as we go gently on; and we Avill advance no 

 wild theories that cannot be fully borne out by 

 practical experience. Nor will we assert, or 

 suffer to be asserted, any one thing that cannot 

 be proved as a " fact." 



What we here propose to effect is, by calm 

 reason ; not venturing, in the remotest degree, to 

 tread upon "forbidden ground." The soul of 

 man is far beyond our comprehension ; it ever 

 has been so, ever will be so; — we ever wish 

 it to be so. Had it been essential for our " hap- 

 piness" to comprehend it, it never would have 

 been withholden from our knowledge. This is 

 " our Faith." 



The inquiry we now pursue, is worthy of the 

 times in which we live. It could not have been 

 successfully undertaken at an earlier moment; 

 but now, the " masses " begin to emerge from 

 their state of darkness ; one discovery creates a 

 desire for another, and the issue is — " Thought." 



An attentive ear then, a ready mind, and a 

 thirst for knowledge, being the materials upon 

 which we calculate, we need not dwell longer 

 upon the threshold. We will therefore at once 

 address ourselves to the Multitude. 



As promised, we shall commence our " labor 

 of love " with a carefully-compiled biography of 

 Dr. Gall. This will be followed, in easy stages, 

 by translations from his " Great Work." 



Francois Joseph Gall was born in a village of 

 the Grand Duchy of Baden, on the 9th of March, 

 1758. His father was a merchant and mayor of 

 Tiefenbrun, a village two leagues distant from 

 Pforzheim, in Swabia. His parents, professing 

 the Roman Catholic religion, had intended him 

 for the church; but his natural disposition was 

 opposed to it. His studies were pursued at Baden, 

 afterwards at Brucksal, and then were continued 

 at Strasburg. Having selected the healing art 

 for his profession, he went, in 1781, to Vienna, 

 the Medical School of which had obtained great 

 reputation, particularly since the time of Van 

 Swieten and Stahl. 



Dr. Gall gives an account, of which the fol- 

 lowing is an abstract, of the manner in which 

 he was led to the study of the natural talents 

 and dispositions of men, his views of which ter- 

 minated in the formation of the Phrenological 

 System. 



From an early age he was given to observa- 

 tion, and was struck with the fact, that each of 

 his brothers and sisters, companions in play, and 

 schoolfellows, possessed some peculiarity of 

 talent or disposition, which distinguished him 

 from others. Some of his schoolmates were dis- 

 tinguished by the beauty of their penmanship; 

 some by their success in arithmetic, and others 

 by their talent for acquiring a knowledge of 

 natural history, or of languages. The composi- 

 tions of one were remarkable for elegance, while 

 the style of another was stiff and dry; and a 

 third connected his reasonings in the closest man- 

 ner, and clothed his argument in the most forci- 

 ble language. Their dispositions were equally 

 different, and this diversity appeared also to de- 

 termine the direction of their partialities and aver- 

 sions. Not a few of them manifested a capacity 

 for employments which they were not taught: 

 they cut figures in wood, or delineated them on 



paper: some devoted their leisure to painting, 

 or the culture of a garden, while their comrades 

 abandoned themselves to noisy games, or tra- 

 versed the woods to gather flowers, seek for 

 birds' nests, or catch butterflies. In this manner 

 each individual presented a character peculiar to 

 himself; and Gall observed, that the individual 

 who, in one year, had displayed selfish or knavish 

 dispositions, did not become in the next a good 

 and faithful friend. 



The scholars with whom young Gall had the 

 greatest difficulty in competing, were those who 

 learned by heart with great facility; and such 

 individuals frequently gained from him by their 

 repetitions, the places which he had'obtained by 

 the merit of his original compositions. 



Some years afterwards, having changed his 

 place of residence, he still met individuals en- 

 dowed with an equally great talent of learning 

 to repeat. He then observed, that his school- 

 fellows, so gifted, possessed prominent eyes ; and 

 he recollected, that his rivals in the first school 

 had been distinguished by the same peculiarity. 

 When he entered the University, he directed his 

 attention, from the first, to the students whose 

 eyes were of this description, and he soon found 

 that they all excelled in getting rapidly by heart, 

 and giving correct recitations, although many of 

 them were by no means distinguished in point 

 of general talent. This observation was recog- 

 nised also by the other students in the classes; 

 and, although the connection betwixt the talent 

 and the external sign was not at this time estab- 

 lished upon such complete evidence as is requisite 

 for a philosophical conclusion, yet Dr. Gall could 

 not believe that the coincidence of the two cir- 

 cumstances thus observed was entirely "acci- 

 dental." He suspected, therefore, from this 

 period, that they stood in an important relation 

 to each other. After much reflection, he con- 

 ceived, that if Memory for words was indicated 

 by an external sign, the same might be the case 

 with the other intellectual powers; and, from 

 that moment, all individuals distinguished by 

 any "remarkable" faculty became the objects 

 of his attention. By degrees, he conceived him- 

 self to have found external characteristics, which 

 indicated a decided disposition for Painting, 

 Music, and the Mechanical Arts. He became 

 acquainted, also, with some individuals distin- 

 guishable for the determination of their cha- 

 racter, and he observed a particular part of their 

 heads to be very largely developed. This fact 

 first suggested to him the idea of looking to the 

 head for the signs of the Moral Sentiments. But 

 in making these observations, he never conceived, 

 for a moment, that the Skull was " the cause " of 

 the different talents, as has been erroneously 

 represented ; — he referred the influence, whatever 

 it was, to the Brain. 



In following out, by observations, the principle 

 which accident had thus suggested, he for some 

 time encountered difficulties of the greatest mag- 

 nitude. Hitherto he had been altogether igno- 

 rant of the opinions of Physiologists, touching the 

 brain, and of Metaphysicians respecting the men- 

 tal faculties, and had simply obseived nature. 

 When, however, he began to enlarge his know- 

 ledge of books, he found the most extraordinary 

 conflict of opinions everywhere prevailing, and 



