Phrenology consistent with science and revelation / by Charles Cowan.

  • Cowan, Charles, 1806-1868.
Date:
[1838?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology consistent with science and revelation / by Charles Cowan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    to relinquish theoretical induction, and to found our con- clusions upon the materials which simple observation has afforded. No other source of real information exists, save what we derive from direct revelation, and the latter only furnishes us with ultimate facts, which we are called upon to believe rather than to examine. The early history of every department of human investigation confirms the statement we have made, and the recent progress of science, either as regards our knowledge of mind or matter, is entirely attributable to the rejection of unsupported hypothesis, and to the pursuit of know- ledge in the way which nature has prescribed. In fact, acquaintance with general laws can only be acquired by patient and accurate attention to particular facts, and every attempt which has yet been made to set aside this essential condition of our mental constitution, has been followed by ultimate failure and disappoint- ment. How very vague and imperfect are our efforts to rea- lise conceptions disassociated from the evidence of the senses! And how fluctuatinof their nature with the changing character of the mind in which they originate! ]\Ien differ for ever when describing their ideas of spiri- tual or abstract existences, each moulding his conceptions to the peculiar constitution of his own mind, and creating a system, imperfect as a representation of himself, and still less to be regarded as a transcript of the experience of another. The systcmatising of mental phenomena by reflecting
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