How to Become Rich | Page 5

Phrenology are themselves to blame for this. They have been too content to rest under the imputation of feeling heads for bumps. They have not been sufficiently versed, in many instances, in physiological science to dare to debate the ground with high authorities. I challenge the world to bring one single natural fact to militate against the principles here announced. I will debate the question with any skilled medical, legal or clerical authority, and I claim, without fear of contradiction, that the world does not hold a head whose character will differ from that which Phrenology ascribes to it, when the developments of the brain are measured in the light of these modifying conditions.
When I was lecturing in Indiana in 1885, Gov. Will Cumback of that state, propounded this question:
"Professor, what would you do if you found a man whose head, in the light of Phrenological principles, showed a certain character, and you found on intimate acquaintance and positive proof that he, in fact, possessed a character radically different."
"My dear Governor," I replied, "I would wait until the sun rose in the west, and then watch to see what you would do and follow suit. Such men do not exist, they never have existed, and they never will exist until the order of nature is reversed."
These three great modifying conditions which must be taken into consideration before we estimate the brain itself, are as follows:
1st. The State of the Health. 2nd. The Quality of the Organization. 3rd. The Temperament of the Constitution.
And we will consider them in the order named, therefore first,
THE STATE OF THE HEALTH.
It is a great fact in the constitution of man, that whatever affects the body, affects the manifestations of intelligence, and conversely, whatever affects intelligence affects the body. The body is the harp of a thousand strings, manifesting its intelligence by different degrees of vibration. If either the musician or his instrument is out of order, the music will be discordant. It is not necessary for me to argue that a man must be in perfect health to exhibit perfect mentality. But as perfect health is the exception and not the rule, we rarely find mentality even approximating perfection. We are obliged, in our estimate of the character of men, to allow for various bodily infirmities, in a word, for the eccentricities of disease. These diseases may be inherited or acquired since birth; they may be acute or chronic in their stages; they may be mild or malignant in type; they may produce long, continued illness, terminating in death, or they may be only what we call a temporary indisposition, like that of the country boy, who went to Boston for the first time to see the sights. As he wandered around he became hungry, and, entering a restaurant began to experiment with strange dishes. He ate first a porterhouse steak, then some fried oysters, then a lobster salad, a lot of pickles, ice cream, cake and bologna sausage, drank a bottle of champagne and retired to his lodgings, and dreamed that he was lying on Boston Common, and that the devil was sitting on his stomach, holding Bunker Hill monument in his lap.
If you eat an indigestible meal, you are unable to perform good brain-work after it. If you feed the body on material that will not nourish it, the brain refuses to work. If you are in the clutches of disease, we cannot expect of you a high measure of brain-power; in other words, the manifestations of the mind are weakened by the disorder of its instrument, the body.
The phrenologist, therefore, who essays to read your character, must be able to trace the signs of disease in your appearance. He must needs be an expert Physiologist and Anatomist. He must understand Pathology. He must have the diagnosing skill to detect disease and allow for it in his estimate of your mentality, or his delineation is worth less than nothing; nay, more, he may do you a positive damage, by advising you to adopt a course of life which would be disastrous to your constitution. He must be able to do all this and do it rapidly and with precision. Never trust yourself under the hands of a professed phrenologist unless you are confident of his skill in estimating and diagnosing your physical condition.
QUALITY.
The second step in a phrenological examination is the determination of the quality of the organization. Perhaps there is no branch of the science of phrenology which has received such crude treatment at the hands of phrenological writers as this subject of organic quality. Many use the term interchangeably with temperament, some confound it with temperament and hereditary disposition, others recognize it as a distinct modifying condition; but I know of no writer, except myself, who has yet attempted a classification