustained by a separate series of proofs, as is the case here, it is evident that the chances of eιτor must be multiplied in proportion to the number of steps we must ascend before we can arrive at the last conclusions. Let us, for example, examine the logic by which the above fundamental principle is deduced. “A large muscle,” say they, “is stronger than a small one; and a large loadstone is more powerfill in its attraction than a smaller one. Why should it not be the same with regard to the brain ?” Thus again do they confide in a loose analogy, derived from another and a totally different part of the economy; and as if the organization and functions of the animaI body were not sufficiently remote from the nature and operations of the human mind, the inanimate world is ransacked for the shadows of an analogy, which, when viewed through such a distance of intervening mist, may wear the semblance of reality. But the phantom must immediately vanish upon a near inspection. For the perfection of a refined and delicate instrument, such as must be that which is subservient to the operations of the intellect, innumerable conditions must concur; amongst which that of size, it is reasonable to suppose, is the least important Delicacy of texture, fineness of organization, and harmony of adjustment between the several parts of its complex structure, must contribute infinitely more towards rendering it capable of performing its office, than superior magnitude; a circumstance which in itself is quite as likely to prove a source of imperfection, as to impart additional facility. Increase of size in the viscera of the body is often the indication of a diseased, instead of a healthy state. Small eyes, Professor Hufeland observes, see with more strength, and last longer than large eyes. Why may not this be also the case with the organs of the brain? But really, in our present state of ignorance as to the mode of operation by which they are subservient to the processes of intellect and sensation, all such reasonings a priori on their functions, as connected with their size, must be completely illusory.

Even were we to admit so questionable a doctrine as that the energies of the parts of the brain are proportional to their magnitude, insuperable difficulties would still be opposed to the determination of their relative size in the living head; crowded as all these organs are in a narrow compass, and completely hid from our view by an irregular bony case which protects them from injury, and which is itself covered by a thick and variable layer of muscle and integument. Let us, however, for the sake of argument, suppose that the form of each organ within the skull can really be ascertained by external examination of the head; shall we allow it to be an easy task to determine the real character of the individual who is the subject of observation? Are we always able to discriminate between real and affected sentiment; or to mark with certainty the operation of all the various motives which constitute the springs of action? Is the transient glance of a passing observer sufficient for unravelling the complex web of our affections, or unveiling the secret and tortuous recesses of the human heart, so as to assign to each principle its precise sphere of agency? Can the most profound moralist, or acute metaphysician, pronounce with confidence what are the natural dispositions of any human being, knowing as we do, that these dispositions must have been changed or modified, exalted or subdued, perverted or refined, by the force of habit, education, example, and a multitude of other powerful causes, which, in his progress through life, have moulded his intellectual and moral constitution? Can he trace them through the guise of falsehood, artifice, and dissimulation, which so commonly hide his real character from the world, and which occasionally deceive the eye of the closest and most vigilant observer? Is it to the behaviour of a person who knows that he is watched; is it to the partial report of his friends; is it to the testimony of the individual himself, the most fallible of all, that the phrenologist is to trust for his knowledge of human character? Such, however, is the kind of experience, from which it appears that all the doctrines relative to the functions of the different parts of the brain have been derived; and it is in this experience, as in an impregnable fortress, that the adherents of the system make their last and most resolute stand. Quitting the airy region of theory, they fancy themselves posted upon a rock, secure against the insidious minings of scepticism, and bidding defiance to the rude assaults of argument. The appeal to the evidence of induction, as to the supreme authority in the court of philosophy, is made with confidence; and all the wild effusions of a bewildered fancy are presumed to be sanctioned by a supposed conformity with experience. You may speculate or reason, they exclaim, as you please; observation shows that such and such forms of the head, are the invariable concomitants of such and such predominant dispositions and faculties. Who will dare to set up his opinion in opposition to ascertained facts? We venture only to express strong doubts as to the reality of these facts, on which so much is made to depend, possessing the character of general facts, that is, of being the results of legitimate induction; and to suggest the expediency, previously to any admission of their truth, of inquiring not only into the manner in which the knowledge of these pretended facts has been obtained, and in which inductions from them have been made, but also into the talents and qualifications of the observer upon whose testimony we receive them for the exercise of this philosophical process. We should know in what spirit he conducted the inquiry; with what previous dispositions he examined the objects of his contemplation; what motives led him to these researches; and what interest he may have in the event. Experience, we should recollect, leads to very different results, according to the sagacity and good faith of the person who acquires it. Minds already prejudiced collect from it only a confirmation of their errors, and become, by its means, only the more obstinately wedded to their opinions. The sailor, steadfast in his belief that his whistling to the sea will raise a wind, or conjure up a storm, instead of being undeceived by experience, is only the more strengthened in his faith by the observations which it furnishes to him. In what a multitude of instances do we not find men deceiving themselves as grossly, when they draw inferences from what they see, if prepossessed with the expectation of meeting with a certain coincidence, or succession of events. How disposed are we all to disregard the exceptions to a preconceived rule, and to allow undue weight to every example that conforms to it. How willingly we repel the evidence that opposes, and how eagerly we catch at whatever corroborates our previous notions, especially when those notions have originated with ourselves, and are viewed as the darling offsprings of our own lucubrations.

