THE OLD PHRENOLOGY AND THE NEW. 237 



an intervening space of considerable kind. In so far as comparative 

 anatomy is concerned, phrenology receives no assistance in its attempt 

 to localise mind-functions in man. An elephant is admittedly a 

 sagacious animal, with a brain worth studying; just as a cat or tiger 

 presents us with a disposition in which, if brain -science is applicable, 

 as it should be, to lower forms of life exhibiting special traits of cha- 

 racter, destructiveness should be well represented and typically illus- 

 trated. Alas for phrenology ! the bump of destructiveness in the 

 feline races resolves itself into a mass of jaw muscles, and the 

 elephant's brain is placed certainly not within a foot or so of the most 

 skilful of phrenological digits. The " frontal sinuses " or great air- 

 spaces in the forehead bones of the animal intervene between the 

 front of the brain, the region par excellence of "intellect" and the outside 

 layer of the skull. So that an observer could no more accurately 

 construct a phrenological chart of an elephant than he could 

 diagnose the contents of a warehouse by scanning the exterior of the 

 building. 



Not merely, however, are the difficulties of phrenology limited to 

 the lower animals. Suppose we make a cross section of a human 

 skull, through either the right or left side of the forehead, about half 

 an inch above the upper border of the orbit or eye-cavity. We may 

 then discover that man as well as the elephant possesses " frontal 

 sinuses" or air-spaces in his forehead-bone of considerable extent, 

 intervening between the exterior of the skull and the contained brain. 

 Now, in such a section of the human skull, what phrenological 

 " organs " shall we cut through ? Certainly those of " individuality," 

 "form," "size," "colour," and "calculation." In placing such organs 

 across the eyebrows the phrenologist might naturally be regarded as 

 having proceeded on the assumption that he was mapping out on the 

 exterior of the skull a certain part of the brain- surface. What shall 

 be said of his procedure, however, when the reader learns that a 

 section of the skull made as indicated through these organs shows 

 that they i.e. the "organs" as marked on the outside of the skull 

 overlie the hollow spaces or " frontal sinuses," and are actually 

 separated from the brain by cavities of considerable extent, in some 

 cases exceeding an inch? Such a demonstration truly speaks for 

 itself, and no less so does the anatomist's discovery that the " organ " 

 of phrenologists known as "form " actually reposes in anything but a 

 noble position on the cavity of the nose ; that the organ of " calcula- 

 tion " is a solid bony (orbital] process ; and that the size of the organ 

 of " language " really depends upon the want of forward projection of 

 the eye depending on the special development of a bony process on 

 which the organ of sight rests, and which in any case has nothing 

 whatever to do with the brain. Of language more anon ; but enough 

 has been said to show that a connection with the brain is not an in- 



