*

against which our present remarks are chiefly directed. The following short extract from the Aldine Magazine may serve to explain one of these latter arts:-"Without specific application to or to any one else, let us, for the sake of illustration, imagine a case. An author's former productions have been eminently successful. The publisher, in consequence, can afford a handsome price; and he agrees to give him a thousand pounds for a new work. Well, now, Mr. * * *, this is a large sum a very large sum that I am paying you for this -and it's all speculation-I am sure I do not know how I am ever to get my money back. But now, just just-it won't do you any harm-in fact, it will be of service to you, if you ever engage with another publisher-and-and, it will serve me, too, in a particular quarter-just-I give you one thousand pounds-it's a very large sum, but, just-just write me a receipt for fifteen hundred pounds, will you? I am sure it will do you good as well as me." The request is, of course, acceded to; bookseller and author are both delighted, and-the public are gulled."

IX. On the Difficulties experienced in the Study of Phrenology. By Mr. JOHN ISAAC HAWKINS. (Read at a Meeting of the London Phrenological Society, April 6th, 1840.)

SINCE looking at difficulties in the face, offers the greatest chance of overcoming them, while to turn the back upon them, is to greatly augment their force; it may be useful to examine the principal difficulties attending the study of phrenology, and to consider the means necessary for overcoming them.

Many persons falsely imagine that phrenology is to be learned by committing to memory the divisions of a marked bust, and examining the living head, to notice the degree of elevation or depression of the corresponding localities. Were these all the requisites of the science we should have a truly "royal road" to phrenology, on which we might travel at our ease, and be sure of arriving without fatigue at our destination. We should then, indeed, have phrenology "made plain to the meanest capacity," and the examining of heads, from the mapping of the bust, would be as easy as the tracing of streets from the map of a town or a city. This is about the amount of the notion, which the anti-phrenologists, in their gross ignorance, assume as the whole of the science itself, and then pro

ceed to fight against their own false assumption with as much effect as Don Quixote produced against the windmill which he assumed to be an armed knight.

The marked bust is about as useful to the student of phrenology as the finger-post at the fork of a road is to the traveller; they both indicate the direction which must be pursued in order to the attainment of the respective ends, but there must be no abiding by the one or by the other, they must both be left behind in order to progress; the traveller must follow the road indicated by the finger-post, and he who would be a successful phrenologist must follow nature, and observe for himself her operations; he must note the formation of heads and skulls of known characters, and as soon as possible slip out of the leading strings of the marked bust. The marked bust is of similar value to phrenology as the alphabet is to language; the numeration table to arithmetic; the notes and other characters to music; the symbols to algebra; and the elements of any science to the science itself. The learning of these is necessary as a preliminary step. It is a transition state, but it is only a transition state, and must be passed through in order to any progress in the respective sciences to which the state introduces.

It is impracticable to mark a bust or a skull, that shall give a tolerably accurate view of the immense variety in which nature sports, in the formation of the human head, and in the location of the phrenological organs; because the organs are often found in nature, to be at a considerable distance from the spot in one head to what they are in another: for instance, I have seen the organ of Self-Esteem three inches higher in one head than in another, and observed several organs two inches distant from the situation in one head, to that of the same organs in another. Those who depend on a marked bust in such cases lead themselves sadly astray. I know a case where the organ of Self-Esteem is excessively high, that of Inhabitiveness very high and prominent, with a deep hollow between it and Philoprogenitiveness: I pronounced Inhabitiveness to be very large, quite a bump; another person declared it to be very small, mistaking the hollow for the organ. On appealing to the gentleman whose head we were examining, he said that his love of home was so excessive, that it produced misery when business forced him to travel. Now the hollow was at the spot usually marked on the bust for the organ in question, but the organ was clearly an inch and a half higher.

The phrenologist who would be a successful observer of nature must study the characteristic appearance of the respective organs as he finds them developed in the living head and

in well-executed casts. And in order to form his eye for judging of the locations and configurations he must pursue a long course of diligent research. Any person who will not give due diligence to the pursuit, would evince his good sense and modesty by silence on the subject, and not, as is too frequently the case with such persons, become virulent anti-phrenologists, as an excuse for their idleness or incapacity. If each anti-phrenologist were to be thoroughly sifted, I apprehend he would be found in this latter predicament.

I obtained a good store of experience nearly twenty years ago, by taking a number of skulls, and placing a light inside each. I marked on the outsides of all the skulls the bright spots, and then compared together the various corresponding marks on the different skulls; this procedure showed the impossibility of so marking a bust that it shall be any thing more than an approximation to the varieties of location which the different skulls thus presented to view. A period of twenty years of close observation pursued since the time alluded to has so strengthened in me this conviction, that I hold it to be an established fact. Here then is a source of immense difficulty, which I would hold up to the sanguine tyro who expects to travel into the inmost recesses of the science of phrenology with railroad speed. To such I would say, Observe a hundred times before you pronounce once, and when you do pronounce, let it be with great diffidence, having the fear of error before your eyes. Shun the practice of predicting from development, for some years to come, but study development well after the disposition is decidedly manifested. This is a process perhaps too slow for you, but it will make sure of progress, and therefore is a safe mode of proceeding.

