and I bespeak
from you the thoughtful consideration which an honest man may
demand from honest thinking men and women in the investigation of a
practical science.
I am always able to recognize in my audience, three classes of persons.
I can tell them by their phrenological appearances whenever they are
before me. The first class is composed of those who have already tested
phrenology and found it valuable, who have studied the subject and
appropriated its truths, and before whom I need not argue its utility. I
shall be able to please the members of my audience who belong to this
class, and to lead them further in the paths they have already found
pleasant and profitable. I shall unfold some new truths and add to their
store of valuable knowledge.
The second class is composed of that large number of intelligent
persons, in every community, who have not investigated this subject,
who are willing to approach it in a spirit of candor and honest inquiry,
anxious to accept anything which is reasonable and good, and equally
intent upon rejecting that which is fraudulent and evil, and I invite the
careful criticism of this class; and if, in my exposition of this subject, I
announce a single proposition which will not bear the closest scrutiny;
if I say aught which conflicts with common sense or reason, nay, if you
can find one single natural fact to militate against the principles which I
announce as fundamental to this science, I will be obliged to the
gentleman or lady who will raise the question with me, and I will either
prove my position to the satisfaction of this audience or retire from the
field forever.
[Illustration: Idiot.]
The third class, unfortunately, are always with us, but I do not expect to
convince them. They never were known to be convinced of anything.
You can easily learn to distinguish an individual of this class by the
shape of his head. Here is one I carry for illustration. He argues that the
world is flat and does not revolve on its axis once in 24 hours, because,
if it did, the water would all be spilled out of the Mississippi river. Life
is too short to argue with this class, and I can only promise them that
before I leave this platform they will be in the same category that a
fellow was once who went to a prayer-meeting slightly intoxicated and
fell asleep. Toward the close of the meeting everybody began to get
happy, and the preacher called on everybody who wanted to go to
Heaven to stand up. Everybody stood up but our intoxicated friend,
who was awakened by the uprising. Then the preacher called on
everybody who wanted to go to hell to stand up. Our friend by this time
comprehended that something was before the house and staggered to
his feet. He took one look at the preacher standing at the other end of
the church and said: "Parson, (hic) I don't know what the question, is
(hic) before the house, but you and I (hic) are in the smallest minority
that ever I saw."
So it is with you, my friends. If you don't believe in Phrenology when I
dismiss you to-night, remember that you are in the minority in this
audience, and a very small minority at that, composed of unprogressive
mossbacks and persons of small mental capacity, and if you will call at
my rooms to-morrow, I'll tell you to which of these classes you belong.
In the study of scientific topics it is well in the outset to establish
definitions. I will, therefore, commence by looking our subject squarely
in the face, and establishing a concise definition of Phrenology.
PHRENOLOGY is the science of intelligence. It is derived from two
Greek words--Phren intelligence Logos "discourse" or science. But
before we can properly understand this definition we must have a
definition of the term "Science," which is about as often misused as any
word I know.
Science is classified knowledge. The word itself in its etymology
signifies what we know about a particular subject. And whenever we
learn two facts about any subject, and we differentiate and classify
those two facts, we have a science of that subject. Thus we have the
science of Astronomy, containing the classified facts that intelligent
observers have learned concerning the stars. The science of
Mathematics, a classification of knowledge concerning numbers, and
the science of Phrenology, which simply means the facts that intelligent
observers have collected concerning intelligence, classified and
reduced to rules to serve a practical purpose.
Before I leave this term "Science," I wish to draw a distinction between
a science and an art. The science is the classified knowledge; the art is
the process of turning that knowledge to
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