228 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



vided (for a consideration) with a wondrous chart of their mental 

 disposition, wherein the moral quicksands are presumed to be duly 

 marked, and the obliquities of character stamped, with a view towards 

 future correction and improvement. 



How may the phrenological professor succeed very fairly in 

 reading character ? may be asked at the outset by readers who have 

 had those parts of their disposition best known to themselves de- 

 lineated with a fair approach to accuracy by the oracle. The reply 

 is clear. Not through manipulating those mysterious " bumps," nor 

 through any occult knowledge of the brains of his votaries, but 

 simply from a shrewd talent for scanning the personal appearance 

 and physiognomy of his clients, and by the dexterous suggestion of 

 queries bearing on those traits of character which the features and 

 manner reveal. Your successful phrenologist is in truth a shrewd 

 physiognomist. His guide to character is in reality the face, not 

 the brain-pan. The dress, manners, and deportment of his clients, 

 and not the grey matter of the cerebrum, form the real basis of his 

 observations. If any one may be found to doubt how accurately 

 one's character may be mapped out from its outward manifestations, 

 let him endeavour to study for a while the acts and deportment of 

 those with whose "mind's construction" he may be even slightly 

 acquainted, and he will speedily discover numerous clues to the 

 mental disposition in common acts and traits which previously had 

 passed utterly unnoticed. Such a result accrues speedily to the 

 professed physiognomist and shrewd observer of men, who, passing 

 his fellows in professional review before him, speedily discovers 

 types of character to which, with allowance for special proclivities 

 or traits, his various clients may be referred. That character may 

 with tolerable success be determined even from handwriting, is a 

 well-known fact ; and it is difficult to see the superiority of the 

 pretensions and claims of phrenology as a guide to character over 

 those of the professor of caligraphic philosophy. One of the most 

 convincing illustrations that even a practical knowledge of brain- 

 structure is not necessary for the successful delineation of such 

 superficial traits of character as can alone be determined by the 

 casual observer, may be found in the fact, that very few "professors" 

 of phrenology have undergone any training in physiology, whilst a 

 large proportion may never have seen an actual human brain. A 

 notable example of a successful practice of phrenology being carried 

 on independently of any knowledge whatever of the brain, was 

 known to the writer, in the case of a worthy police-sergeant, who 

 attained tolerable accuracy in the art of reading " the mind's con- 

 struction," but who had never even seen a brain, and who had the 

 faintest possible idea of the appearance of that organ. Unless, there- 

 fore, one may logically maintain that ignorance of the furthest and 



