234 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



query is further a perfectly legitimate one. The phrenologist main- 

 tains the actuality of his deductions respecting the " organs " of 

 mind, and it is only a fair and just expectation 'that, if the brain 

 be a congeries of such organs, the anatomist should be able to 

 see these parts as development has revealed them. The nature of 

 the brain is asserted by the phrenologist to exist in its composition 

 as a set of organs. That nature, argues the anatomist, if revealed at 

 all, should present itself in its development, which alone can show us 

 nature's true fashion of building a brain. What, therefore, is the 

 result of the anatomist's study of the manner in which the brain is 

 fashioned ? The answer is found in the statement that there is not 

 a trace of a single " organ " such as the phrenologist theoretically 

 maintains is represented in the brain. There is no division into 

 separate parts and portions, as the phrenologist's chart would lead 

 the observer to suppose. The scalpel of the anatomist can nowhere 

 discover in the full-grown brain an organ of veneration, or of hope, or 

 of language, or of destructiveness, or of any other mental feature : 

 nor can his microscope detect in nature's wondrous process of fashion- 

 ing the brain any reason for the belief that the organ of mind is a 

 collection of parts, each devoted to the exercise of a special quality 

 of mind. The arrangement which appears so clear on the phrenolo- 

 gist's bust is nowhere represented in the brain itself ; and the organs 

 of the phrenologist, in so far as their existence is concerned, may not 

 inaptly be described in Butler's words as being 



Such as take lodgings in a head 

 That's to be let unfurnished. 



But if development gives no support to the phrenological asser- 

 tion of the brain's division into organs of the mind, neither does 

 anatomy, human or comparative, countenance its tenets as applied to 

 the examination of the brain-pan 'itself. To select a very plain 

 method of testing the deductions of phrenology, let an anatomical 

 plate of the upper surface of the undisturbed brain be exhibited, and 

 having settled the position of certain " organs " on a phrenological 

 chart, let any one try to discover if the limits of any one organ can be 

 discerned on the brain-surface. He will then clearly appreciate the 

 hopeless nature of the task he has undertaken, and be ready to shrink 

 from the attempt to resolve the complex convulsions before him into 

 a square inch here of one faculty, or a square inch there of another. 



Moreover, one very important consideration will dawn upon the 

 reflective mind which considers that- the convolutions of the brain 

 are not limited to the crown and sides of the head, but, on the con- 

 trary, extend over the entire surface of the cerebrum, and are devel- 

 oped also on its base (see fig. 24). No phrenologist has attempted, 

 it is true, to get at the base of the brain by inspecting the palate ; but 



