CHAP. XI.] PHRENOLOGY. 367 



the mind, before the physiologist can venture to assign to each its 

 local habitation. The empirical method, by which Gall first fixed 

 upon certain parts of the brain as the seat of certain faculties, is 

 exposed to this serious fallacy, that a part on the surface of the 

 brain may appear largely developed, by reason of the large size 

 of some subjacent or neighbouring part. We have already shewn 

 how this may be the case with reference to the cerebellum, and 

 that a thick neck and large occipital region may, and probably 

 do, indicate a large mesocephale more frequently than a large 

 cerebellum. At the same time we think that all observation, both 

 in man and in the lower animals, proves that the energy of any 

 nervous centre always bears a direct proportion to its bulk, whe- 

 ther absolute or relative; and that the phrenologists do not err 

 in attaching great and primary importance to the size of those 

 parts with which they associate certain faculties : while the atten- 

 tion which recent writers of that school have paid to the tempera- 

 ments of the individuals under examination, is a proof of their ad- 

 mission that the quality of the nervous matter constitutes a highly 

 important element in the development of nervous power. * 



We have seen that the convoluted vesicular surface, and the 

 fibres of the centrum ovale, are the seat of those physical changes 

 which accompany, and are necessary to, intellectual action. A large 

 number of these fibres is commissural, but the greatest proportion 

 of them serves to establish a communication between the centre 

 of intellectual action, and the centres of volition and sensation. 

 Through the connexion with the former the intellect may prompt 

 or excite the will ; and the will, on the other hand, may control, 

 direct, or apply the powers of the intellect. The faculty of Atten- 

 tion, and, therefore, in a certain degree, the power of Memory, 

 are dependent on the influence of the centre of volition upon the 

 centre of intellectual action. Every one is sensible of a power 

 which he possesses of fixing his attention on any given subject, 

 as distinct as that by which he can contract any particular muscle. 

 Again, the association of the intellectual centre with that of sensa- 

 tion is necessary to ensure the full perception of sensitive impres- 

 sions. The experience of each individual can supply him with 

 numberless instances in which, while the mind was employed upon 

 some other object of interest, an impression was made upon some 

 one of the organs of sense, and indistinctly felt, but not fully 



* Cams has lately propounded a new Cranioscopy, founded upon the tri- 

 partite composition of the cranium, which bids fair to rival the system of Gall. 

 See a Lecture in Lond. Med. Gazette, vol. xxxiv., translated by Dr. Freund. 



