262 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



hardly write with ease, unless I am seeking to prove some- 

 thing. Mere narrative is distasteful to me. The remainder 

 of the section calls for no special observation. 



{h) I will only remark that the defect here pointed out 

 does undoubtedly exist, and it has been of some use to me to 

 know it. 



On the whole, it appears to me that these two expositions 

 of my character, the result of a very rapid examination of the 

 form of my head by two perfect strangers, made in public 

 among, perhaps, a dozen others, all waiting at the end of 

 an evening lecture, are so curiously exact in so many dis- 

 tinct points as to demonstrate a large amount of truth — 

 both in the principle and in the details — of the method by 

 which they were produced. A short account of the evidence 

 in support of Phrenology is given in my " Wonderful 

 Century " (Chapter xx.), and those who are interested in the 

 subject will there see that the supposed " localization of 

 motor areas," by Professor Ferrier and others, which are 

 usually stated to be a disproof of the science, are really one 

 of its supports, the movements produced being merely those 

 which express the emotions due to the excitation of the 

 phrenological organ excited. When I touched the organ of 

 Veneration in one of my boy patients at Leicester he fell 

 upon his knees, closed his palms together, and gazed upwards, 

 with the facial expression of a saint in the ecstasy of adora- 

 tion. Here are very definite movements of a great number 

 of the muscles of the whole body, and some of the movements 

 observed by Professor Ferrier were almost as complex, and 

 almost as clearly due to the physical expression of a familiar 

 and powerful emotion. 



I will here briefly record a few family events which suc- 

 ceeded my departure from England early in 1848. My 

 brother, not having enough surveying or other work to live 

 upon, took a small house and a few acres of good pasture land 

 near the town, in order to keep cows and supply milk. This 

 he tried for a year, my mother and sister living with him, 

 doing the house work, while he carried the milk daily into 



