A system of phrenology.

  • Combe, George, 1788-1858.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of phrenology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    Few words will suffice in answer to these observations. Such critics greatly overrate the extent of my ability; for my strength lies in the good- ness of my cause. I have studied Phrenology, and read its doctrines directly in the page of nature. What I assert in point of fact, I have seen; and what I maintain in argument, I have found confirmed by experience. Those who have attacked the doctrines, on the other hand, have not studied them as science; they have not read the facts, on which they found their objections, in the book of nature ; they have not tried how their arguments would harmonize with other established truths; nor have they ascertained to what results their principles would lead if carried into practical effect. Full of confidence in themselves, and of contempt for their adversary, they have come to the combat without arms and without armor; and if in some instances they have reeled back from the encounter, then* defeat must be ascribed solely to the inherent weakness of then cause:—it deprived them of the advantages of their talents, while truth added to the strength of the party assailed. I plead guilty of being known to the world only as a Phrenologist. Be- lieving, as I do, that the same Divine Wisdom which ordained the universe, presided also at the endowment of the brain with its functions; that the brain is the organ of the mind, and mat mind is the noblest work of God ; convinced, also, that this discovery carries in its train the most valuable im provements in education, morals, and in civil and religious institutions,—I cannot conceive a nobler employment than that of vindicating its claims to consideration, and stemming, to the extent of my feeble ability, the mighty flood of prejudice and injustice with which, like all other important dis- coveries, it has been nearly overwhelmed. To be recognised, hereafter, by impartial and enlightened men, as having been in any degree instru- mental in braving the storm of popular derision with which Phrenology was at first assailed, will more than satisfy all the ambition for posthumous fame which ever fired my bosom; and I never was so extravagant as to expect, while alive, any reward from the great in science and philosophy except ridicule and dislike. They have chosen their part, and I have chosen mine: the long day will do justice to all. Edinburgh, October, 1830.