PHRENOLOGY.
The little collation was in the mean time brought up, and the company, under the conduct of the musical artist, made the most successful attacks on the ham and veal cutlet. The Göttingen sausage, moreover, an imitation of the renowned Sulzer, was as little spared as the potato-salad, and the scattered remains soon alone marked the battle-field. A noble Rhine-wine recruited the muscles of the jaw, and loosed again the tongue of the brave combatants. The affairs of the day became the subject of discourse, and occurrences in Hanover, which then appeared likely vitally to affect the interests of all Germany, were eagerly discussed by all. Mr. Traveller, as the representative of England, stated the strong feeling which there prevailed against the King of Hanover, and so they came to talk of the prevailing views and theories in England, on many subjects, and Mr. Traveller speedily entangled himself in a discussion on Phrenology, which he endeavoured to defend. Freisleben, a determined opponent to the theory, immediately took up the subject zealously.
Freisleben.--They are now signs on the skull that man will expound, formerly they were signs in the heaven. What unpardonable presumption, from certain deviations from the regularity of the outer form, to infer an analogical change of the soul. A leap which, according to my opinion, is not less than from comets' tails to war. What presumption, from the body to seek to form conclusions upon the spirit, whose mode of connexion with it is to us totally unknown! It strikes me exactly as if any one should infer or assert the possession of a fine sense of smell, from the existence of a huge nose, or, as dancing is a function of the foot, that he who has a great foot must be a capital dancer.
Mr. Traveller.--Throw the matter into ridicule as much as you please, but take along with you at the same time the evidences which experience furnishes.
Freisleben.--These evidences have long been shown to evidence nothing, and it astonishes me that this doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim, this ephemeral structure, can find so much acceptance in England.
Mr. Traveller.--I know the thing only by popular representations. But the principles which are herein derived from anatomy and physiology, to which Gall and Spurzheim have rendered much service, the grounds which pathology and comparative anatomy also furnish, appear to me worthy of all attention.
Pittschaft.--That nobody denies; but Gall having rendered essential service to the anatomy of the brain, by no means justifies his doctrine.
Freisleben.--His theory must fall, when it is assailed a priori, or by experience. Above all things, unphilosophical, not to say ridiculous, is his distribution into twenty-seven senses. By what right has he only so many set forth; and why is a boundary drawn here?
Mr. Traveller.--Though many things may be said against this distribution, yet it is often seen in life that an individual sense as marked out by Gall, is pre-eminently developed and frequently almost exclusively predominates; I remind you of his five-sorts-of-memory sense.
Freisleben.--Certainly. But what is the cause of this? Is it not to be sought rather in external influences, which especially develope this kind of memory? And if we leave this out of view, then must we go still farther. So there is a painter who can paint only landscapes; and I recollect in Matthisson's Reminiscences, to have read of a Cretin in Berne, who could paint cats, and cats only, but them most excellently. How much farther must Gall's artistical faculty be subdivided, till it reaches down to the cat-painting faculty!
Mr. Traveller.--The artistical faculty is probably in this painter, but we must assume that it is prevented from unfolding itself in all directions.
Freisleben.--But there you knock yourself down. Since, if we assume that there is no necessity for the faculty, which the external elevation of the skull indicates, to develope itself, then the whole pile of Phrenology tumbles to the ground. But does it develope itself, and is this acknowledged as necessary, what incalculable and horrible consequences must this have! All moral responsibility ceases: the criminal escapes punishment, since he can show on his skull the irresistible murder-sense. But I will not pursue this farther, since, happily, we have nothing to fear from it. Scarcely in a single instance do the outer plates of the skull-bones correspond permanently with the inner ones, and therefore not with the brain. I call to your recollection only the skulls of certain animals, in which, between the two skull-plates, is to be found a large hollow, as we, indeed, also find in man; as, for instance, the hollow of the forehead--the frontal sinus--which is, in different individuals, very differently developed. Then again the most recent physiological experiments show, that in occurring injuries, they are not by any means of so much consequence in the external portion of the brain, in the hemisphere, but that it is exactly the inner portion which is of the most importance, and which also has a much more determinate shape. In injuries of the head too, cases have occurred, where whole spoonsful of the hemisphere of the brain have been taken out without the slightest diminution of the actively intellectual powers. Object not to me that the convolutions of the hemisphere of the brain have been particularly developed in distinguished men--here it was also the case with the inner portion: one part does not develope itself without the other. Object not that the anatomy of beasts gives no secure result, since if this is the case, how can phrenology itself dare to hope to give more certain judgments? The firm and immovable part--the form of the bones especially--is delusive: in the first place, since they have long acquired their form and consistency before every species of improvement of the improvable creature takes place, which comes long after the complete fixidity; and secondly, since this form depends so little upon our will, while the influence of external causes is so unavoidable, and a single pressure or stroke can gradually work a change, whose progress no art is capable of restraining. Moreover, even could any thing be deduced from this, still the firm parts yet constitute but a certain and perpetually fixed proportion, a single and insignificant link in the chain of countless circumstances, which go to the formation of the human character.
Mr. Traveller.--My God! my head is in a whirligig with all this--with all this rapid German.
Freisleben.--One must not allow one's-self to speak of the outer form of the head in which a free spirit dwells, as one would of a pumpkin; as little must we calculate circumstances which depend upon it, as we would calculate an eclipse. Others assert, with equal probability, that the character of a man lies in his countenance, whilst they appeal to the capability of drawing a conclusion on the whole from the indications of a part; as others, supporting themselves on this sufficient ground, assert, that man must act as a machine. And to this class of reasoning belongs--"in a handsome body dwells a handsome soul."