The discerning reader may already have perceived strong indications of this bias in the framers of the phrenological system, from the account we have already given of its origin and history, and of the kind of evidence on which they pretend to establish its doctrines. In order, however, to enable him to form a correct idea of the species of logic which they have been in the habit of employing and which they deem conclusive, and of the tone of mind with which they prosecute the investigation of subjects where nothing but the exercise of consummate prudence can secure from error, we shall conclude by offering one or two specimens of their mode of reasoning. We shall pass over [7:17:468]the numerous stories, each more ridiculous than the preceding, of irresistible natural inclinations to wander from place to place, to commit murder, theft, infanticide, and other crimes, without any assignable object. We shall refrain from criticising the wonderful accounts of people who were insane on one side of the head only, and observed their insanity with the other side, and of others who heard angels sing, and devils roar, only on one side; nor shall we stop to investigate the curious case of the woman who declared in a court of justice, when accused of having destroyed her infant, that her sole motive for becoming pregnant was that she might enjoy the exquisite pleasure of killing her own child. Neither shall we venture to involve ourselves in that metaphysical labyrinth of the thirty-five special faculties into which they pretend to have analyzed the human soul; but content ourselves with examining, what in fact alone deserves examination, the sort of evidence brought forward to establish the relation between each faculty and a particular defined portion of the brain. We shall take, for this purpose, the following passage, which may be esteemed a fair specimen of the whole.

“Dr. Gall examined the head of a woman at Vienna who was known as a model of friendship. She suffered different changes of fortune; she became alternately rich and poor; but was attached to her former friends. Gall found the part of her head situated upward and outward from the organ of philoprogenitiveness, very prominent, and called it the organ of friendship. Our observations are not multiplied enough to enable us to decide positively on this organ; yet its seat appears to be more than probable. It must be inferiorly, because this faculty exists in the lower animals, and is a propensity. For this reason it belongs to their region of the head; and according to its mimical signs, and the motions of the head when it is active, it lies laterally and backward.” Dr. Spurzheim, it is obvious, here reasons in a circle; for he assumes as true the thing to be proved, namely, that faculties of a certain class reside in a certain department of the head, and then applies it to establish the very proof on which the proposition itself ought to have rested. In order to render intelligible the latter part of his argument, the reader should be informed that Drs. Gall and Spurzheim believe, that, when any faculty of the mind is strongly excited, the action of the corresponding organ in the brain tends to raise that part of the head in which it is situated; so that the person has a propensity to lay his finger upon the nearest external part of the head, or sometimes to apply his band to it, either to cool it when too hot, or to warm it when too cold, and that he is occasionally prompted to rub it in order to excite it when too sluggish. Thus, when we endeavour to recollect a name or a word, we unconsciously slap our foreheads, or rub the skin a little above the eyes, or perhaps higher still, just where the appropriate organ of memory is situated, that it may awake and exercise its peculiar faculty. When embarrassed by any difficulty, we gently stimulate in like manner, the organ of contrivance, by scratching the head at the part under which is the seat of constructweness. The timid man scratches his head on the organ of courage behind his ear, as if he tried to rouse the feeble organ into activity. A proud man holds his head erect upon his shoulders, and raises himself upon his toes, for no other reason than because the organ of the sentiment lies at the very top of the head, and is therefore elevated by the action. A sense of danger, or the necessity of circumspection·, leads all animals, man not excepted, to stretch their necks forwards horizontally, thus presenting the broad extent of that organ, as it were, in front. Devotion raises the head gently; and our adorations are all directed upwards, not because we regard the Deity as above, but because the organ of adoration is situated in the centre of the upper part of the head. When busied in deep contemplation, we cover the whole forehead with our hands, as it is there that the reflecting faculties are lodged; and, accordingly, when we reproach any one for his want of reflection, we put our hand to this part of the head; and exclaim, “he wants it here.” If we try to recollect a date, we put into action the organ of time, which being situated over the eyebrows, and a little to one side, occasions an involuntary movement of the eyes upwards and towards the temples. In beating time to a musical air, we make the head oscillate from side to side, because the organs of tone as well as of time, being situated on each side, and being alternately in action, occasion these gesticulations. Sterne excelled in wit: and we find him represented in all his portraits with his head leaning on his hand, the fore-finger of which is placed on a particular part of the forehead. Dr. Spurzheim considers this as one of the proofs that the organ of wit occupies that very spot.

With minds capable of allowing any weight to such observations and imbued with such notions of the nature of philosophical induction, as are implied by the grave admission of such frivolous arguments as these, the investigation of the laws of nature must be an easy and a delightful task. With the abundant and all-powerful resources, which their indulgent method of reasoning is ever ready to supply, all difficulties may be smoothed away, all chasms immediately filled up, and all obstacles made to vanish the moment they arise. We need not be under any embarrassment at meeting with a skull exhibiting a particular prominence, although the faculty which should correspond to it be deficient. Doubtless the individual must have been strongly gifted by nature with this faculty, but education has long ago taught him to disguise or suppress its manifestations. It exists, perhaps, unknown to the person himself, and wants only a proper occasion for its being exhibited; or more probably the other faculties, having received a greater proportional developement, have overpowered and prevented it from appearing. If we find, on the contrary, a strongly marked faculty, without the corresponding shape of the head, we may still conclude that the organ exists notwithstanding; for the neighbouring organs, having received a greater extension, may have pushed it from its true place, or have grown up around it, and have concealed it from vulgar observation. Its not having been recognised is only a proof of want of skill in the observer; no doubt, it would easily have been discovered by the eye or hand of a true believer, and experienced cranioscopist; for it should be recollected that the differences are often very minute, and require the tactus eruditus for their detection. Besides, how can we be certain that the excellence of the faculty in question is not of an artificial or relative kind, and that it results from education, or the weakness of opposite faculties, rather than from nature? If all these expedients should fail us, we have nothing to do but to plunge into the depths of metaphysics, to refine and make subtle distinctions, or loosen the signification of a few words, till we have entangled ourselves in a wood, and lost sight of the real difficulty that had perplexed us. Thus will the theory be freed from all exceptions, and the induction be rendered complete. With such a convenient logic, and accommodating principles of philosophizing, it would be easy to prove any thing. We suspect, however, that on that very account, they will be rejected as having proved nothing.

