that man and animals have more understanding, the more the upper and inner angle formed by the two lines, or that including the upper jaw, nose, &c. is obtuse; and, on the contrary, that man and animals are more stupid, the more this facial angle is acute. But this manner of measuring the intellectual faculties is not more correct than those previously mentioned. The facial angle applies only to the anterior parts of the brain situated in the forehead, and is inapplicable to all the lateral and posterior parts; hence it could, even if there were no other objection, indicate only those faculties whose organs constitute the forehead. Besides, in many Negroes, the jaw-bones are extremely prominent, and the facial angle acute; while their foreheads are in fact largely developed, and their intellectual faculties powerful, although, by CAMPER's rule, they ought to be inferior to many stupid Europeans, whose foreheads are deficient, but whose jaws recede. Hence, the facial angle cannot serve as a means of measuring the moral sentiments and intellectual faculties. (New Phys. Syst. p. 197, 198, 199.)

"Some physiologists, as SEMMERING and CUVIER, have compared the size of the brain in general with that of the face; and, according to them, animals are more stupid as the face is larger in proportion to the brain." But that this rule is not infallible, is easily proved, because LEO, MONTAIGNE, LEIBNITZ, HALLER, and MIRABEAU, had large faces and very considerable brains. BOSSUET, VOLtaire, and KaNT, had, on the contrary, small faces and also large brains. (New Phys. Syst. p. 200.)

The cerebral parts have likewise been compared with each other, in order to ascertain their functions, as, the brain with the cerebellum, the brain with the medulla oblongata, with the nerves, &c., but these modes also have led to no satisfactory results. The elder writers, such as ARISTOTLE and his followers, who assigned different faculties to different parts of the brain, proceeded on fancy, or on notions of supposed suitableness of the place in the head to

the nature of the power; and their views have been entirely abandoned both by physiologists and metaphysicians. In short, it is well known, that no theory of the functions of the brain is yet admitted and taught as certain science, such as the doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and the functions of the muscles, nerves, and bones.

Dr ROGET, an opponent of Phrenology, freely confesses that "the brain is still as incomprehensible in its functions, as it is subtle and complex in its anatomy." (Cranios. Sup. to Enc. Brit.); and the writer in the 94th Number of the Edinburgh Review, says,-" Even within our own time, although many great anatomists had devoted themselves almost exclusively to describing the brain, this organ used to be demonstrated by the greater number of teachers, in a manner which, however invariable, was assuredly not particularly useful. It was so mechanically cut down upon, indeed, as to constitute a sort of exhibition connected with nothing. The teacher and the pupil were equally dissatisfied with the performance, and the former probably the most; the latter soon gave up the painful attempt to draw any kind of deductions from what he witnessed, and disposed of the difficulty as he best could, when he had to render an account of what he had seen. Up to this day, our memory is pained by the recollection of the barbarous names and regular sections of what was then the dullest part of anatomical study; which, although often repeated, left no trace but of its obscurity, or its absurdity. Here an oval space of a white colour, and there a line of grey or curve of red, were displayed; here a cineritious, there a medullary mass; here a portion white without and grey within; there a portion white within and grey without; here a gland-pituitary; there a gland like grains of sand; here a ventricle; there a cul-de-sac; with endless fibres, and lines, and globules, and simple marks, with appellations no less fanciful than devoid of meaning."

"The anatomist dissected, and toiled on in this unpromising territory, and entangled himself more in proportion

to his unwillingness to be defeated; and he succeeded, no doubt, in making out a clear display of all these complicated parts, which few, however, could remember, and fewer still could comprehend. Then came the physiologist in still greater perplexity, and drew his conclusions, and assigned offices to the multiplied portions and ramifications of nervous substance, by arbitrary conjecture for the most part, and often with manifest inconsistency. Although the brain was generally allowed to be the organ of the intellectual faculties, it was supposed to give out, from particular portions of the mass, but quite indifferently, nerves of sensation, general and specific, nerves of motion, and nerves of volition; the single, double, or multipled origin of nerves, which had not escaped notice, not being supposed to be connected with these separate offices."

