TEM

SYSTEM

OF

PHRENOLOGY.

INTRODUCTION.

PHRENOLOGY (derived from the Greek words pony, mind and λoyos, discourse) professes to be a system of Philosophy of the Human Mind, founded on the physiology of the brain. It was first offered to public consideration on the continent of Europe in 1796, but in Britain was almost unheard of till the year 1815. It has met with strenuous support from some individuals, and determined opposition from others; while the great body of the public remain uninstructed as to its merits. On this account it may be useful to present, in an introductory form, 1st, A short notice of the reception which other discoveries have met with on their first announcement; 2dly, A brief outline of the principles involved in Phrenology; 3dly, An inquiry into the presumptions for and against these principles, founded on the known phenomena of human nature; and, 4thly, An historical sketch of the discovery of the organs of the mind.

I shall follow this course, not with a view of convincing the reader that Phrenology is true, (because nothing short of patient study and extensive personal observation can produce this conviction,) but for the purpose of presenting him with motives to prosecute the investigation for his own satisfaction.

First, then-one great obstacle to the reception of a discovery is the difficulty which men experience in at once parting with old notions which have been instilled into their minds from infancy, and become the stock of their understandings. Phrenology has encountered this impediment, but not in a greater degree than other discoveries which have preceded it. Mr. Locke, in speaking of the common reception of new truths, says: "Who ever, by the most cogent arguments, will be prevailed with to disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions and pretences to knowledge and learning, which with hard study he hath all his time been labouring for, and turn himself out stark naked in quest afresh of new notions? All the arguments that can be used will be as little able to prevail as the wind did with the traveller to part with his cloak, which he held only the faster." Professor Playfair, in his historical notice of discoveries in physical science, published in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, observes, that "in every society there are some who think themselves interested to maintain things in the condition wherein they have found them. The considerations are indeed sufficiently obvious, which, in the moral and political world, tend to produce this effect, and to give a stability to human institutions, often so little proportionate to their real value or to their general utility. Even in matters purely intellectual, and in which

* Locke On the Human Understanding, b. iv., c. 20, sect. 11.

the abstract truths of arithmetic and geometry seem alone concerned, the prejudices, the selfishness, or the vanity of those who pursue them, not unfrequently combine to resist improvement, and often engage no inconsiderable degree of talent in drawing back, instead of pushing forward, the machine of science. The introduction of methods entirely new must often change the relative place of the men engaged in scientific pursuits, and must oblige many, after descending from the stations they formerly occupied, to take a lower position in the scale of intellectual improvement. The enmity of such men, if they be not animated by a spirit of real candour and the love of truth, is likely to be directed against methods by which their vanity is mortified and their importance lessened."*

Every age has afforded proofs of the justness of these observations. "The disciples of the various philosophical schools of Greece inveighed against each other, and made reciprocal accusations of impiety and perjury. The people, in their turn, detested the philosophers, and accused those who investigated the causes of things of presumptuously invading the rights of the Divinity. Pythagoras was driven from Athens, and Anaxagoras was imprisoned, on account of their novel opinions. Democritus was treated as insane by the Abderites for his attempts to find out the cause of madness by dissections; and Socrates, for having demonstrated the unity of God, was forced to drink the juice of hemlock."t

But let us attend in particular to the reception of the three greatest discoveries that have adorned the annals of philosophy, and mark the spirit with which they were hailed.

Mr. Playfair, speaking of the treatment of Galileo, says: "Galileo was twice brought before the Inquisition. The first time, a council of seven cardinals pronounced a sentence which, for the sake of those disposed to believe that power can subdue truth, ought never to be forgotten, viz: That to maintain the sun to be immoveable, and without local motion, in the centre of the world, is an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, heretical in religion, and contrary to the testimony of Scripture; and it is equally absurd and false in philosophy to assert that the earth is not immoveable in the centre of the world, and, considered theologically, equally erroneous and heretical." The following extract from Galileo's Dialogue on the Copernican System of Astronomy, shows, in a very interesting manner, how completely its reception was analogous to that of Phrenology:

"Being very young, and having scarcely finished my course of philosophy, which I left off as being set upon other employments, there chanced to come into those parts a certain foreigner of Rostoch, whose name, as. I remember, was Christianus Urstitius, a follower of Copernicus, who, in .ah academy, gave two or three lectures upon this point, to whom many flocked as auditors; but I, thinking they went more for the novelty of the subject than otherwise, did not go to hear him: for I had concluded with myself that that opinion could be no other than a solemn madness; and questioning some of those who had been there, I perceived they all made a jest thereof, except one, who told me that the business was not altogether to be laughed at: and because the man was reputed by me to be very intelligent and wary, I repented that I was not there, and began from that time forward, as oft as I met with any one of the Copernican persuasion, to demand of them if they had been always of the same judgment. Of as many as I examined, I found not so much as one who told me not that he had been a long time of the contrary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as convinced by the strength of the reasons proving the same; *.Part ii., p. 27.

