486 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Fifty skulls were selected for measurement from the famous collection 

 of Sir William Hamilton, fifty others being taken from that of Dr. 

 Spurzheim himself. In the case of the skulls of fifteen murderers, whose 

 crimes had been marked by unusual brutality and violence, and who 

 might therefore be regarded as exemplifying cases in which the large- 

 ness of the " organ " of destructiveness might be lawfully postulated 

 by a phrenologist, Mr. Stone demonstrated by careful measurement and 

 comparison that each of the fifteen had the organ or surface of " de- 

 structiveness " ahselutely less than the average of ordinary heads, while 

 thirteen of these skulls possessed this organ relatively less when com- 

 pared with the whole contents of the brain-pan. Nor was this all. Thir- 

 teen of these fifteen worthies possessed a larger organ of " benevolence " 

 than the average, and their " conscientiousness " was also as a rule well 

 developed. Their brains were not markedly deficient in front of the 

 ear — the region of the intellectual faculties, according to the phrenolo- 

 gist — nor were they unusually developed behind the ear, where the ani- 

 mal faculties are supposed to reside. 



No less instructive were the comparisons instituted between the 

 faculties of Dr. David Gregory, once Professor of Mathematics in the 

 University of Edinburgh, and Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Ox- 

 ford, a friend and contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. Professor Greg- 

 ory's character was well known as that of an amiable, accomplished, 

 intellectual man. In such a case the moral faculties would be expected 

 to present high development, while the animal faculties and baser quali- 

 ties would naturally be regarded as being but poorly represented. Mr. 

 Stone's measurements, duly verified by independent observers, elicited 

 the awkward fact that Dr. Gregory should, according to the phrenologi- 

 cal interpretation of his cranium, have ranked in the criminal category, 

 since his organ of " destructiveness " was found to exceed in size that 

 of every murderer in the collection under discussion ! In proportion to 

 the general size and form of the brain. Dr. Gregory's " destructiveness " 

 was larger than that of the notorious Burke, who was executed at 

 Edinburgh for the cold-blooded murder of men, women, and children, 

 whose bodies, along with his coadjutor Hare, he sold for purposes of 

 anatomical inspection. Not to enumerate in detail the startling results 

 which the fair and unbiased examination of Dr. Gregory's cranium 

 afforded, it may simply be mentioned that the Professor's " combative- 

 ness" was larger than that of any of the debased villains with whom 

 his faculties were compared. Burke equaled him in " benevolence " ; 

 in " secretiveness " he excelled the noteworthy fifteen; his "acquisi- 

 tiveness " exceeded that of Haggart and other noted thieves ; his " cau- 

 sality " — the power of reasoning closely, and of tracing the relations 

 between cause and efiect, a faculty which as a mathematician he should 

 have possessed largely developed — was less than that of the criminals; 

 and his intellectual faculties at large were of less capacity than theirs, 

 as his animal faculties were present in greater force. 