We have here re-printed the Essay on this subject which appeared under the headofCκAsioscopγ,in the Supplement to the last edition of the present work. We have done so because we have not seen any reason to alter our views. Since the year 1818, when that essay was written, replies have been attempted to some of our strictures; particularly by Mr George Combe, in his “Essays on Phrenology, and on the objections [7:17:469]made against it,” Edinburgh, 1819; and by Dr. Andrew Combe, in the Phrenological Journal. Although the conductors of this Journal have admitted that our Article was “regardedin the South as the most formidable attack Phrenology ever had to sustain,” 1 and have in so far paid us a compliment, we deem it unnecessary to answer, otherwise than very generally, their comments on the reasonings contained in it; be-causemostofthosecomments are foundedon a misconception ofthescope ofour arguments. When, for instance, we attempted toshow, that, in establishing a philosophical principle, mere analogiesought not to be esteemed as equivalent to proofs,and when we maintained that they are still less to be relied on, when other analogies, ofacontrary tendency, can be adduced on the other side of the question, we are represented by Dr. Combe as building our arguments on analogy, the very principle of which we were pointing out the fallacy, and repudiating the authority; and we are even charged with being guilty of the strange inconsistency of endeavouring to “refute direct inductive evidence, by that drawn from analogy.” 2 Any reader who had paid the least attention to the train of reasoning we employed, must have perceived that our reasoning was diametrically the reverse of that which is imputed to us; and that we had even guarded against the possibility of mistake by the sentence concluding with the words, “all such reasonings a priori must be completely illusory.”

By the help of a mis-quotation, in which the qualifying adverb “nearly” is omitted, we are represented as having asserted, that the anatomy of the brain “will suit any physiological system equally well.” 3 All the notions we can form of the nature of mental operations are so completely and essentially different from any of the affections of which we can conceive matter to be capable, that it is utterly impossible for us to understand the mode in which a connexion has been established between them; or to imagine any physical structure whatsoever, which shall, in the remotest manner, correspond with the metaphysical constitution of the soul. This, however, we may confidently assert, that amongst all the hypotheses which have been propounded respecting the correspondence between the corporeal instruments of the mind, and the mental faculties themselves, the one which is the least in accordance with the actual structure of the brain, is that devised by the phrenologists. Let a person, unacquainted with the anatomy of that organ, be shown the phrenological map of the cerebral regions, and let him be told, that to each corresponding subjacent portion of the brain is ascribed, as to a separate organ, a certain special mental function; one set of these organs being appropriated to the establishment of certain definite propensities, whilst another set gives rise respectively to various sentiments, and a third confers each its peculiar intellectual power; with what immeasurable surprise, on lifting up the bony covering which had concealed this expected assemblage of well defined organs, would he behold a uniform mass of pulpy substance, divided by furrows only, into serpentine but continuous convolutions, bearing no conformity or even similitude to the notions which his previous instructions had led him to form of distinct masses, divided from each other in accordance with their phrenological functions. Each of these pretended organs, far from being isolated in its structure, as its alleged isolated functions would imply, from the neighbouring parts, is seen to pass on, without visible boundary, to the next, by a continuity of cerebral substance. Turning round upon his instructor, would he not complain of being misled by him; and would he not require him to explain what intermediate function he can ascribe to those portions of the same convolution which occupy an intermediate place between two organs, to which he has already assigned functions utterly heterogeneous with one another? What lucid ideas can he convey of a function intermediate between benevolence and imitation, between ideality and acquisitiveness, between cautiousness and adhesiveness, or between self-esteem and concentrativeness or inhabitiveness, of which the respective organs are not merely contiguous, but pass insensibly into one another; and what is the curious and hitherto nondescript office that he will assign to those portions of the brain which occupy the central space at the junction of quintuple groups of organs, such as those of ideality, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, tune, and wit, all of which, though separated by the fancy of the phrenologist, have been by nature amalgamated into one continuous mass,undistinguishable by any visible lines of demarcation? jí

