70 ON THE MENTAL QUALITIES AND 



" The chief peculiarity," observes Dr. Pritchard, " of 

 Dr. Gall's psychological theory, was the attempt to draw a 

 parallel between the animal qualities displayed by the 

 lower animals, and the individual varieties discovered 

 among men."* It is proposed, in the present paper, to 

 examine the grounds on which this theory rests, and to 

 investigate the relation supposed by phrenologists to exist 

 between the cerebral configuration of animals, and their 

 various instincts or mental powers, for such Gall considers 

 them to be. 



Although it is probable that metaphysicians have erred 

 in considering reason and instinct as widely different from 

 each other, and in having separated them by so broad a 

 boundary as they imagine to be indicated in nature, yet 

 none of their number have ever considered the operations 

 of the brute mind in a manner, which, to appearance at 

 least, promised to lead to such astonishing results as we 

 are informed have been drawn by the aid of phrenology, 

 from fields so often, though unsuccessfully explored. We 

 are told by a late writer on this subject, that by investigat- 

 ing nature by the aid of phrenology, c< we will have accu- 

 rate and sound physiological data, and a definite vocabu- 

 lary ; and we will not then be obliged to use the ambigu- 

 ous term instinct, to designate in animals all their feelings 

 and propensities, as well as their various perceptive 

 powers."t In the present state of our knowledge of men- 

 tal operations, it is our duty carefully to examine the 

 grounds on which each new system is founded, in the 

 hopes that by so doing, some new light will be thrown 



* Pritchard on Insanity, p. 465. 

 ft The Naturalist, vol. iv. p. 428. 



