The Phrenological Journal, and Magazine of Moral Science

Zacharias Dase, of whom I have brought a cast to Edinburgh, is a native of Hamburgh, and is now fifteen years of age. From his earliest childhood he evinced a great delight in playing at dominos; and when about eight years of age, he used to tell his parents and relations that his schoolmaster could no longer give him any arithmetical problem which he was not able to solve with facility. His liking for arithmetic gradually became stronger in proportion to the skill he acquired; and in the course of the following years he went through a series of different volumes filled with arithmetical questions, answering every one of them by means of a slate-board, and sometimes sitting up all night in the pursuit of his favourite occupation.

I saw him in Bremen in the beginning of summer 1840, when he was just beginning his travels under the guardianship of a senior relation of his. And much he required a tutor; for even in the course of a few hours I became quite satisfied with the truth of his tutor's assertion, that the pupil, when engaged in his pastime of calculating, paid no attention to anything like business; neither to the coach just ready to start, nor to his dinner, nor to neatness in his dress and outward appearance. Whenever I tried to make him answer some questions about his manner of proceeding, or his habits, tastes, and thoughts in different directions, the next minute he abruptly went on again, "If any one has lived—how many years—and every second of his life has used—which fraction of a penny & c.?" wanting to stimulate me to give him another problem of some kind or another. The only distinct account I got from him was, that he attributed his acquired skill to his early predilection for the game of domino, and his habit of calculating on the slate-board. He was very anxious to know whether he was to find his equal anywhere: to this question he returned repeatedly. His tutor could not mention any particular turn of his mind, but that he was a very good-hearted boy, and very fond only of sweets in a confectioner's shop, and of calculating. Neither his parents nor other relations, as far as he knew, in this respect bore any resemblance to him.

Zacharias Dase possesses equally the power of readily surveying a great number of unities, and that of solving mentally any questions of common arithmetic in a very short time. It is only puzzling questions, as he calls them, i. e. questions for the solution of which reflection is principally required, which he begs to be spared. If from ten to twenty dominos are placed in a line on a table before him, and he is required to name the number of eyes they contain, he just casts one glance upon them, and either pronounces the number immediately, or, when there are about fifteen and upwards, raises his bead for a moment, allowing the impression he got by his eyes to repass before his mind, and then gives his answer with confidence and precision. When in my study, he observed a long line of volumes of some periodical in the book-shelves, and on my asking him how many there might be, he made his eyes rapidly pass along them, and named their number, which proved to be perfectly exact. He likewise wanted to tell me the number of hairs which had come off his eyebrows with the plaster of the cast's mould; which exercise of his skill I, however, thought better to decline seeing performed, as, for want of practice, I unluckily had omitted to grease the eyebrows separately with a more consistent ointment.

In solving arithmetical questions, he proceeds on a similar principle of repassing the account before he pronounces his definitive answer. When any problem is given in public, he marks down on a board the sums he is to calculate upon, and, generally immediately after the last number of the question proposed, notes under it his answer, which, however, he does not speak out before having made sure by a second more deliberate, but still rapid, trial of its correctness. When in the act of calculating, a remark, or even a question, may be addressed to him, which he will attend to, and even answer, without being thereby disturbed in his mental operation.

The appearance of the development of the organ of Number in the cast of Dase, strongly resembles that of Zhero Colburn, as given in Vimont's Atlas, the highest elevation being above the outer junction of the eyelids, and sloping down on both sides so as to extend nearly to the middle of the orbit in the inward direction. At the same time, the position of the eyeball, in this instance, was such as to make the pupil appear to be turned somewhat inward and downward,—principally so when Dase was in the act of calculating; which seemed to be an effect produced by the large development of the organ of Number, similar to the pushing the eyeball outward by a large development of the organ of Language. Among the rest of the intellectual organs, Individuality is the most predominant, the knowing organs in general preponderating over the reflective, and, among these, Comparison being larger than Causality.

[The principal feature seems to us to be the vertical depression of the organ of Number, producing a corresponding depression of the outer angle of the eyelids. "The highest elevation" spoken of by Dr Hirschfeld is in the region rather of Order than of Number. We think it doubtful, however, whether the cast gives a correct representation of the living head in the superciliary region, the plaster of the mould being apt to displace by its weight the soft integuments.— Editor.]