Not content with expressing his dissatisfaction at our failing to perceive the accordance between the structure of the human brain and the doctrines of phrenology, Dr. Combe extends his censure to our objection as to the evidence which observations on lower animals are supposed to afford in their favour; and to our assertion, that in the construction of their system “much wasmade to hinge” on facts derived from comparative anatomy. That the founders of the system placed great reliance on this kind of evidence, is a proposition sufficiently borne out by the testimony of Sir George Mackenzie, who, when speaking of inhabitiveness, remarks, “it is chiefly from observation on the lower animals that Dr. Spurzheim seems to consider it as certain, that there is such a faculty in man.” 1 The fallacy of the reasoning by which comparative anatomy has been pressed into the service of phrenology, has been so ably exposed by Dr. Prichard, in his Treatise on Insanity, that we shall beg leave to borrow from that work the following judicious remarks. “The chief peculiarity,” observes Dr. Prichard, “of Dr. Gall’s psychological theory, was the attempt to draw a parallel between the animal qualities displayed by the lower animals and the individual varieties discovered among men.” He proceeded “on the principle, that the innate or original faculties are common to man and the lower tribes of animals, to those at least which bear to man a general analogy in their organization, and especially in the structure of their nervous system; and sought for analogies in physical phenomena between the brute tribes, tracing in them the rudiments of those properties which, taken collectively, and in their highest degree of developement, form the human character, and which, in lower degrees and various relations, constitute the distinctive nature of each of the inferior kinds. The attempt was ingenious, and seemed to hold out the prospect of discovering curious and interesting relations; but it is necessary, before embarking in the inquiry, to determine whether the analogies are real or apparent; for it has been tacitly assumed that the supposed distinction between instinct and reason is unreal, and that the active principles are of the same kind in the higher and lower beings of the creation.” “Perhaps metaphysical writers have been mistaken in laying down so broad a line of difference as they have established. We must, then, either elevate the brutes, or lower the superiority of mankind. Shall we say, after tracing the operations of a constructive instinct so wonderfully displayed by the beaver, or in the ceils in which the bee lays up his honey, that an impulse to action precisely similar gave origin to the pyramids of Egypt, or to the building of Constantinople? Shall we venture to affirm that the tunnel under the Thames owes its existence to a burrowing propensity resembling that of the rabbit or the mole? Shall we conclude that Parry and Franklin sought the regions of the north, impelled by the instinct of the migratory rat; and that Magellan and De Gama traversed the Southern Oceans directed by an influence analogous to that which moves the flight of swallows? Or may we, with greater probability, determine that the lower 1 Ρkrernlogical Journal, i. 166. 2 lb. i. 168,169. 3 Z⅛. i∙ 166. 4 Illustrations of Phrenology, p. 92.
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tribes act under the guidance, not of blind instinct, but of enlightened reason; that metaphysicians were mistaken when they laid down the principle, ‘ Dens est anima brutorum,’ that the birds of passage have some acquaintance with physical geography, and know the quarter where tropical warmth exists and genial breezes blow; that the bee has studied the exact sciences, and knows by calculation the form most advisable for its cells? In short, that there is a real analogy and correspondence between the mental faculties of man and the physical endowments of those creatures whom he conceitedly regards as his inferiors? If either of these positions can be maintained, there will be a sound foundation for the comparative pyschology of Dr. Gall and his followers; but if they should be rejected as improbable, we must admit that the analogies pointed out are remote, the things compared are different in kind, they agree only in external appearances; and we shall be brought to the conclusion that it has pleased the Author of nature to bring about corresponding results in the rational and irrational departments of the creation, by very different means.”

“If the evidence,” continues Dr. Prichard, “brought in support of the organological system depends so entirely on universal coincidence between psychical properties and corresponding varieties in the structure of the nervous fabric, it must be important to determine whether there are any departments of the animal kingdom in which instincts and motive habitudes, and an entire psychical nature are displayed analogous to those of vertebrated animals, while yet in these departments there is no structure which can be said to bear resemblance to the complicated cerebral system of the so termed higher animals. In all the vertebrated kinds, the organization of the nervous fabric is in one principle, and the same fundamental type, with different degrees of developement, is traced in man and all other mammifers, in birds, reptiles, and fishes; but here the resemblance terminates, and the nervous system of molluscous animals and insects presented but few and remote analogies to thatwhich belongs to the first great branch of the animal creation. It is, indeed, to be presumed that the nervous system, taken as a whole, fulfils, in the tribes last mentioned, the same offices as in those animals who have it enclosed in a bony case. Still, nothing exists at all resembling the complicated formation of a brain, with its lobes and convolutions. It is so much the more surprising to find the higher instincts, which had almost disappeared in fishes, display themselves with new splendour and variety in the brainless insects; creatures which, in the wonderful imitations of intelligence that govern their motive habits, rival, if they do not even exceed, the sagacity of the animals which most approximate to man.”

