There never was an important discovery presented to the consideration of men, which was not opposed by all the force that scepticism could call to its assistance.--Truths, which at the present time are universally recognized, had to accomplish conquests over many obstacles, before their necessity or importance was admitted. The all-important and sublime discoveries of Galileo, Newton and Hartly, were first sneered at, then ridiculed, after a while considered, and subsequently adopted. Truths do not burst in splendor from heaven on the benighted understandings of men; but their progress ever has been and ever must be gradual. Night, in the intellectual as in the outward world, relinquishes its empire slowly; and hence, doctrines appertaining to science, which seem at this time to contain within themselves the qualities of their own illumination, were originally rejected as unworthy of the sanction of the understanding.
Phrenology has offered no exception to the general rule which we have referred to. Whether it be true or false, it has at least participated in the destiny common to truth. It has been met at every stage of its progress with whatever of reason, ridicule, or wit, subtlety or ingenuity could suggest. Ardent opponents have inflicted what they have supposed deadly wounds upon it, and have anticipated the epitaph which would be written to its memory. But these visions have not, unfortunately for the reputations of those who indulged them, been realized; and the period at which they predicted the extinction of the science, has been the season of its proudest triumphs. If it be a heresy, it is a bold one; and, like that of the Albigenses, spreads most where opposition is deadliest.
Phrenology is emphatically a science of observation;--by it, it has been built up; and on it, it mainly depends. Observation and application form the tests of scientific doctrines, and they are invoked as the formidable auxiliaries of this science. To a mind disposed to investigate before it decides upon the merits of doctrines, a few interrogations present themselves forcibly. Among the advocates of phrenology, have not some names, remarkable for ability and inquiry, been numbered? Were these men imposed on by the fallacies of the science, or did they wish to impose a fallacy upon the credulity of others? Are not these suppositions effectually silenced by an appeal to the well-determined moral and intellectual qualities of those advocates? If phrenology be false, how has it happened that a science which triumphantly appeals to observation, and which, in consequence, must be susceptible of easy support or overthrow, has for years sustained itself against the combined efforts of genius and intelligence? Is it asked why scientific individuals have not universally ranged themselves under the banners of this science? Two answers immediately suggest themselves:--First; the reluctance with which the human mind ever foregoes or substitutes its acquisitions; and, secondly, the disinclination which men always manifest at prosecuting inquiries into the nature of doctrines which are not corroborated by previous studies, and which they are pleased to term innovations.