160 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvi. 



ures, that they have doubted whether the final result of 

 the work of the century has any balance of good over 

 evil of happiness over misery, for mankind at large. 

 But although this may be an exaggerated and pessimistic 

 view, there can be no doubt of the magnitude of the 

 evils that have grown up or persisted, in the midst of all 

 our triumphs over natural forces, and our unprecedented 

 growth in wealth and luxury. 



We have also neglected or rejected some important 

 lines of investigation affecting our own intellectual and 

 spiritual nature; and have in consequence made serious 

 mistakes in our modes of education, in our treatment of 

 mental and physical disease, and in our dealings with 

 criminals. A sketch of these various failures will now 

 be given, and will, I believe, constitute not the least im- 

 portant portion of my work. I begin with the subject 

 of Phrenology, a science of whose substantial truth and 

 vast importance I have no more doubt than I have of 

 the value and importance of any of the great intellectual 

 advances already recorded. 



In the last years of the eighteenth century Dr. Fran- 

 gois Joseph Gall, a German physician, discovered (or re- 

 discovered) the facts, now universally admitted, that the 

 brain is the organ of the mind, that different parts of 

 the brain are connected with different mental and 

 physical manifestations, and that, other things being 

 equal, size of the brain and of its various parts is an indi- 

 cation of mental power. He began his observations on 

 this subject when a boy, by noticing the different char- 

 acters and talents gf his schoolfellows some were peace- 

 able, some quarrelsome; some were expert in penman- 

 ship, others in arithmetic ; some could learn by rote even 



