358 Obituary Notice of Dr. Gaspar Spurzheim. — 
observation that those boys who learned so easily by heart, had re- 
markably large and prominent eyes. The connexion of this exter- 
nal. sign and that mental faculty occurred to him, and he-inferred 
that prominent eyes were a mark of good memory. This observa- 
tion, insignificant in itself, led Gall to study minutely, on the one 
hand the prominent talents and individual characters of men, and on 
the-other hand, the form of their heads. Little by little he flattered 
himself that he could perceive one constant shape in the head of ev- 
ery great painter, every great musician, every great mechanic, sev- 
erally denoting a aecided predisposition in the individual to one or 
the other of these arts. The study of medicine, and partic 
anatomy, to which he devoted himself, soon induced him to conchae 
the peculiar form of the skull only as the evidence and the effect of 
thateof the brain. This part of the human body, which bad always 
das the pri 1 t of the mind, beeame now 
the chief object'of Gall’s i investigation ; and instead of considering 
the whole brain, as was formerly the case, as required for each of 
the different manifestations of the mind, he examined each part with 
special reference to those prominences of the skull which he had be- 
fore perceived to be indications of particular talents and dispositions. 
He considered each of these parts of the brain as the particular organ 
of each of the different faculties of the mind, in the same manner as 
the eyes are the organs of sight, and the ears of hearing. Thus, from 
two sources of observation, from the study of the variety of talent and 
character, and of the organization of the brain, there arose a new 
science, the Physiology of the brain, that i is, the theory of the differ- 
ent parts of the brain considered as the organs or ener 
various animal, intellectual and moral capacities.* ‘The phy 
of the brain which at first frequently went by the name of Craniole 
or the doctrine of the skull, is now more generally known by tate 
Phrenology, or the doctrine of the mind, by which Spomienaer 
ferred to designate this new science. eal 
_ “It was at Vienna, in the year 1800, that Spurzheim first attended 
‘icon which Dr. Gall had repeated from time to time, dur- 
ing the four preceding years, in order to explain to a select audience 
a of the organs and functions of the brain. - enone” 
soit 
* Hence fe a published at Paris after Gall’s death, na 
the inscription, Secrest a atredot 
physiology of the brain.) a) 
