Phrenology, its nature and uses : an address to the students of Anderson's University, at the opening of Dr. Weir's first course of lectures on phrenology in that institution, January 7th, 1846 / by Andrew Combe.

  • Combe, Andrew, 1797-1847.
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology, its nature and uses : an address to the students of Anderson's University, at the opening of Dr. Weir's first course of lectures on phrenology in that institution, January 7th, 1846 / by Andrew Combe. 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.

    7/40 (page 5)
    your turn, correct his errors^ and improve what he and his followers may have left imperfect. I shall, in a subsequent part of this lecture, explain his method; but, in the mean time remark, that if I shall assign adequate causes for so many centuries of failure by other physiologists, and for the success which has attended the labours of Gall, it will follow, as a matter of course, that any condemnation of his disco- veries, by those who have never zealously pursued his method, but derived their knowledge wholly from methods proved to be utterly inadequate, must be held, in the eye of reason, as of scarcely higher value than would be the hostile opinion of any uneducated man regarding any disputed point in modern chemistry, optics, or electricity. Ignorant as such an oppo- nent must be regarding the uses of the brain, it is impossible that he can have anything except theory or early prejudices to oppose to the facts of Phrenology ; and for these I have no respect as sources of evidence. I am as much disposed as anyone to yield deference to authority, or to opinions based upon certain and positive knowledge, however much they may militate against my own prepossessions; but where mere opinion is brought against what I know, from direct, careful, and repeated observation, to be clear and positive facts, no matter how eminent the source of the opinion may be, I stand firm and unmoved, because Nature is at my back, and I have the fullest assurance that she commits no mistakes, and is never inconsistent; and I know that, on appeal being made, she will be found to speak the same language to-day as yesterday, or as a thousand years ago, and to bear out all I have advanced, if I have really been accurate in my obser- vations. To place this argument before you in its full force, it would be necessary, if your time permitted, to expose, in some detail, the inherent defects of the different methods of investigation resorted to before the days of Gall. This w7ill be done more fully at a subsequent part of the course, by my friend Dr Weir. In the mean time, it will be enough for my purpose to state, that anatomists have tried to discover by dissection the uses of the different parts of the brain; but unaided examination of structure has never yet been sufficient to reveal the function of an organ; and, even if it did, the structure of the brain is, or was till very lately, as little known as its uses. We might dissect the optic nerve till the crack of doom, without being enabled, by that means alone, to demonstrate that its use is to convey visual impressions from the eye to the mind. It is by observing the con- comitance of the faculty of vision with the existence and deve-