360 MENTAL FACULTIES. 



dexterous pronounce their judgment, if their explorations be conducted 

 separately. We ourselves have even witnessed the greatest possible 

 discrepancies. Nay, we have seen the same phrenologists furnish one 

 character from the head, and a totally different one from the cast, whilst 

 in ignorance of the original of this latter. This we have known to 

 happen, not merely in the practice of one of your shilling-a-head itine- 

 rants, but in that of one not unknown to fame in the annals of the 

 science." Such are the views of one, who, unlike the author, expects 

 much from phrenology ; and has done much to give it countenance. 

 Yet men will still form their judgments in this manner; and a solitary 

 coincidence, as in all analogous cases, will outweigh a dozen failures. 1 



The doctrine of Gall requires repeated unbiassed and careful experi- 

 ments, which it is not easy for every one to institute; and this is one 

 of the causes why the minds of individuals must long remain in doubt 

 regarding the merits or demerits of the system. From mere metaphy- 

 sicians, who have not attended to the organization and functions of 

 the frame, especially of its encephalic portion, it has ever experienced 

 the greatest hostility; although their conflicting views regarding the 

 intellectual and moral faculties was one of the grounds for the divi- 

 sion of the phrenologist. It is now, however, we believe, generally 

 admitted by the liberal and scientific, that if we are to obtain a far- 

 ther knowledge of the mental condition of man, it must be by a com- 

 bination of sound psychological and physiological observation and 

 deduction. It is time, indeed, that such a union should be effected, 

 and that the undisguised and inveterate hostility, which exists between 

 certain of the professors of these interesting departments of anthro- 

 pology, should be abolished. " To fulfil, definitely, the object we had 

 proposed to ourselves," says M. Broussais, 2 "we must infer from all the 

 facts and reasoning comprised in this work, 1st. That the explana- 

 tions of psychologists are romances, which teach us nothing new. 2dly. 

 That they have no means. of affording the explanations they promise. 

 3dly. That they are the dupes of the words they employ in disserting 

 on incomprehensible things. 4thly. That the physiologist alone can 

 speak authoritatively on the origin of our ideas and knowledge ; and 

 5thly. That men, who are strangers to the science of animal organi- 

 zation, should confine themselves to the study of the instinctive and 

 intellectual phenomena in their relations with the different social states 

 of existence." 



This is neither the language nor the spirit that ought to prevail 

 among the promoters of knowledge. 



Lastly. Physiologists have inquired, whether there may not be 

 some particular portion of the brain, which holds the rest in subservi- 

 ence; some part in which the mind exclusively resides; for such was 

 probably the meaning of the researches of the older physiologists 

 into the seat of the soul. It is certain, that it is in the encephalon, 

 but not in the whole of it ; for the organ may be sliced away, to a 



1 See, on these subjects, the author's Medical Student, second edit., p. 256, Philadelphia, 

 1844. 



2 De I'lrritation et de la Folie, Paris. 1828 ; or Amer. edit, by Dr. T. Cooper, Columbia, 

 S. C., 1831. 



