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George Combe's A System of Phrenology, 5th edn, 2 vols. 1853.

Vol. 1: [front matter], Intro, Nervous system, Principles of Phrenology, Anatomy of the brain, Division of the faculties 1.Amativeness 2.Philoprogenitiveness 3.Concentrativeness 4.Adhesiveness 5.Combativeness 6.Destructiveness, Alimentiveness, Love of Life 7.Secretiveness 8.Acquisitiveness 9.Constructiveness 10.Self-Esteem 11.Love of Approbation 12.Cautiousness 13.Benevolence 14.Veneration 15.Firmness 16.Conscientiousness 17.Hope 18.Wonder 19.Ideality 20.Wit or Mirthfulness 21.Imitation.
Vol. 2: [front matter], external senses, 22.Individuality 23.Form 24.Size 25.Weight 26.Colouring 27.Locality 28.Number 29.Order 30.Eventuality 31.Time 32.Tune 33.Language 34.Comparison, General observations on the Perceptive Faculties, 35.Causality, Modes of actions of the faculties, National character & development of brain, On the importance of including development of brain as an element in statistical inquiries, Into the manifestations of the animal, moral, and intellectual faculties of man, Statistics of Insanity, Statistics of Crime, Comparative phrenology, Mesmeric phrenology, Objections to phrenology considered, Materialism, Effects of injuries of the brain, Conclusion, Appendices: No. I, II, III, IV, V, [Index], [Works of Combe].

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23.-FORM.

DR GALL was struck with the circumstance, that certain persons and animals recognise, with the greatest facility, individuals whom they have not seen for years, and even then seen only in passing. In himself, this faculty was weak, and frequently, on rising from table, he had no recollection of the person who had sat next to him, so as to be able to recognise him again in society ; and he was, in consequence, exposed to many painful embarrassments and awkward mistakes. Being desired to examine the head of a young girl who had an extreme facility of distinguishing and recollecting persons, he found her eyes pushed laterally outward, and a certain squinting look : after innumerable additional observations, he spoke of an organ of the knowledge of persons.

The organs lie on the two sides of, and contiguous to, the crista galli. When small, the orbitar plate approaches close to the sides of the crest, and then the external width across the nose from eye to eye is small : when large, there is a considerable space between the orbitar plate and the crest, and a great external breadth across the nose ; in general there is also a depression of the internal part of the eyes.

The organ is generally large in very young children ; and at that age they are extremely observant of forms.

In some instances, in adults, the frontal sinus is found at the situation of. this organ, but it rarely leads to difficulty in observing its size. The organ was large in King George III., and, combined with his large organ of Individuality, gave him that extraordinary talent for recollecting persons for which he was celebrated. It is very moderately developed in Curran.

Dr Gall observes, that those individuals who never bestow more than a superficial attention on phenomena, and

36 FORM.

who have always reasonings, or at least sophisms, ready in explanation of every fact, pretend that a deficiency, such as he experienced in recognising persons, is owing to the eyes ; that, in such cases, the vision is indistinct, or there is a squint. His personal experience, he adds, affords a refutation of this hypothesis ; for he never had a squint, and his vision was particularly acute and clear.¹ Often children from three to five years of age have a great memory of persons. Some dogs, at the distance of years, recognise an individual whom they have only once seen : while others, after a few days' absence, do not know again persons whom they have seen frequently. Monkeys, dogs, horses, elephants, and even birds, distinguish, with greater or less facility, their master,

¹ Dr Gall mentions, that although he could neither paint nor design, he was able to seize with great facility the numerous forms of the head ; which statement is at variance with great deficiency in the organ of Form ; but from the general tenor of his observations, it appears that his power of distinguishing forms was not so great as he imagined it to be. Dr Spurzheim gives the following note in his reprint of the article Phrenology in the 3d Number of The Foreign Quarterly Review :-

" The phrenological faculties of Dr Gall's infantile genius were, Individuality, Eventuality, and Causality, in an eminent degree.

" It has been remarked as singular, that Dr Gall should have been the first founder of this new science, whilst he could not recollect persons after dinner, though they had been near him at table, and since he could not find his way again to places where he had been before; or, in phrenological terms, since he had Form and Locality very small. Those who make that remark, can neither know the proceeding of Dr Gall, nor understand the true meaning of the two phrenological denominations. Dr Gall compared the size of individual cerebral portions with certain talents or characters eminent in any way ; and he was not deficient in the power of perceiving size and its differences. The want of Locality did not prevent him from making discoveries, any more than the want of seeing certain colours hinders any one to cultivate geometry or mathematics in general. Dr Gall's deficiency in Form explains why he constantly attached himself to isolated elevations and depressions on the surface of the head, rather than to their general configuration, and left this rectification of Phrenology to my exertions ; he, nevertheless, has the great merit of having discovered first, certain relations between cerebral development and mental manifestations."

