Gall was a practical observer. He observed and studied always, and with so much the greater success because “people never suspected that they had to do (these are his own words) with a man who knew perfectly well that the basis of human character continues to be always the same, and that merely the objects that interest us change with the progress of years.”[189] He examined “families, schools, hospitals, &c.”[190] And he never was satisfied with appearances only. “The occupations that we pursue as our business, generally prove nothing either as to our faculties or our propensities: but those which we engage in as recreation are almost always in conformity with our tastes and our talents.”[191] His observations on men were more serviceable to him in judging of and describing their characters, than the _bumps on the skull_. “I often said to my friends, show me the fundamental forces of the soul, and I will find the organ and the seat for each one of them.[192] ... When I had become convinced that a distinguished talent, and one fully so recognised, was especially the work of nature, I examined the head of the individual, ... &c.”[193] Gall’s progression, then, was from _observation_ to the _cranium_; he first proceeded from _observation_ to the _cranium_, and next from the _cranium_ to the _brain_. Furthermore, Gall began by studying the _physiognomy_—the _features_ of the _countenance_—like Lavater. He at first thought that a good memory was connected with a certain _conformation of the eyes_: “I remarked,” says he, “that they all had large projecting eyes.... I suspected, therefore, that there ought to exist some connexion between memory and this conformation of the eyes.”[194] Again he says, “It may be perceived, from the progress of these researches, that the first step consisted in the discovery of certain organs; that it was by degrees only that we allowed facts to speak in order to deduce from them general principles; and that it was subsequently, and towards the close, that we had learned to know the brain.”[195] Thus it appears that the study of the brain came later than the doctrine; and that is the reason why the anatomy of the brain is a mere series of mistakes and conjectures—I mean here the _special anatomy_, the _secret anatomy_, the _phrenological anatomy_; I mean the anatomy made out to suit the doctrine. I have already sufficiently discriminated between it and the _real anatomy_.[196] NOTE IV. OF THE ANIMAL SPIRITS. Page 116. _He who is so intolerant of the personifications proposed by others makes one personification more._ Broussais explains every thing by the word _irritation_, just as Gall explains every thing by the word _faculties_, and as Malebranche explained them by _animal spirits_. After serving Descartes, the _animal spirits_ were in the service of Malebranche; they served all the authors of the seventeenth century.