connected? but he, by great good fortune, was led to adopt a different and superior mode of inquiry; and this leads me to state shortly a few particulars of the history of the science which is now to be expounded.

Dr. Gall, a physician of Vienna, afterwards resident in Paris,* was the founder of the system. From an early age he was given to observation, and was struck with the fact, that each of his brothers and sisters, companions in play, and schoolfellows, was distinguished from other individuals by some peculiarity of talent or disposition. Some of his schoolmates were characterized by the beauty of their penmanship, some by their success in arithmetic, and others by their talent for acquiring a knowledge of natural history, or languages. The compositions of one were remarkable for elegance; the style of another was stiff and dry; while a third connected his reasonings in the closest manner, and clothed his argument in the most forcible language. Their dispositions were equally different; and this diversity appeared also to determine the direction of their partialities and aversions. Not a few of them manifested a capacity for employments which they were not taught; they cut figures in wood, or delineated them on paper; some devoted their leisure to painting, or the culture of a garden; while their comrades abandoned themselves to noisy games, or traversed the woods to gather flowers, seek for bird-nests, or catch butterflies. In this manner, each individual presented a character peculiar to himself, and Dr. Gall never observed, that the individual, who in one year had displayed selfish or knavish dispositions, became in the next a good and faithful friend.

The scholars with whom Dr. Gall had the greatest difficulty in competing, were those who learned by heart with great facility; and such individuals frequently gained from him by their repetitions the places which he had obtained by the merit of his original compositions.

Some years afterwards, having changed his place of residence, * Born at Tiefenbrun, in Suabia on 9th March, 1757, died at Paris, 22d August, 1828

he still met individuals endowed with an equally great talent of learning to repeat. He then observed, that his schoolfellows, so gifted, possessed prominent eyes, and recollected, that his rivals in the first school had been distinguished by the same peculiarity. When he entered the University he directed his attention, from the first, to the students whose eyes were of this description, and found that they all excelled in getting rapidly by heart, and giving correct recitations, although many of them were by no means distinguished in point of general talent. This observation was recognised also by the other students in the classes; and although the connexion betwixt talent and external sign was not at this time established upon such complete evidence as is requisite for a philosophical conclusion, Dr. Gall could not believe that the coincidence of the two circumstances was entirely accidental. From this period, therefore, he suspected that they stood in an important. relation to each other. After much reflection, he conceived, that if memory for words was indicated by an external sign, the same might be the case with the other intellectual powers; and, thereafter, all individuals distinguished by any remarkable faculty became the objects of his attention. By degrees, he conceived himself to have found external characteristics, which indicated a decided disposition for Painting, Music, and the Mechanical Arts. He became acquainted also with some individuals remarkable for the determination of their character, and he observed a particular part of their heads to be very largely developed. This fact first suggested to him the idea of looking to the head for signs of the Moral Sentiments. But in making these observations, he never conceived, for a moment, that the skull was the cause of the different talents, as has been erroneously represented; for, from the first, he referred the influence, whatever it was, to the Brain.

In following out, by observations, the principle which accident had thus suggested, he, for some time, encountered difficulties of the greatest magnitude. Hitherto he had been altogether ignorant of the opinions of Physiologists touching the brain, and of Metaphysicians respecting the mental faculties. He had simply observed nature. When, however, he began to enlarge his knowledge

of books, he found the most extraordinary conflict of opinions every where prevailing, and this, for the moment, made him hesitate about the correctness of his own observations. He found that the moral sentiments had, by an almost general consent, been consigned to the thoracic and abdominal viscera: and that while Pythagoras, Plato, Galen, Haller, and some other Physiologists, placed the sentient soul or intellectual faculties in the brain, Aristotle placed it in the heart, Van Helmont in the stomach, Des Cartes and his followers in the pineal gland, and Drelincourt and others in the cerebellum.

