the other continue sound, motion will remain, and vice versa; or are you aware, that although the mesenteric glands and the spleen have been often dissected, their functions are still a mystery in physiology?

Phil. Yes, I am aware of the principle, and admit the facts.

Phren. Do you not perceive, then, that it was absolutely impossible for anatomists, by mere dissection, to discover the functions of the brain?

Phil. Well-suppose, for the sake of argument, that I do so this does not shew that you can discover these functions any more than they.

Phren. Certainly not-if we pursued no other method than that of dissection. It is a vulgar error to suppose, that Dr Gall assigned different faculties to different parts of the brain, in consequence of dissecting that organ. This notion has been industriously propagated in the public mind, and yet phrenologists uniformly state it as a fundamental principle of their science, that the vital function of no organic part can be discovered by means of dissection alone. But to proceed. They farther maintain, that by reflecting on consciousness, or on what passes within our own minds, we could never discover the nature of the substance which lies in the interior of the head; and of course, that although different parts of the brain were de facto the organs of different mental powers, we could never find out that they were so by this mode of exclusively reflecting on consciousness.

Phil. Well, but what then?

Phren. These are two philosophical facts, which the phrenologists found upon as fundamental principles. I have never seen them contested; but their application is not attended to. If they be sound, the inference from them is irresistible, that those philosophers who have hitherto sought to discover the functions of the brain by dissection alone, or by reflection on consciousness alone, or even by both together, must be as ignorant of these functions as the clown is of Euclid. When, therefore, without pursuing any other mode of inquiry, they are pleased to say that phrenology is perfectly absurd, they approach much nearer to the supposed conduct of this person than they imagine.

Phil. This may do very well to shew that philosophers in general know nothing of the functions of the brain; but it does not shew that the phrenologists are farther advanced.

Phren. True; but they go a step farther. Sir Charles Bell discovered that motion is attached to one set of nervous fibres, and feeling to another, by cutting each at its origin, and observing that the power was instantly lost. Now, Nature has to a certain extent performed this operation to our hand, in regard to different portions of the brain. One man has a much greater quantity of brain lying under the middle of the parietal bone than another; and the phrenologists observe (and that observation has been confirmed by many thousand instances, and falsified in none) that he who has the larger portion manifests a strong natural sentiment of Cautiousness, and that he who possesses the smaller portion, manifests very little of this feeling. The same observation may be made in regard to Ideality, and all the other organs.

Phil. It is easy to represent these as observations of vast importance; but you forget that the two tables of the skull are not parallel, and hence, that whatever external appearances may indicate, you can draw no conclusion as to the size of the brain beneath.

Phren. This is one of the bold assertions made by our opponents, but it is utterly unfounded. Does not the bark indicate the shape of the tree? Does not the shell correspond to the size of the crab? Does not the brain increase in dimensions betwixt infancy and manhood? And does not the skull, in all its varying changes, accommodate itself to its figure? Some persons have averred, that the brain attains its full growth at three, and others at seven years of age; but every hatter's apprentice will tell you that this

is a very absurd mistake. It is true, that in cases of disease the skull becomes irregular. In its structure it is then sometimes thicker, sometimes thinner, than in health; but such cases are not those by which phrenology is to be confirmed or refuted. Take a healthy man in the vigour of life, and I affirm, without fear of refutation, that the skull takes its form from the brain, and indicates the real shape of that organ.

Phil. But many anatomists prove the reverse; they ex

hibit a great variety of skulls presenting the most irregular surfaces.

Phren. I know they do ; but they never venture on the assertion, that these form a fair specimen of the skulls of healthy individuals in the prime of manhood. They say nothing on this point, but leave it to their hearers to take it for granted, which they generally do. The phrenologists, on the other hand, assert, that the skulls thus paraded are selections of diseased and extraordinary cases-exceptions to the general rule,—and that they no more afford fair specimens of the structure of the healthy skull than the diseased tibiæ and femora exhibited by the same anatomists afford specimens of the appearance of these bones in a state of health.

Phil. But in every skull which I ever saw, there are divergences from the parallelism of the outer and inner tables.

