anxiety of the human mind have
invented, built upon arbitrary principles, blundered upon in the dark,
and having no resemblance to the march of genuine science. I find in
sir Thomas Browne the following axioms of chiromancy: "that spots in
the tops of the nails do signifie things past; in the middle, things
present; and at the bottom, events to come: that white specks presage
our felicity; blue ones our misfortunes: that those in the nails of the
thumb have significations of honour, in the forefinger, of riches, and
so respectively in the rest."

Science, to be of a high and satisfactory character, ought to consist of
a deduction of causes and effects, shewing us not merely that a thing is
so, but why it is as it is, and cannot be otherwise. The rest is merely
empirical; and, though the narrowness of human wit may often drive us
to this; yet it is essentially of a lower order and description. As it
depends for its authority upon an example, or a number of examples, so
examples of a contrary nature may continually come in, to weaken its
force, or utterly to subvert it. And the affair is made still worse,
when we see, as in the case of craniology, that all the reasons that
can be deduced (as here from the nature of mind) would persuade us
to believe, that there can be no connection between the supposed
indications, and the things pretended to be indicated.

Craniology, or phrenology, proceeds exactly in the same train, as
chiromancy, or any of those pretended sciences which are built merely
on assumption or conjecture. The first delineations presented to the
public, marked out, as I have said, the scull into compartments, in the
same manner as a country delineated on a map is divided into districts.
Geography is a real science, and accordingly, like other sciences, has
been slow and gradual in its progress. At an early stage travellers
knew little more than the shores and islands of the Mediterranean.
Afterwards, they passed the straits of Hercules, and entered into the
Atlantic. At length the habitable world was distributed into three
parts, Europe, Asia, and Africa. More recently, by many centuries, came
the discovery of America. It is but the other day comparatively, that
we found the extensive island of New Holland in the Southern Ocean. The
ancient geographers placed an elephant or some marine monster in the
vacant parts of their maps, to signify that of these parts they knew
nothing. Not so Dr. Gall. Every part of