182 THE WONDERFUL CENTURY. CHAP. xvi. 



any way disturbing its general principles or the vast 

 body of facts on which it is founded. Even so eminent 

 a physiologist and so careful a thinker as the late Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, when I once asked him why he did not 

 accept phrenology as a science, replied at once, " Be- 

 cause, owing to the varying thickness of the skull, the 

 form of the outside does not correspond to that of the 

 brain itself, and therefore the comparative development 

 of different parts of the brain cannot be determined by 

 the form of the skull." To this I replied that the thick- 

 ness of the skull varied at most by a few tenths of an inch, 

 whereas the variations in the dimensions and the form of 

 the head as measured in different diameters varied by 

 whole inches, so that the size and proportions of the head, 

 as measured or estimated by phrenologists, were very 

 slightly affected by the different thicknesses of the skull, 

 which, besides, had been carefully studied by phrenolo- 

 gists as dependent on temperament, age, etc., and could 

 in many cases be estimated. He admitted the correct- 

 ness of this statement, and had really no other objection 

 to make, except by saying that he always understood it 

 had been rejected after full examination (which it cer- 

 tainly had not been), and to ask, if it were true why was 

 it not taught by any man of scientific reputation? 



Almost the only other serious objection is to the de- 

 tailed classification of the mental faculties, and to the 

 names given to the several organs. But such objections 

 exist even in the best established sciences, such as 

 geology, where both classification and nomenclature are 

 continually changing in the effort to approach nearer to 

 the facts of nature. Phrenology is a science of obser- 

 vation as truly as is geology itself; it is a highly complex 



