Outlines of Anatomy and Physiology (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1841 edition. Excerpt: ... of the most opposite instincts. What has already been said with regard to the facial line applies especially to the more or less considerable development of the anterior part of the brain, and the existence of a depressed and retreating forehead will give the whole head an aspect of stupidity. It is also remarked, that in carnivorous animals living by the chace and which display the most courage and ferocity, the width of the cranium, at the ears, is much greater than in the herbivorous, with mild and timid manners. It must also be allowed that in almost all animals the posterior part of the head, where phrenologists place the love of offspring, seems to be more developed in females than males, and we all know that the tenderness of a mother for her young is a much stronger passion, than in the father. But if some of the suppositions which form the basis of phrenology appear to be really quite plausible, others are not founded upon any conviction and must even appear absurd to all persons accustomed to analyze the phenomena of intelligence. Thus some phrenologists admit a particular faculty for the appreciation of weight, another adapted to judge of length and so on. But we repeat, no fact is yet known suitable to prove that this division of labor really exists in the brain, and some experiments of M. Flourens would even lead to the idea that it does not. MOTIONS. The various modifications of the faculty of perception which have been noticed in the preceding pages, render man and animals capable of knowing surrounding objects; but their relations with the external world do not merely consist in these phenomena, in some sort passive. These beings may also act upon foreign bodies, make changes in them, move, and often express in a manner, ..