little organs in question. Now, if the phrenological supposition were correct, that an elevation on the brain, of so limited an extent, would cause an elevation on the external table of the bone, these eminences would do so far more certainly than any similar projection over the eyebrows. For the frontal bone in the frontal region is under the continual action of muscles, and this action would tend powerfully to prevent any partial elevation; whereas, on the upper part of the head, the bone is almost wholly exempt from such an agency. But do the glands, as they are called, of Pacchioni (though they are no glands), — do they determine an elevation on the external surface of the skull corresponding to the elevation they form on the cerebral surface? Not in the very least; the cranium is there outwardly quite equable — level— uniform-though probably attenuated to the thinness of paper to accommodate the internal rising. The other facts which I have stated as subversive of what the phrenologists regard as the best-established constituents of their system, I could only state to you on my own authority. But they are founded on observations made with the greatest accuracy, and on phænomena, which every one is capable of verifying. If the general facts I gave you in regard to the cerebellum, etc., are false, then am I a deliberate deceiver; for these are of such a nature that no one with the ordinary discourse of reason could commit an error in regard to them, if he actually made the observations. The maxim, however, which I have myself always followed, and which I would earnestly impress upon you, is to take nothing upon trust that can possibly admit of doubt, and which you are able to verify for yourselves; and had I not been obliged to hurry on to more important subjects, I might have been tempted to show you by experiment what I have now been compelled to state to you upon authority alone.' I am here reminded of a fact, of which I believe none of our present phrenologists are aware, at least all their books confidently assert the very reverse. It is this, that the new system is the result, not of experience but of conjecture, and that Gall, instead of deducing the faculties from the organs, and generalizing both from particular observations, first of all cogitated a faculty a priori, and then looked about for an organ with which to connect it. In short, Phrenology was not discovered, but invented. son. You must know, then, that there are two faculties, or rather two modifications of various faculties, which cut a conspicuous figure in the psychologies of Wolf and other philosophers of the Empire; these are called in German Tiefsinn and Scharfsinn, - literally deep sense and sharp sense, but are now known in English phrenological language by the terms Causality and CompariNow what I wish you to observe is, that Gall found these two clumsy modifications of mind, ready shaped out in the previous theories of philosophy prevalent in his own country, and then in the language itself. Now, this being understood, you must also know that, in 1798, Gall published a letter to Retzer, of Vienna, wherein he, for the first time, promulgates the nature of his doctrine, and we here catch him- ·reum confitentem—in the very act of conjecturing. In this letter he says: "I am not yet so far advanced in my researches as to have discovered special organs for Scharfsinn and Tiefsinn (Comparison 1 See below (d) On Frontal Sinus, p. 662. — ED. and Causality), for the principle of the Representative Faculty (Vorstellungsvermögen, — another faculty in German philosophy), and for the different varieties of judgment, etc." In this sentence we see exhibited the real source and veritable derivation of the system. In the Darstellung of Froriep, a favorite pupil of Gall, under whose eye the work was published in the year 1800, twenty-two organs are given, of which the greater proportion are now either translated to new localities, or altogether thrown out. We find also that the sought-for organs had, in the interval, been found for Scharfsinn (Comparison), and Tiefsinn (Causality); and what further exhibits the hypothetical genealogy of the doctrine, is, that a great number of organs are assumed, which lie wholly beyond the possible sphere of observation, at the base and towards the centre of the brain; as those of the External Senses, those of Desire, Jealousy, Envy, love of Power, love of Pleasure, love of Life, etc. An organ of Sensibility is placed above that of Amativeness, between and below two organs of Philoprogenitiveness, an organ of Liberality (its deficiency standing instead of an organ of Avarice or Acquisitiveness), is situated above the eyebrows, in the position now occupied by that of Time. An organ of Imagination is intimately connected with that of Theosophy or Veneration, towards the vertex of the head; and Veracity is problematically established above an organ of Parental Love. An organ of Vitality is not to be forgotten, situated in the medulla oblongata, the development of which is measured by the size of the foramen magnum and the thickness of the neck. These faculties and organs are all now cashiered; and who does not perceive that, like those of Causality and Comparison, which are still suffered to remain, they were first devised, and then quartered on some department