Of the above instances, Voltaire is the most decidedly deficient in the Cogitative, which is always essential to indicate a capacity for the deep, close and serious thought requisite to constitute a truly great and philosophic mind. The angle at which his nose stood from his face was quite 45°, and therefore much too great to exhibit faithfully the higher characteristics of the Greek. It was, moreover, exceedingly deficient in the broadening property of Class III; and we presume that no one will assert that Voltaire possessed “a truly great and philosophic mind.” Surely no man, who ever wrote so much, and on such varied subjects, ever devoted less time to close intense thought. He did not even stop to examine his facts; but, having a brilliant wit and “the pen of a ready writer,” he rapidly evolved some fanciful theory, or started some fallacious argument from such unauthenticated data as he happened to be possessed of. All this was indicated by his sharp Greek Nose; for it was acuteness, not depth; readiness, not thought; careless, unprincipled wit, not study; attractive style, not sound matter, which earned him his short-lived fame. Hence, Voltaire, though striving all his life to gain the title of philosopher, never succeeded even in the most unphilosophic age and country since the revival of learning, and is now, we believe, wholly excluded from the dignity. It has been truly and wittily said of Voltaire, that “he _half_ knew everything, ‘from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall,’ and he wrote of them all, and laughed at them all.”
It will be noticed that the foregoing list contains the name of “Milton, _in youth_.” It is inserted thus, because his portrait, taken _ætat._ XXIII, shows that his Nose was not then developed into the Cogitative form which it assumed in later years, when troublous times and anxious cares caused him to reflect profoundly on events around him. Then it expanded at the base and became, like the Noses of all the great men of those stirring times, largely compounded with the Cogitative; under the compounds of which class it will again, at a later period of his life, appear. From this corresponding change in feature with change in character, we might, if we thought proper, demand the same proof for our system which the phrenologists demand for theirs, from the gradual alteration in the skull of the boy Bidder; and though (as our system is, we conceive, better based than theirs) it is unnecessary to lay as much stress upon a single fact as they are compelled to do, yet we think it right not to let this proof pass wholly without observation.