Phren. True; and this objection is generally stated in a sophistical manner, without specification, to make it tell beyond its real force against phrenology. Variations from perfect parallelism between the two tables of the skull, to the extent of an eighth or a tenth of an inch, are not unfrequently observed in the skulls even of healthy individuals; but then the difference between the development of a large organ and a small organ amounts to a full inch, and frequently to more. Now, to give this objection force, it ought to be asserted, that the bone in a sound skull in middle life is generally found varying from an inch in thickness in one part, to only an eighth of an inch in another, and this so irregularly, that in no instance where a prominence appears can we tell whether we must penetrate through an inch of bone before arriving at the brain, or whether we may not meet with it at an eighth of an inch below the surface. Do you make such an assertion as this?

Phil. No, I do not; but in your smaller organs this eighth of an inch may be fatal to all your observations.

Phren. This is evading the question, as our opponents generally do. If you wish to find the truth, seek for it where it is most palpable in the first place, and afterwards proceed to points of greater difficulty. If you really wish to put phrenology to the test, contrast the heads of persons whose characters you know to differ extremely in one point; and

You

if the difference of development of the corresponding organ be not palpably obvious, I shall give up the cause. may then be entitled to talk against it, but not till then. Phil. But this practice of poking at heads is absurd and ridiculous, and no gentleman can follow it without being laughed at as a fool.

Phren. They who sit enthroned in antiquated and erroneous opinions find it easier to laugh at methods which threaten to hurl them from their high estate, than to offer a valid objection to them by argument. They have been successful in maintaining the laugh for a time, because the real state of the matter in dispute was not generally known. As soon as this is the case, the tables will be turned. An individual is never truly absurd in seeking important knowledge in the only way in which it is to be found; and when the phrenologists have convinced the public, first, of the utter ignorance of their opponents, and, secondly, of the adequacy of their own method of investigation to arrive at truth, the ridicule will attach altogether to the other side. The opponents must stoop to be schooled by those whom they affect to despise, or act upon the maxim,

"Ne voyons goutte, cherissons l'erreur."

Phil. But you deceive yourselves; your imaginations are heated, and you see facts just because you wish to see them.

Phren. Then it is your duty to observe better and contradict us. You are not entitled to assume our incapacity to observe, without a shadow of evidence of the real existence of this incapacity. We court inquiry; we exhibit our casts, put callipers with a graduated scale into your hands, and request you to examine, and measure, and refute us if you can. Besides, it is a truly ludicrous manifestation of one of our demonstrated organs, Self-Esteem, for an opponent to assume that he himself, without one moment's attention to the subject, is a better judge of the real nature and merits of phrenology than other individuals who have devoted much time and labour to its investigation. Such a piece of conceit might have passed without severe animadversion while the phrenologists were few in number and obscure; but when societies are formed in various places for its cultivation, professing it to be a well

founded experimental science, and when full courses of lectures on it are delivered, and attended, day after day, with patient attention by gentlemen arrived at maturity of judgment and of acknowledged talents and reputation,— such a practice of contemptuous condemnation exposes him who uses it to just ridicule.

Phil. But the fact is, that the votaries of phrenology are all third-rate men-persons without scientific or philosophical reputations. You are not entitled, therefore, to challenge the regard of those who have higher studies to occupy their attention. You complain that they only ridicule and abuse you, and do not venture to challenge your principles or refute your facts; but you do not yet stand high enough in their esteem to give you a right to expect any other treatment. The world has gone on well enough with the philosophy of mind it already possesses, which, besides, is consecrated by great and venerable names, while your system has neither symmetry of structure, beauty of arrangement, nor the suffrages of the learned to recommend it.

Phren. Ferdinand of Spain thinks the world goes on admirably without liberty, and the Grand Turk conceives his people to be blessed by ignorance;—if you belong to their school, and imagine knowledge to be of no value, because men can eat, drink, and sleep, without it, I rejoice that the old philosophy continues to be honoured by your support. The admirers of the new system reckon no moral or physical truth unimportant, just because it is necessarily of divine origin. Besides, you are deciding without examination, and consequently without knowledge, that there is no symmetry or beauty in phrenology. It possesses these attributes in the highest degree; for nature is ever beautiful and harmonious. You smile at this assertion; but you have no authority for the opposite opinion. You are aware, moreover, that many great discoveries have been treated with derision at their first announcement. It is at present (1824) little more than ten years since I heard a celebrated poetical baronet play off more bad jokes against an ingenious gentleman who asserted the possibility of lighting London with gas, than he has uttered even against phrenology itself; and yet London is now lighted in the way then ridiculed—