“Now, if it should be established, that all those properties of animal life, approximating to intelligence, or bearing analogies so striking to the manifestations of mind, which, in one great division of the animal kingdom are assumed to be essentially connected with, and depending on, a particular system of organization, exist in another department, and display themselves in all the same various profusion, while the creatures belonging to this latter department are yet destitute of that system of organization, and of any thing that bears the resemblance to it, the advocates of Phrenology will be obliged to abandon that broad ground on which they have attempted to fortify their position. Within the more confined field which the vertebrated tribes alone present, it will be more easy to maintain such an assumed connexion of physical properties with a peculiar structure; or, rather, it is more difficult to disprove it when assumed. The general analogy which prevails throughout these tribes in the organization of their cerebral and nervous system, affords no room for so decisive a contradiction to the relation which the phrenologists would establish. Yet even within this field great and striking facts display themselves which are adverse to the hypothesis. Birds and reptiles, as Jacobi has observed, are nearly, if not wholly destitute of many cerebral parts, which in mammifers are held as of high importance for the manifestation of psychical properties, and yet they display psychical phenomena similar to those of mammifers. Whenever an undoubted and tangible fact can be laid hold of in the different proportional developement of cerebral parts, which can be brought into comparison with the relative differences of animal instinct, or of psychical properties in general, there is, if I am not mistaken, a manifest failure of correspondence between the two series of observations. This has been shown by Rudolphi in a striking manner, with respect to the cerebellum. The cerebellum, as this writer has observed, is found to lessen in its proportional developement as we descend in the scale of organized beings, without any corresponding diminution, and even with an increase of the propensity which Gall connects with it. How remarkably powerful is this instinct in birds; and yet how small is the cerebellum in the feathered tribes compared with its size in mammifers, and even in the latter, when we consider the magnitude which it attains in the human species? We observe those tribes in which the cerebellum nearly or entirely ceases to exist, obeying, nevertheless, the impulsion of instinct as blindly or devotedly as other kinds which have the organ in question remarkably developed. When we consider the great amplitude which the cerebellum attains in man, in comparison with its size in lower animals, we are obliged, if we really attach any importance to such a system of correspondence, to acknowledge some relation between this circumstance and the transcendant superiority of the human intellect, compared with the psychical powers of brutes.”

“The facts which suggest themselves as we follow these trains of reflection, are scarcely to be reconciled with the phrenological theory: they seem, in the first place, to show, that the relations which in it are assumed to prevail through all nature are subject to vast exceptions; and as one great proof of the doctrine is the assumed universality of such relations, or the endowment of psychical properties in coextension with certain peculiarities of structure in cerebral parts, the exceptions endanger at least the outworks of the whole doctrine. When, in a more limited survey, we confine our observation to the sphere of vertebrated animals, and discover that variations in psychical phenomena take place without any evidence of corresponding changes in the structure of cerebral parts, and that these changes, on the other hand, occur without such alterations as we are led to anticipate in psychical properties, the system of organology seems to be shaken to its very centre.” 1

Whilst the defenders of phrenology have, on the one hand, misrepresented the minor points of our argument, they have, on the other, disguised from their readers that it is on the insufficiency of the evidence adduced in support of their doctrine, that we rest our main objection to its credibility. We maintain, that they have taken only a one-sided view of what nature presents to our observation; that they have paid attention to those facts alone, which are confirmatory of phrenology, and shut their eyes to those which oppose it. In order to establish what they consider as the rule, they have collected together all the instances in its favour, and have passed over or suppressed all the exceptions. What we assert is, that more enlarged inquiry, conducted with a more entire devotion to the cause of truth, anda scrupulous rejection of error, would have shewn the latter to be at least equal, if not superior in number to the former. Our own observations, as far as we have pursued them, .have led ’ Treatise on Insanity, p. 465 to 474∙
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us to this conclusion; and it was on the result of these observations that our scepticism was principally founded. So frequent, indeed, are the exceptions, that even the founders of the system, Drs. Gall and Spurzheim themselves, on applying it practically, committed, as is well known, very glaring mistakes; giving frequently the most false judgments of the characters of various individuals. Have these mistakes, we may ask, been any where recorded by the phrenologists, and candidly set off against the instances in confirmation of their sagacity? What avails their collections of thousands of examples of coincidences, when the perhaps equally numerous instances of discordance are excluded from the catalogue? The fact, that the brain of Cuvier was of unusual magnitude, has been triumphantly proclaimed in all the publications on phrenology; but we are not aware that any phrenologist has brought forward the equally well-certified fact, that the brain of Sir Walter Scott was found on examination to be “not large.” 1

In like manner, a long catalogue of persons avowing their belief in phrenology, including many men of eminent talents and extensive knowledge, has been paraded before the public; but we have not yet seen any counter list of unbelievers prepared with the view of ascertaining, in a science professedly of pure observation, on which side the weight of authorities preponderates. The class of men who, from the nature of their pursuits, are perhaps best qualified to form a correct judgment in matters of this nature, are the members of the medical profession; yet how inconsiderable, compared with the total number, is the proportion of those belonging to that profession who, according to Mr. Combe’s catalogue, have given in their adhesion. Sculptors, again, compose another class of men whose studies lead them more especially to the most minute and accurate knowledge of the external form of the human head; yet amongst the many who are at present engaged in the active exercise of their noble art, Mr. Combe has been able to bring forward the name of only one solitary individual as lending a countenance to phrenology.

y “Itis not enough,” as Dr. Prichard very justly observes, “to have a few chosen coincidences brought forward by zealous partizans, who go about in search of facts to support their doctrine, and pass by, or really cannot perceive the evidence that ought to be placed in the opposite scale. The principles of the system ought to be applicable in every instance. The phrenologists, however, aware of numerous and striking exceptions, elude their evidence’by asserting, that when a certain portion of the cranium and of the brain is greatly developed, while the faculty there lodged has never been remarkably distinguished, it nevertheless existed naturally, though the innate talent, for want of proper cultivation, has never been displayed; the predominant organic power was never discovered by the owner, though, according to the principles of the doctrine, with this organic power a proportional impulse to exertion, or an instinctive energy is combined, which communicates of itself a strong and irresistible tendency to particular pursuits. When, again, a strongly marked propensity, or a decided talent has been manifested without any corresponding amplitude of structure, it is in like manner pleaded, that by sedulous exercise and culture, a natural deficiency has been overcome. Thus the phrenologist avails himself of a double method of elusion; his position, like the cave of Philoctetes, affords him an escape on either side; and in one direction or another he contrives to baffle all the address of his opponents.

