543 



PHRENOLOGY. 



proper distinction can be drawn between tlie organ 

 of Jirmnetf and the organs of concentrativeness and 

 adhesiveness ? Some of the organs have balancing 

 faculties, such as hope, which is balanced by cauti- 

 ousness ; destructiveness by benevolence, &c. But 

 why have two organs, where the two principles ne- 

 cessarily imply each other, and where either could be 

 indicated by the elevation or depression of a single 

 bump? It would be easier to bringdown hope to 

 the requisite standard, by diminishing its peculiar 

 organ, than by leaving it large, and adding to the 

 bulk of cautiousness. Or if a particular organ re- 

 quires a compensating one, why not carry the princi- 

 ple out through the whole system ? why not match 

 Veneration with an organ of Scorn, Language with an 

 organ of Silence, or Acquisitiveness with an organ of 

 Prodigality ? 



But the deficiency of the faculties attributed by 

 phrenologists to man is still more remarkable than 

 their occasional redundancy. This is well illustrated 

 by Lord Jeffrey in an article of his in the Edinburgh 

 Review (No 88, for September, 1826) equally distin- 

 guished for acute investigation and playful ridicule. 

 " The great boast of phrenology," he says, " is, that 

 it does not rest on fantastical and arbitrary abstrac- 

 tions, but on a correct observation of the varieties of 

 actual character, and is applied, not to a mere specu- 

 lative and shadowy analysis of supposed qualities, but 

 to the undeniable realities by which men are distin- 

 guished in common life. It takes no cognizance of 

 such questionable existences as perception, memory, 

 imagination, or judgment ; but looks at once to the 

 peculiarities by which the conduct and characters of 

 men in society are marked to ordinary observation. 

 Thus it finds one man actuated in all his conduct 

 by a strong desire of fame and immediately it 

 sets down 'love of Approbation' as an original prin- 

 ciple in our nature, and looks about for a bump on 

 some vacant part of the skull, by the size of which 

 the strength of this propensity may be measured. 

 Another is distinguished by his love of money 

 and so Acquisitiveness is established as a primitive 

 and inherent propensity ! Another is a great talker 

 and forthwith Language is made a distinct and in- 

 dependent faculty ! Another has a turn for making 

 nut-crackers and mouse-traps and what can be so 

 natural as to refer this to the bulk of his organ of 

 Constructiveness ? Another shows a great love for 

 children, without indicating much benevolence to any 

 grown creature and nothing consequently can be 

 plainer than that Philoprogenitiveness is an original 

 sentiment. Some are quick at arithmetical operations 

 and what explanation can be so satisfactory, as 

 that they have the faculty of Number very prominent;' 

 Others remember all the cross-roads they have ever 

 come through and who can deny, therefore, that 

 they are distinguished for their Locality ? Some 

 keep their papers, clothes and furniture very nicely 

 arranged which can be attributed only to the degree 

 in which they possess the faculty of Order ; while 

 there are others again, at least so Mr Combe assures 

 us, whose genius consists in a peculiarly quick ob- 

 servation of the size and weight of external substances 

 for whose sake accordingly it has been thought 

 reasonable to create the special original faculties of 

 Size and Weight ! This, we must admit, is sufficiently 

 simple and bold. But where is it to stop ? If we 

 are thus to take all the tastes, habits, accomplish- 

 ments and propensities, by which grown men are 

 distinguished, in the concrete, and forthwith to refer 

 them to some peculiar original faculty or principle, 

 imagined for the mere purpose of accounting for 

 them, the thirty-six original faculties of the phrenolo- 

 gists may at once be multiplied to 360 or 36,000 

 and room must be made upon the skull for as many 



new organs. Some men have a remarkable love for 

 their children and therefore we have a separate 

 principle of Philoprogenitiveness. But other men 

 have as remarkable a love for their parents and 

 why therefore should we not have a faculty of Thilo- 

 progenitorness , with a corresponding bump on some 

 suitable place of the cranium ? The affections of 

 others, again, are less remarkable in the ascending 

 and descending lines, and spread most kindly in the 

 collateral ; Can it be doubted, then, that we should 

 have a Philadelphic principle, to attach us to our 

 brothers and sisters and another to keep us in 

 charity with our first cousins ? If the fact, that some 

 men are distinguished for their love of wealth is a 

 sufficient ground for assuming that Acquisitiveness is 

 <m independent and original principle of our nature, 

 should not the fact of other men being distinguished 

 for their love of dogs and horses justify us in referring 

 this also to an inherent principle ? or upon what 

 grounds can we refuse the same honour to the love 

 of card-playing, gossiping, or agriculture ? Some 

 men, nay some whole families are notorious for lying, 

 though addicted to no other immorality ; some the 

 natural prey of the former are proverbial for cre- 

 dulity ; some for inordinate merriment and laughter ; 

 some for envy ; some for love of society ; some for 

 telling long stories ; some for love of noise ; some 

 for horror of it. Most of these, it appears to us, are 

 quite as well entitled to the rank of primitive faculties 

 or propensities as any on the list of the phrenologists. 

 Undoubtedly they mark as conspicuously the charac- 

 ter and manners of the persons to whom they belong, 

 and are not in general so easily resolved into more 

 general principles. Why then should they be ex- 

 cluded from the scheme of the phrenologists, and left 

 without any organs in their improvident distribution 

 of the skull ? Nay, upon these principles, why 

 should there not be a separate original faculty prompt- 

 ing us to the practice of skating, sailing, or planting? 

 or towards the study of botany, mineralogy, ana- 

 tomy, bookbinding, chemistry, gymnastics or any of 

 the other five hundred pursuits to which idle men are 

 found to betake themselves, with an engrossing and 

 often passionate partiality ?" 



There are two arguments which have often been 

 urged in favour of phrenology. The first is, that 

 genius is generally partial, that a man is often an 

 excellent musician who has no talent for painting or 

 metaphysics. Now, without insisting on the facts, 

 that there are many causes which may lead a person 

 to one pursuit, and that few succeed to eminence 

 unless they confine themselves to one track, we may 

 simply say, that we find it just as easy to admit an 

 original disparity in the existence called mind, as an 

 original difference in the size of the phrenological 

 organs. The second argument is, that in dreaming 

 one or more faculties are awake, while others are 

 asleep : and if all acted by means of one organ, they 

 could not possibly be in different states at the same 

 time. To this it may be answered, that it is quite as 

 difficult to understand why one of the intellectual 

 organs should fall asleep while the others are awake, 

 as why the mind should continue to act in some of its 

 modes, and cease as to others. 



Phrenology has often been accused as leading to 

 materialism and fatalism, but, with all its faults, we 

 think it has been in this instance dealt with unfairly 

 and unphilosophically. Phrenologists expressly de- 

 clare their belief, that the brain is not the mind, but 

 simply the organized medium through which, in this 

 life, it manifests itself. This doctrine does not ap- 

 pear liable to the charge of materialism. As to 

 fatalism, the mystery remains the same, whether an 

 individual becomes the perpetrator of harm by the 

 fibres of his brain or by his essential nature. 





