remain; but this never has, nor cannot, exist beyond a certain period. Such is your industry, stimulated by the love of gain, that your whole life is spun out before you are aware the wheel is turning, and so highly do you value commerce, that it stands in the place of self-knowledge, and an acquaintance with Nature and her immense-laboratory."

I was delighted with this conversation; he seemed to me to take a wider view in the contemplation of man than any other person with whom I had ever conversed. During breakfast he frequently fed the little suitors, who approached as near as their iron bars would admit: “You see they all know me, said he, “and will feed from my hand, except this blackbird, who must gain his morsel by stealth before he eats it; we will retire an instant, and in our absence he will take the bread.” On our return we found he had secreted it in a corner of his cage. I mention these, otherwise uninteresting, anecdotes to show how much Dr Gall had studied the peculiarity of the smaller animals."

After our breakfast he showed me his extensive collection, which I find is purchased by an Englishman ;* and thus ended my first visit to the greatest moral philosopher that Europe has produced ; to a man, than whom few were ever more ridiculed, and few ever pursued their bent more determinately despite its effects; to a man, who alone effected more change in mental philosophy than perhaps any predecessor ; to a man, who suffered more persecution, and yet possessed more philanthropy, than most philosophers.

In comparing the characters of two men who, from their associated labours, are generally spoken of at the same time, we might say of Dr Gall that he possessed the greater genius, while Dr Spurzheim is the most 'acute reasoner. To the former we are indebted for the discovery of a new doctrine,

This statement is incorrect. Dr Gall's collection, we understand, is 'not yet disposed of.-EDITOR.

VOL. V. -No XX.

2 P

to the latter for its adaptation to useful purposes.. Gall astonished us by the vastness of his scheme of mental philosophy, Spurzheim by the attractions with which he adorned it. Gall possessed all the genius that commands respect, and Spurzheim the amiability of disposition that ever ensures it.

Birmingham, Sept. 19.

ARTICLE VII.

DISCOURSE PRONOUNCED OVER THE TOMB OF DR GALL,

27TH AUGUST, 1828, BY DR FOSSATI.

*1

GENTLEMEN, -If, on the present occasion, you remark any disorder in my ideas, it is because I am too strongly agitated by the emotions of my heart. The vivacity of the sentiments which I entertained towards the great man whom we have just lost, is such as to deprive' me of the power to render him'a homage worthy of his memory." What an irreparable blank do I perceive in the scientific world by the death of one man ! -a blank which will long be felt by all the friends of science and of sound philosophy. But what a man have we lost! what a genius' was his ! what a happy organization Nature had given him! Yes! Dr Gall was one of those privileged individuals whom the Creator sends upon the earth at the interval of ages, to teach us how far human intelligence can reach!

Born in a small village of the Grand Dutchy of Baden, (his father a respectable merchant,) our friend did not receive in the first years of his life any careful education, or any particular direction to the study of science. But his natural genius carried him into the country, and into the forests, to make observations on butterflies, insects, birds, and the other tribes of the animal kingdom. These were

the amusements of his infancy. In this manner, without knowing that such a science as natural history existed, he had gained an amount of positive knowledge which other children of his own age in large towns acquire only after much study and by the assistance of teachers. This spirit of observation was the key which opened to him the way to his future discoveries. He was ignorant that any theory of mental philosophy then prevailed in the schools; but he had remarked among his companions the concomitance of different faculties with different forms of the head and positions of the eyes. The progress of his first observations and of his first ideas was impeded from the beginning by ideas acquired from the schools. This was to have been expected, for they were in opposition to his own experience. Regard him as placed in such a position, and think what an effort it must have required to forsake the beaten path! Memory, imagination, judgment, and attention, were announced to him as the primitive powers of the mind; but when he turned to nature, instead of these, he found distinct and determinate talents,--a talent for art, or for Music, a propensity to contradict or to fight, a sentiment of pity, or a feeling of adoration. It became necessary for him to pass from abstract generality to the positive and defined, and he did so by adhering with firmness to his accumulated but as yet empirical observations. It is, gentlemen, in the establishment of these principles, in the determination of the differences between the general attributes and the fundamental faculties of the mind, that the first merit of Dr Gall's philosophical researches consists. By this, he is widely removed from all the philosophers who have preceded him, and he has created a new philosophy of the human faculties. His new ideas will be appreciated by posterity very differently from what they are by his cotemporaries. Most, even of those who have studied the works of our learned philosopher, have imperfectly distinguished their essential merit and importance. Gall, after having fixed, by the most determined perseverance, and the

