In 1815, the Edinburgh Review contained an article on the system of "craniology" devised by Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim, denouncing it as "a piece of thorough quackery from beginning to end". When Spurzheim came to Edinburgh in 1816, Combe was invited to a friend's house, where he watched Spurzheim dissect a human brain. Impressed by the demonstration, he attended a second series of Spurzheim's lectures. On investigating the subject for himself, he became satisfied that the fundamental principles of phrenology were true: "that the brain is the organ of mind; that the brain is an aggregate of several parts, each subserving a distinct mental faculty; and that the size of the cerebral organ is, caeteris paribus, an index of power or energy of function."
