THE OLD PHRENOLOGY AND THE NEW. 229 



latest science brain-pan is compatible with an accurate understanding 

 of its contents and mysteries, the successful practice of phrenology 

 must be shown to depend on other data and other circumstances 

 than are supplied by anatomy and physiology these sciences ad- 

 mittedly supplying the foundation of all that is or can be known 

 regarding the brain, its conformation, structure, and functions. It 

 is, at any rate, a somewhat astounding proposition as modestly 

 advanced by the phrenologists themselves, that they alone possess 

 the clues to the true functions of the brain ; while the researches 

 and labours of the most accomplished physiologists and neuro- 

 logists, living and dead Fritsch, Hitzig, Ferrier, Broca, Charcot, 

 and a score of others are to be regarded as of no account when 

 set against the crude " science " of the charlatans who delineate a 

 fanciful mosaic of mind on the outside of the skull. Empirical 

 science science falsely so called will not hesitate to assert its 

 ability to accurately solve the deepest problems of character and 

 mind. But the more modest spirit of the true scientist will hesitate 

 before crediting itself with any such ability, or even before giving 

 assent to such general rules of character as are exemplified by the 

 saying, " Big head and little wit ; " or by that of the worthy Fuller, 

 who, in his "Holy and Profane State," remarks that "Often the 

 cockloft is empty in those whom Nature hath built many stones 

 high." 



The fundamental doctrine of the old phrenology is well known, 

 to most of us. Its great doctrine is pictorially illustrated in the 

 china heads of the optician's windows, and may be summed up in 

 the statement that different parts or portions of the brain's surface 

 represent the organs of different faculties of mind. The brain thus 

 viewed is a storehouse of faculties and qualities, each faculty pos- 

 sessing a dominion and sphere of its own amongst the cerebral 

 substance, and having its confines as rigidly denned as are the 

 boundaries of certain actual provinces in the East, the status of 

 which has afforded matter for serious comment of late amongst the 

 nations at large. Thus, if phrenology be credited with materialising 

 mind in the grossest possible fashion, its votaries have themselves 

 and their science to thank for the aspersion. If it be maintained 

 that feelings of dcstrncttieness reside somewhere above the ear, then 

 must we localise the desire to kill or destroy in so much brain-substance 

 as lies included in the "bump" or "organ" in question. When we 

 are given to gluttony and high living, we are asked to believe that 

 it is the excess of brain-matter placed in front of the ear, and con- 

 stituting the bump of " alimentiveness " that incites to the life and 

 acts of the gourmand. When vainglory besets us, we must hold, if 

 we are phrenologists, that there is a molecular stirrage and activity 

 of brain-particles beneath a certain bump of " self-esteem " situated 



