164 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvi. 



actual crania, the latter more especially, in order to learn 

 the exact amount of correspondence or difference be- 

 tween the outer and inner surfaces of the skull. His 

 visitors increased as his knowledge rendered his expla- 

 nations more interesting, and thus, he tells us, he became 

 a phrenologist and a lecturer on phrenology by a con- 

 catenation of circumstances which were not foreseen 

 and the ultimate consequences of which he had never 

 contemplated. 



Before proceeding further with a sketch of the evi- 

 dences for phrenology, it is well to consider briefly what 

 sort of man Combe was. At the period just referred to 

 he was twenty-seven years old, and in good practice in 

 Edinburgh as a lawyer. He carried on his profession 

 for twenty years longer, his practice continually increas- 

 ing, notwithstanding his various other occupations and 

 the unpopularity of many of his writings. During this 

 time he had written and published several works some 

 very extensive on "Phrenology: The Constitution of 

 Man " a work which in Scotland caused him to be con- 

 sidered an infidel, but which in England had a circula- 

 tion of a hundred thousand; " Lectures on Popular Edu- 

 cation; Lectures on Moral Philosophy," afterward 

 enlarged into a work which went through several edi- 

 tions, besides numerous articles in periodicals and news- 

 papers on a variety of subjects. Though brought up in 

 a religious Scotch family, and of a highly reverential 

 nature, he entirely emancipated himself from religious 

 dogmas, and became the best exponent of a well-reasoned 

 system of natural religion. He was one of the earliest 

 educational reformers, and may almost be considered as 

 the founder of rational svstems of education in this coun- 



