74 Phrenology. 
nerves that supply the lungs, the sufferer continues to breathe and 
to converse, manifesting a rational mind as before the accident. 
Death must of course soon follow, and as to perception, the body 
is already dead; but the continued activity and soundness of the 
mind prove that its residence is in the brain. This fact appears 
to me decisive, as no one would imagine that the lungs, a mere 
light tissue of air cells and blood vessels, separated by thin mem- 
branes, and destined only for circulation and respiration, can con- 
tain the mind—especially as this noble power is not subverted in 
chronic diseases of the lungs, not even when their substance is 
almost removed by a wasting consumption.* 
The residence of the mind being in the brain, it is not absurd or 
irrational to inquire whether it can be read in the form of the 
cranium as well as in the expression of the features, 
It would appear from the observations of Dr. Barclay, that 
there is at least a general conformation that indicates intellectual 
and moral powers, and we are thus led to ask whether the 
research for more particular manifestations is unphilosophical. On 
_ this point, we ought not to depart from the received rules of sound 
philosophy. We are accustomed, in all other cases of scientific 
inquiry, to exaniine and weigh the evidence of phenomena, and 
to apply to them the severe canons of induction, nor can we dis- 
cern, in the present case, any reason for a different course. _ 
__ If, as has been ascertained by physiologists and anatomists, the 
Pony matter of the cranium is deposited upon and around the 
membranous envelops of the brain, which is formed before the 
skull, then, the latter adapting itself in its soft and yielding state, 
must, of necessity, take the shape of the former ; if the differ- 
ent faculties, affections and propensities of the mind are distribu- 
ted in different organs contained in the convolutions of the brain, 
a 
= Dropsy in the brain does not form an objection, because its appropriate seat is 
in the ventricles or cavities, and by the very postulates of phrenology, a particu- 
lar organ, or particular organs of the brain may be diseased, or even destroyed, 
without subverting the action of the mind, except in the part affected. 
_ The case of Sir Robert Liston, mentioned by Mr. Combe, is very remarkable on 
this point, as his intellectual p ined unimpaired, while the organs of won- 
» combativeness, and language were affected on one side. I had the pleasure 
of knowing him at his beautiful cottage near Edinburgh, when all his faculties 
were perfect, and nothing was at that time more removed from his conduct and 
aracter than the frantic anger which he afterwards manifested in a state of the 
ascertained by post mortem examination, to be diseased in the three animal 
