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FACTS AND INFERENCES ARE ONCE MORE AT UTTER VARIANCE,

and we only regret that the numerous editors, who have quoted his authority, should not have examined the matter more closely before so widely disseminating his errors.

After giving several pages of tables comprehending the weight of the quantity of millet seed required to fill Ethiopian, Caucasian, Mongolian, American, and Malayan skulls, Tiedemann says, "It is evident, from the comparison of the cavum cranii of the Negro with that of the European, Mongolian, American, and Malayan, that the cavity of the skull of the Negro in general is not smaller than that of the European and other human races. The result of HAMILTON'S researches is the same. I hope this will convince others that the opinion of many naturalists, such as Camper, Soemmering, Cuvier, Lawrence, and Virey, that the Negro has a smaller skull and brain than the European, is ill-founded, and entirely refuted by my researches." (Page 511.) Now we have already seen that the real question of interest, as regards Negro improvement, is not so much the general size of his brain, as the relative size of its anterior lobe and coronal surface compared to the basilar and posterior portions. But even as concerns the absolute size of the whole brain, it is an extraordinary fact, that Tiedemann's own tables give a decided superiority to the European over the Negro brain, to the average extent of nearly four ounces! The average capacity of forty-one Negro skulls in his own tables amounts only to 37 oz. 1 dr. 10 gr., while the average of 77 Europeans of every nation, also in his own tables, amounts to 41 oz. 2 dr. 30 gr. Of the Negroes, indeed, three are females, but even subtracting these, the Negro average amounts only to 37 oz. 6 dr. 18 gr. Here, then, on Tiedemann's own showing, we have, first, an inferiority in the dimensions of the Negro brain and a greater narrowness of its anterior lobe; and, secondly, a marked inferiority in the capacity of the Negro skull to the extent of about one tenth, and yet he very strangely infers that both are equal to those of the European, and the Royal Society and half of our scientific men and journals adopt and propagate both facts and inferences as literally correct and of vast importance!! If the phrenologists had perpetrated such a series of blunders, Sir William Hamilton and his allies would have shouted in triumph over their stupidity.

After treating of the organisation of the Negro, Tiedemann attempts to prove that intellectually and morally, as well as anatomically, the Negro is naturally on a par with the European, and contends that the opposite and popular notion is the result of superficial observation, and holds true only in regard to certain degraded tribes on the coast of Africa. We shall not

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follow him into this branch of the enquiry farther than to express our concurrence with him in believing some of the tribes of the interior to be endowed with much higher intellectual and moral faculties than those with which we have been longest acquainted. Park, Denham, Clapperton, and others unite in testimony to the superior civilisation of some of the interior nations. But then these are the tribes which the same authors state to "vary little except in colour from the European," and to have "neither the broad flat noses, thick lips, prominent cheek-bones, sloping contracted forehead," &c. "which most naturalists consider as the universal characteristics of the Negro. Most of them have well-formed skulls, long faces, handsome, even Roman or aquiline, noses, thin lips, and agreeable features," and "the Caffres and [Boshuanas?*] have the same form of skull and the same high forehead and prominent nose as Europeans (page 512.). If this be a correct description, what can be more natural than that races thus approximating to the European standard of organization should also approach to the same standard in function, and present an affinity to the European character? But also what can be more opposed to Tiedemann's main proposition, that the ordinary Negro type and mind are on a level with the European? Because a black race with a brain like that of the European is capable of approaching to European civilization, it does not therefore follow that the thicklipped and flat-nosed negro with the narrow forehead is equally good; and even granting Tiedemann to have established the first point (which nobody denied), he has still left the latter precisely where he found it, or rather he has left it enveloped in a new cloud of fallacy and obscurity.

That a physiologist of Tiedemann's talent and merited reputation should have failed so signally in an investigation which he recognizes as one of so much importance, and upon which he has bestowed so much labour and with so benevolent an intention, is much to be lamented; but the cause which has led to his failure is still more to be lamented, because it is humiliating to him as a man of science, and is the natural and just result of his own conduct. Well did Tiedemann know that the great discovery of his immortal countryman Gall lay directly in his way in the inquiry in which he was engaged, and that if true it must be of immense use to him in conducting his inquiry. Had he availed himself of its aid, he would have seen at once the

There are two names in the MS. which we are unable to read, and as we correct our proofs in the country, without the opportunity of reference to the Philosophical Transactions, we cannot determine them. The Boshuanas are said to be more civilised but less handsome than the Caffres. The names in the MS. have the same initial letters, but are neither of them written exactly as the one introduced above.- EDITOR.

futility of any investigation based on considering the whole brain as the organ of intellect, and would thus have avoided becoming the instrument of authoritatively diffusing mischievous error, where he was anxious only for beneficent truth. Tiede. mann, however, confiding in the strength of his own merits and the durability of his own fame, chose to treat the phrenological physiology of the brain with contemptuous silence, to disregard its facts, and to reject its aid as a guide. He has preferred being a leader in the train of error, to being a subordinate in the march of truth, and as he has chosen his path so shall he be rewarded. His contribution to the Royal Society's Transactions, although hailed at present as an honour to its author, will ere long be regarded as a beacon to warn others how very little a first-rate talent, great industry, and a European reputation can accomplish when employed in a false direction, and how indispensable to true greatness is the direct and undeviating pursuit of truth.

