VIEWS OF PHRENOLOGISTS. 343 



made for the purpose; attending particularly to the heads of such as 

 had one of their faculties predominant, and who were, as he remarks, 

 geniuses on one point, to the maniac, and the monomaniac ; after a 

 sedulous study, likewise, of the heads of animals, comparing especially 

 those that have a particular faculty with such as have it not, in order 

 to see if there did not exist in the encephalon of the former some part 

 which was wanting in that of the latter ; hy this entirely experimental 

 method, he ventured to specify, in the encephalon of animals and man, 

 a certain number of organs ; and, in their psychology, as many facul- 

 ties, truly primary in their character. 



But, in order that such a mode of investigation be applicable it must 

 be admitted, 1st. That one of the elements of the activity of a function 

 is the developement of its organ. 2dly. That the encephalic organs 

 end, and are distinct, at the surface of the encephalon. 3dly. That 

 the cranium is moulded to the encephalon, and is a faithful index of its 

 shape; for it is, of course, through the skull and the integuments 

 covering it, that Gall attempts, in the living subject, to appreciate the 

 state of the encephalon. 



Within certain limits, these positions are true. In the first place, 

 we judge of the activity of a function, by the size of the organ that 

 executes it : the greater the optic nerve, the more acute we expect to 

 find the sense of sight. In the second place, according to the anato- 

 mical theory of Gall, the encephalic convolutions are the final expansions 

 of the encephalon: if we trace back the original fasciculi, which, by 

 their terminations, form the hemispheres of the brain, they are observed 

 to increase gradually in size in their progress towards the circumference 

 of the organ, and to end in the convolutions. Lastly, to a certain 

 extent the cranium is moulded to the encephalon; and participates -in 

 all the changes which the latter undergoes at different periods of life 

 and in disease. For example, during the first days after the formation 

 of the encephalon of the foetus, the cranium is membraneous, and has 

 exactly the shape of that viscus. On this membrane, ossific points are 

 deposited, so that, when the membrane has become bone, the cranium 

 has still the shape 'of the encephalon. In short, nature having made 

 the skull to contain the encephalon has fitted the one to the other, 

 and this so accurately, that its internal surface exhibits sinuosities 

 corresponding to the vessels that creep on the surface; and digitations 

 corresponding to the encephalic convolutions. The encephalon, in fact, 

 rigidly regulates the ossification of the cranium ; and when, in the pro- 

 gress of life, it augments, the capacity of the cranium is augmented 

 likewise; not by the effect of mechanical pressure, but owing to the two 

 parts being catenated in their increase and nutrition. This remark 

 applies not only to the skull and encephalon, regarded as a whole, 

 but to their separate parts. Certain portions of the encephalon are not 

 developed simultaneously with the rest of the organ ; and the same 

 thing happens to the portions of the skull that invest them. The fore- 

 head, for example, begins to be developed after the age of four months; 

 but the inferior occipital fossae do not increase in proportion until the 

 period of puberty. Again; when the encephalon fades and wastes in 

 advanced life, the cavity of the cranium contracts, and its ossification 



