Chapter IX.—Rectification of Cerebral Science, Correcting the Organology of Gall and Spurzheim.
Approximate correctness and incompleteness of Gall and Spurzheim—Grand anatomical discoveries of Gall—-Reception of his doctrines—His successors—Omission of Pneumatology and Physiology by Gall and Spurzheim—Organs and faculties overlooked—True locations of the faculties they recognized, Amativeness, Philoprogenitiveness, Adhesiveness, Inhabitiveness, Destructiveness, Combativeness, Secretiveness, Acquisitiveness, Constructiveness, Cautiousness, Approbativeness, Self-Esteem, Firmness, Religion, Benevolence, Hope, Marvellousness, Poetry, Ideality, Imitation, Wit or Mirthfulness, Eventuality, Individuality, Perceptive Organs, Time, Comparative Sagacity, Causality, Tune, Constructiveness, Language—Comments on the Organology of Gall.
The first question that occurs to the enlightened enquirer, when he learns that the functions of the brain have been positively determined by experiment, is whether the cranioscopy of Gall and Spurzheim was successful in locating the cerebral functions, and how nearly their inferences from development correspond with the revelations of experiment.
It is with great pleasure that I am able to say that the system of Gall and Spurzheim was a wonderful approximation to the truth. Dr. Gall was pre-eminently the scientific pioneer of the nineteenth century. No single individual ever did so much to enlarge the sphere of human knowledge, and to establish the permanent foundations of philosophy. Up to his time, the brain of man was at once the greatest mystery of anatomy and the repository of a greater amount of wisdom and truth than all other realms of science which had previously been explored. But so limited was the knowledge, and so narrow the understanding of the learned, that the grandeur of cerebral science was not even suspected, and, even at the present time, it is so remote from the speculations of the learned that, like a distant star, it has few practical relations to their life; nor will its magnitude be realized until an ample literature shall have made its scientific record.
Into this field of mystery, Dr. Gall advanced with a courage unknown to his predecessors, and his success was equal to his courage. The entire plan and constitution of the brain were revealed by his anatomical genius, and his successors have but carried further and perfected his anatomical system. His anatomical exposition of the brain, addressed to the French Institute in 1808, is one of the great landmarks of the progress of science—the commencement of a new era; and his exposition of its functions was the solution of a problem which had defied the genius and learning of all his predecessors. His discoveries in anatomy were so great that Reil (himself a brain anatomist of the highest rank, whose name is permanently associated with anatomy by the name “Island of Reil,” which belongs to the location in which Gall made his first discovery of the faculty and organ of language), Reil, I say, declared that Dr. Gall had shown him more in his dissections of the brain than he thought it possible for any one man to have discovered in his lifetime; and, in fact, some of the old anatomists, not having been personally instructed by Gall, professed to find it difficult, if not impossible, to unfold the brain after his manner.
These discoveries gave Dr. Gall at once a very eminent rank among the learned, for anatomy being a physical science, there never has been any opposition, jealousy, or scepticism against its cultivation among the educated, nor was there anything marvellous in his revelation of cerebral functions, for he studied only the common familiar faculties of men and animals, and never looked into the mysterious and marvellous powers which a more thorough investigation has revealed.
Indeed, his reception at first was quite triumphant, and it was not until the death of Gall and Spurzheim, leaving no able and competent representative to carry on their labors, that the drift of medical scepticism and ignorance arrested the progress of his doctrines. I say ignorance, for the aversion to the doctrines of Gall was due far more to the ignorance of the profession and their entire neglect of the craniological method than to any other causes.
Gall had good reason to be satisfied with his first reception, except as to the hostility of the Austrian government, which suppressed his lectures and compelled him to go abroad, settling finally in Paris, where he again encountered governmental hostility in the unfriendliness of Bonaparte, whose rejection alike of Gall and of Fulton, who wished to introduce steam navigation, demonstrated that great military and political ability may co-exist with great shallowness of mind in reference to all things new, original, and philanthropic. So it has always been, and so it continues.
In his travels in Germany, from 1805 to 1807, accompanied by Dr. Spurzheim, “I experienced everywhere (said Gall) the most flattering reception. Sovereigns, ministers, philosophers, legislators, artists seconded my design on all occasions, augmenting my collection, and furnishing me everywhere with new observations. The circumstances were too favorable to permit me to resist the invitations which came to me from most of the universities.” Thirty-four of the leading cities and seats of learning enjoyed the visits of Gall and Spurzheim before they settled in Paris, where, although French jealousy arose against this German invasion, and the influence of Napoleon prevented their cordial reception, they nevertheless commanded and retained the respect of scientists and had many devoted friends, including Broussais and Andral, who then stood at the head of the medical profession, and of Corvisart, Napoleon’s physician, who could not overcome his master’s prejudice.