of the brain? We thus see that, in the first edition of the craniological hypothesis, there were several tiers or stories of organs,- some at the base, some about the centre, and others on the surface of the brain. Gall went to lecture through Germany, and among other places he lectured at Göttingen. Here an objection was stated to his system by the learned Meiners. Gall measured the development of an external organ by its prominence. "How," said Meiners, “do you know that this prominence of the outer organ indicates its real size? May it not merely be pressed out, though itself of inferior volume, by the large development of a subjacent organ?" This objection it was easily seen was checkmate. A new game must be commenced, the pieces arranged again. Accordingly, all the organs at the base and about the centre of the brain were withdrawn, and the whole organs were made to run very conveniently upwards and outwards from the lower part of the brain to its outer periphery. It would be tiresome to follow the history of phrenological variation through the works of Leune and Villars to those of Bischoff and Blöde, which last represent the doctrine as it flourished in 1805. In these, the whole complement of organs which Gall ever admitted is detailed, with the exception of Ideality. But their position was still vacillating. For example, in Froriep, Bischoff and Blöde, the organ of Destructiveness is exhibited as lying principally on the parietal bone, above and a little anterior to the organ of Combativeness; while the region of the temporal bone, above and before the open ing of the ear, in other words, its present situation, is marked as terra adhuc incognita. No circumstance, however, is more remarkable than the successive changes of shape in the organs. Nothing can be more opposite than the present form of these as compared with those which the great work of Gall exhibits. In Gall's plates they are round or oval; in the modern casts and plates they are, of every variety of angular configuration; and I have been told that almost every new edition of these varies from the preceding. We may, therefore, well apply to the phrenologist and his organology the line of Horace — "Diruit, ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis, " with this modification, that we must read in the latter part, mutat rotunda quadratis. So much for Phrenology,- for the doctrine which would substitute the callipers for consciousness in the philosophy of man; and the result of my observation the result at which I would wish you also to arrive - I cannot better express than in the language of the Roman poet "Materiæ ne quære modum, sed perspice vires In what I have said in opposition to the phrenological doctrine, I should, however, regret if it could be ever supposed that I entertain any feelings of disrespect for those who are converted to this opinion. On the contrary, I am prompt to acknowledge that the sect comprises a large proportion of individuals of great talent; and I am happy to count among these some of my most valued and respected friends. To the question, how comes it that so many able individuals can be believers in a groundless opinion?—I answer, that the opinion is not wholly groundless; it contains much of truth,—of old truth it must be allowed; but it is assuredly no disparagement to any one that he should not refuse to admit facts so strenuously asserted, and which, if true, so necessarily infer the whole conclusions of the system. But as to the mere circumstance of numbers, that is of comparatively little weight, argumentum pessimi turba,—and the phrenological doctrines are of such a nature that they are secure of finding ready converts among the many. There have been also, and there are now, opinions far more universally prevalent than the one in question, which nevertheless we do not consider on that account to be undeniable. (b.) AN ACCOUNT of EXPERIMENTS on the WEIGHT and RELATIVE Proportions of the BRAIN, CEREBELLUM, and TUBER ANNULARE in MAN and ANIMALS, under the various circumstances of Age, Sex, Country, etc. (Published in DR. MONRO's Anatomy of the Brain, p. 4—8. The following, among other conclusions, are founded on an induction drawn from above sixty human brains, from nearly three hundred human skulls, of determined sex, the capacity of which, by a method I devised, was taken in sand, and the original weight of the brain thus recovered, and from more than seven hundred brains of different animals. 1. In man, the adult male Encephalos is heavier than the female; the former nearly averaging, in the Scot's head, 3 lb. 8 oz. troy, the latter, 3 lb. 4 oz.; the difference, 4 oz. In males of this country, about one brain in seven is found above 4 lb. troy; in females, hardly one in one hundred. 2. In man, the Encephalos reaches its full size about seven years of age. This was never before proved. It is commonly believed that the brain and the body attain their full development together. The Wenzels rashly generalized from two cases the conclusion, that the brain reaches its full size about seven years of age; as Sommering had, in like manner, on a single case, erroneously assumed that it attains its last growth by three. Gall and Spurzheim, on the other hand, assert that the increase of the encephalos is only terminated about forty. The result of my induction is deduced from an average of thirtysix brains and skulls of children, compared with an average of several hundred brains and skulls of adults. It is perhaps superfluous to observe, that it is the greater development of the bones, muscles, and hair, which renders the adult head considerably larger than that of the child of seven. 