PREFACE,

CONTAINING A

BRIEF OUTLINE OF PHRENOLOGY.

PHRENOLOGY claims to itself the dignity of being that system which exhibits a true knowledge of the human mind. Viewed as a science, it embraces an acquaintance with the mental powers, their combinations, and the laws regulating their action : as an art, the practice of ascertaining by examination of the HEAD the powers of the mind, and the means of improving the physical or material constitution of the brain, and of the nervous system. Thus, its range is very extensive, and a brief outline is here to be attempted.

It is a fact well known to every, even the most superficial observer of human na

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ture, that men differ very considerably in their dispositions, and in the powers of their intellect. There is a gradation in the possession of moral feeling from the untutored and uncultivated savage to the highly sensible, civilized, and moral Christian. A gradation, in like manner, exists between an idiot and a Newton, a country rustic and the intellectual philosopher. differences are allowed by all; but concerning their causes and the circumstances necessarily connected with them, there has been much dispute. One class of individuals, the metaphysicians, ascribe all such differences to the influence of circumstances, not allowing of any innate peculiarities of disposition, or powers of intellect. Common-sense people, a very important class, have always maintained the contrary to this. They assert that different individuals are born with diverse dispositions and powers, and the proof of this opinion being general among mankind, is found in the many proverbial expressions indicative of these original mental differ

ences.

Phrenologists agree with the latter, and consequently differ from the former class. They add this, that these differences in disposition and in intellect, are connected with diversities in the BRAIN, the part of the body through which the mind exhibits itself in this world. They call the brain the organ of the mind, and do not consider it to be the mind itself; but to be to the mind as a machine is to the workman.

They maintain, moreover, the brain to be a whole, and like other wholes, made up of parts. These parts have different offices attached to them; which offices or duties, as attached to these particular portions, have been discovered by frequent and longcontinued observations. It has been found in addition, that whenever any particular part of the brain is large, the power, whether of disposition or of intellect, connected therewith, is proportionably strong; when the part is small, the converse holds good. Indeed, the Phrenologists consider the following as three fundamental principles: First, that the brain is the organ of the

mind; Second, that the different parts of the brain have different functions, offices, or duties attached to them; and, Third, that the size of these parts is an index of their power.

The first principle is allowed even by Anti-Phrenologists; the second can be easily established or overturned by observation; the Phrenologists hold that it is established; and with respect to the third, the principle is exhibited throughout

nature.

Allowing these principles to be true, a question arises, can the situation and the size of the different parts of the brain be obtained by examination of the HEAD? The best answer to this, perhaps, is found in the fact, that the science of Phrenology has been discovered by observing the peculiarities in the formation and the shape of the head. The head is in the same relation to the brain, as the crab's shell to its body; the hard parts are of the exact form of the soft parts. The brain moulds the skull; this part, afterwards bony, being, at first,