The fundamental principle of the philosophy was geometric or mathematical, as it examined the construction of the brain, and showed an exact mathematical relation between each organ of the brain and its effects on the body, in the spontaneous gestures, the circulation of blood, the nervous forces, and local functions. Its leading characteristic being the law of the expression of the vital forces and feelings in outward acts. This doctrine was called the Pathognomic System.

I was preparing to publish in several volumes the reorganized science as the Pathognomic System, when the consummation of my researches, by a brilliant discovery, led me into a new world of knowledge—to the full development of the science of Anthropology, according to which the brain gives organic expression to functions which are essentially located in the soul, and the body gives organic manifestation to functions which are controlled in the brain, while the body reacts upon the brain and the brain upon the soul. Thus, every element of humanity has a triple representation—that in the soul, which is purely psychic, yet by its influence becomes physiological in the body; that in the body which is purely physiological, yet by its influence becomes psychic in the soul, and that in the brain which produces physiological effects in the body, and psychic effects in the soul.

Thus, each of the three repositories of power is a psycho-physiological representation of the man; more physical in the body, more spiritual in the soul, but in the brain a more perfect psycho-physiological representation of man as he is in the present life. This full conception of the brain, which Gall did not attain, involved the new science of Cerebral Physiology, in which the brain may express the character of the body, as well as the soul, of which I would only say at present that my first observations were directed to ascertaining the cerebral seats of the external senses, vision, hearing and feeling, and the influences of different portions of the brain on different portions of the body.

The location of the sense of feeling, of which I became absolutely certain in 1838, at the base of the middle lobe has since been substantially confirmed by Ferrier’s experiment on the monkey; but I have not been concerned about the results of vivisection, knowing that if I have made a true discovery, vivisection and pathology must necessarily confirm it; and I am not aware that any of my discoveries have been disturbed by the immense labors of vivisection.

The discovery of the organ of the sense of feeling led to an investigation of its powers, and the phenomena exhibited when its development was unusually large—hence came the initial fact of psychometry. Early in 1841 I found a very large development of the organ, in the head of the late Bishop Polk, then at Little Rock, the capital of Arkansas, who subsequently became a confederate general. After explaining to him his great sensibility to atmospheric, electric, and all other physical conditions, he mentioned a still more remarkable sensibility—that whenever he touched brass, he had immediately the taste of brass in his mouth, whether he knew what he was touching or not. I lost no time in verifying this observation by many experiments upon other persons, and finding that there were many in whom sensibility was developed to this extent, so that when I placed pieces of metal in their hands, behind their backs, they could tell what the metal was by its taste, or some other impression. Further examinations showed that substances of any kind, held in the hands of sensitives, yielded not only an impression upon the sense of taste, by which they might be recognized, but an impression upon the entire sensibility of the body. Medicines tried in this manner gave a distinct impression—as distinct as if they had been swallowed—to a majority of the members of a large medical class, in the leading medical school at Cincinnati, and to those who had superior psychometric capacities, the impression given in this manner enabled them to describe the qualities and effects of the medicines as fully and accurately as they are given in the works on materia medica.

This method of investigation I consider not only vastly more easy and rapid than the method adopted by the followers of Hahnemann, but more accurate and efficient than any other method known to the medical profession, and destined, therefore, to produce a greater improvement in our knowledge of the materia medica than we can derive from all other methods combined, in the same length of time. I may hereafter publish the practical demonstration of this, but the vast amount of labor involved in my experimental researches has not yet permitted me to take up this department, although it has yielded me some very valuable discoveries.

It may require a century for mankind fully to realize the value of Psychometry. It has been clearly, though I cannot say completely shown in the “Manual of Psychometry,” to which I would refer the reader. I would simply state that the scientific discovery and exposition of Psychometry is equivalent to the dawn of new intellectual civilization, since it enables us to advance rapidly toward perfection all sciences and forms of knowledge now known, and to introduce new sciences heretofore unknown.

  1. To the Medical College it will give a method of accurate diagnosis which will supersede the blundering methods now existing—a method of RAPIDLY enlarging and perfecting the materia medica—a method of exploring all difficult questions in Biology and Pathology, and a complete view of the constitution of man.
  2. To the University it offers a method of revising and correcting history and biography—of enlarging our knowledge of Natural History, Geology, and Astronomy, and exploring Ethnology.
  3. To the Church it offers a method of exploring the origins of all religions, the future life of man, and the relations of terrestrial and celestial life.
  4. To the Philanthropist it offers the methods of investigating and supervising education and social organization which may abolish all existing evils.

The foregoing were the initial steps and results in the development of Psychometry, simultaneously accompanied by those other discoveries in 1841, the scope and magnitude of which appear to me and to those who have studied my demonstrations, to be far more important than anything that has ever been discovered or done in Biological science, being nothing less than a complete scientific demonstration of the functions of the brain in all its psycho-physiological relations. To appreciate their transcendent importance, it is necessary only to know that the experiments have been carefully made, have often been repeated during the past forty-five years, and that all they demonstrate may also be demonstrated by other means, and fully established, if no such experiments could be made.

The origin of this discovery was as follows. My advanced investigations of the brain, between 1835 and 1841, had added so much to the incomplete and inaccurate discoveries of Gall, and had brought cerebral science into so much closer and more accurate relation with cerebral anatomy and embryology, as illustrated by Tiedemann, that I became profoundly aware of the position in which I found myself, as an explorer, possessed of knowledge previously quite unknown, and yet, at the same time, however true, not strictly demonstrable, since none could fully realize its truth without following the same path and studying with the same concentrated devotion the comparative development of the brain in men and animals. Such zeal, success, and assiduity I did not believe could be expected. There might not be one man in a century to undertake such a task (for all the centuries of civilization had produced but one such man—the illustrious Gall), and when he appeared his voice would not be decisive. I would, therefore, appear not as presenting positive knowledge, but as contributing another theory, which the medical profession, regardless of my labors, would treat as a mere hypothesis.[1]