does M. Comte offer, in lieu of the direct mental observation which he
repudiates? We are almost ashamed to say, that it is Phrenology! Not,
indeed, he says, as a science formed, but as one still to be created;
for he rejects almost all the special organs imagined by phrenologists,
and accepts only their general division of the brain into the three
regions of the propensities, the sentiments, and the intellect,[13] and
the subdivision of the latter region between the organs of meditation
and those of observation. Yet this mere first outline of an
apportionment of the mental functions among different organs, he regards
as extricating the mental study of man from the metaphysical stage, and
elevating it to the positive. The condition of mental science would be
sad indeed if this were its best chance of being positive; for the later
course of physiological observation and speculation has not tended to
confirm, but to discredit, the phrenological hypothesis. And even if
that hypothesis were true, psychological observation would still be
necessary; for how is it possible to ascertain the correspondence
between two things, by observation of only one of them? To establish a
relation between mental functions and cerebral conformations, requires
not only a parallel system of observations applied to each, but (as M.
Comte himself, with some inconsistency, acknowledges) an analysis of the
mental faculties, "des diverses facultés élémentaires," (iii. 573),
conducted without any reference to the physical conditions, since the
proof of the theory would lie in the correspondence between the division
of the brain into organs and that of the mind into faculties, each shown
by separate evidence. To accomplish this analysis requires direct
psychological study carried to a high pitch of perfection; it being
necessary, among other things, to investigate the degree in which mental
character is created by circumstances, since no one supposes that
cerebral conformation does all, and circumstances nothing. The
phrenological study of Mind thus supposes as its necessary preparation