“If, however, the testimony of facts in a great scale should be found adverse to the alleged coincidences, or to the correspondence of given mental equalities with certain conditions of the brain, phrenology will not continue to make proselytes, and it will be ultimately discarded as an hypothesis without foundation. At present, most inquisitive persons seem to be in doubt on this subject, and to be looking out for evidence. I have taken every opportunity that has occurred to me for many years of making inquiries of persons who had a great field of observation within their reach, what had been the result of their experience on this subject. Many of the persons have been physicians, who were superintendants of extensive lunatic establishments. Some of them had been men who had addicted themselves to the study of phrenology, and were predisposed to imbibe the opinions of its authors; some have been persons distinguished by their researches in the anatomy and physiology of the brain and nervous system. Among these I do not remember to have found one who could say that his own observation had afforded any evidence favourable to the doctrine. Yet we should imagine, that a man who lives amidst hundreds of monomaniacs must have constantly before his eyes facts so obvious that he could not be mistaken in their bearing. Some hundreds, and even thousands of such persons have passed a part of their lives under the inspection of Μ. Esquirol, who possesses most extensive resources for elucidating almost every subject connected with the history of mental diseases, and has neglected no inquiry which could further the attainment of that object. The result of his observations will be allowed to be of some weight on the decision of this question, in which the appeal is principally to facts of the precise description of those with which he has been chiefly conversant. At his establishment at Ivry he has a large assemblage of crania and casts from the heads of lunatics, collected by him during the long course of his attendance at the Salpétrière, and at the Royal Hospital at Charenton, which is under his superintendance. While inspecting this collection, I was assured by Μ. Esquirol, that the testimony of his experience is entirely adverse to the doctrine of the phrenologists; it has convinced him that there is no foundation whatever in facts for the system of correspondences which they lay down between given measurements of the head and the existence of particular mental endowments. This observation of Μ. Esquirol was made in the presence of Μ. Mitivié, physician to the Salpétrière, and received his assent and confirmation. Μ. Foville, physician to the extensive lunatic asylum at St. Yon, gave me a similar assurance. There are few individuals in Europe whose sphere of observation has been so extensive as that of Μ. Esquirol and Μ. Foville, and certainly there arc none whose science and habits of observation better qualify them to be witnesses in such a subject of inquiry; but testimonies to the same result may be collected from unbiassed witnesses, whose evidence taken collectively may have nearly equal weight. Among these there are men unscientific, though capable of correct and unprejudiced observation, as well as anatomists and physiologists. In the number of the latter is Rudolphi, who declares that he has examined many hundreds of brains without finding any thing that appeared to him favourable to the phrenological theory.” 2

The mode in which Dr. Combe evades the force of the strong testimony here adduced, is quite characteristic of the disposition to be found amongst confirmed phrenologists, of resolutely rejecting all evidence that militates against the system they have adopted. Thus, he says, in reference to the passage we have just quoted, “If Dr. Prichard believes that the intelligent and benevolent Esquirol, is that person,” (namely, one “competent to form a judgment on the subject,”) and if his collection of crania and casts be the hostile evidence which is relied on, this only proves, in a forcible manner, that Dr. Prichard is himself not competent to judge, l Ff e of Sir Walter Scott, by Lockhart, vol. vii. p. 395, note. 2 Treatise on Insanity, pp. 476, 477.
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or that he has not taken time either to examine the collection of crania, or to ascertain the competency of Esquirol and Metivié, to decide on the merits of the question on which they volunteered an opinion.” 1 We cannot help remarking here, that, on another occasion, when criticising the suggestion we threw out, in the Essay on Cranioscopy, of the propriety of inquiring into the talents and qualifications of observers before admitting the truth of the facts received on their testimony, a very different language was held. « When they” (the advocates of phrenology) “affirm that the subjects of observation are patent to the whole world, who have eyes to see, and understandings to comprehend; and when they say, compare manifestations with cerebral developement, and you are at the bottom of the problem yourself; what need for inquiry into their talents and qualifications to observe ?” “When Gay Lussac hears that Sir Humphry Davy has made a discovery in chemistry, and reads Sir Humphry’s statement of the way in which it was made, does he begin by inquiring first, whether it be possible to make the discovery at all, seeing natural substances are i so changed and modified, exalted and subdued’ by a multitude of powerful causes? And, after settling this point, does he, in the second place, proceed to inquire into Sir Humphry Davy’s talents and qualifications as a chemist, and into his capacity to make the discovery, and then believe it, or not, according to the result of this investigation? No man who knows the first rudiments of philosophy would follow so absurd and preposterous a course. What should we think of Gay Lussac’s refutation of Sir Humphry’s discovery, founded on a metaphysical inquiry into the possibility of making it, and into the ‘ talents and qualifications’ of the discoverer? We should pity him for his ignorance of the rudiments of philosophy.” 2

This happy talent, possessed by the champions of phrenology, of shaping their course either one way or the opposite, according as it may suit the convenience of the occasion, enables them, at one time, to proclaim, that the evidences of their science are palpable and demonstrative, that the field of nature is open to all inquirers, that “every one who has eyes may see” and judge for himself; and at another, when such judgment is against them, they can turn round, and allege that in order to arrive at the truth a peculiar discretion and tact, acquired by long experience and careful appreciation of minute and hair-breadth differences of size is necessary. They can then declare that the observer who has not arrived at the same conclusions as themselves, is doubtless incompetent to the task he has attempted; and that his testimony, being of no value, ought to be wholly set aside.

