* The figures marked (1) are copied from engraved portraits in general circulation; those marked (2) are from modelled busts;-the others are taken from real skulls, or from casts from nature, in the collection of the Phrenological Society. The whole figures were intended to be drawn to a scale; but the engraver has neglected this in the case of those having a black ground. The outlines, however, accurately exhibit the forms, which are represented as they exist in the originals, without foreshortening. This figure was copied by the engraver, by mistake, from an old plate, put into his hands merely to shew the manner in which the brain was to be represented. The minute details are not perfectly correct, and the figure is too long; but it exhibits the general appearance of the parts with sufficient accuracy for the purpose mentioned on p. 70. ERRATA." Page 94, line 18, for the organ being much larger in the former than in the latter read the organ being much larger in the latter than in the former. 34, for in this respect, that Pope &c. read in this respect. Pope &c. DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. The Plate of the Phrenological Bust faces the Title-Page. A SYSTEM OF PHRENOLOGY. INTRODUCTION. PHRENOLOGY, derived from ", mind, and λoyos discourse, professes to be a system of Philosophy of the Human Mind, and, as such, it ought to throw light on the primitive powers of feeling which incite us to action, and the capacities of thinking that guide our exertions till we have attained the object of our desires. It was first presented to public consideration on the Continent of Europe in 1796, and in Britain in the year 1814. It has met with strenuous support from some individuals, and determined opposition from others, while the great body of the public remain uninstructed in 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 pre sumptions for and against these principles, founded on the known phenomena of human nature; and, 4thly, A historical sketch of their discovery. 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 pro A duce this conviction, but for the purpose of presenting him with motives to prosecute the investigation for his own satisfaction. ery 1st, Then, one great obstacle to the reception of a discovis the difficulty which men experience of 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 upon to disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions and pretensions to knowledge and learning, which, with hard study, he hath all his lifetime been labouring for, and turn himself out stark naked in quest of fresh 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." (Book iv. c. 20. § 11.) 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 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 |