Christian Phrenology: A Guide to Self-Knowledge

by Joseph Bunney

22. Individuality.

The tendency of this organ is, the examination of fact as the only foundation of truth; it is situated in the middle of the lower part of the forehead, immediately above the top of the nose, it produces breadth and projection between the eyebrows. This faculty renders us observant of outward objects, and gives a desire to know, and to examine; it prompts to observation and general information, and is necessary for the acquisition of facts as a basis of science. Spurzheim says, “Persons endowed with this faculty in a high degree are attentive to all that happens around them, to every object, to every phenomenon, to every fact: it desires to know all by experience, and consequently puts every other organ into action: is fond of instruction, collects facts, and leads to practical knowledge.”—To the influence of this organ we may trace the knowledge of individuals by animals, and even wild beasts in which this organ is large may be tamed to the will of a keeper. It puts into active exertion the perceptive faculties round the eyebrow, and thus influences the quality of the faculty (language) which lies in that portion of brain; so that a person with this organ large, and language small, will say but a few words and those to the purpose, or with individuality small and language large, he will utter ten thousand neatly turned sentences of the meanest commonplace, alike destitute of information or science. Persons in whom the organ is large, are alive to every thing that passes around them, they look at facts and events, leaving it to others to reason upon them, and many great discoveries have been made by persons with this organ large who have not been celebrated for their powers of reasoning. When the organ is small, the individual fails to observe things that are going on around him, he will walk in the streets, or the country and see or rather observe literally nothing; he may visit a house without observing any one object beyond the immediate purpose of his visit.

Abuses. This organ is often employed in the affairs of other people, in petty knowledge that tends to no real purpose; a superficiality of observation that leads to erroneous inferences, and when largely developed with the reflective and philosophic faculties, it leads to peculiarity of studies and pursuits to the exclusion of all others, and by breaking the unity of learning which points all things to Him who gave, it is too often the cause, of mistaken opinion or downright error.

23. Eventuality.

Enquires into events and takes notice of occurrences; it gives prominence, or a rounded fulness to the middle of the forehead. Dr. Gall comprised this organ and the preceding one in one faculty, but it is now known that the one takes cognizance of objects, the other the relationship and actions of those objects. It seems to unite the reflectives with the perceptives, so that it recognizes the activity of other faculties and directs them to strict action; it desires to know by experience, and thus produces what is termed the good sense of a matter, and by recognizing the functions of the other powers of the brain and the operations of the external senses, it reduces those impressions into conceptions, ideas and opinions.—Eventuality is shewn when we review the past for comparison with the future, it examines the effects of God’s government in the universe and brings home the truths of the gospel to the heart of every one. Eventuality is the intellectual door to the threefold nature of man directing facts to his perceptive, reflective and moral being, thus pointing out the truth of Christianity in the fulfilment of prophecy, the mercy of the Creator and the punishment entailed upon sin; without this faculty the mind acquires a false conception of things, unsound opinions, and a tendency to the doctrines of materialism and infidelity from the animal rather than the intellectual nature being appealed to. Persons distinguished in professional pursuits have this organ large, since they possess readiness of observation as well as talent in the detail, whereby previously acquired knowledge is brought to bear upon present emergencies; where the organ is only partially and imperfectly developed, he will feel great difficulty in commanding his knowledge or appealing to it with any certainty, the organ should therefore be assiduously cultivated. In ABUSE it tends to promote a love of trifles, detailed events, scandal and abuse, the minutest particulars in preference to general information and individual aggrandizement rather than general good.

24. Comparison.

The organ of comparison lies upon the upper and middle portion of the frontal bone. The aim of the faculty seems to be to form abstract ideas, generalizations and establish harmony among the operations of the other faculties; thus comparing and establishing analogies among the objects of which a knowledge has been obtained by the perceptives: and it not only traces real resemblances, but the relations which things have to one another; persons with this organ large illustrate their ideas by similies drawn from other objects and thus render them plainer to the understanding of another person, and the comparisons thus drawn will be derived from those objects which most commonly engage the attention of the person making them: it is generally large in poets, even when they write prose; 2,500 similies are found in Moore’s Life of Sheridan; these comparisons please, because they address themselves to the multitude and produce clearness and force of illustration. Spurzheim says of this organ, “In order to persuade and to affect, the speaker or orator must speak by analogy, he must bring spiritual things close to terrestrial objects and compare them with each other; the activity of this faculty is very important, it compares the sensations and ideas of all the other faculties and points out their difference, analogy, similitude, or identity.” By comparison, man is enabled to judge whether his own life is what it ought to be, whether he has lived for time or for eternity: by comparison he is enabled to determine how far his life agrees with the Christian’s pattern, knowing that “as he sows, so will he reap;” the propensities incline to evil, as a necessary sequence to the fall, the moral sentiments urge on to good, a foreshadowing of immortality, the reflectives teach him how to be good, how to compare the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, with his own sinful heart, and learn wherein he errs. This is the proper and should be the only true aim of the Christian. In ABUSE this faculty frequently leads to false reasoning on account of the inactivity of the perceptives, in examining the subjects compared, it gives a love for similies and analogies, not always caring for their applicability, and unless duly regulated by the nobler instincts of fallen humanity, it degenerates to sophistry and a blindness to error.

25. Causality.

This organ lies immediately at the sides of Comparison and is found large in men distinguished for profound metaphysical talent. We have shown how Individuality and Eventuality take cognizance of things evident to the senses; Causality looks to the cause of the phenomena observed by other faculties: it expresses the irresistible conviction that every phenomenon and change around us emanates from a mighty, an unseen, an Eternal God; it looks to Him as the cause of our joys, and our possessions here, as the omniscient and ever merciful Father who gave his Son to die for our transgressions, it seeks Him as the cause of our hopes of everlasting bliss, and it bids us to acknowledge and adore. It is the faculty that considers the relation of cause and effect and prompts the question, Why? to whatever is unknown, or imperfectly understood; and for this reason requires to be watched lest the matter of enquiry be placed beyond the limited faculties of man, and infinite subjects be thus reasoned upon by finite capacity. If this organ be in unity with Veneration, Conscientiousness, and Comparison, the individual will be of steady, and rational Christian principles, but if without them, impious doubts and atheistical surmises will tend to require a visible cause for what must be invisible and the germ of error being planted, it may take root and abound to the ruin of nobler and more elevating opinions. In ABUSE, this organ produces a mania for possibilities, denying the existence of causes not evident to the senses, a disbelief in whatever is spiritual, and a direct influence to intellectual pride, sophistry, and error.