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gQ4 PHYSIOGNOMY 



he also very closely touches, at times, upon the region of absurdity, if he 

 do not absolutely fall into its boundary ; and, in uniting the name of our 

 Saviour with that of Jupiter, seems to show, that the same cast of rehgion, 

 as well as of moral philosophy, is common to the school. His remarks 

 are as follows : " The pictures of the saints show the very configuration 

 of those pious men whom Gall had first observed. It is also in this respect 

 remarkable that the head of Christ is always represented as very elevated. 

 Have we the real picture of Christ ? Have artists given to the head of 

 Christ a configuration which they have observed in rehgious persons, or 

 have they composed this figure from internal inspiration ? Has the sarrw. 

 sentiment among modern artists given to Christ an elevation of head, as 

 among the ancient it conferred a prominence of forehead upon Jupiter ? 

 At ail events, the shape of the head of Christ contributes to prove this 

 organization."* 



Now in this very singular passage there are three propositions, concern- 

 ing which, it is difficult to say which is to be admired most ; a proof de- 

 duced from queries, which the author is incapable of answeriing ; the idea 

 that our Saviour possibly sat for his picture ; and the idea that modern 

 artists are possibly inspired when they paint his image from their own con- 

 ceptions. I must leave the reader to make his own comments (for I dare 

 not trust myself on the subject) concerning the edifying resemblance which 

 is here pointed out between the head of the Saviour of the world and that 

 of the Jupiter of the Greek poets ; and the unity of sentiment which 

 has ever, it seems, prevailed between ancient and modern artists, when 

 engaged in studying these sacred models. t 



In seriousness and sobriety, however, it is not a little extraordinary, not 

 only that folly and absurdity, but that wisdom, hypocrisy, gluttony, drunk- 

 enness, sensuality, mirth, melancholy, and some dozens of other powers 

 and faculties of the most common kind, should have no chamber allotted 

 to them, no protuberance or manifestation, in the hypothesis before us. 

 During an interview I had some months ago with Dr. Spurzheim, I started 

 this difficulty for explanation ; but his reply was at least not satisfactory to 

 myself It may be sufficient to observe, as a single example, that for the 

 organ of gluttony he referred us to the stomach ; but this is rather to evade 

 than to meet the difficulty. The stomach is unquestionably the organ of 

 hunger ; as the eye of sight, and the ear of hearing ; but if the painter, 



* Physiolog. Syst. p. 412. 



t It is always amusing, and sometimes instructive, to trace the learned rovings of different 

 philosophical imaginations, when indulging in a like pursuit ; to mark the point from which 

 they set out, and follow up the parallelism or divergency of their respective courses, when 

 aiming at a common goal. Sir Everard Home, whom every one will allow to be as deeply 

 versed in the internal structure and the external mapping of the brain as either Dr. Gall or 

 Dr. Spurzheim, seems also, from a late article in the Philosophical Transactions, (1821, p. 



to have felt a tendency to the study of phrenology. But from the only two regions he 

 s^pears yet to have visited in his new voyage of discovery, his bearings are likely to be in 

 every respect widely different from those of the German navigators, and calculated to lead\o 

 very different results. These regions are the supposed natural seats of memory and con- 

 cupiscence. While Dr. Gall and Dr. Spurzheim fix the first of these, as far as they are 

 able to ascertain its dominion, between the nose and the forehead, ( Spurz. p. 427.) Sir 

 Everard has had to pursue his course into a far higher latitude, and did not reach it till he 

 arrived at the vertex of the scull, that very region which the German crauiognomists have 

 already taken possession of for the faculty of religious veneration, as just noticed in the text : 

 at jthe same time, that while these skilful explorers have decidedly fixed the organ of concu- 

 piscence at the nape of the neck, the ultima Thule, or lowermost extremity of the cranial 

 sphere, (p. 344,) Sir Everard has found it at its sinciput or highest part of the forehead; 

 bordering, indeed, where we should little have expected it, npoa the region of memory or 

 religious veneratioHj according to Dr. Gall's hypothesis. 



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