Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/884

848 PHRENOLOGY Psychological Aspect. The fundamental hypothesis which underlies phrenology as a system of mental science is that mental phenomena are resolvable into the mani festations of a group of separate faculties. A faculty is defined as "a convenient expression for the particular states into which the mind enters when influenced by par ticular organs ; it is applied to the feelings as well as to the intellect, thus the faculty of benevolence means every mode of benevolence induced by the organ of benevolence " (Combe). In another work the same author says it is " used to denote a particular power of feeling, thinking, perceiving, connected with a particular part of the brain." The assumption is contained in the definition that the exercise of a faculty is the physical outcome of the activity of the organ, and in several of the standard works this is illustrated by analogies between these and other organs ; thus the organs of benevolence and of firmness are said to be as distinct as the liver and pancreas. The mind, according to another author, consists of the sum of all the faculties. In this view the unity of consciousness is some what difficult to explain, and consequently there is assumed by others a single unifying substratum, and on this the organs are supposed to act ; thus thoughts are defined as " relations of the simple substance, mind, to certain por tions of the encephalon" (Welsh, Phren. Journ., i. 206). Gall himself believed that there was but a single principle which saw, felt, tasted, heard, touched, thought, and willed (Fonctions du Cerveau, i. 243); and the American exponent of phrenology, Caldwell, says "the mind is as single in its power as it is in its substance ; it is a quickening and operating principle, essential to all the mental faculties, but does not, by any means, possess them itself " (Ele ments, p. 16). It is not easy to understand the supposed relation of this hypothetical substratum to the separate faculties acting on it. It must be both immaterial and unconnected with the brain, as the whole two thousand million cells supposed to exist in the cerebral hemispheres are all parcelled out among the faculties, and none are left for the unifying nous. Each organ is considered as engaged, either independ ently in bringing forth its own product, or collectively with others in elaborating compound mental states, and according to their several degrees of development and activity they are considered capable of perceiving, conceiving, recollect ing, judging, or imagining each its own subject. This mechanical conception of the division of labour in the pro duction of the phenomena of mind has the charm of sim plicity, but is attended with the difficulty that arises in discriminating the operations of the different organs one from the other. Phrenologists are apt to be vague respect ing the limits of the several faculties, as about the bound aries of the separate organs. It was pointed out by Jeffrey that the lines of demarcation between benevolence, ad hesiveness, and philoprogenitiveness were indeterminate, although the organs are not very close, and the same applies to other organs. It is unfortunate for the clearness of the definition that, although historically the faculties were the first pheno mena noted, independent of and previous to their localiza tion, yet in the definition the faculties are defined in terms of their localities/ The following arguments are adduced in favour of the fundamental separateness of the faculties : (1) analogy, elsewhere in the animal economy division of labour is the rule; (2) the variety of mental endowment observed among children before they are influenced by education, and the inequalities in the mental endowments of indi viduals ; (3) the phenomena of insanity, especially of monomania ; (4) the varying periods at which individual faculties attain their maximum development ; (5) the phenomena of dreams, and the awakening of a limited number of faculties during them ; (6) pain being felt in an organ when it is overtaxed. 1 Such faculties are supposed to be primary (1) as exist in some animals and not in others, (2) as vary in their development in the sexes, (3) as are developed in varying proportions with regard to other faculties, (4) as may act separately from other faculties, (5) as are not necessarily simultaneous with other faculties in action, (6) as are hereditary, and (7) as may be singly diseased. According to the development of their powers mankind may be divided into six classes: (1) those in whom the highest qualities are largely developed and the animal qualities feeble; (2) those with the reversed conditions developed, with large animal and feeble intellectual and moral faculties ; (3) those in whom good and evil are in constant war, with active animal and strong intellectual faculties and sentiments ; (4) those partial geniuses in whom a few qualities are unusually developed, while the rest are at or below the mediocre standard ; (5) those men of moderate endowment in whom some faculties are nearly or quite deficient ; (6) those with an unvarying standard of undistinguished mediocrity in all their faculties. It is perhaps unfortunate that the word " faculty " has been used in this sense of original power by phrenologists. It would have been better to employ, as Mr Lewes suggests, the term "function" for the native activity of an organ, and to leave " faculty " for the expression of an acquired activity. " Faculty is properly limited to active power, and therefore is abusively applied to the mere passive affections of the mind" (Hamilton, Lectures, i. 177). Practical Application. " Die Schiidellehre ist allerdings nicht so sehr Irrthum in der Idee als Charlatanerie in der Ausfiihrung," says one of its most acute critics. Even though no fault could be found with the physiology and psychology of phrenology, it would not necessarily follow that the theory could be utilized as a practical method of reading character ; for, although the inner surface of the skull is moulded on the brain, and the outer surface approximates to parallelism thereto, yet the correspondence is sufficiently variable to render conclusions therefrom un certain. The spongy layer or diploe which separates the two compact tables may vary conspicuously in amount in different parts of the same skull, as in the cases described by Professor Humphry (Journ. of Anat., vol. viii. p. 137). The frontal sinus, that opprobrium phrenologicum, is a reality, not unfrequently of large size, and may wholly occupy the regions of five organs. The centres of ossifica tion of the frontal and parietal bones, the muscular crests of these and of the occipital bones also, differ in their prominence in different skulls. Premature synostoses of sutures mould the brain without doing much injury to its parts. Artificial malformations alter the apparent skull- shape considerably and affect the relative development of the brain but little. All these and other cogent reasons of a like kind, whose force can be estimated by those accustomed to deal with the component soft parts of the head, should lead phrenologists to be careful in predicating relative brain-development from skull-shape. Psychology, physiology, and experience alike contribute to discredit 1 It is interesting in this connexion to note that in a case published by Professor Hamilton in Brain (April 1884), where a tumour existed on the occipital lobe, the pain was persistently referred to the fore head. Many similar cases are to be noticed among the records of localized brain-lesions. Bearing on this point also it is worth noting, once for all, that in nothing is the purely hypothetical nature of phreno logical description better realized than in the accounts of what these authors call the "natural language of the faculties," that poets are supposed to touch ideality when composing, musicians to press on tone and time, and painters on form and colour, when in the exercise of their arts ! Yet we are gravely taught this in the standard works on the subject.