240 STUDIES IX LIFE AND SENSE. 



No further illustration is required of the fact that, tested under 

 exceptionally favourable circumstances, the deductions of phrenology 

 are absolutely incorrect, not to say absurd. Nor is the case of the 

 phrenologists bettered by their exercise of apologetics in face of the 

 hard logic of the above and similar facts. Thurtell, with very large 

 " benevolence " and with well- developed " veneration," yet committed 

 an atrocious murder, and this without a special development of 

 " destructiveness." " Nothing can justify the murder," said the 

 phrenologists, but Thurtell imagined that he would " do a service 

 to society by killing his friend" (where his benevolence?), "and 

 hence his crime." Thus benevolence, by the exercise of phreno- 

 logical apologetics, becomes an excuse for and an active cause of 

 murder. Dr. Gregory's " destructiveness," said the phrenologists, 

 was held in check by some other qualities by which qualities it 

 would be hard to say, seeing that, tested by phrenology, his whole 

 mental and moral organisation was below that of the average 

 murderer. So that we are to believe, in short, that "destructive- 

 ness," and the other base qualities of the Professor, being absolutely 

 useless, must have been intended simply for show and not for use. 

 Things, on this reasoning, truly are not what they seem ; and 

 phrenology thuswise cuts away from under itself its fundamental 

 propositions, that its " organs " are the seats of faculties, and that 

 their activity is proportional to their size. 



But to proceed further would be to slay the slain. Thus much, 

 indeed, we have said of the phrenology which still lingers in our 

 midst, by way of contrast with the newer order of brain-interpretation 

 which the advance of physiology has caused to arise amongst us. In 

 the early days in which the battle of phrenology was fought and won 

 as against the science of brain-pans, physiological experimentation 

 upon the brain was an unknown and unworked source of information. 

 In due time came Flourens, Magendie, Fritsch, Hitzig, and Ferrier, 

 with their exact methods and results, enlarging the conceptions of 

 the brain and its powers, and throwing here and there a ray of light 

 upon the dark places and hidden corners in the domain of the 

 physiology of mind. Hence our new " phrenology " for the word 

 itself is perfectly explicit as denoting a science of mind or brain 

 is gradually being built up from sure data and accurate experi- 

 mentation ; the results arrived at by one worker being tested by a 

 host of fellow- experimenters ere his inferences become facts, and 

 before they are allowed to form part and parcel of the scientific 

 edifice. Let us briefly see what are the more prominent facts 

 concerning the brain and its functions which recent science has 

 elucidated. 



No part of the brain has perhaps presented problems of such 

 interesting character as the cerebellum or lesser brain which, as already 



