Spurzheim is a good man, and I like him; but he is dense, and the most
ignorant German I ever knew. If he had been content with stating certain
remarkable coincidences between the moral qualities and the configuration
of the skull, it would have been well; but when he began to map out the
cranium dogmatically, he fell into infinite absurdities. You know that
every intellectual act, however you may distinguish it by name in respect
of the originating faculties, is truly the act of the entire man; the
notion of distinct material organs, therefore, in the brain itself, is
plainly absurd. Pressed by this, Spurzheim has, at length, been guilty of
some sheer quackery; and ventures to say that he has actually discovered a
different material in the different parts or organs of the brain, so that
he can tell a piece of benevolence from a bit of destructiveness, and so
forth. Observe, also, that it is constantly found, that so far from there
being a concavity in the interior surface of the cranium answering to the
convexity apparent on the exterior--the interior is convex too. Dr. Baillie
thought there was something in the system, because the notion of the brain
being an extendible net helped to explain those cases where the intellect
remained after the solid substance of the brain was dissolved in water.[1]
That a greater or less development of the forepart of the head is generally
coincidedent with more or less of reasoning power, is certain. The line
across the forehead, also, denoting musical power, is very common.
[Footnote 1:
"The very marked, _positive_ as well as comparative, magnitude and
prominence of the bump, entitled _benevolence_ (see Spurzheim's _map of the
human skull_) on the head of the late Mr. John Thurtell, has woefully
unsettled the faith of many ardent phrenologists, and strengthened the
previous doubts of a still greater number into utter disbelief. On _my_
mind this fact (for a _fact_ it is) produced the directly contrary effect;
and inclined me to suspect, for the first time, that there may be some
truth in the Spurzheimian scheme. Whether future craniologists may not see
cause to _new-name_ this and one or two others of these convex gnomons, is
quite a different question. At present, and according to the present use of
words, any such change would be premature; and we must be content to say,
that Mr. Thurtell's benevolence was insufficiently modified by the
unprotrusive and unindicated convolutes of the brain, that secrete honesty
and common sense. The organ of destructiveness was indirectly _potentiated_
by the absence or imperfect development of the glands of reason and
conscience in this '_unfortunate gentleman.'"--_Aids to Reflection_, p.
143. n.]
_August_ 20. 1830.