These observations may be thought severe, and were Tiedemann a mere man of straw, whose opinions nobody cared about, they would be uncalled for. But we cannot acquit him of culpable negligence in overlooking, as he has done, a principle which he is well aware has been much insisted on, and backed by an immense amount of evidence, in the phrenological works; and which, indeed, is broadly admitted, in a general way, by Cuvier and almost every physiologist of any note, including even Tiedemann himself *;—namely, that different lobes or parts of the brain have different functions, and consequently that it cannot be judged of as a whole in relation to only one function. Whether Tiedemann's omission of all reference to this distinction arises from intention or from forgetfulness, he is almost equally to blame; first, because it lies at the very foundation of the enquiry, and secondly, because it was doubly incumbent on him who stands as one of the first physiologists of Europe, and whose opinions on all physiological subjects are received with a degree of deference, both in this country and on the continent, which leads many to adopt and diffuse them with implicit confidence, neither in the present instance to give his sanction to errors, the mischief of which is proportionally increased by the wide circulation which his authority ensures them, nor to treat with the contempt of silence the discoveries and labours of men whose names will be handed down to posterity as the most distinguished of the age to which they belonged. If Tiedemann was really ignorant of what Gall has done, then is his ignorance still more blameable; because he

* See Phrenological Journal, Vol. IX. p. 48.

was aware of the nature of Gall's claims and of the existence of his works, and ought to have made himself acquainted with their contents and truth, before erecting himself into an authority entitled to condemn them to oblivion, and to deter the young physiologist from their examination. But perhaps the strangest thing of all is, that Tiedemann's conclusions or arithmetical results are so directly at variance with the evidence of his own facts and figures, and so strongly confirmatory of the opinion which it is his sole purpose to refute.

It is with much pain, we have felt ourselves compelled thus freely to criticise the philosophical fallacies involved in Tiedemann's mode of proceeding; but the interests of truth imperatively required the exposure, and little as we are disposed to contend against a man of Tiedemann's eminence, we shall not shrink from the contest even against greater odds when truth requires it. Phrenology has suffered sufficiently already from the contempt and obloquy of the "Great in Science," and it would be folly to allow the evil to be done without at least attempting to neutralize its effects, and to pave the way for better days.

Before parting with Tiedemann, it is worth while once again to remark how implicitly he adopts the long repudiated phrenological principle of cerebral size being cæteris paribus a measure of mental power, and how expressly he confirms other contested phrenological doctrines. Our readers can scarcely have forgotten the strenuous efforts made by Sir William Hamilton to upset the phrenological statements that the cerebellum is relatively smaller in females than in males, and that the brain generally decreases in size in old age. Tiedemann, however, shews by his Tables that not only the female brain but the female cerebellum is actually smaller. In the list of "conclusions" given on page 502., he expressly affirms that "the female brain is lighter than that of the male, and weighs on an average from four to eight ounces less," and adds that "the difference is already perceptible in a new-born child." In the 4th conclusion, after stating that Sir William Hamilton denies the decrease of the brain in old age, he continues, "It is remarkable that the brain of a man 82 years old was very small, and weighed but 3 lbs. 2 oz. 3 dr., and the brain of a woman about 80 years old weighed but 2 lbs. 9 oz. 1 dr. I have generally found the cavity of the skull smaller in old men than in middleaged persons. It appears to me therefore probable that the brain really decreases in old age, only more remarkably in some persons than in others." What will Lord Brougham say to this when he considers the mind to become more vigorous in old age?

Again, in regard to Sir William Hamilton's assertion of the equal or superior size of the female cerebellum, we find at page 514 a table entitled "Dimensions of the cerebellum and nodus encephali." In it the greatest breadth of the cerebellum in six male Europeans varies from 4 inches 3 lines to 3 inches 6 lines, being the highest and lowest measurements. But in the three female Europeans, the highest is only equal to the lowest male, namely, 3 inches 6 lines; the other two being 3 inches 5 lines and 3 inches 3 lines respectively. Here again the superior accuracy of the phrenologists is proved even by hostile testimony; and did time permit, other confirmations might be extracted from Tiedemann's pages.

II. MR. COMBE's Letters from Germany; addressed to the EDITOR of the Phrenological Journal. Volume X. of the former Series.)

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(Continued from page 706. of

VIENNA, the 20th of July, 1837.

SIR, I gave you an account of the state of Phrenology in Dresden, and now continue my journal. On Monday, 3d July, we arrived in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, and containing 130,000 inhabitants. The descriptions which I had received of Prague had led me to regard it as an extremely old, deserted, worn-out, priest-ridden town; but we were agreeably surprised to find in it large, wide, and elegant streets; new houses of handsome architecture and vast dimensions; good shops; and a great bustle of life and business. We had entered by the new side, and it was only on the second day that we found out the features of antiquity and priestly sway which had rested in our memories and given in our fancies a character of ghostliness and decay to the whole town. These are confined to a small part of it, and Prague may be correctly described as a thriving, clean, pleasant, and active city. We saw more new houses building here, in proportion to its size, than in any other town. in Germany which we have visited. I had a letter of introduction to Professor Kromblolz, one of the most distinguished medical teachers and practitioners in Prague. I missed him when he called for me, and also when I called for him, and the day after our attempts to meet he was summoned to the country on professional duty, and I never saw him. I had an introduction also to Mons. Wenceslas Hannka, of the Imperial and Royal Library, and had the pleasure of seeing him. There are

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