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and those who have been kind or cruel to them, among a thousand. All the animals which belong to a herd, and also all the bees in a hive, from 20,000 to 80,000 in number, know each other. When a stranger attempts to introduce himself, they drive him away, or kill him.^l

Dr Spurzheim has analyzed the mental power connected with the organ in question, and considers it in the following manner : " To me," says he, " there seems to exist an essential and fundamental power, which takes cognizance of configuration generally, and one of whose peculiar applications or offices is recollection of persons : for persons are only known by their forms. I separate the faculty which appreciates configuration from that of Individuality, since we may admit the existence of a being without taking its figure into consideration. Individuality may be excited by every one of the external senses, by smell and hearing, as well as by feeling and sight ; while the two latter senses alone assist the faculty of configuration. It is this power which disposes us to give a figure to every being and conception of our minds : that of an old man, to God ; to Death, that of a skeleton ; and so on. The organ of Configuration is situated in the internal angle of the orbit ; if large, it pushes the eye-ball towards the external angle a little outwards and downwards. It varies in size in whole nations. Many of the Chinese I have seen in London had it much developed. It is commonly large in the French, and bestows their skill in producing certain articles of industry. Combined with Constructiveness, it invents the patterns of dress-makers and milliners. It leads poets to describe portraits and configurations, and induces those who make collections of pictures and engravings to prefer portraits, if they have it in a high degree. It is essential to portrait-painters. Crystallography also depends on it ; and to me it appears that conceptions of smoothness and roughness are acquired by its means."² I

¹ Sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, tome v. p. 1, 2, &c.

² Phrenology, p. 274.

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have met with numerous facts, in proof of this faculty and organ.

In The Phrenological Journal, vol. viii. p. 216, the case of the late Dr Robert Macnish is recorded, who always associated a particular form with certain words. " Words," says he, " are associated in my mind with shapes, and shapes with words ; a horse's mouth, for instance, I always associate with the word smeer. As instances of the association of words with forms, take the following examples :

The late Mr Thomas Allan of Edinburgh, who had a passion for mineralogy from early youth, had a very large development of this organ, as also of Comparison. I have seen many children who were expert at cutting figures in paper possess it, with the organs of Imitation and Constructiveness, large. A gentleman called on me in whom Constructiveness, Locality, and other organs which go to form a talent for drawing landscape and botanical figures are large, but in whom Form is deficient ; and he said, that he could not, except with great difficulty and imperfection, draw or copy portraits.

The celebrated Cuvier owed much of his success as a comparative anatomist to this organ. De Candolle mentions that " his memory was particularly remarkable in what related to forms, considered in the widest sense of that word ; the figure of an animal, seen in reality or in drawing, never left his mind, and served him as a point of comparison for all similar objects." This organ, and also the organs lying

FORM. 39

along the superciliary ridge, were largely developed in his head.

Mr Audubon says of the late Mr Bewick, the most eminent wood-engraver whom England has produced-" His eyes were placed farther apart than those of any man I have ever seen."¹

Children in whom the organ of Form is very large, learn to read with great facility, even in languages of which they are totally ignorant, and although the book be presented to them upside down.²

In the casts of two Chinese skulls in the Phrenological Society's collection, the organ is greatly developed ; and it is said to be large in the Chinese in general. Their use of characters for words may have sprung from the great size of this organ, which would enable them easily to invent and remember a variety of forms. In a collection of portraits of eminent painters, presented by Sir G. S. Mackenzie to the Society, the organ appears uncommonly large in those who excelled in portrait-painting.

The metaphysicians do not admit a faculty of this kind.

Dr Gall remarks, that some authors present the reader with descriptions of the persons whom they introduce, drawn with great minuteness and effect. Montaigne and Sterne, for example, are distinguished for this practice, and in the portraits of both the organ of Form is conspicuously large.

I subjoin a copy of the portrait of "William Dobson, an English painter in the reign of Charles L, in whom the width between the eyes at this organ (23) is very great. He was rather celebrated for portraits.

¹ Audubon's Ornithological Biography, vol. iii. p. 300.

² See two illustrative cases in The Phrenological Journal, vol. viii. p. 65, and vol. ix. p. 344 ; also vol. xi. p. 407. See effects of Mesmerism on the organ in vol. xv. p. 366-7.

Lord Jeffrey, in the article " Beauty" in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, agrees with another author, whom he quotes, Mr Knight, in maintaining, that "there are no forms that have any intrinsic beauty, or any power of pleasing or affecting us, except through their associations or affinities to mental affections, either as expressive of fitness and utility, or as types and symbols of certain moral or intellectual qualities, in which the sources of our interest are obvious.¹¹ From these observations one would suspect Lord Jeffrey and Mr Knight to be endowed with small organs of Form themselves, and that they have taken their own experience as that of mankind in general. The notion which Lord Jeffrey has erected into a fundamental principle, and on which his whole essay on Beauty is built,-that external objects possess no qualities of their own fitted to please the mind,

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but that all their beauty and interest arise from human feelings which we have associated with them,-is contradicted by. daily experience. The mineralogist, when he speaks of the beauty of his crystals, has a distinct and intelligible feeling to which the name of Beauty is legitimately applied ; and yet he connects no human emotions with the pyramids, and rhombs, and octagons, which he contemplates in the spars. Persons in whom this organ is large, declare that they enjoy a perceptible pleasure from the contemplation of mere form, altogether unconnected with ideas of utility and fitness, or of moral or intellectual associations ; and that they can speak as intelligibly of elegant and inelegant, beautiful and ugly shapes, regarded merely as shapes, as of sweet and bitter, hard and soft.

The organ is regarded as established