Let it be borne in mind, then, by the practical inquirer into the truth of phrenology, that he will not be esteemed qualified to verify its doctrines, unless he be previously deeply versed in the new system of psychology, can assign to each of the thirty-five special and primary faculties of the soul its sphere of operation, and has acquired a readiness in unravelling their multifarious combinations, so as to analyze, by this subtile metaphysical chemistry, all human qualities into their proximate and ultimate elements, refer all actions to their proper innate impulses, and assign the proportions of the various ingredients which are mixed up in the formation of the character of each, individual. No one is competent to excel in this new branch of philosophy who doubts the possibility of appreciating the intensities of moral or intellectual qualities by geometrical measurements, on scales divided into tenths and hundredths of inches. The young and ardent phrenologist, who after having applied his callipers to the skull subjected to his examination, and taken a note of the dimensions of each of the thirty-five organs, proceeds to verify his observations by comparing them with the character of the possessor of those organs, will never fail to meet with wonderful coincidences, sufficient to give him the greatest satisfaction, and confirm him in the persuasion that he possesses the real key to the secrets of nature in the hitherto recondite science of mental philosophy. A moderate share of dexterity in reconciling apparent discrepancies will suffice to ensure a preponderance of favourable evidence; since, fortunately, there have been provided in the brain different organs, sometimes of similar and sometimes of opposite properties, capable, by a little adjustment of plus or minus on either side of the equation, of furnishing the requisite degrees of the mental quality sought for, and of thus solving every psychological problem. We shall suppose, for instance, that he is inspecting the head of a person known to have given credit to the prophecies of a weather almanack; he finds, on reference to the “system of phrenology,” that a belief in astrology is the offspring of No. 16, that is, ideality ; so that if this organ happen to be sufficiently large, the phenomenon is at once accounted for. But if it be not, our phrenologist will have another chance; for he will probably discover it to arise from the dimensions of No. 15, which inspires hope, the source of the propensity to credulity. Habitual irresolution may result either from the magnitude of No. 12, or the diminutiveness of No. 18; thus affording very great convenience for making our observations of the character square with those of the dimensions of the organs, and vice versa. If, again, the magnitude of the organ of combativeness accord with the manifestations of pugnacity given by the individual, it is weil, and we need inquire no farther, but set it down at once as an irrefragable proof of the accuracy of phrenological determinations. Should the correspondence, however, not prove satisfactory, the organ being large for instance, and the manifestation small, we have then further to examine the dimensions of the organ of caution, the influence of which is to moderate and check the operation of the former; and we shall perhaps find this organ sufficiently large to account for the phenomenon. Both these organs may be large, or both small, or the first may be small and the second large, or the converse; and other modifications of action may result if either one or both be only of moderate size, allowing great latitude of choice in the assignment of motives. Should we be so unfortunate as to exhaust all the combinations without meeting with the success we desire, there is still an abundance of auxiliary faculties of which we may avail ourselves with advantage. If we were to explain the fact of the individual in question having accepted a challenge, he might have been inspired by cornbativeness, whose voice was “still for war,” or goaded on by destructiveness, to fight that he might destroy; firmness may have urged him to persevere by the consideration that he had previously resolved it, and concentrativeness, by rivetting his attention to the subject, may have screwed his courage to the sticking place; or he may have been prompted by imitation to follow the example, or by approbation to gain the applause of his friends. We have also to take into the account the countervailing influence of faculties which are pulling in the opposite direction, and qualifyingthe combined powers of the former incentives: And shouldcaω⅛<m- ness not be in sufficient force, we are to consider the power of conscientiousness, which preaches forbearance, meekness, and forgiveness; of veneration which appeals to the high authority of religion and of law; of benevolence restraining the hand from inflicting pain and death; of approbation, who qualifies her sanction by raising other voices condemnatory of the deed; and last, though not least, the love of life which recoils with instinctive dread from the possible catastrophe. Drawing, then, a diagram of all these component moral forces, in their proper directions, and suitable proportions, it will not be very difficult to obtain by this artificial dynamicophrenological process, the exact resultant which corresponds with the actual fact to be explained.

’ Phrenological Journal, viii∙ p. 654.

s Essays on Phrenology, p. 71.
[7:17:473]

Lest it should be imagined that the above description is a caricature of the new method of philosophizing, so admirably calculated to establish the truths of phrenology, we shall beg to quote the following passage from Sir George Mackenzie’s Illustrations as an example of this satisfactory process of ratiocination.

“In discussing the conjectured faculty of inhabitiveness with Mr. Combe, he had the goodness to make us acquainted with a case, in which locality and inhabitiveness were both very moderate in developement, but the propensity to wander, as he informed us, very powerful. Dr. Spurzheim mentions this propensity as belonging to locality·, and he states several remarkable cases in which the organ was much developed, and the propensity strong. The case referred to by Mr. Combe was, on this account, interesting; and we will state the result of our inquiries into the particulars, for the purpose of giving an example of the caution with which we ought to receive the description of any case brought in opposition, since it sometimes appears to be necessary even among friends.

