The alphabet of phrenology / [by A.L. Vago].

  • Vago, A. L. (Ambrose Lewis)
Date:
[1880?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The alphabet of phrenology / [by A.L. Vago]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    anticipation, killed another bird with the same stone. He killed so much of Dr. Ferrier’s paper as he contradicted. Of course he killed it without having shot at it. Apparently he did not hear it; or, rather, imagined that he had heard exactly the reverse of it. This is, if correct, re- markable in connection with the circumstance that— “ ‘Dr. George Harley congratulated Professor Ferrier on the able address he had delivered. He was sure that every one in the room, whether possessed of scientific knowledge or not, had perfectly understood the subject.’ “ So it seems ; to judge of everybody by Dr. Carpenter. “ Dr. Harley appears to have agreed with Dr. Carpenter as to Phrenology. He observed that ‘ along with science there had always gone a pseudo-science.’ As reported in the Times, however— “ ‘ Dr. Brunton alluded to the faculty of will and self-restraint as distinguishing man from the lower animals, and said that this was probably situated in the anterior part of the brain. It was noticeable that criminals, who were deficient in that faculty, possessed only a small portion of brain in the front of the head.' “ Behold how diametrically doctors differ about the functions of the brain. Are the intel- lectual faculties in the front and the animal at the back of it? or vice versa ? That is their little diversity. Along with science truly, ‘there has always gone a pseudo-science but on which side is the pseudo-science in the case of physiologists who differ from each other as Big-endians from Little-endians, or as white from black? “ Of course Dr. Carpenter's supposition that the intellectual faculties of man are situated in the posterior portion of the brain cannot have been evolved out of his own consciousness. Clair* voyants are said sometimes to see at the back of the head ; but Dr. Carpenter, though a man of science, if not pseudo-science, does not appear to be a clairvoyant. It would also seem that the learned Doctor is very far from being a clairaudient, unless either he or Dr. Ferrier has been misreported. “ A physiologist’s opinion respecting the relation in which the intellect and the animal eelings lie fore and aft in the brain may, perhaps, even if Phrenology is false, depend on the shape of his own head. As to Phrenology, however, suppose it false ; still every philosopher has a vigorous faculty, if no organ, of ‘Comparison.’ Any such an one must have been able to appreciate, with some amusement, the above-collated differences between doctors.” It may be remembered that Professor Ferrier’s paper, referred to in the above article, called forth a leader in the Times, September 24th, 1873, *n which it was observed that— “ Twenty-five or thirty years ago Phrenology was taken up by that large class of people who feel a lively interest in what they conceive to be science, but whose minds have never undergone the training necessary to enable them to understand the nature of proof, or to estimate the value of evidence.” Here it is presumed that Phrenology is something too gross to be appreciated but by those of untutored minds. But, contrary to this, we have Dr. Richard Whately, late Archbishop of Dublin, who as a logician stood among the first, giving it as his opinion that the metaphysics of Phrenology are far more logical, accurate, and convenient than those of Locke, Stewart, Brown, and other writers of their school. Again, Mr. Abernethy, one of the highest medical authorities of his time, both believed and taught the doctrines of Phrenology, and lectured on them to the Court of Assistants of the College of Surgeons of London. And in reference to the psychological classification by Gall and Spurzheim, Dr. Laycock, F.R.S.E., says, “ I am inclined to adopt that classification as the best arrangement