Prospectus and list of members of the Phrenological Society of Paris.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prospectus and list of members of the Phrenological Society of Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    be found in the second part of his Dialogue on the Copernican System. They are the production of a most vigorous under- standing, and ought to be deeply pondered by every antiphre- nologist. “ Being very young, and having scarcely finished my course of philosophy, which I left off' as being set upon other employ- ments, there chanced to come into those parts a certain foreigner of Rostoch, whose name, as I remember, was Cbristianus Ursti- sius, a follower of Copernicus, who, in an academy, gave two or three lectures upon this point, to whom many flocked as audi- tors ; but I, thinking they went more for the novelty of the sub- ject than otherwise, did not go to hear him ; for I had con- cluded with myself that that opinion could be no other than a solemn madness; and questioning some of those who had been there, I perceived they all made a jest thereof, except one, who told me that the business was not altogether to be laughed at: and because the man was reputed by me to be very intelli- gent and wary, I repented that I was not there, and began from that time forward, as oft as I met with any one of the Co- pernican persuasion, to demand of them if they had been al- ways of the same judgment. Of as many as I examined, I found not so much as one who told me not that he had been a long time of the contrary opinion, but to have changed it for this, as con- vinced by the strength of the reasons proving the same ; and afterwards questioning them one by one, to see whether they were well possessed of the reasons of the other side, I found them all to be very ready and perfect in them, so that I could not truly say that they took this opinion out of ignorance, vanity, or to show the acuteness of their wits. On the con- trary, of as many of the Peripatetics and Ptolemeans as I have asked (and out of curiosity I have talked with many), what pains they had taken in the book of Copernicus, I found very few that had so much as superficially perused it, but of those who I thought had understood the same, not one: and, more- over, I have inquired amongst the followers of the Peripatetic doctrine, if ever any of them had held the contrary opinion, and likewise found none that had. Whereupon, considering that there was no man who followed the opinion of Copernicus that had not been first on the contrary side, and that was not very well acquainted with the reasons of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and, on the contrary, there was not one of the followers of Ptolemy that had ever been of the judgment of Copernicus, and had left that to embrace this of Aristotle;—considering, I say, these things, I began to think that one who leaveth an opinion im- bued with his milk and followed by very many, to take up ano- ther, owned by very few, and denied by all the schools, and that really seems a great paradox, must needs have been moved, not a 2