+ Dr. Spurzheim's Philosophical Principles of Phrenology. London, 1825,

- p. 96.

and afterward questioning them one by one, to see whether they were well possessed of the reasons of the other side, I found them all to be very ready and perfect in them, so that I could not truly say that they took this opinion out of ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of their wits. On the contrary, of as many of the Peripatetics and Ptolemeans as I have asked (and out of curiosity I have talked with many) what pains they had taken in the book of Copernicus, I found very few that had so much as superficially perused it, but of those who I thought had understood the same, not one: and, moreover, I have inquired among the followers of the Peripatetic doctrine if ever any of them had held the contrary opinion, and likewise found none that had. Whereupon, considering that there was no man who followed the opinion of Copernicus that had not been first on the contrary side, and that was not very well acquainted with the reasons of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and, on the contrary, there was not one of the followers of Ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of Copernicus, and had left that to embrace this of Aristotle ;-considering, I say, these things, I began to think that one who leaveth an opinion imbued with his milk and followed by very many, to take up another, owned by very few and denied by all the schools, and that really seems a great paradox, must needs have been moved, not to say forced, by more powerful reasons. For this cause I became very curious to dive, as they say, into the bottom of this business."

Mr. Hume, the historian, mentions the fact that Harvey was treated with great contumely on account of his discovery of the circulation of the blood, and in consequence lost his practice. An eloquent writer in the 94th Number of the Edinburgh Review, when adverting to the treatment of Harvey, observes, that "the discoverer of the circulation of the blooda discovery which, if measured by its consequences on physiology and medicine, was the greatest ever made since physic was cultivated-suffers no diminution of his reputation in our day, from the incredulity with which his doctrine was received by some, the effrontery with which it was claimed by others, or the knavery with which it was attributed to former physic ologists by those who could not deny and would not praise it. The very names of these envious and dishonest enemies of Harvey are scarcely remembered; and the honour of this great discovery now rests, beyond all dispute, with the great philosopher who made it." This shows that Harvey, in his day, was treated exactly as Dr. Gall has been in ours; and if Phrenology be true, these or similar terms may one day be applied by posterity to him and his present opponents.

Again, Professor Playfair, speaking of the discovery of the composition of light by Sir Isaac Newton, says: "Though the discovery now communicated had everything to recommend it which can arise from what is great, new, and singular; though it was not a theory nor system of opinions, but the generalization of facts made known by experiments; and though it was brought forward in a most simple and unpretending form; a host of enemies appeared, each eager to obtain the unfortunate pre-eminence of being the first to attack conclusions which the unanimous voice of posterity was to confirm." (P. 56.) "Among them, one of the first was Father Pardies, who wrote against the experiments, and what he was pleased to call the Hypothesis of Newton. A satisfactory and calm reply convinced him of his mistake, which he had the candour very readily to acknowledge. A countryman of his, Mariotte, was more difficult to be reconciled, and though very conversant with experiment, appears never to have succeeded in repeating the experiments of Newton." An account of the hostility with which Newton's discoveries were received by his contemporaries, will be found in his Life by Brewster, p. 171.

Here, then, we see that persecution, condemnation, and ridicule awaited

Galileo, Harvey, and Newton, for announcing three great scientific discoveries. In mental philosophy the conduct of mankind has been similar. Aristotle and Descartes "may be quoted, to show the good and bad fortune of new doctrines. The ancient antagonists of Aristotle caused his books to be burned; but in the time of Francis I. the writings of Ramus against Aristotle were similarly treated, his adversaries were declared heretics, and, under pain of being sent to the galleys, philosophers were prohibited from combating his opinions. At the present day the philosophy of Aristotle is no longer spoken of. Descartes was persecuted for teaching the doctrine of innate ideas; he was accused of atheism, though he had written on the existence of God; and his books were burned by order of the University of Paris. Shortly afterward, however, the same learned body adopted the doctrine of innate ideas; and when Locke and Condillac attacked it, the cry of materialism and fatalism was turned against them. Thus the same opinions have been considered at one time as dangerous because they were new, and at another as useful because they were ancient. What is to be inferred from this, but that man deserves to be pitied; that the opinions of contemporaries on the truth or falsehood, and the good or bad consequences, of a new doctrine, are always to be suspected; and that the only object of an author ought to be to point out the truth."*

To these extracts many more might be added of a similar nature; but enough has been said to demonstrate that, by the ordinary practice of mankind, great discoveries are treated with hostility, and their authors with hatred and contempt, or at least with neglect, by the generation to whom they are originally published.