But ought the difficulties, met with in studying phrenology, to deter the student from proceeding, or are they such as to authorise any person of sense to conclude that the science is vague and uncertain, and therefore that it would be prudent to shrink from contending with such difficulties? If Newton had shrunk from difficulties would he have established the important laws of gravitation? If Davy had shrunk from difficulties, would he have made his brilliant discoveries in Galvanism? If Faraday had shrunk from difficulties, how would he have developed those extraordinary laws of electricity with which the recent volumes of the Philosophical Transactions abound? If Smeaton had shrunk from difficulties, where would be the Eddystone Lighthouse? What would have been the present state of the science of geology had Sedgwick, Buckland, Murchison and others shrunk from difficulty? What science is not beset with difficulties? Is geology is chemistry is astro

nomy free from them, and do we shrink from studying those sciences on that account? Does not every lover of knowledge apply with the greater ardour in proportion to the difficulty of acquiring the knowledge, and does he not on that account prize it the more highly? Alluding again to the inefficacy of marked busts, I would ask, does any man expect to become a geologist, by committing to memory all the local out-croppings of the various strata as depicted on geological maps; and then barely inspecting the appearances of the surface of the land, at the places of those out-croppings, without undergoing the labour of examining precipices, quarries, wells, mines, &c. where the multiplied and complicated masses of fact can be collected? Or can any rational being expect to become a chemist, by the reading of elementary books, and witnessing a few common chemical experiments? Or an astronomer, by learning the constellations from a celestial globe and pointing his telescope, in a few fine nights, to some of the stars and planets, without braving frosty nights, or troubling the brain with intricate calculations and profound reflections?

These sciences, and many more that might be named, although dealing only with dead matter, require laborious research and deep thought to overcome the difficulties which are met with at every step of the student's progress, and shall the science of phrenology, which relates to the living operations of mind, be penetrated by less laborious research, and by shallower thought? The complicated nature and relations of man far exceed all the rest of creation. The microcosm is read and understood with more difficulty than the macrocosm.

Assuming this as an incontrovertible fact, it follows that the science which explores the nature and relations of man, must be beset with greater difficulties than all the other sciences put together; and since man is ever in a state of progression, by virtue of the accumulation of knowledge, the science of phrenology can never become an exact science. But, in fact, there is no such thing as an exact science. Science is the arrangements of all the known facts on any subject; and if, therefore, all the facts of any case are not known, a perfect science of them cannot be formed; an imperfect science will be the necessary consequence of an imperfect knowledge of facts. Strictly speaking, all the facts are not known of any subject, and thus every science is imperfect; for instance, geology, chemistry, astronomy, are imperfect, and ever must be so; since, as new facts are brought to light, old theories are compelled to yield to new ones. Phrenology is in the same condition, being a science eminently founded on fact, it therefore follows that, as new facts are discovered, the theories of

yesterday must give place to the theories of to-day; and these in their turn must yield to new theories of to-morrow. Away then with the nonsense of phrenology not being worth studying, because it is not an exact science, or because it is full of difficulties. The greatest men in all ages were those who overcame the greatest difficulties; and the most brilliant discoveries have been made in those sciences which presented the greatest difficulties to common minds. Will any rational man then shun the study of phrenology on account of the difficulties to be met with? Will he on that account shrink from the investigation of this, the most noble of sciences, which treats of the condition of the noblest part of the most exalted and complicated of the creatures of God? But the difficulties of phrenology affect not the leading facts; these are established on grounds beyond the reach of the most virulent assailants; the difficulties are in the details, and therefore present no firm foundation on which opponents can build a formidable fort from which to batter the citadel.

Another source of difficulty in phrenology arises from the conflicting appearances resulting from the variously combined influences of organization, of education, and of circumstances. In many cases the tendencies of the organization are kept in check by education, by associations, and by circumstances, during the greater part of life, and in some instances the natural disposition is never allowed to manifest itself, not even to the party himself. Persons who have not been tried, often know not what their real feelings and inclinations are. I have sometimes inferred, from organization, that there must be certain dispositions of mind which the party declared was not the case; yet on closely questioning him, he has found that the feeling had been always strong in him. Morbid Acquisitiveness might be, and often is, so kept in check by circumstances, as never to become manifest, although actively desiring to come into operation, and it will show itself when opportunity favours: hence we have the proverb that "Opportunity makes the Thief," which is not literally true, for opportunity never caused an honest man to thieve, but only allowed the thievish disposition to come into action. A difficulty exists in the different thicknesses of various parts of the same skull, but great differences of thickness are rarely found, except in the skulls of old or diseased persons, and they appear to be occasioned by the cessation of activity of particular organs causing them to shrink, and the inner plate of the skull to grow inwards and fill up the If this assumption be a fact, and I have no doubt it is, the external figure of the skull in old persons indicates what the brain was and not always what it is.

vacancy.