ging to the
development of the cerebellum.

Cranioscopy, the study of the brain and its proportional development
through the cranium, which is the method by which Gall made his
discoveries, is a _lost art_ in the medical profession, and I doubt if
there is a single professor in any American or European medical
college to-day, who has a competent knowledge of it. The art of
cranioscopy requires as its basis a correct knowledge of the anatomy
of the brain and skull, a correct knowledge of the localities of all
the cerebral organs, and a practical skill in determining their
development with accuracy. A variation of one eighth of an inch in
development will change the destiny of the individual, and incorrect
conceptions of the growth of the brain and the natural irregularities
of the cranium would vitiate the conclusions of the observers. A
somewhat famous but unscientific practitioner of phrenology gave a
good illustration of this by mistaking a rugged development of the
lambdoid suture for an enormous organ of combativeness, and ascribing
to the gentleman a terrific, pugnacious energy which was the very
opposite of his true character.

The sciolism of popular phrenology, scantily supplied with anatomical
knowledge, and but little better supplied with clear psychic
conceptions, is incapable of commending the science to the esteem of
critical observers, and of course incapable of sustaining its
reputation against the overwhelming opposition of medical colleges.
Thus rejected or at least neglected in the universities, which supply
its place with worthless metaphysics, and unsustained before the
public,--for the tone of literature is controlled by the
universities,--it is not strange that the grand discoveries of Gall
are neglected as they are to-day.

The objections to Gall's discoveries which have been considered
sufficient, have generally been the offspring of ignorance and
superficial thinking. Thousands of physicians have been misled by
professors of anatomy thoroughly ignorant of the subject, who have
shown to their own ignorant satisfaction how impossible it was to
judge of the development of the brain through the skull. The attacks
upon phrenology have been generally remarkable for their logical
feebleness. Any one well acquainted with the science and the phenomena
in nature, could have made a much more effective attack,--an attack
which would have _appeared_ entirely unanswerable; but no such attack
has been mad