310 Dr. Spurzheim's demonstrative Course of Lectures 



ing prominencv, all of which are occasioned by the pressure of the 

 brain and its functions, as highly deveh'ped organs, often push 

 others out of their places. The most elevated points in a skull, 

 placed in different ])ositions, always indicate the centre of the 

 organ. In examining a skull, notice first the most prominent 

 parts : if there be only one peculiar prominence, it is easily dis- 

 covered ; if a great many, more acuteness and accuracy of ob- 

 servation are necessary. According as the convolutions are 

 transverse or lateral, so are the elevations of the skull. Size in- 

 dicates the or.';aiis, but not the application ; the power, but not 

 the mode of exercising it. Here the want of parallelism in the 

 tables of the skull is by far too trifling to attract attention or 

 calculation ; the ))hysiognomist must always have more conspi- 

 cuous characters or marks to direct him. Great elevations on 

 the skull always indicate a peculiar bias of the mind. 



Lect, 3. There are three states in which the physiognomical 

 jivstem cannot he rigorously employed ; in infancy, old age, and 

 disease. The brain grows like tiie reet of the body ; and as we 

 cannot say what size and figure it may attain, neither can we 

 determine how much it may have diminished by absorption in 

 old age, nor how far the space between the tables is increased 

 at any jjarticnlar period. As the brain diminishes, the interior 

 table adapts itself to it, and the space between the outer and 

 inner table increases : hence in old age and chronic insanity, 

 as well as infancy^ no physiognomical judgement can be formed 

 from the external confignration. Madmen have generally thicker, 

 heavier, or denser skulls than sane persons; of which examples 

 were shown. Many suicides have skulls of the same description? 

 suicidism sometimes a disease, occasionally an epidemic, and 

 often national. In Austria last year there were only 33 suicides; 

 in Paris there were as many every month. At Hamburgh and 

 in the North suicides are numerous. As to the causes of cranial 

 configurations, they are foreign to this inquiry : we know little 

 of original causes, it is quite sufficient to know facts : it is im- 

 material to the physiognomist, whether muscles, brain, or the 

 fleshy integuments, occasion the configurations of the skull : it is 

 enough that he knows, by innumerable observations deduced from 

 experience, that such and such appearances are always accom- 

 panied by such and such characters of mind. It is however cer- 

 tain that the muscles do not, as some anatomists have supposed, 

 change the form of the bones, as unborn infants, before the 

 muscles come into action, have skulls of different forms. The brain 

 is formed before the skull : as the former increases, it deposits 

 esseous matter, which radiates from a centre, and by successive 



radiations 