3. It is extremely doubtful whether the cranial contents usually diminish in old age. The vulgar opinion that they do, rests on no adequate evidence, and my induction would rather prove the negative. 4. The common doctrine, that the African brain, and in particular that of the Negro, is greatly smaller than the European, is false. By a comparison of the capacity of two Caffre skulls, male and female, and of thirteen negro crania (six male, five female, and two of doubtful sex), the encephalos of the African was found not inferior to the average size of the European. 5. In man, the Cerebellum, in relation to the brain proper, comes to its full proportion about three years. This anti-phrenological fact is proved by a great induction. 6. It is extremely doubtful whether the Cerebellum usually diminishes in old age; probably only in cases of atrophia senilis. 7. The female Cerebellum is, in general, considerably larger in proportion to the brain proper, than the male. In the human subject (the tuber excluded), the former is nearly as 1 to 7.6; the latter nearly as 1 to 8.4; and this sexual difference appears to be more determinate in man than in most other animals. Almost the whole difference of weight between the male and female encephali lies in the brain proper; the cerebella of the two sexes, absolutely, are nearly equal, the preponderance rather in favor of the women. This observation is new; and the truth of the phrenological hypothesis implies the reverse. It confirms the theory of the function of the cerebellum noticed in the following paragraph. 8. The proportion of the Cerebellum to the Brain proper at birth, varies greatly in different animals.1 9. Castration has no effect in diminishing the cerebellum, either absolutely 1 For the remainder of this section, see above, Appendix II. (a) p. 652, "Physiologists," etc., to p. 653, "motion."- ED. or in relation to the brain proper. The opposite doctrine is an idle fancy : though asserted by the phrenologists as their most incontrovertible fact. Proved by a large induction. 10. The universal opinion is false, that man, of all or almost all animals, has the smallest cerebellum in proportion to the brain proper. Many of the commonest quadrupeds and birds have a cerebellum, in this relation, proportionally smaller than man. 11. What has not been observed, the proportion of the Tuber Annulare to the Cerebellum (and, a majore, to the brain proper) is greatly less in children than in adults. In a girl of one year (in my table of human brains) it is as 1 to 16.1; in another of two, as 1 to 14.8; in a boy of three, as 1 to 15.5; and the average of children under seven, exhibits the pores, in proportion to the cerebellum, much smaller than in the average of adults, in whom it is only as 1 to 8, or 1 to 9. 12. In specific gravity, contrary to the current doctrine, the encephalos and its parts vary very little, if at all, from one age to another. A child of two, and a woman of a hundred years, are, in this respect, nearly equal, and the intermediate ages show hardly more than individual differences. 13. The specific gravity of the brain does not vary in madness (if one case of chronic insanity is to be depended on), contrary to what has been alleged. In fever it often does, and remarkably. 14. The cerebellum (the converse of the received opinion) has a greater specific gravity than the brain proper; and this difference is considerably more marked in birds than in man and quadrupeds. The opinion also of the ancients is probably true, that the cerebellum is harder than the brain proper. 15. The human brain does not, as asserted, possess a greater specific gravity than that of other animals. (c.) REMARKS ON DR. MORTON'S TABLES ON THE SIZE OF THE BRAIN. (Communicated to the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, conducted by Professor JAMESON. See Vol. XLVIII., p. 330 (1850). For Dr. MORTON's Tables, see the same Journal, Vol. XLVIII., p. 262. — ED.) What first strikes me in Dr. Morton's Tables, completely invalidates his conclusions, he has not distinguished male from female crania. Now, as the female encephalos is, on an average, some four ounces troy less than the male, it is impossible to compare national skulls with national skulls, in respect of their capacity, unless we compare male with male, female with female heads, or, at least, know how many of either sex go to make up the national complement. A blunder of this kind is made by Mr. Sims, in his paper and valuable correlative table of the weight of two hundred and fifty-three brains (Medico Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xix.). He there attacks the result of my observation (published by Dr. Monro, Anatomy of the Brain, etc., 1831), that the human encephalos (brain proper and after-brain) reaches its full size by seven 1 The effect is, in fact, to increase the cerebellum. See the experiments recorded by M. Leuret, cited by Sir Benjamin Brodie, Psychological Inquiries, note H.-ED. |