402 
Is not this reasoning not only just, but 
really more in unison with the doctrines 
of christianity, than that of those who 
usually oppose craniology on such 
grounds ? Not a word is' said about the 
immaterialism of the soul, in the Scrip- 
tures. Immaterialism isa platonic, not a 
christian doctrine. Christianity is, in- 
deed, opposed to it ; it expressly as- 
serts, that it is with our bodies we are 
to rise:—Our resurrection is to be 
material. It is a material bodily resur- 
rection which it maintains. 
Phrenology, therefore, must be op- 
posed with philosophical (not theologi- 
cal) arguments, if it is to be opposed ; 
and certainly, on many points, it is very 
assailable. We object to it on the fol- 
lowing grounds :—1. That the mapping 
out of the cranial provinces appertaining 
to the animal propensities, moral sen- 
timents, and intellectual capacities of 
man, is by no means warranted by such 
proof as is requisite to establish so 
important a novelty inscience;—2. That 
the theory, if proved, is by no means 
applicable to any good or practicable 
purpese ;—3. That it involves the doc- 
trine of predestination—and is subver- 
sive of the corner-stone of society, by 
taking away the moral responsibility of 
vice and virtue:—and, 4. That it is 
so intermixed with absurdities, and so 
vitiated by unphilosophical arrange- 
ment, that it becomes a fair question, 
whether persons blundering so greatly 
in the prima principia of philosophy, 
are entitled to our confidence in the 
construction of a new theory, or in the 
reduction of an old one to science? 
All that is practicable in craniology, 
and consistent with common sense, 
Juavater had previously maintained: for 
it isa mistake to believe that Lavater 
confined himself entirely to the flexible 
parts of the face. On the contrary, he 
Jaid down the rudiments of craniology , 
and in no unphilosophical manner :— 
Firstly, distributing the intellectual 
faculties of man into their proper 
classes ;—and, Secondly, apportioning 
to them their external provinces on 
the cranium. Itis true, that he con- 
fined himself to the os frontis: but he 
gained much by thus narrowing the field 
of his speculations. The forehead is 
visible to all, and no ridiculous impedi- 
ments, as in craniclogy, are adducible 
in the way of practice. He, besides, 
argued logically, by inferring that the 
indications of intellectual faculties were 
to be found on that portion of the plate 
of the cranium, which is in communica- 
Dr. Spurzheim’s Lectures. 
[June I, 
tion with the upper hemisphere of the 
brain, or cerebrum. He was, moreover, 
supported in his argument by the expe- 
rimental inference, that a progressive 
elevation of the os frontis accompanies 
and indicates all the gradations of facul- 
ties, from instinct to reason, and may 
be reduced to a graduated scale. His ’ 
opinion was corroborated by the ob- 
vious practice of the Greek sculptors : 
—and lastly, daily experience was in 
his favour. 
Again, with regard to practical appli- 
cation:—In confining to the forehead 
the four subdivisions of the human 
intellect, admitted by all metaphysi- 
cians to the present time (wx. Percep- 
tion, Memory, Judgment, and Imagi- 
nation), he avoided the numerous 
subdivisions, as well as numerous ab- 
surdities of Gall and Spurzheim, who 
jumble together, in a complete chaos, 
all the distinct properties of our nature, 
propensities, habits, and capacities, mis- 
taking cause for effect, and substituting 
effect for cause : confounding ideas with 
passions, and faculties with qualities; 
confounding the perceiving faculty with 
the thing perceived ; and even going so 
far as to confound poetical metaphors 
with natural inclinations: for instance, 
inferring, that because a goat climbs 
(and climbing is a metaphor for ambi- 
tion), any individual, with the same 
protuberance of cranium as the animal, 
might be ambitious. 
The faculty of perception, it must 
be evident, is one and indivisible, how- 
ever innumerable may be the objects it 
perceives. But phrenologists subdivide 
this homogeneous faculty into as many 
organs as the object to which it applies 
itself. Hence, we have organs of sound, 
of number, of colour, and size. They 
might just as well have introduced 
organs of book-cases, gilt picture- 
frames and looking-glasses, because we 
perceive those distinct objects with the 
same perceptive faculty. 
But worse remains. Thereis, to our 
view, an anatomical blunder in the 
theory of Dr. Spurzheim, little to be 
expected from the admitted anatomical 
knowledge of the lecturer. He ex- 
hibits, on all the intellectual parts of the 
cranium, the protuberant indications of 
animal propensities and moral senti- 
ments: which are not intellectual func- 
tions; which have nothing to do with 
intellect ; and which, by his own admis- 
sion, on the very threshold of his 
system, result from developments of 
the cerebellum, or lower hemisphere a 
the 
