72 



ON THE MENTAL QUALITIES AND 



whose manners he was well acquainted, he would not em- 

 ploy language so vague as we constantly find him using, 

 whenever he treats of the application of phrenology to the 

 skulls of animals."* Yet these are the men who say that 

 " a physiological system of the brain would necessarily be 

 false, were it in contradiction with its anatomical struc- 

 ture ;"t and on anatomy accordingly, conjoined with phy- 

 siology, do they deem their system secure as on a rock, 

 although of that portion of their labours which alone we 

 are considering, viz. comparative phrenology, no less an au- 

 thority than Tiedemann says as follows: — " If we take a 

 glance over the great work of Dr. Gall, we see prevailing 

 everywhere the idea that we must study the structure of 

 the nervous system and the brain, in rising gradually from 

 the most simple animals up to man. But what has Dr. 

 Gall really done ? He has only described and represented 

 the nerves of a caterpillar, the brain of a hen, and the spinal 

 marrow of some mammalia ; and yet his work is not free 

 from errors in this point." % 



Since it has thus been shewn that the statements of Gall 

 and Spurzheim, with respect to comparative phrenology at 

 least, are not to be relied on, it is fortunate indeed for their 

 followers, that one of their number has more than compen- 

 sated for this original defect. I allude to Dr. Joseph Yi- 

 mont of Paris, by far the most scientific phrenologist of the 

 day, and the only one who appears to have examined phre- 

 nology in all its bearings, upon man as well as on the lower 

 animals. This gentleman, after the undivided labour of 



* Vimont's Traite de Phrenologie, p. 332. 

 •f Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 466. 

 X See Vimont's Prospectus, p. 9. 



