Case of notencephale : with engravings / by Charles T. Hildreth.

  • Hildreth, Charles T. (Charles Trueworth), 1798-1843.
Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Case of notencephale : with engravings / by Charles T. Hildreth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A strong degree of evidence, to a candid mind,: that Nature’s laws were framed by infinite wisdom, is gat fere d from the beauty of their arrangement, and the harmony in their operation. Notwithstanding the simplicity of the laws we know, when philosophically considered, yet it is only by the most patient investigation and careful study, that we can learn those of the animal kingdom, which regulate nature in the formation and development of man. From the incapacity of our perceptive powers, few, very few, are the laws we elicit, in comparison with the vast and infinite number which altogether escape our notice. So boundless is this field, that the efforts of an expansive and vigorous mind are essential to its successful culture. How very necessary, then, that the fellow-laborers, who are so few in this great work, should at once proclaim each new discovered law, for the enlightening of the great mass, who, for the most part, pass their existence without recognising the most familiar of the many laws, whose principles of action regulate animal life. It is very desirable that those who make researches in the science of mind or matter, should have the intellect and the courage, so highly necessary to establish their discoveries on the firm basis of rational demonstration ; that the inquirers who candidly examine these laws in search of truth, may not fail to discern their endowment in nature. What, though the great mass should not, during the lifetime of the discoverer, examine or believe ! The veracity of the system if founded in nature will remain, and posterity, as with Galileo, will ac¬ knowledge its truth. So the intellectual Spurzheim, though he lived not to see the system he labored to perfect fully ac¬ knowledged, yet future generations will see its accordance with the laws of our constitution, and will embalm his name with a rich and lasting glory. It is not our fortune to speak of the discovery of a law of 1