CHAP. xvi. THE NEGLECT OF PHRENOLOGY. 165 



try. Wherever he went and he visited repeatedly 

 many European countries as well as the United States 

 his great reputation as a religious, social, and educational 

 reformer and philosophical thinker led to his being wel- 

 comed in the best social, scientific, and political circles. 

 At home he was consulted by many persons of eminence, 

 including the Prince Consort, oil the best system of edu- 

 cation for their children. Sir James Clark, Kichard 

 Cobden, Robert Chambers, and Charles Mackay the 

 poet, were among his intimate friends; while Lord John 

 Russell, and other influential politicians, were glad to 

 receive information from him on all subjects connected 

 with improved systems of education. 



It may be truly said that on every subject on which 

 he wrote the constitution of man, natural religion, edu- 

 cation, criminal legislation, the lunacy laws, the cur- 

 rency question, moral philosophy he was far in ad- 

 vance of his age; and almost all his principles and his 

 proposals on these subjects, though considered heretical 

 or impracticable by most of his contemporaries, are now 

 either actually adopted or admitted to be correct both in 

 philosophy and in practice. But the one subject to 

 which he gave more .careful study than to any other 

 phrenology which was indeed the very foundation on 

 which his philosophy and his educational theories were 

 built, was contemptuously rejected by the great bulk of 

 the scientific and literary men of his time, without ade- 

 quate examination, without any reasonable study of so 

 complex and important a subject, but almost entirely on 

 false assumptions, gross misrepresentations, or a priori 

 reasoning. All who have given any careful considera- 

 tion to the writings of Dr. Gall and George Combe ad- 



