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Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-1894

"The Professor at the Breakfast-Table"

Messrs. Bumpus and Crane examine him and find a
good-sized organ of Acquisitiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology.
Casts and drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump does not lose in
the act of copying.--I did not say it gained.--What do you look so for?
(to the boarders.)
Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But B. has no bump at all
over Acquisitiveness. Negative fact; goes against Phrenology.--Not a
bit of it. Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is? That's the
reason B. stole.
And then comes C., ten times as much a thief as either A. or B.,--used
to steal before he was weaned, and would pick one of his own pockets and
put its contents in another, if he could find no other way of committing
petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a hollow, instead of a bump, over
Acquisitiveness. Ah, but just look and see what a bump of
Alimentiveness! Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, with
the money he stole? Of course you see why he is a thief, and how his
example confirms our noble science.


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