If, therefore, Phrenology be a discovery at all, and especially if it be also important, it must of necessity come into collision, on the most weighty topics, with the opinions of men hitherto venerated as authorities in physiology and the philosophy of mind; and, according to the custom of the world, nothing but opposition, ridicule, and abuse could be expected on its first announcement. If we are to profit, however, by the lessons of history, we ought, after surveying these mortifying examples of human weakness and wickedness, to dismiss from our minds every prejudice against the subject before us, founded on its hostile reception by men of established reputation of the present day. He who does not perceive that, if Phrenology shall prove to be true, posterity will regard the contumelies heaped by the philosophers of this generation on its founders as another dark speck in the history of scientific discovery-and who does not feel anxious to avoid all participation in this ungenerous treatment has reaped no moral improvement from the records of intolerance which we have now contemplated: but every enlightened individual will say, Let us dismiss prejudice, and calmly listen to evidence and reason; let us not encounter even the chance of adding our names to the melancholy list of the enemies of mankind, by refusing, on the strength of mere prejudice, to be instructed in the new doctrines submitted to our consideration; let us inquire, examine, and decide.

These, I trust, are the sentiments of the reader; and on the faith of their being so, I shall proceed, in the second place, to state very briefly the principles of Phrenology.

It is a notion inculcated-often indirectly, no doubt, but not less strongly -by highly venerated teachers of intellectual philosophy, that we are acquainted with Mind and Body as two distinct and separate entities. The anatomist treats of the body, and the logician and moral philosopher of the mind, as if they were separate subjects of investigation, either not at all, or only in a remote and unimportant degree, connected with each other. * Dr. Spurzheim's Philosophical Principles of Phrenology, p. 97.

In common society, too, men speak of the dispositions and faculties of the mind, without thinking of their close connexion with the body.

But the human mind, as it exists in this world, cannot, by itself, become an object of philosophical investigation. Placed in a material world, it cannot act or be acted upon, but through the medium of an organic apparatus. The soul sparkling in the eye of beauty transmits its sweet influence to a kindred spirit only through the filaments of an optic nerve; and even the bursts of eloquence which flow from the lips of the impassioned orator when mind appears to transfuse itself almost directly into mind emanate from, and are transmitted to, corporeal beings, through a voluminous apparatus of organs. If we trace the mind's progress from the cradle to the grave, every appearance which it presents reminds us of this important truth. In earliest life the mental powers are feeble as the body; but when manhood comes, they glow with energy and expand with power; till at last the chill of age makes the limbs totter and the fancy's fires decay.

Nay, not only the great stages of our infancy, vigour, and decline, but the experience of every hour, reminds us of our alliance with the dust. The lowering clouds and stormy sky depress the spirits and enerve the mind;-after short and stated intervals of toil, our wearied faculties demand repose in sleep ;-famine or disease is capable of levelling the proudest energies with the earth;-and even the finest portion of our compound being, the Mind itself, apparently becomes diseased, and, leaving nature's course, flies to self-destruction to escape from wo.

These phenomena must be referred to the organs with which, in this life, the mind is connected: but if the organs exert so great an effect over the mental manifestations, no system of philosophy is entitled to consideration, which neglects their influence and treats the thinking principle as a disembodied spirit. The phrenologist, therefore, regards man as he exists in this world; and desires to investigate the laws which regulate the connexion between the mind and its organs, but without attempting to discover the essence of either, or the manner in which they are united.

The popular notion, that we are acquainted with mind unconnected with matter, is, therefore, founded on an illusion. In point of fact, we do not in this life know mind as one entity, and body as another; but we are acquainted only with the compound existence of mind and body. A few remarks will place this doctrine in its proper light.

In the first place, we are not conscious of the existence and functions of the organs by which the mind operates in this life, and, in consequence, many acts appear to us to be purely mental, which experiment and observation prove incontestibly to depend on corporeal organs. For example, in stretching out or withdrawing the arm, we are conscious of an act of the will, and of the consequent movement of the arm, but not of the existence of the apparatus by means of which our volition is carried into execution. Experiment and observation, however, demonstrate the existence of bones of the arm curiously articulated and adapted to motion; of muscles endowed with powers of contraction; and of three sets of nervous fibres all running in one sheath-one communicating feeling, a second exciting motion, and a third conveying to the mind information of the state of the muscles, when in action; all which organs, except the nerve of feeling, must combine and act harmoniously before the arm can be moved and regulated by the will. All that a person uninstructed in anatomy knows, is, that he wills the motion, and that it takes place; the whole act appears to him to be purely mental, and only the arm, or thing moved, is conceived to be corporeal. Nevertheless, it is positively established by anatomical and physiological researches that this conclusion is erroneous-that the act is not purely mental, but is accomplished by