Superior Sentiments.
13. Benevolence (Bonté), on the middle of the frontal bone in front of the coronal suture; here Gall noticed a rising on the head of the highly commended servant of a friend, as well as on a benevolent schoolmate who nursed his brothers and sisters when they were ill. To this spot Xenocrates referred the intellectual powers.
14. Veneration (Sentiment réligieux), median at the bregma Gall noted when visiting churches that those who prayed with the greatest fervour were prominent in this region, and it was also prominent in a pious brother.
15. Conscientiousness, Believingness (Forster) unknown to Gall; recognized by Spurzheim usually from its deficiency, and placed between the last and the parietal eminence.
16. Firmness (Fermeté), median, on the sagittal suture from behind the bregma to the front of the obelion. Lavater first pointed out that persons of determination had lofty heads.
17. Hope, not regarded as primary by Gall, who believed hope to be akin to desire and a function of every faculty which desires and left this territory unallocated.
18. Wonder, said to be large in vision-seers and many psychic researchers. A second similar organ placed between this and the next is called Mysterizingness by Forster, and is said to be the seat of belief in ghosts and in the supernatural.
19. Ideality (Poésie), noted by Gall from its prominence in the busts of poets; said to be the part touched by the hand when composing poetry.
20. Wit (Esprit caustique), the frontal eminence, the organ of the sense of the ludicrous, prominent in F. Rabelais and J. Swift.
21. Imitation (Faculté d'imiter), disposition to mimicry, placed between Benevolence and Wonder.
Perceptive Faculties.
22. Individuality, over the frontal sinus in the middle line; the capacity of recognizing external objects and forming ideas therefrom, said to have been large in Michelangelo, and small in the Scots.
23. Form (Mémoire des personnes), capacity of recognizing faces; gives a wide interval between the eyes; found by Gall in a squinting girl with a good memory for faces.
24. Size, over the trochlea at the orbital edge; described by Spurzheim and Vimont as the capacity of estimating space and distance.
25. Weight, outside the last on the orbital edge and, like it, over the frontal sinus. The prominence of ridge here is due to large sinus or a projecting bone. Certain old writers, such as Strato Physicus, located the whole intellect in this ridge.
26. Colour, also on the orbital edge external to the last.
27. Locality (Sens de localité), placed above Individuality on each side, and corresponding to the upper part of the frontal sinus and to the region immediately above it.
28. Number, on the external angular process of the frontal bone, large in a calculating boy in Vienna.
29. Order, internal to the last, first noted by Spurzheim in an orderly idiot.
30. Eventuality (Mémoire des choses), the median projection above the glabella, supposed to be the seat of the memory of events.
31. Time, below the frontal eminence and a little in front of the temporal crest.
32. Tune (Sens des rapports des tons), on the foremost part of the temporal muscle, where Gall noticed a bulge on the head of a musical prodigy of five.
33. Language (Sens des mots), behind the eye. This was the first organ noticed by Gall, as a clever schoolfellow, quick at languages, had prominent eyes. Old authors had noted the connexion between prominent eyeballs and mental development; thus Gazzali and Syenensis Medicus Cyprius place the intellect and soul behind the eyeballs.
Reflective Faculties.
34. Comparison (Sagacité comparative), median, at the top of the bare region of the forehead, where a savant friend of Gall's, fond of analogies, had a prominent boss.
35. Causality (Esprit métaphysique), the eminence on each side of Comparison, noticed on the head of Fichte and on a bust of Kant; the seat of the faculty of correlating causes and effects.
The first identification of each organ was made by an induction from very limited data, but the founders and exponents of the system have collected all available instances wherein enlargements of each of these regions coexisted with increased powers of the faculty supposed to reside therein, and in some cases they have discovered coincidences of a surprising nature. When, however, such do not exist, a convenient excuse is found by reference to the indefinite article of temperament, or by a supposed explanation of the faculty in question as not simple but produced by the co-operation of other influences. Thus, as Sheridan's bump of wit was small, he is said not to have been truly witty; but to have had comparison and memory strongly developed. The girl Labrosse (described in Férussac's Bulletin for October 1831), who exhibited strong amativeness but had a rudimentary cerebellum, is said to have obliterated it by over-use. Thurtell, a cold-blooded murderer, whose organ of benevolence was large, is said to have been generous, as he once gave half-a-guinea to a friend, &c.
