Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/543

Rh But the subject was one which was worthy of careful study, and a scientific phrenology might one day become possible.

Mr. Wakefield said that, as men's minds undoubtedly differed from each other in their natural characteristics, so, it might be presumed, did also the physical organs through which mind manifested itself. Was it possible to detect these differences? Were there, also, localized centers of action corresponding to certain faculties or powers of the mind? This was the problem for solution and demonstration. Some facts had come under his observation which led him to think that the solution was not hopeless; but the advance made in this department of knowledge as to the true relation of mind and body was but slow and uncertain.

Mr. G. Bertin remarked that it had been ascertained that the faculty of sight was localized in a convolution of the posterior part of the brain, and as we know that the faculty of speech is localized in the third left frontal convolution, it would seem that modern discoveries disprove the assumptions of the phrenologists. One great mistake of their system is to attribute the same faculties to the two lobes of the brain, a fact disproved by the localization of the faculty of speech on the left side. Another thing lost sight of is, that the examination of the head could only show the development of the surface of the brain, while we have no means to detect its inner development. Nor must we forget that the skull does not change after a certain age, though faculties may be still developing. Another mistake of phrenologists is to localize faculties too much; if phrenology is to become a science, broader lines will have to be followed, and Mr. Hollander's careful researches will do much to further this object.

Mr. Hollander, in reply, observed that nobody disputes the fact that there are brain-centers for ideation; the question is only as to their localization. But as the objective side—i. e., the physical correlative of mental manifestation—has been in many cases successfully established, there remains but the demonstration of the subjective side. How far the speaker had succeeded in this may be judged when the paper is read in type. So far he had not excited opposition. But now comes the coincidence that some of Prof. Ferrier's researches, especially on the gustatory center, confirm the early phrenological observations long ago rejected. By careful examination and a thorough study of Gall's works the speaker found that there was a sound basis to his system. Gall had extraordinary powers of observation, and was an expert in comparative anatomy. He noticed the resemblance between the skulls of murderers and the skulls of carnivorous animals; the predominance of the temporal lobe struck him, and both Prof. Benedict and Lombroso—the authorities on criminal anthropology—testify as to its correctness. Gall, in the same manner, noticed