The Relation of Science and Religion.pdf - Online Christian Library

HIGHER ORGANISMS. 229with the fanciful subdivisions of the outersurface of the human skull, under the nameof phrenology, represented on moulds of thehead, all marked with dividing lines and figures.This pretentious and unscientific assumptionof knowledge which no one possessed,has had its time of popularity, aided by ageneral recognition of comparative superiorityin head formation in persons of known ability.Any thing equivalent to an exact partitionof the bony covering protecting the brain,has not been favored by scientific observations;but these fanciful maps of the head,which have been sold cheap, and fully certified,may serve as a guide to a general notionof what has been attempted on the surfaceof the brain itself, after removal of theskull. The illustrative aid, however, consistsin nothing more than the suggestion of distinctareas, for there is no analogy betweenwhat has been discovered by the observationsnow to be described, and the "bumps" allegedto be found on the cranium.The conjecture which may be said to haveoriginated experiments as to localization wasthat there was a close resemblance betweenthe action of nerve energy, and an electric