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1875.] Notices of Books. 531 
The Skull and Brain ; their Indications of Character and Ana- 
'  tomical Relations. By Nicuoras Morcan. London : 
Longmans, Green, and Co. 
A work on phrenology is, in these days, quite a portent. Some 
30 or 40 years ago the case was different. Every large town 
and many a small one had its phrenological society ; every popu- 
lar literary institute had a class for the study of cerebral develop- 
ment in connection with character. We saw phrenological busts 
in shop-windows and in the libraries of our friends. We heard 
the subject continually discussed, not merely at gatherings of 
scientific men, but even in general society. Works assailing or 
defending the system were published, and received wide atten- 
tion. Now all this is changed. The phrenological societies are, 
we believe, for the most part, defunct, and their museums broken 
up or disused. There does not appear to be, numerous as scien- 
tific and semi-scientific periodicals have become, a single phreno- 
logical journal published in London. We cannot lay our hands 
on any review-article on the subject which has been issued 
within some 15 years; nor, indeed, does our author refer to any 
such. Surely this fact—the gradual but general disappearance 
of phrenology from public attention in England—is one which 
Mr. Morgan should have noticed, and, if possible, explained. 
But he seems to have ignored it altogether. 
Again, Mr. Morgan quotes without contradiction, from ‘“‘ Black- 
wood’s Magazine” for 1857, a passage by Mr. G. H. Lewes, in 
which the latter declares that though ‘“ phrenology was born in 
Germany and reared in France, it has not standing-room in 
either country.” On this he comments as follows: ‘‘ This is 
highly suggestive. The seed of phrenology germinates and 
grows vigorously in these countries (England and Scotland), 
because it is sown in the soil of thought and is manured by im- 
partial investigation, and warmed by the sunshine of sincerity. 
No wonder, then, that it withstands the blight of ridicule and the 
storms of prejudice.” To this somewhat rhetorical passage 
we must object that it overlooks the recent decline of phrenology 
in Britain. Further, neither Mr. Lewesnor Mr. Morgan accounts 
in a satisfactory manner for the failure of phrenology on the 
Continent, as compared with its former popularity in England. 
«“Thought,” ‘impartial investigation,” and ‘sincerity,’ are 
assuredly not the exclusive attributes of our island. Political 
investigations, indeed, when taking a direction unwelcome to 
the authorities, may have been suppressed in Germany; but 
scientific speculation has assuredly not been fettered, either by 
the censorship or by ‘‘ Mrs. Grundy.” We doubt, indeed, the 
power of the latter authority to hinder a German professor from 
following out to its remotest logical consequences any system 
for which he has sufficient evidence. 
We do not, of course, mean to urge that either the decay of 
phrenology in Britain, or its rejection in Germany, is any direct 
