CEREBRAL DEVELOPMENT OF BIRDS. 



73 



six years, and at considerable expense, completed in 1827 

 his Memoir on Comparative Phrenology, which he had un- 

 dertaken in order to compete for the prize offered by the 

 French Institute, ten years before, and the object of which 

 was to obtain information on the organization of the skull 

 and brain in animals. Accompanying this essay was a col- 

 lection of skulls, to the number of 1200, along with many 

 brains modelled in wax, and an atlas of plates representing 

 the objects referred to.* His observations have since been 

 presented to the public, accompanied with figures, unrival- 

 led as anatomical representations, and in point of exe- 

 cution, far surpassing the illustrations to most scientific 

 works. 



Of his labours it is impossible to speak with too much 

 praise ; and had he done nothing but merely correct the 

 innumerable errors committed by his predecessors, his name 

 would still rank as one of the founders of phrenology. But 

 he has done more : — besides giving a minute account of the 

 nervous system and form of the cranium, as existing through- 

 out the vertebrata, he has endeavoured to trace all the psy- 

 chological acts of the lower animals to their very source, 

 and to point out upon the brain the different organs which 

 control all their actions. As he considered, and with jus- 

 tice, that all other writers on phrenology had taken too 

 limited a view of their subject, and, in a manner, consider- 

 ed man alone, he brings in to his aid a host of observations 

 made upon the lower animals, and throwing this reflected 

 light of analogy upon previously ascertained facts, is thus 

 enabled to confirm the conclusions he had formerly arrived 



* Phrenological Journal, vol. iv. p. 150. 



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