The evidence against the system of phrenology. Being the substance of a paper read at an extraordinary meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh ... / [Thomas Stone].

  • Stone, Thomas.
Date:
1828
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evidence against the system of phrenology. Being the substance of a paper read at an extraordinary meeting of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh ... / [Thomas Stone]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    way, I should never confound the organ of amativeness with that of philoprogenitiveness, or philoprogenitiveness with that of secretiveness, or the organ of the desire to ac¬ quire with that of benevolence or veneration ; and Dr Barclay may be sure, if he make it his study to compare the configurations of the cerebral convolutions, and of the different organs, he will find great differences, wltich he has hitherto overlookedThis specimen of reasoning ought not to be passed lightly over. It is a style of argument no man would have recourse to, excepting as a dernier res- sort, when he really knows not what to say. The compa¬ rison instituted between the cerebral lobes and the phreno¬ logical organs is quite illegitimate, and involves a petitio principii. The query elicited by Dr Barclay’s observa¬ tions is simply as to the identity of the several organs. It is not, therefore, sufficient to say, study the cerebral con~ volutions, as if every convolution was itself a distinct or¬ gan. How are the numerous phrenological organs to be distinguished from one another, that are crowded together, not only in the same lobe, but the same convolution ? This perplexing point Dr Spurzheim altogether evades, and sums up his unsatisfactory answer with the following most preposterous assertion.—<£ Moreover, when he shall see besides the different forms of the organs, that they are fre¬ quently developed in different proportions, he will have an additional proof that the brain is a congeries cf parts, per¬ forming different mental functions.” What does Dr Spurz¬ heim mean by his antagonist “ seeing the different forms of the organs ?” Is there any line of separation between those that are situated within the same convolution ? To