"Such, so vague, so obscure, so inexact, so unsatisfactory, was the kind of knowledge communicated to the student, until a very recent period; and the impression left by it was that of confused and unintelligible profusion in the distribution of nerves, of intricacy without meaning, of an expenditure of resources without a parallel in the other works of nature." Pages 447, 448.

Unless, then, Dr GALL could boast of some other method of investigation than those of the ordinary physiologist and metaphysician, he could offer no legitimate pretensions to the solution of the question, What parts of the brain, and what mental faculties, are connected? but he, by great good fortune, was led to adopt a different and superior mode of inquiry; and this leads me to state shortly a few particulars of the history of the science which is now to be expounded.

Dr GALL, a physician of Vienna, afterwards resident in Paris *, was the founder of the system. From an early age he was given to observation, and was struck with the fact, that each of his brothers and sisters, companions in play,

Born at Tiefenbrun, in Suabia, on 9th March 1757, died at Paris 22d August 1828.

and schoolfellows, was distinguished from other individuals by some peculiarity of talent or disposition. Some of his schoolmates were characterized by the beauty of their penmanship, some by their success in arithmetic, and others by their talent for acquiring a knowledge of natural history, or languages. The compositions of one were remarkable for elegance; the style of another was stiff and dry; while a third connected his reasonings in the closest manner, and clothed his argument in the most forcible language. Their dispositions were equally different; and this diversity appeared also to determine the direction of their partialities and aversions. Not a few of them manifested a capacity for employments which they were not taught; they cut figures in wood, or delineated them on paper; some devoted their leisure to painting, or the culture of a garden; while their comrades abandoned themselves to noisy games, or traversed the woods to gather flowers, seek for bird-nests, or catch butterflies. In this manner, each individual presented a character peculiar to himself, and Dr GALL never observed, that the individual, who in one year had displayed selfish or knavish dispositions, became in the next a good and faithful friend.

The scholars with whom Dr GALL had the greatest difficulty in competing, were those who learned by heart with great facility; and such individuals frequently gained from him by their repetitions the places which he had obtained by the merit of his original compositions.

Some years afterwards, having changed his place of residence, he still met individuals endowed with an equally great talent of learning to repeat. He then observed, that 1 his school-fellows, so gifted, possessed prominent eyes, and recollected, that his rivals in the first school had been distinguished by the same peculiarity. When he entered the University he directed his attention, from the first, to the students whose eyes were of this description, and found that they all excelled in getting rapidly by heart, and giving correct recitations, although many of them were by no means

distinguished in point of general talent. This observation was recognized also by the other students in the classes; and although the connexion betwixt talent and external sign was not at this time established upon such complete evidence as is requisite for a philosophical conclusion, Dr GALL could not believe that the coincidence of the two circumstances was entirely accidental. From this period, therefore, he suspected that they stood in an important relation to each other. After much reflection, he conceived, that if memory for words was indicated by an external sign, the same might be the case with the other intellectual powers; and, thereafter, all individuals distinguished by any remarkable faculty became the objects of his attention. By degrees, he conceived himself to have found external characteristics, which indicated a decided disposition for Painting, Music, and the Mechanical Arts. He became acquainted also with some individuals remarkable for the determination of their character, and he observed a particular part of their heads to be very largely developed. This fact first suggested to him the idea of looking to the head for signs of the Moral Sentiments. But in making these observations, he never conceived, for a moment, that the skull was the cause of the different talents, as has been erroneously represented; for, from the first, he referred the influence, whatever it was, to the Brain.

In following out, by observations, the principle which accident had thus suggested, he, for some time, encountered difficulties of the greatest magnitude. Hitherto he had been altogether ignorant of the opinions of Physiologists touching the brain, and of Metaphysicians respecting the mental faculties. He had simply observed nature. When, however, he began to enlarge his knowledge of books, he found the most extraordinary conflict of opinions every where prevailing, and this, for the moment, made him hesitate about the correctness of his own observations. He found that the moral sentiments had, by an almost general consent, been consigned to the thoracic and abdominal vis

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