The method whereby the sizes of organs are estimated is arbitrary and the boundaries of the regions indefinite. The attempts of Nicol, Straton and Wight to devise mechanical and accurate modes of measurement have not been very successful and have not found favour with the professional phrenologist.
Anatomical Aspect of Phrenology.—The phrenological controversy served the useful purpose of stimulating research into the anatomy of the brain; but we owe very little of solid progress to the advocates of the system. Gall is the only writer of his creed in whose works original observations of value are to be found, and Dr B. Holländer has cited many interesting and carefully recorded anatomical and clinical facts in his writings. Although the study of the surface of the cerebrum is of the essence of phrenology, yet nowhere in the circle of phrenological literature are the convolutions of the brain accurately described; our knowledge of their order and disposition comes from the morphologist, not from the phrenologist. The first real step towards their systematic description was made by L. Rolando,[1] who in 1830 described the fissure to which his name is attached, and very little advance was made until the publication in 1856 of L. P. Gratiolet's[2] and Huschke's[3] memoirs. These works for the first time placed the description of the surface of the brain, imperfectly attempted by L. A. Desmoulins in 1825,[4] on a satisfactory basis.
A description of the anatomy of the brain is given under the heading Brain, so it is necessary here only to refer to points not included in that account.
1. Any psychological theory which correlates brain-action and mental phenomena requires a correspondence between brain-size and mental power; and, speaking generally, the brains of those whose capacities are above the average are larger than those of the general run of their fellow-men.
2. Direct measurements of the relative developments of different portions of brains are difficult and troublesome to make; but their importance to phrenologists is so great that it is remarkable that no attempts to obtain any such were made by them. The series given by R. Wagner of the relative sizes of the cerebral lobes of four brains is almost the only record of importance in this direction, and is appended.
| Brain of | Square Inches. Surface of Frontal Lobe. | Surface of Parietal Lobe. | Surface of Occipital Lobe. | Surface of Temporo-Sphenoidal. | Relation of Frontal Lobe (Perceptive and Reflective Organs) to whole Surface = 1. | Relation of Parietal Lobe (Sentiments) to Surface = 1. | Relation of Remaining Surface (Propensities) to Surface = 1. | Extent of Free Surface. | Extent of Surface of Involutions. | Total Extent of Surface. | Weight in Grammes. |
| Fuchs, clinical teacher | 143.4 | 69.5 | 59 | 67.5 | .419 | .203 | .340 | 110.7 | 231.3 | 342 | 1499 |
| Gauss, mathematician | 139 | 70.6 | 59.4 | 68.4 | .407 | .207 | .374 | 112.8 | 228.2 | 341 | 1492 |
| Workman | 113.2 | 62.3 | 50.3 | 62 | .385 | .214 | .385 | 97.4 | 193.6 | 291 | 1273 |
| Woman | 130 | 65 | 51 | 66.8 | .409 | .204 | .370 | 107.5 | 209.9 | 317.4 | 1185 |
From this it appears that the woman exceeded Gauss in perceptive and reflective organs, exceeded Fuchs in sentiment, and fell below the workman in propensities. It must be said, however, that the phrenological divisions do not accurately coincide with the anatomical. It would furnish important physiological data if the brains of men distinguished for special qualities were examined in this or some comparable way.
3. It is important in relation to phrenology to ascertain the constancy of the convolutions. Many varieties in the detail of the surface-patterns have been recorded by Tenchini, Poggi, Giacomini, N. Rüdinger, Cunningham and Sernow,[5] but the general plan is fairly uniform. A still more important question has been recently raised by J. N. Langley, viz. how far identical spots on
- ↑ Della Struttura degli emisferi cerebrali (Turin, 1830).
- ↑ Mémoire sur les plis cérébraux de l'homme et des primates (Paris, 1856).
- ↑ Schädel, Hirn, und Seele (Jena, 1856).
- ↑ Magendie and Desmoulins, Anat. du syst. nerveux (Paris, 1825).
- ↑ Revista sperimentale di freniatria (1883), ii. 193; ibid. iv. 403; Archiv für Anthropologie (1879), xi. 289.
