358 Obituary JVoiice 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. Litde 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 particularly of 

 anatomy, to which he devoted himself, soon induced him to consider 

 the peculiar form of the skull only as the evidence and the effect of 

 that of the brain. This part of the human body, which had always 

 been considered as the principal instrument of the mind, became now 

 the chief object of Gall's 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 is, the theory of the differ- 

 ent parts of the brain considered as the organs or instruments of the 

 various animal, intellectual and moral capacities.* The physiology 

 of the brain which at first frequently went by the name of Craniology, 

 or the doctrine of the skull, is now more generally known by that of 

 Phrenology, or the doctrine of the mind, by which Spurzheim pre- 

 ferred to designate this new science. 



" It was at Vienna, in the year 1800, that Spurzheim first attended 

 a private course which Dr. Gall had repeated from time to time, dur- 

 ing the four preceding years, in order to explain to a select audience 

 his new theory of the organs and functions of the brain. The dissec- 



* Hence the medal that was published at Paris after Gall's death, in 182S, bears 

 the inscription, ' Au createur de la physiologic du cerveau.' (To the author of the 

 physiology of the brain.) 



