LIFE AND MIND 



to say that the inevitable outcome of this is the 

 unquaHfied assertion of materialism. But as 

 Comte himself never drew such an inference, 

 and always protested energetically against ma- 

 terialism, as based upon illegitimate inferences 

 from the study of nervous phenomena, it would 

 not be fair in us to draw the inference for him 

 and then upbraid him with it. This kind of 

 misrepresentation is dear to theologians, and we 

 may contentedly leave them an entire monopoly 

 of it. But worse remains behind. Having 

 condemned psychological analysis as useless, 

 Comte offers us in exchange the ludicrous sub- 

 stitute — Phrenology ! 



Of all the scientific blunders which Comte 

 ever made, this was beyond question the one 

 which has done most to injure his credit with 

 competent scientific critics. Yet in fairness we 

 must remember that Comte^s ignorance of psy- 

 chology was his weakest point, and that forty 

 years ago, when the anatomy and physiology 

 of the nervous system were in their infancy, 

 the conception of dividing the gray surface of 

 the cerebrum into thirty or more provinces, 

 each the seat of a complex group of mental ap- 

 titudes, did not seem so absurd as it does now. 

 In those days even Broussais, a first-class phy- 

 siologist, adopted some of the leading doctrines 

 of phrenology. Moreover the fundamental 

 conception of Gall — which included the ana- 

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