THE NERVOUS SYSTEM. 395 



Should any one doubt his acquaintance with the real talents 

 and character of those friends whose heads he can select for ob- 



I must here subjoin some remarks from Gall on the reception which has been 

 given to phrenology. 



" The followers of the different schools of philosophy among the Greeks, 

 accused each other of impiety and perjury. The people, in their turn, detested 

 the philosophers, and accused those who investigated principles, with presump- 

 tuously encroaching upon the rights of the deity. The novelty of the opinions 

 of Pythagoras caused his banishment from Athens ; those of Anaxagoras threw 

 him into prison j the Abderites treated Democritus as a madman, because he 

 dissected dead bodies to discover the cause of insanity ; and Socrates, for demon- 

 strating the unity of God, was condemned to drink hemlock. 



" The same scandal had been renewed at all times and in all nations. Many of 

 those who distinguished themselves in the fourteenth century by their knowledge 

 of natural things, were put to death as magicians. Galileo, for proving the 

 earth's motion, was imprisoned at the age of seventy. Those who first main- 

 tained the influence of climate upon the intellectual character of nations were 

 suspected of materialism. 



" Universally, nature treats new truths and their discoverers, in a singular, but 

 uniform manner. With what indignation and animosity have not the greatest 

 benefits been rejected? For instance, potatoes, Peruvian bark, vaccination, &c. As 

 soon as Varolius made his anatomical discoveries, he was decried by Sylvius as 

 the most infamous and ignorant madman. Vesanum, litterarum imperitissimum, 

 arrogantissimum, calumniatorem maledicentissimum, rerum omnium ignarissimum, 

 transfugam, impium, ingratum, monstrum ignorantice, impietath exemplar perni- 

 ciosissimum, quod pestttentialilialitu Europam venenat,&c. Varolius was reproached 

 with dazzling his auditor by a seductive eloquence, and artificially effecting the 

 prolongation of the optic nerves as far as the thalami. Harvey, for maintaining 

 the circulation of the blood, was treated as a visionary ; and depravity went so 

 far as to attempt his ruin with James and Charles the First. When it was no 

 longer possible to shorten the optic nerve, or arrest the course of the blood in its 

 vessels, the honour of these discoveries was all at once given to Hippocrates. 

 The physical truths announced by Linnaeus, BufFon, the pious philosopher Bon- 

 net, by George Le Roy, were represented as impieties likely to ruin religion 

 and morality. Even the virtuous and generous Lavater was treated as a fatalist 

 and materialist. Every where do fatalism and materialism, placed before the 

 sanctuary of truth, make the world retire. Every where do those, upon whose 

 judgment the public relies, not merely ascribe to the author of a discovery the 

 absurdities of their own prejudices, but even renounce established truths if con- 

 trary to their purposes, and revive ancient errors, if calculated to ruin the man 

 who is in their way. 



" This is a faithful picture of what has happened to me. I have, therefore, some 

 reason to be proud of having experienced the same lot as men to whom the world 

 is indebted for so great a mass of knowledge. It seems that nature has subjected 

 all truths to persecution, in order to establish them the more firmly ; for he who 

 can snatch one from her, always presents a front of brass to the darts hurled 



