Mr. Traveller.--Though many things may be said against this
distribution, yet it is often seen in life that an individual sense as
marked out by Gall, is pre-eminently developed and frequently almost
exclusively predominates; I remind you of his five-sorts-of-memory
sense.
Freisleben.--Certainly. But what is the cause of this? Is it not to be
sought rather in external influences, which especially develope this
kind of memory? And if we leave this out of view, then must we go still
farther. So there is a painter who can paint only landscapes; and I
recollect in Matthisson's Reminiscences, to have read of a Cretin in
Berne, who could paint cats, and cats only, but them most excellently.
How much farther must Gall's artistical faculty be subdivided, till it
reaches down to the cat-painting faculty!
Mr. Traveller.--The artistical faculty is probably in this painter, but
we must assume that it is prevented from unfolding itself in all
directions.
Freisleben.--But there you knock yourself down. Since, if we assume
that there is no necessity for the faculty, which the external
elevation of the skull indicates, to develope itself, then the whole
pile of Phrenology tumbles to the ground. But does it develope itself,
and is this acknowledged as necessary, what incalculable and horrible
consequences must this have! All moral responsibility ceases: the
criminal escapes punishment, since he can show on his skull the
irresistible murder-sense. But I will not pursue this farther, since,
happily, we have nothing to fear from it. Scarcely in a single instance
do the outer plates of the skull-bones correspond permanently with the
inner ones, and therefore not with the brain. I call to your
recollection only the skulls of certain animals, in which, between the
two skull-plates, is to be found a large hollow, as we, indeed, also
find in man; as, for instance, the hollow of the forehead--the frontal
sinus--which is, in different individuals, very differently developed.
Then again the most recent physiological experiments show, that in
occurring injuries, they are not by any means of so much consequence in
the external portion of the brain, in the hemisphere, but that it is
exactly the inner portion which is of the most importance, and which
also has a much more determinate shape. In injuries of the head too,
cases have occurred, where whole spoonsful of the hemisphere of the
brain have been taken out without the slightest diminution of the
actively intellectual powers. Object not to me that the convolutions of
the hemisphere of the brain have been particularly developed in
distinguished men--here it was also the case with the inner portion:
one part does not develope itself without the other. Object not that
the anatomy of beasts gives no secure result, since if this is the
case, how can phrenology itself dare to hope to give more certain
judgments? The firm and immovable part--the form of the bones
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