“The young man to whose case we refer, had a very strong desire to adopt a seafaring life, contrary to the wishes of his friends. It occurred to them, that a voyage up the Baltic, during the stormy months of October and November, might have the effect of giving him a disgust to the profession for which he showed so ardent a desire. He suffered so many privations and hardships, that he yielded to the wishes of his friends, although the desire to go to sea continued as strong as ever. On proposing a few questions, we found that the propensity was confined to being at sea ; that this propensity did not originate in a desire to wander; for neither travelling on land, nor mere change of place, would have gratified the propensity. At the same time, the person referred to declared, that regular voyages to the same place would not have satisfied him. The propensity had haunted him as long as he could remember any thing. Being anxious himself to contribute to the unravelling of what appeared mysterious and irreconcilable to the system, he stated that he used to go once or twice a-day to examine the mechanism and rigging of ships in Leith harbour, an employment of which he was passionately fond; and long before he commenced his trial voyage, he had become familiar with the names and uses of every part of a ship, and of the rigging. He was fond of machinery, and has often amused himself by making models of ships; and his mechanical turn was so strong, that he had constructed a model of machinery, by which a ship’s motion may be applied to work the pumps. This mechanical propensity, and his early attachment to naval machines, together with firmness, appear to us to have given rise to his desire for a sea-faring life. Courage might also have prompted his wish to enter the navy. Thus the supposed propensity to wander appeared not to exist; and it was found that a mechanical genius, an early attachment 1 to the mechanism of a ship, perseverance, courage, and probably also love of approbation, or ambition, and ideality, all of which were well developed in the individual referred to, combined to inspire the desire to enter the navy.” (Illustrations of Phrenology, p. 170.J

It is to be lamented that, at the period when this elaborate investigation was undertaken, the organ of wonder had not yet been made; for as one of the functions of this organ, according to Mr. Combe, is to “incite young men, to chuse the sea as a profession,” much light would have been thrown upon the object of the inquiry by a critical examination of its dimensions compared with those of all the other organs which were taken into consideration as combining their influence in producing the result.

There is this very remarkable peculiarity in the pursuit of phrenology, that the student is perplexed, not with the difficulties, but with the facilities it affords for explaining every phenomenon. The pliability of its doctrines is exemplified, not merely in the analysis of motives, but likewise in the influence which we are allowed to ascribe to the habitual exercise, or education of the faculties. The observed magnitudes of the respective organs indicate, not the acquired, but the natural powers, sentiments, and propensities. Now, the character of the individual is the joint result of the force of natural endowments, and of the amount of moral and intellectual cultivation which has been bestowed upon them. But can we ever know enough of the minute history of the progress of the mind of any individual to enable us to form a correct estimate of the relative power of these two elements, which have, in the formation of each respective faculty, combined their operations? If it be true that an organ may'· be the seat of a faculty varying in its activity according to the occasions which call it forth, by what physical criterion can we distinguish the active from the dormant conditions of that organ? Unless we can draw, with precision, these distinctions, it is evident that the ground of all cranioscopical observation is cut from under us.

It may be indeed alleged, that at all periods of life, and even after the bones of the skull are consolidated, the organs increase or diminish in size according to the exercise or disuse of the faculty associated with it, whether such change may have been brought about by voluntary training, or by the discipline of circumstances; and certainly, if such were the fact, our experience would repose on a much surer basis, than if the form of the organs merely retained the stamp originally impressed upon them by nature. But the hypothesis that the cerebral organs acquire additional size by the exercise of their powers was positively rejected as untenable by Dr. Spurzheim, as we have heard him publicly declare; and it is, we believe, repudiated by the generality of phrenologists.

We do not think it difficult to account for the progress which phrenology has made amongst the very numerous class of persons who find in it a source of agreeable occupation, 1 giving exercise to their ingenuity in discovering striking coincidences, and gratifying their self-complacency by inspiring them with the fancy that they are penetrating far into the mystic regions of psychology. For the last twenty or thirty years, various popular writers, and lecturers without number, have been displaying their powers of elocution, exercising their skill in the critical examination of developements, and expounding the doctrines of the new philosophy to wondering and admiring audiences. With all these advantages and appliances to boot, the wonder seems to be, not that phrenology has met with the success of which so much boast is made, but that it has not speedily gained the universal assent; for had it been a real science, like that of Chemistry and other branches of Natural Philosophy, founded on uniform and unquestionable evidence, it could not have failed, by this time, of being generally recognised as true.

When we consider that the present age is not one in which there is any lack of credulity, or in which a doctrine is likely to be repudiated on the score of its novelty or its extravagance, we cannot but smile at the complaints of persecution uttered by the votaries of the system of Dr. Gall, and at the attempts they make to set up a parallel between its reception in this country, in these times, and that which, two centuries ago, attended the speculations of Galileo, and subjected him to the tyrannous cognisance of the Inquisition; or to establish an analogy between the dogmas of phrenology and the discoveries of the circulation of the blood, and of the analysis of light, which have immortalized the names of Harvey and of Newton.

(v∙)

1 “Dr. Spurzheim has shown, that the faculty of attachment extends its influence to inanimate things, as well as to animate beings.” [7:17:474]