Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe : and a review of the science of phrenology, from the period of its discovery by Dr. Gall, to the time of the visit of George Combe to the United States, 1838, 1840 / by Nahum Capen.

  • Capen, Nahum, 1804-1886.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reminiscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe : and a review of the science of phrenology, from the period of its discovery by Dr. Gall, to the time of the visit of George Combe to the United States, 1838, 1840 / by Nahum Capen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the Hon. Andrew Carmichael. He was a ripe scholar, a learned author, and a most genial and refined gentle- man. When I was preparing a biography of the great philosopher, he was engaged in producing his interest- ing volume, entitled A Memoir of the Life and Phi- losophy of Spurzheim, which was published by request of the Dublin Phrenological Society in 1833, of which he was the first President. After speaking of the audacious misrepresentations of the reviewers, he says : Spurzheim arrived in Dub- lin at a time when every mind was poisoned against him by the effusions of the reckless reviewers. I did not myseK escape the infection. It was with difficulty I was persuaded to enter his lecture-room ; but, having then an abundance of leisure, I thought a few hours would not be much misspent in indulging an idle curi- osity, and reaping some little amusement where I could hope but for little information. I listened to his first lecture, expecting it to breathe nothing but ignorance, hypocrisy, deceit, and empiri- cism. I found it fraught with learning and inspired by truth; and, in place of a hypocrite and empiric, I found a man deeply and earnestly imbued with an un- shaken heliefm the importance and value of the doc- trines he communicated. I Hstened to his second lecture, and I adopted his helief. I was satisfied of the importance and value of those doctrines, and exulted in anticipating those treas- ures of knowledge, of whose enjoyment the Edinburgh Meijiew had well-nigh overreached and swindled me. I listened to his third lecture, and perceived, with all the force of thorough conviction, that there was 5*