Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mental phenomena / by J.G. Spurzheim.

  • Spurzheim, J. G. (Johann Gaspar), 1776-1832.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology, or, The doctrine of the mental phenomena / by J.G. Spurzheim. 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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    PREFACE. The first publication presented to the English public under the title The Physiognomical System, contained several summary views of different branches of anthropology, which can be appreciated only after having been examined with great attention in all their details. Several chapters required more developement, but the volume was already too large. I, therefore, after the second edition was sold, deemed it advisable to publish several chapters as separate works, and to give another arrangement to my English publications. In one volume, 1 gave an abstract of the anatomy of the brain,—in another, I treated of the deranged manifestations of the mind ;—in a third, of the elementaiy principles of education, and I now publish two volumes on phren- ology. In the first, I examine the physiological, and in the second, the philosophical part of phrenology. Both these kinds of inquiries are inseparable from each other in the study of mental phenomena. We must first possess positive observations before we are allowed to reason, but being acquainted with a sufficient number of facts, we may draw from them philosophical conclusions. I rejoice in thinking that the constant and malignant exertions of the Reviewers have been frustrated, and that I am now able to publish the fourth edition of Phrenology, certainly not on account of my works having been praised and recommended by the great oracles of litera- ture and science, but only on account of the intrinsic power of the object explained therein. Let me look for nothing but truth, and it will and must prevail.