Gall and Spurzheim, and has no scruple in avowing himself a decided Materialist.

It is unnecessary here to enter on a discussion of Materialism, or even of Phrenology,--that will be done hereafter; in the mean time it is enough merely to indicate the fact that the theory proceeds on that ground, and then to inquire _how the fundamental law of Development is deduced from it_.

How does the theory of Materialism, or even of Phrenology, were it assumed on the one side and admitted on the other, contribute to the establishment or verification of that law?
Suppose it to be conceded that every mental faculty or propensity has a distinct cerebral organ, or, more generally, that the brain may be divided into three parts, representing, respectively, the animal propensities, the more elevated sentiments, and the intellectual faculties; could it be rationally inferred from this concession that human nature must necessarily develop itself after a certain order or method, and especially in the precise way that is indicated in M.Comte's law?
Would it prove that Man must needs pass, in the process of his mental and social development, through _three_ distinct and successive stages,--the preparatory Theological state, the transitory Metaphysical state, and the final Positive state?
Would it prove that Religion must first exist as Fetishism, then as Polytheism, then as Monotheism, and thereafter disappear from the earth altogether on the advent of M.Comte?
He seems to think that there is a real connection between the cerebral theory and his great fundamental law; but it is not easy for a common reader to discern or to explain it.
Considering the cranium, according to what he conceives to be the true anatomical theory, as simply a prolongation of the vertebral column,--the primitive centre of the whole nervous system,--he argues that the functions, intellectual and emotional, which are proper to the upper and anterior parts of it, are less energetic than the animal propensities, whose organs lie in the lower and posterior region, just in proportion as they are further removed from the spine; and that, for this reason, the latter must first come into action, then the intermediate organs of sentiment, and, last of all, the intellectual powers.

And this doctrine he applies to the verification both of his otherwise admirable classification of the Sciences, and of his far more doubtful law of human development.

We conceive that if it were applicable at all to the problem of human progress, it might possibly be applied to indicate the probable development of an _individual mind_, in the successive stages of infancy, youth, and manhood; but that it does not admit of the same application to _the history of the race_, otherwise than by the aid of a very fanciful analogy.