SYSTEM OF PHRENOLOGY. BY GEORGE COMBE, LATE PRESIDENT OF THE PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY. THIRD EDITION. Res non verba quæso. JOHN ANDERSON JUN. EDINBURGH, 55. NORTH BRIDGE STREET, · AND LONGMAN & CO. LONDON. MDCCCXXX. PREFACE. THE following are the circumstances which led to the publication of the present Work. My first information concerning the System of Drs GALL and SPURZHEIM, was derived from No. 49. of the Edinburgh Review. Led away by the boldness of that piece of criticism, I regarded their doctrines as contemptibly absurd, and their authors as the most disingenuous of men. In 1816, however, shortly after the publication of the Review, my friend Mr BROWNLEE invited me to attend a private dissection of a recent brain, to be performed in his house by Dr SPURZHEIM. The subject was not altogether new, as I had previously attended a Course of Demonstrative Lectures on Anatomy by Dr BARCLAY. Dr SPURZHEIM exhibited the structure of the brain to all present, among whom were several gentlemen of the medical profession, and contrasted it with the bold averments of the Reviewer. The result was a complete conviction in the minds of the observers, that the assertions of the Reviewer were refuted by physical demon stration. |