Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/880

844 PHRENOLOGY account, it arose with him as the result of independent observations. These, he tells us, he began to make at an early age, by learning to correlate the outward appearances and mental qualities of his schoolfellows. 1 Gall s first published paper was a letter in the Deutscher Merkur of December 1798, but his principal expositions were oral, and attracted much popular attention, which largely increased when, in 1802, he was commanded by the Austrian Govern ment, at the instance of the ecclesiastical authorities, to discontinue his public lectures. In 1804 he obtained the co-operation of Spurzheim (1776-1832), a native of Long- wich near Treves, who became his pupil in 1 800, and proved a powerful ally in promulgating the system. Master and pupil at first taught in harmony, but they found it advis able to separate in 1813; and we find Spurzheim, several years after their parting, declaring that Gall had not introduced any new improvements into his system since their separation (notes to Chenevix, p. 99). " My philo sophical views," he also says, " widely differ from those of Gall." In Paris, where he settled in 1807, Gall made many influential converts to his system. Broussais, Blainville, Cloquet, Andral, Geoffroy St-Hilaire, Vimont, and others warmly attached themselves to it, and countenanced its progress. Gall visited Great Britain, but the diffusion of phrenology there was chiefly due to Spurzheim, who lec tured through the country and through America, and, with the aid of his pupil George Combe, soon attracted a large popular following. His most influential disciples were Elliotson, Andrew Combe, Mackenzie, Macnish, Laycock, and Archbishop Whately, and in America Caldwell and Godman. On the opposite side many influential men took up a strongly antagonistic position, prominent among whom were Barclay the anatomist, Roget, Sir Charles Bell, Sir W. Hamilton, Jeffrey, Brougham, T. Brown, and Sir B. Brodie. The nature of the system rendered it eminently fitted to catch public attention, arid it rapidly attained to so great a degree of popularity that in 1832 there were twenty-nine phrenological societies in Great Britain, and several journals devoted to phrenology in Britain and America ; of these the Phrenological Journal, a quarterly edited chiefly by George Combe with aid from others of the Edinburgh confraternity, notably Sir George Mackenzie and Macnish, "the modern Pythagorean," lived from 1823 to 1847, through twenty volumes. The controversy in many places was heated and often personal, and this largely increased the popular interest. In the Edinburgh Review the theory was severely criticized by Thomas Brown, and afterwards in a still more trenchant manner by Jeffrey. In Blackwood it was ridiculed by Professor Wilson. Being a subject which lent itself easily to burlesque, it was parodied cleverly in a long rhyme by two authors, "The Craniad," 87 pages long, published in 1817, while, on the other hand, verse was pressed into its service in the rhyme " Phrenology in Edinburgh " in 1824. 2 The best defence of the system was that by Chenevix in the third number of the Foreign Quarterly, afterwards reprinted with notes by Spurzheim. The popularity of phrenology has waned, and few of the phrenological societies now survive ; the cultivation of the system is confined to a few enthusiasts such as will be found attached to any cause, and some professional teachers who follow phrenology as a vocation. Like many similar systems, it has a much larger following in America than in Europe. Based, like many other artificial philosophies, on an admixture of assumption and truth, 1 For a brief sketch of the life of Gall, see GALL, vol. x. p. 37. 2 Other burlesque and satirical writings were published at this time, notably Thf, Phrennlogiste, a farce by Wade, 1830 ; The Headpiece, or Phrenology oppnsed to Divine Revelation, by James the Less ; and A Helmst for the. Headpiece, or Phrenology incompatible vrith Reason, by Daniel the Seer. certain parts will survive and become incorporated into scientific psychology, while the rest will in due course come to be relegated to the limbo of effete heresies. The Faculties and their Localities. The system of Gall was constructed by a method of pure empiricism, and his so-called organs were for the most part identified on slender grounds. Having selected the place of a faculty, he ex amined the heads of his friends and casts of persons with that peculiarity in common, and in them he sought for the distinctive feature of their characteristic trait. Some of his earlier studies were made among low associates, in jails, and in lunatic asylums, and some of the qualities located by him were such as tend to become perverted to crime. These he named after their excessive manifestations, map ping out organs of murder, theft, &c. ; but as this cast some discredit on the system the names were changed by Spurz heim, who claimed as his the moral and religious consider ations associated with it. Gall marked out on his model of the head the places of twenty-six organs as round en closures with vacant interspaces. Spurzheim and Combe divided the whole scalp into oblong and conterminous patches (see the accompanying figures). Other methods of division and other names have been suggested by succeed ing authors, especially by Cox, Sidney Smith (not Sydney), Toulmin Smith, Carus of Dresden, Don Mariano Cubi i Solar, Powell of Kentucky, Buchanan of Cincinnati, Hittel of New York. Some, like the brothers Fowler, raise the number of organs to forty-three ; but the system of Spurz heim and Combe is that which has always been most popular in Britain. Spurzheim separated the component faculties of the human mind into two great groups and subdivided these as follows. I. Feelings, divided into 1. Propensities, internal impulses inviting only to certain actions. 2. Sentiments, impulses which prompt to emotion as well as to action. A. Lower, those common to man and the lower animals. B. Higher, those proper to man. II. Intellectual faculties. 1. Perceptive faculties. 2. Reflective faculties. In the following list the locality and the circumstances of the first recognition of the organ are appended to the names, which are mostly the inventions of Spurzheim. Gall s names are placed in brackets. 3 Propensities. (1) Amativeness (Instinct de la generation), median, below the inion ; first determined by Gall from its heat in an hysterical widow, supposed to be confirmed by many observations, and referred to the cerebellum. 4 (2) Philoprogenitiveness (Amour de la progeniturc), median, on the squama occipitis, and selected as the organ for the love of children because this part of the skull is usually more prominent in apes and in women, in whom the love of children is supposed to be stronger than in men. (3) Concentrativeness, below the obelion and over the lambda. This is a region of uncertain function, unnoticed by Gall, but de scribed as Inhabitiveness by Spurzheim, because he found it large in cats and in a clergyman fond of his home. It has since been con sidered by Combe to be the seat of the power of concentration, whereof he believed Inhabitiveness to be a special case. (4) Adhesiveness (Amitie), over the lateral convoluted area of the lambdoidal suture. This region was prominent in a lady intro duced to Gall as a model of friendship, and is said by him to be the region where persons who are closely attached put their heads together. (5) Combativeness (Instinct de la defense], above the asterion ; it was found by Gall by examining the heads of the most quarrelsome 3 For topographical purposes Broca s names are adopted as the most convenient for localities on the head. 4 Apollonius Rhodius speaking of the love of Medea for Jason (Aryonautica, iii. 760-765) says, " 8di<pv d aw 6<f>9a/j.wv p^fv ZvSoOi 8 aid relp bovvjj ff/jLiixovva Sia XP^> a/j.<pl dpaias Ivos Kal K{(f>arjs, inrb veiarov ivlov &xpis, ..."