630 PHYSIOLOGY OF THE CEREBRUM 



It is practically certain that Gall's psychology would never have attracted 

 any further notice if he had not attempted also to locate the organs for the 

 different faculties in different parts of the brain. 



His point, of departure was an observation which he had made as a student. 

 He thought he had discovered that those of his fellows who had a good memory 

 for words had prominent eyes. Hence the organ for this faculty must be situated 

 above and behind the eye sockets. He conceived that the organs of the different 

 faculties lay only on the surface of the brain, also that wherever a certain organ 

 was especially well developed the skull at that point was bulged out. 



Hence if one were to observe the most characteristic peculiarities in the 

 traits and the character of many different individuals and were to study their 

 skulls, one could determine the exact location of the separate organs. Then 

 nothing would be simpler than to determine a person's character and the quality 

 of his endowments by examining his skull. What a broad and extremely inter- 

 esting perspective this simple and (in the fullest meaning of the word) palpable 

 doctrine opened up! And how extraordinarily useful phrenology, as the new 

 science was called by its disciples, would be in education and in the choice of 

 a life work! 



Gall was unquestionably a good observer, and in many points the funda- 

 mental principles of his method were not far wrong. But this did not prevent 

 him from losing all critical sense and discretion when it came to determining 

 empirically the location of his " organs." Gall's own writings and those of his 

 followers furnish the most flagrant examples of this; nevertheless his doctrines 

 were for a long time espoused in certain quarters with the greatest confidence. 



In science phrenology soon had its day, and since Flourens published his 

 researches on the functions of the brain (1822), it has belonged among the curi- 

 osities of the scientific lumber room. 



Flourens' works declared that only the cerebral hemispheres were of any 

 direct importance for intelligence. He laid down the following propositions, 

 which are given here in his own words: (1) One can cut away from the front, 

 the back, the top and from the sides, a fairly large part of the cerebral hemi- 

 spheres without destroying the intelligence. Hence a rather limited portion of 

 the brain is sufficient for the exercise of its mental functions. (2) The more one 

 removes of the brain substance the more is the intelligence weakened, and its 

 powers proportionally restricted. When a certain limit is passed the intelligence 

 vanishes altogether. For the complete development of the mental powers there- 

 fore all the different parts of the cerebrum work together. (3) When one par- 

 ticular function is lost, all are lost ; when one faculty vanishes, all vanish. There 

 are no different organs for the different faculties or sensations. The ability to 

 perceive, judge, or will one thing has its seat in the same point as the ability 

 to perceive, judge, or will another. This ability, which in its essence is one and 

 indivisible, has its seat in a single organ. 



For more than a decade the conception expressed in the propositions above, 

 partly owing to the reaction against phrenology, partly owing to the weight of 

 Flourens' investigations on the physiology of the nervous system, was regarded 

 as the last word of science with regard to the relation of the mind to the brain. 

 This is not, however, the modern conception. 



There was indeed a modicum of truth in phrenology. Not that its positing 

 the different intellectual qualities in definite regions of the brain was correct, 

 nor that its postulate that the form of the skull, its curvatures and prominences, 

 gives expression to the functional capabilities of the underlying parts, has been 

 found to accord with fact. In this respect phrenology has been relegated far 

 to the rear, we hope for once and all. But further research has demonstrated 



