If, from the brain, I pass on to consider the cranium, all the foregoing is found to be of still greater force. How can the localizations that are destitute of meaning as to the brain—how can they, I say, have any meaning as relative to the cranium itself?
The cranium, especially the external surface of it, represents the superficial configuration of the brain but very imperfectly. Gall knows it. “I was the first,” says he, “to maintain that it is impossible for us to determine with exactitude the development of certain circumvolutions, by the inspection of the external surface of the cranium. In certain cases, the exterior lamina of the cranium is not parallel with the internal lamina.”[115] “There are certain species in which there is no frontal sinus; in others, the cells betwixt the two bony laminæ are found throughout the whole skull,”[116] &c. &c.
The cranium represents the convolutions of the brain only upon its inner surface; it does not represent them upon its external superficies. And as to the fibres, as to the bundles of fibres, it does not even represent them on its inner surface; for the fibres are covered with a layer of gray matter, and the bundles of fibres are situated in the interior of the nervous mass.
Gall is aware of all this, and nevertheless he inscribes his twenty-seven faculties upon the skulls.[117] Such confidence surprises one. Nothing is known of the intimate structure of the brain,[118] and yet people are bold enough to trace upon it their circumscriptions, their circles, their boundaries. The external surface of the skull does not represent the brain’s surface, it is admitted; and yet they inscribe upon this surface twenty-seven names, each of which names is written within a small circle, each little circle corresponding to one precise faculty! And what is stranger yet, people are to be found who, under each of these names inscribed by Gall, imagine that there is concealed something more than a name!
Those who, seeing the success of Gall’s doctrine, imagine that the doctrine therefore rests upon some solid foundation, know very little of mankind. Gall knew mankind better. He studied them in his own way, but he studied them very closely. Let us hear his own words:
“In society, I employ many expedients to find out the talents and inclinations of people. I start the conversation upon a variety of topics. In general, we let fall in conversation whatsoever has little or no concern with our faculties and penchants; but when the interlocutor touches upon one of our favourite subjects, we at once become interested in it.... Do you wish to spy out the character of a person, without the fear of being misled as to your conclusions, even though he might be on his guard? Set him to talking about his childhood and boyhood; make him relate his schoolboy exploits; his conduct towards his parents, his brothers and sisters, and his playfellows, and his emulators.... Ask him about his games, &c. Few persons think it necessary to dissemble upon these points; they do not suspect they are dealing with one who knows perfectly well that the basis of character remains ever the same; and that the objects only that interest us change with the progress of years.... Besides, when I discover what it is that a person admires or despises; when I see him act; when he is an author, and I merely read his book, &c. &c. the whole man stands unveiled before me.”[119]
Descartes shut himself up in a stove,[120] in order that he might meditate. According to Gall, there is no necessity for one’s shutting himself up in a stove.
Descartes says: “Now I shall shut my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall turn my senses aside; I shall even efface from my memory every image of corporeal objects, or at least, as that can hardly be done, I will repute them as vain and false; and thus, shut up within myself, and contemplating what is within me, I shall endeavour gradually to become more and more familiarly acquainted with my own real nature.”[121]
According to Gall, there is no occasion for this absolute gathering one’s self together within. All that is needful is to look at and touch the skulls of people. Gall’s doctrine succeeded just as Lavater’s did. Men will always be looking out for external signs by which to discover secret thoughts and concealed inclinations: it is vain to confound their curiosity upon this point: after Lavater came Gall; after Gall some one else will appear.