Strictures on phrenological doctrines upon the human intellect : in a letter addressed to Dr. Spurzheim / by John Manesca.

  • Manesca, John, approximately 1780-1838.
Date:
1832
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Strictures on phrenological doctrines upon the human intellect : in a letter addressed to Dr. Spurzheim / by John Manesca. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    organs of all kinds, that the most gigantic are ; smallness, bigness^ are relative terms which may interest our worldly concerns, but when it is a question of a simple indivisible attribute, such as a mental per- ception is, I am at a loss to comprehend where the analogy lies. Physiologists tell us that the attribute of sensibility is the appendage of the nervous apparatus which is spread all over the body; but they do not wish us to believe that sensibility can actually take place with- out those nerves being acted upon ; in like manner, the organs of the brain, endued with the property of perceiving, cannot be pretended to produce the phenomena of perception, unless they are stimulated by something ; it follows, that the nerves spread throughout the body, and the organs of the brain, are not independent agents in the acts of sensibility and perception ; hence, when I see a man deficient in such or such idea or ideas, I do not feel warranted to say that his organic constitution is deficient, but I merely conclude that those or- gans which possess the property of producing such idea or ideas, have not been acted upon. I conceive an attribute to be simple, indivisible, undefinable. A sen- sation or perception is an attribute, but contraction and vibration are not, for they are motions occupying time and space ; consequently, any affection upon the nerves or the organs of the brain, that we can imagine and suppose to be produced by external agents when sensa- tion and perception take place, should not be confounded with sensation and perception : hence, I consider it hazardous in the extreme, to have assumed that thinking agitates the brain, affects it, causes its develope- ment, and ultimately produces those effects upon its surface ; and yet such is the hypothesis upon which phrenology has established its doctrines of intellect. But, sir, let us suppose that the developement of the brain is imme- diately effected by mental phenomena ; that those external appear- ances upon the surface of the brain are the result of such develope- ment, and, consequently, signs of those phenomena, where must we apply for genuine proofs for your mental subdivisions into faculties and propensities, located in this or that section of the brain ? Your answer is not difficult to anticipate : you will tell me that those nu- merous coincidences which have been observed among men possessing the same faculties and propensities with similar appearances, are fads sufficiently strong to support all phrenological deductions concerning the human intellect. But, sir, are we never deceived by or rather about facts ? The first man who put his staff into water and drew it out, and repeated over and over the experiment, must have iudaed, from facts, that water bent his staff, while the air straightened strange speculations upon ttic spccinc consiuuuuu a™ |^'^ * the tvvo above named elements, which sceptics could not have objected to without incurring the risk of being silenced by the argument of fads produced by the experimentalist. The Indian strictly attends