He observed also, that a great number of Philosophers and Physiologists asserted, that all men are born with equal mental faculties; and that the differences observable among them are owing either to education, or to the accidental circumstances in which they are placed. If differences were accidental, he inferred, that there could be no natural signs of predominating faculties; and consequently that the project of learning, by observation, to distinguish the functions of the different portions of the brain, must be hopeless. This difficulty he combated by the reflection, that his brothers, sisters, and schoolfellows, had all received very nearly the same education, but that he had still observed each of them. unfolding a distinct character, over which circumstances appeared to exert only a limited control. He observed also, that not unfrequently those whose education had been conducted with the greatest care, and on whom the labors of teachers had been most assiduously bestowed, remained far behind their companions in attainments. "Often," says Dr. Gall, "we were accused of want of will, or deficiency in zeal; but many of us could not, even with the most ardent desire, followed out by the most obstinate efforts, attain, in some pursuits, even to mediocrity; while in some other points, some of us surpassed our schoolfellows without an effort, and almost, it might be said, without perceiving it ourselves. But, in point of fact, our masters did not appear to attach much faith to the system which taught equality of mental faculties; for they thought themselves entitled to exact more from one scholar, and less from another. They spoke frequently of natural gifts, or

of the gifts of God, and consoled their pupils in the words of the Gospel, by assuring them that each would be required to render an account, only in proportion to the gifts which he had received."

Being convinced by these facts, that there is a natural and constitutional diversity of talents and dispositions, he encountered in books still another obstacle to his success in determining the external signs of the mental powers. He found that, instead of faculties for languages, drawing, distinguishing places, music, and mechanical arts, corresponding to the different talents which he had observed in his schoolfellows, the metaphysicians spoke only of general powers, such as perception, conception, memory, imagination, and judgment; and when he endeavored to discover external signs in the head, corresponding to these general faculties, or to determine the correctness of the physiological doctrines taught by the authors already mentioned, regarding the seat of the mind, he found perplexities without end, and difficulties insurmountable.

Dr. Gall, therefore, abandoning every theory and preconceived opinion, gave himself up entirely to the observation of nature. Being a friend to Dr. Nord, Physician to a Lunatic Asylum in Vienna, he had opportunities, of which he availed himself, of making observations on the insane. He visited prisons, and resorted to schools; he was introduced to the courts of princes, to colleges, and the seats of justice; and wherever he heard of an individual distinguished in any particular way, either by remarkable endowment or deficiency, he observed and studied the developement of his head. In this manner, by an almost imperceptible induction, he at last conceived himself warranted in believing, that particular mental powers are indicated by particular configurations of the head.

Hitherto he had resorted only to physiognomical indications, as a means of discovering the functions of the brain. On reflection, however, he was convinced that Physiology is imperfect

Preface by Dr. Gall to the "Anatomie, &c. du Cerveau," from which other facts in this work are taken.

when separated from Anatomy. Having observed a woman of fifty-four years of age, who had been afflicted with hydrocephalus from her youth, and who, with a body a little shrunk, possessed a mind as active and intelligent as that of other individuals of her class, Dr. Gall declared his conviction, that the structure of the brain must be different from what was generally conceived,-a remark which Tulpius also had made, on observing a hydrocephalic patient who manifested the mental faculties. He therefore felt the necessity of making anatomical researches into the structure of the brain.

In every instance, when an individual, whose head he had observed while alive, happened to die, he used every means to be permitted to examine the brain, and frequently did so; and found, as a general fact, that, on removal of the skull, the brain, covered by the dura mater, presented a form corresponding to that which the skull had exhibited in life.

The successive steps by which Dr. Gall proceeded in his discoveries, are particularly deserving of attention. He did not, as many have imagined, first dissect the brain, and pretend, by that means, to discover the seats of the mental powers; neither did he, as others have conceived, first map out the skull into various compartments, and assign a faculty to each, according as his imagination led him to conceive the place appropriate to the pow er. On the contrary, he first observed a concomitance between particular talents and dispositions, and particular forms of the head; he next ascertained, by removal of the skull, that the figure and size of the brain are indicated by these external forms; and it was only after these facts had been determined, that the brain was minutely dissected, and light thrown upon its structure.

At Vienna, in 1796, Dr. Gall, for the first time, delivered lectures on his system.

In 1800, Dr. J. G. Spurzheim* began the study of Phrenology under him, having in that year assisted, for the first time, at one of his lectures. In 1804, he was associated with him in his labors; and, since that period, has not only added many valuable discov

* Born at Longuich, near Treves, on the Moselle, 31st December, 1776.