I invoke your approbation of what I cannot but deem a masterly criticism of the doctrines of Gall. So highly have I appreciated it, that I cannot readily suppose it possible to rise from its perusal, without being convinced that Gall was wholly mistaken in his views of the human mind; and of course, that all the cranioscopists, mesmerizers, and diviners, who have followed his track, or risen up on the basis of his opinions, are equally in error. In order to have a just view of human responsibility, it is indispensable to entertain the justest notions of the nature of the human mind. If Phrenology _be an unsubstantial hypothesis_, no phrenologist is fit to be a juror, a judge, or a legislator: for since all human law—the whole social compact—and indeed all divine law, as relative to human propensities and actions—is founded on some real nature of the soul and mind, there is risk that manifestly erroneous conceptions of the freewill, of the conscience, of the judgment, and the perceptive powers, &c. may mislead the juror, the judge, and the legislator, in their vote, their opinion, and their notion of rights and wrongs. If I am correct in entertaining these apprehensions as to the influence of false metaphysics on the public characters I have enumerated, there is abundant cause to rejoice when a blow is struck, like that pulverizing blow which is given in this work, to so considerable an error. There are thousands among the young and ardent and curious of our countrymen and countrywomen, whose minds may be likewise led astray from the truth; but if it be mischievous for the judge and the juror and the legislator to entertain erroneous views upon the nature of the understanding, the mind, or the soul, it is equally to be deprecated where the error is sown broadcast in the land. Tares, if not in themselves poisonous, serve at best to choke up the useful or beautiful plants that ought to be cultivated in the fields of science or morals; but you will find that M. Flourens regards them as poisons. Has not M. Flourens clearly refuted the phrenologists? and has he not, in doing so, performed a useful and an acceptable service? I pray you to believe that I am, with the most grateful respect and the sincerest esteem, Your obliged and faithful servant, CHARLES D. MEIGS. PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 10, 1845. TO THE MEMORY OF DESCARTES. AUTHOR’S PREFACE. Having been a witness to the progress of phrenology, I was led to the composition of the following treatise. Each succeeding age has a philosophy of its own. The seventeenth century recovered from the philosophy of Descartes; the eighteenth recovered from that of Locke and Condillac: is the nineteenth to recover from that of Gall? This is a really important question. I propose, in this work, to examine phrenology as it appears in the writings of Gall, of Spurzheim, and of Broussais.