Ridicule majis hoc dictum, quam verè æstimo,
Quando et formosos sæpe inveni pessimos,
Et turpi facie multos cognovi optimus.
Phædrus.
Pittschaft.--Ah, if we could but first rightly understand the changes in the brain itself. But a great visible change in the brain may be a very little change for the soul, and vice versa. And how will people draw conclusions from the very vault of the brain?
Mr. Traveller.--But, gentlemen, recollect how often phrenologists, from the outward form of the skull, have drawn correct conclusions. Recollect the allocation of distinguished heads as they are to be seen in plaster in the English and German museums.
Freisleben.--Yes, they have drawn some very neat conclusions, but we know very well how that stands. The false conclusions have been carefully put out of sight; and yet sufficient of them have come to the daylight to render the phrenologists ridiculous. They are, indeed, often still more innocent, the worthy demonstrators only seeing that which they knew very well before. Recollect also what a sagacious German naturalist says:--"The proof of the demonstration which the phrenologist makes is, in most cases, as superficial as the demonstration itself. Let a man eat a shovelful of salt, according to the prescription of Aristotle, with the person upon whose head and heart he makes so superficial a judgment, and he will then find what will become of his former judgment. But to err is human, and that not exclusively, for it is sometimes the fate of angels." Talent, and the endowments of the spirit, generally have no signs in the solid portion of the head. To prove this, let the selected casts of thinking heads, and selected ones of fools and not-thinking men, be placed side by side; and not the head of the learned man, of a careful education, be placed in opposition to that of the worst specimen of the totally uneducated country booby. Bedlam is peopled with inhabitants, who, if they did not stand staring as if chilled into stone, or smiling at the stars, or listening to the song of the angels, or would blow out the dog-star, or stood trembling with folded arms,--if, in fact, they were not judged by these aberrations, but by the shape of their heads alone, would command the highest respect. Still less can we draw correct conclusions from the shape of the living head than from the bare skull itself. A skilful artist, without exceeding the bounds of the probable, would be able to cast in wax a covering of muscles and skin for the head of any skeleton, and give it an expression which should possess any aspect that he pleased. And thus may the skull of a living person be, in reality, so covered with an irregular mass of muscular and cuticular integuments, as shall give an equally delusive effect.
Von Kronen.--whose attention had become excited by this illustration--here interposed. What an immeasurable leap from the exterior of the body to the interior of the soul! Had we a sense which enabled us to discover the inner quality of bodies, yet would such a leap still be a daring one. It is a well established fact, that the instrument does not make the artist; and many a one with a fork and a goosequill would make better sketches than another with an English case of instruments. Sound manly sense soon sees into this; it is only the passion for innovation, and an idle sophistry, soothing itself with false hopes, which will not see it. If a ship-captain answered a fellow who offered himself to his service with enthusiasm--"Thy will is good, but, nevertheless, thou art of no use to me. Thy shoulders are too narrow, and thou art too small altogether for the service," then must the good fellow probably put his hand on his mouth; but if the captain said, "Thou actest like a worthy fellow, but I see by thy figure that thou constrainest thyself at this moment, and art a scamp in thy heart;" in truth, such an address would, in any place, to the end of the world, be answered by any honest fellow with a box on the ear.
Mr. Traveller.--You will make me in the end suspicious of the whole circle of physics, or otherwise I must believe that you allow no place to the phrenologist amongst natural philosophers.
Freisleben.--I permit him freely to class himself amongst the naturalists; but he must attempt to take no greater rank amongst them than the soi-disant political prophet does amongst subtle statesmen. But one can by no means class the genuine natural philosopher and the phrenologist and physiognomist together. The first err often humanly, the others err continually and monstrously.
While this discussion had grown warm, amongst the others a lively conversation had arisen on recent literature. They gave their opinions on the recent English romances of Bulwer and Marryat, which then were the order of the day. They condemned some of the later productions of the French. They contended for and against the influence of the young Germany; criticised Gutzhow's newest romance; and soon were upon a general theme, the different tendency of the public in England and Germany. There the preference for popular representation; the neglect of scientific reading, together with the very superficial school education; here, on the contrary, reverence for science, and over-driven grasping after scientific things, and a passion to be learned, which especially shows itself repulsively in the ladies, when they are carried away into the scientific vortex; they bewailed the wretched mass of rubbish that was now read, and especially that the Germans by reading too much did themselves injury. That, in particular, in the schools the children were held more to learning by rote than to thinking; at the same time thankfully acknowledging that it was sought with all diligence, to correct this error in the new Folks' Schools. "In England," says Freisleben, "one finds more original character in company, and amongst the common people, as may be seen in the English writings. In Germany it is totally different. And if any one stumbles on an original discovery, how long it continues, till his discovery, and till he himself become known. In Germany the greatest discoveries have been made, but they weighed them, and doubted so long whether they were new and would be useful, that their neighbours the French or the English seized on them, and secured the advantages of them to themselves."
Eckhard.--No nation feels so much the worth of other nations as the Germans; and yet is, alas! so little regarded by most of them, even for this obeisance.
Enderlin.--I think the other nations are quite in the right. A nation that would please all, deserves to be despised of all. This has been pretty much the case with Germany, and it is only just now that other people have learned to estimate her properly.
Von Kronen.--Lichtenberg in his time said justly--"The character of the Germans lies in two words: patriam fugimus."--Virgil.
Hoffmann.--Yes, Lichtenberg--that is an original character! I have learned to prize him properly from Von Kronen. Yesterday, for the first time, I read his famous essay on the state of the German Romance of his time. It pleased me so much that I must read it out to you. It is short, and will at least be finished before the Phrenologists and Anti-Phrenologists there have finished their discussion.