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George Combe [1788-1858] American
Rank: 103
Educator, Author


George Combe was the leader of – and the spokesman for – the phrenological movement for more than twenty years. He founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society in 1820 and was the author of the highly influential The Constitution of Man.

Wisdom



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The friends whom I have are invaluable, and although not numerous they are sufficient for my enjoyment; and the texture of my own mind renders me very indifferent to the rest of the world.
101
They are few in the midst of an overwhelming mass of brute force, and their submission is wisdom; but for a nation like England to submit to be robbed by any invader who chooses to visit her shores seemed to me to be nonsense. Wisdom
102
Phrenology taught us that the mind thinks by means of the brain, is liable to become fatigued by too long attention, as the locomotive muscles are by too much walking; and I therefore proposed to them to take a brief rest.
103
I requested the gentlemen to put on their hats, and the ladies their shawls, to avoid catching cold, and then had the windows widely opened. This proceeding caused some astonishment and alarm at first; for the Americans generally have a dread of cold air.
104
While some of them acknowledge the obligation of natural morality in their mode of conducting their cases, and preserve their individual character as gentlemen, there are others who acknowledge no law, human or divine, but the law of Scotland.
105
And if these be unprincipled agents who scruple at nothing, he will be a bold man who will deny that there are always to be found men at the bar who lend their services most cordially to back and support these agents in their most desperate cases.
106
We used to speak familiarly of an agent, now do more, who was accustomed to manufacture evidence, and to invent facts in his cases, or at least to alter the aspects of facts to such an extent that they might fairly be viewed as new.
107
He has a number of curious facts in illustration of the power of mere goodness to protect against outrage.
108
I called their attention also to the absence of all means of ventilating the hall, remarking that, as we had already breathed the air which it contained for a full hour, it must have lost much of its vital properties and needed to be renewed.
109
The interval allowed was only five minutes, at the end of which I resumed the lecture; but so refreshing was the effects of the brief rest and, above all, the admission of pure air, that during the second hour the attention was as completely sustained as during the first.
110
The same practice was continued every evening through the whole course, and with the same success. Many individuals expressed their gratification at having discovered such simple means of relieving the tedium of a long discourse.
111

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