most multiplied observations, the principles of the new philosophy, passed on to the examination of the brain. In the medical schools, he had heard discussed the functions of the liver, of the stomach, of the kidneys, and of all the other parts of the body, but never had heard those of the brain explained. It was then that his attention was specially directed to the brain, and that he carried on, simultaneously, his philosophical and anatomical researches. You know the result, or rather the world knows it. The brain, which, before Gall, was a pulp, a shapeless mass, was demonstrated to be the most important organ in existence; its true structure was discovered, and the unfolding of the cerebral convolutions was announced and demonstrated to the philosophers of astonished Europe. The brain was recognized as the sole and indispensable organ for the manifestation of the faculties of the mind. It has been proved, by the aid of physiology, of comparative anatomy, and of pathology, that the brain cannot be a single and homogeneous organ, but must be an aggregation of several organs with properties common to them all, and with specific qualities peculiar to each. After the demonstration of these truths, Dr Gall was enabled to point out the situation of these organs in the brain, and the possibility of ascertaining their respective functions by the greater or less development of certain cerebral parts, Such is an abridgment of the discoveries of the incomparable man whose loss we deplore. He professed his doctrine at Vienna, where he practised honourably the medical art, when ignorance, hypocrisy, and perfidy, which have always a ready access to power, prevailed in obtaining a prohibition against his announcing the truths which he had discovered. Upon this he quitted Vienna, and, during two years and a half, accompanied by his pupil and friend, Dr Spurzheim, he travelled over the north of Europe, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden ; ultimately he came to Paris, and settled there. During his travels the most distinguished philosophers of Germany, princes, and

even kings, honoured him with their approbation, and assisted with interest at his physiological demonstrations. Medals were struck at Berlin in honour of him.

Arrived at Paris towards the end of 1807, he immediately gave public lectures at the Royal Athenæum. The French savans listened to him with the same interest as those of Germany had done, and the celebrated Corvisart was, among others, one of his most enthusiastic admirers. But, alas ! an absolute ruler governed France at that epoch, and he held philosophy in horror. Nothing more was required to induce the courtiers, and some literary men, whose minds were as pliant as their spines, to declare themselves the enemies of the doctrines broached by the German doctor. Hence the ridicule and the ignoble pleasantry which degraded the Journal de l'Empire and most of the secondary journals of Paris,—most unworthy means certainly of discussing a science so important as that which treats of the powers of the mind and functions of the brain,-means which never reached the elevated mind of the philosopher against whom they were employed, but which contributed greatly to prevent the study and propagation of the truths which Gall had announced. At last, however, his works appeared, and several of his eminent cotemporaries hastened to do him justice, and still follow the line of investigation so successfully marked out by him.

But, I imagine, I hear some one exclaim," With such "claims to our respect and admiration, what were his titles in so"ciety?-did he wear any of those distinctive marks which vanity "so often erects into proofs of merit? was he a member of the In"stitute?" Such titles, gentlemen, are too common now-a-days, and too partially distributed, and Gall's merit was infinitely superior to them. By his discoveries he has himself given rise to academies and to learned societies, which are now spread over different regions of the earth, from Edinburgh and London, even to Washington and Philadelphia in America, and to Calcutta in Asia. Where is the man who in his lifetime could boast of a success equal to this? Have