Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/502

486 Fifty skulls were selected for measurement from the famous collection of Sir William Hamilton, fifty others being taken from that of Dr. Spurzheim himself. In the case of the skulls of fifteen murderers, whose crimes had been marked by unusual brutality and violence, and who might therefore be regarded as exemplifying cases in which the largeness of the "organ" of destructiveness might be lawfully postulated by a phrenologist, Mr. Stone demonstrated by careful measurement and comparison that each of the fifteen had the organ or surface of "destructiveness" absolutely less than the average of ordinary heads, while thirteen of these skulls possessed this organ relatively less when compared with the whole contents of the brain-pan. Nor was this all. Thirteen of these fifteen worthies possessed a larger organ of "benevolence" than the average, and their "conscientiousness" was also as a rule well developed. Their brains were not markedly deficient in front of the ear—the region of the intellectual faculties, according to the phrenologist—nor were they unusually developed behind the ear, where the animal faculties are supposed to reside.

No less instructive were the comparisons instituted between the faculties of Dr. David Gregory, once Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, and Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, a friend and contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. Professor Gregory's character was well known as that of an amiable, accomplished, intellectual man. In such a case the moral faculties would be expected to present high development, while the animal faculties and baser qualities would naturally be regarded as being but poorly represented. Mr. Stone's measurements, duly verified by independent observers, elicited the awkward fact that Dr. Gregory should, according to the phrenological interpretation of his cranium, have ranked in the criminal category, since his organ of "destructiveness" was found to exceed in size that of every murderer in the collection under discussion! In proportion to the general size and form of the brain. Dr. Gregory's "destructiveness" was larger than that of the notorious Burke, who was executed at Edinburgh for the cold-blooded murder of men, women, and children, whose bodies, along with his coadjutor Hare, he sold for purposes of anatomical inspection. Not to enumerate in detail the startling results which the fair and unbiased examination of Dr. Gregory's cranium afforded, it may simply be mentioned that the Professor's "combativeness" was larger than that of any of the debased villains with whom his faculties were compared. Burke equaled him in "benevolence"; in "secretiveness" he excelled the noteworthy fifteen; his "acquisitiveness" exceeded that of Haggart and other noted thieves; his "causality"—the power of reasoning closely, and of tracing the relations between cause and effect, a faculty which as a mathematician he should have possessed largely developed—was less than that of the criminals; and his intellectual faculties at large were of less capacity than theirs, as his animal faculties were present in greater force.