82 



ON THE MENTAL QUALITIES AND 



mammalia.* What then is to he done? The cfffestion na- 

 turally follows, is it a brain at all ? or, if it he, how are we 

 to parcel it out into different organs ? The phrenologists 

 say, " by observation/* As a fair specimen of their man- 

 ner of observing, I shall adduce Vimont's reasons for sup- 

 posing that the organ of Time occupies a particular part of 

 the brain of a crow which he specifies. The first is, be- 

 cause the function of the part in question has not yet been 

 determined ; the second, because certain organs being ad- 

 jacent, and forming groups, it is natural that the situation 

 of Time should be close to those of Resistance, Order, and 

 Distance ; his third reason is, because this region is very 

 prominent in the crow, which is gifted in a remarkable de- 

 gree with the faculty of appreciating time ; and his fourth 

 is, because he has found this organ very prominent in all 

 birds of passage.f 



Having thus ascertained the seat of each organ in a given 

 individual, by the aid of such specious reasoning as I have 

 adduced, the next point is to determine it in others. One 

 would think, that the function residing in any given part 

 of the brain of a crow, for example, would likewise be 

 found in the corresponding part of the brain of an eagle, a 

 hen, or indeed any other bird. But this, according to 

 phrenology, is not the proper mode of inquiry, as may be 

 seen by the following quotation : it. Because in man, and 

 in the dog. and carnivorous animals in general, Destruc- 

 tiveness is discovered by observation to lie above the 

 meatus auditorius, it does not follow that the portion of 



* I speak here of the brain proper, apart from its appendages and 

 connexions. 

 f Traite de Ph-renologie, p. 376. 



