These facts, and some others of the same kind, for a knowledge of which we are indebted to modern physiologists, and more especially to M. Magendie and M. Flourens, are satisfactory as far as they go; and warrant the conclusion that there are various other organs in the brain, designed for other purposes, and that if we cannot point out their locality, it is not because such organs do not exist, but because our means of research into so intricate a matter are very limited.—Sir B. Brodie’s Psychological Inquiries.
Deville, the Phrenologist.
In 1817 a Mr. Deville, a lamp-manufacturer of London, was a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He had been originally a pot-boy, then a journeyman plasterer, and afterwards kept a shop for the sale of plaster figures, which he cast. He had risen to a respectable position simply by the force of his natural powers. Mr. Bryan Donkin, a civil engineer, was an early auditor of Gall at Vienna, and subsequently a friend of Spurzheim. He was also, like Mr. Deville, a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers; and when, in 1817, he with others determined to make a collection of casts as records of phrenological facts, Mr. Deville was applied to for his assistance, which he rendered as a matter of business for three or four years. In 1821 he became interested in phrenology, and began to form a collection of casts on his own account. Already, in 1826, Spurzheim said it was finer than any he had seen elsewhere. At Mr. Deville’s death, in 1846, this collection consisted of about 5450 pieces; of these 3000 were crania of animals, and the remainder (2450) illustrations of human phrenology. There were 200 human crania, and 300 casts of crania; amongst the latter, those which Baron Cuvier permitted Mr. Deville to take from all the authenticated human skulls in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy of Paris. Mr. Deville was a practical observer, and possessed the large number of 1500 casts of heads taken by himself from persons while living. Amongst these were 50 casts of persons remarkably devoted to religion: 40 of distinguished painters, sculptors, architects, &c.; 30 of eminent navigators and travellers; 80 of poets, authors, and writers; 70 of musicians, amateurs, and composers of music; 25 of pugilists; 150 of criminals; 120 pathological casts illustrative of insanity, &c. Perhaps the most interesting of all are 170 casts which illustrate the changes caused in the cranial conformation of from 60 to 70 individuals by age, special devotion to one pursuit, and the like. Mr. Deville’s account of some of these has been published.
“Seeing is believing.”
Supreme disregard of the accuracy of the facts on which its conclusions are based, is one of the marks of an uncultivated intellect. It is a part of the credulousness continued from childhood; and is seen in the acceptance, without misgiving, of any statement of facts which is made confidently, and without obvious motive for deceit. Not only in matters of science, but in matters of daily life, is this credulity observed. You cannot step into an omnibus, or chat with an acquaintance at the club, without hearing distinct, positive, and important statements respecting the intentions of public men,—statements involving their personal honour, perhaps the national safety, and uttered with an air of conviction which would be ludicrous were it not so sad; yet if you happen to ask on what evidence the speaker relies, you find perhaps that there is nothing better than surmise or gossip.
The object of the foregoing remarks is to show how easily an inference may be mistaken for a fact, and how habitually men declare they have seen what they have only inferred. Seeing is, in all cases, believing; but in all cases we must assure ourselves of what we have seen, carefully discriminating it from what we have not seen but only imagined, and carefully ascertaining whether the facts seen by us are all the facts then present. It is by no means easy to see accurately any series of events; nor, when under any strong emotion, is it easy to prevent the imagination from usurping the place of vision. “Many individuals,” says Liebig, “overlook half the event through carelessness; another adds to what he observes the creation of his own imagination; whilst a third, who sees sufficiently distinctly the different parts of the whole, confounds together things which ought to be kept separate. In the Gorlitz trial, in Darmstadt, the female attendants who washed and clothed the body, observed on it neither arms nor head; another witness saw one arm, and a head the size of a man’s fist; a third, a physician, saw both arms and head of the usual size.”[21]
There is no popular adage less understood than that “Seeing is believing.” With an ill-suppressed irritation at any expression of scepticism respecting things said to have been seen, a narrator asks whether or not he may believe the evidence of his own senses? That argument seems to him final; and it often happens that his opponent, evading instead of meeting it, retorts:—“No; the evidence of the senses is not to be trusted, when they report anything so absurd as that. I would not believe such a thing if I were to see it—the absurdity is too glaring.”
Both are wrong. Seeing is believing; and he that distrusts the evidence of his own sight, will find a difficulty in bringing forward evidence more convincing. The fallacy lies in confounding vision with inference—in supposing that facts are seen which are only inferred. There can be no mistake in trusting to the evidence of sense, as far as that goes. The mistake is supposing it to go much further than it does. It is one thing to believe what you have seen, and another to believe that you have seen all there was to be seen.—Blackwood’s Magazine.