Phrenology

“ Very little has been done towards an exact science of human phrenology. The difficulties remain pretty much as they were many years ago, and our comparative phrenology, if we may use such a term, is in a very imperfect state. ”

“ Experimental physiology and pathology, by suggesting other functions for parts of the brain-surface, are thus directly subversive of many details of the phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim.
Psychological Aspect.—The fundamental hypothesis which underlies phrenology as a system of mental science is that mental phenomena are resolvable into the manifestations of a group of separate faculties. A faculty is defined as “a convenient expression for the particular states into which the mind enters when influenced by particular organs ”

“ The formulated system of phrenology is very generally believed to be a
modern expansion of an old empirical philosophy, but, according to Dr.
Gall's account, it arose with him as the result of independent
observations. The popularity of phrenology has waned in the public mind,
and cultivation of the system is confined to a few enthusiasts, such as
pose as teachers of it as a vocation. These claim that phrenology is a
practical and important science and that it rests upon the following
principles:
First--That the human brain is the organ of the mind. ”

“ Thus much indeed we have said of the phrenology which still lingers in our midst, by way of contrast with the newer order of brain-interpretation which the advance of physiology has caused to arise among us. In the early days in which the battle of phrenology was fought and won as against the science of brain-pans, physiological experimentation upon the brain was an unknown and unworked source of information. ”

“ Physiognomy since the origin of man has been nature’s open book. The science of palmistry is at least five thousand years old; but the science of phrenology is of comparatively recent origin. When Clara Barton was a little girl phrenology received its really first great impulse in this country, through the lectures and writings of the Doctors Fowler of England. In England, as in this country, phrenology was then the subject of much ridicule. ”

“ If I hear that a man is lymphatic or nervous-sanguine, I cannot tell therefrom whether I shall like and trust him. He may produce a phrenological chart showing that his knobby head is the home of all the virtues, and that the vicious tendencies are represented by holes in his cranium, and yet I cannot be sure that he will not be as disagreeable as if phrenology had not been invented. I feel sometimes that phrenology is the refuge of mediocrity. ”

“ It is amusing to read from the opposite side complaints against Mr. Lewes for giving too high a position to phrenology, and a confident opinion that "phrenologists, by their ridiculous pretensions, merit all the contempt that has been thrown on them." Thus doctors differ! But I am much less interested in crusades for or against phrenology than in your happiness at Ivy Cottage. [57] Happiness means all sorts of love and good feeling; and [341] that is the best result that can ever come out of science. ”

“ Everyone pays unconscious homage to the study of physiognomy when, scanning the features of a stranger, he draws conclusions concerning his intelligence, disposition, and character. Without discussing how much physiognomy is really worth, there can be no doubt that it is a mistake to place it in the same category as phrenology, since the latter lacks that sound basis of physiology which no one can deny to the former. ”

“ The foregoing details will be found to assist us in our criticism of the pretensions of the old phrenology as a basis for estimating "the mind's construction" and the mental habits of man. Primarily, let us inquire if development—that great criterion of the nature of living structure—lends any countenance to the idea that the brain is a collection of organs such as the phrenologist asserts it to be. The brain of man, like that of all other backboned animals, appears to begin its history in a certain delicate streak or furrow which is developed on the surface of the matter of the germ. ”

“ Popular professors of the lore have nevertheless continued to command the admiration of popular audiences; and there seems no doubt that Phrenology, however little it satisfy our scientific curiosity about the functions of different portions of the brain, may still be, in the hands of intelligent practitioners, a useful help in the art of reading character. A hooked nose and a firm jaw are usually signs of practical energy; soft, delicate hands are signs of refined sensibility. Even so may a prominent eye be a sign of power over language, and a bull-neck a sign of sensuality. ”

“ But if development gives no support to the phrenological assertion of the brain's division into organs of the mind, neither does anatomy, human and comparative, countenance its tenets as applied to the examination of the brain-pan itself. To select a very plain method of testing the deductions of phrenology, let an anatomical plate of the upper surface of the undisturbed brain be exhibited, and, having settled the position of certain "organs" from a phrenological chart, let any one try to discover if the limits of any one organ can be discerned on the brain-surface. ”

“ All men are by nature phrenologists; the commonplace excuses that are offered for lapses of memory, venial offences, and inherited weaknesses, all appeal to the comfortable notion that the offender is not wholly perverted, and that some very small and strictly localised group of cells is at fault. And it is probable that the physiology of the central nervous system, with its present strong tendency toward psychology, will some day be back, at a far higher level, above the point where phrenology went wrong. ”

“ We do not claim for a knowledge of phrenology the quality of a sovereign universal remedy for those evils. There are many subjects of controversy not directly connected with the science; and difference of opinion as often arises from difference [253] of feeling as from difference in intellectual apprehension. Even phrenologists, equally well versed in the principles of their science, will sometimes have different views. ”

“ Not merely, however, are the difficulties of phrenology limited to the lower animals. Suppose we make a cross-section of a human skull through either the right or left side of the forehead, about half an inch above the upper border of the orbit or eye cavity. We may then discover that man as well as the elephant possesses "frontal sinuses" or air-spaces in his forehead-bone of considerable extent intervening between the exterior of the skull and the contained brain. Now, in such a section of the human skull, what phrenological "organs" shall we cut through? ”

“ If the theory of phrenology is true, then, if a person should have an accident or a disease, and lose a portion of his brain, he will lose control of those faculties which are supposed to be located within the lost part. ”

“ When Gall, in his psycology, substitutes the [74] faculties for the understanding, he defines those faculties. He defines them, as we have already seen, to be individual intelligences. How happens it, then, that in his anatomy, when he substitutes the organs of the brain for the brain itself, he does not define these organs? How strange! Gall’s whole doctrine, all phrenology, rests upon the organs of the brain; for, without distinct cerebral organs, there can be no independent faculties ”

“ I believe that phrenology has blazed the way for this new psychology. It was violently attacked by the old-school psychologists because it taught that the brain is the instrument of the mind, that the mind has a plurality of faculties and that various brain functions can be localized. Every one conversant with the present literature on physiology and psychology will see that phrenologists have conquered, and that their basic principles are now accepted by all. It is now simply a matter of the application of these principles by further investigation. ”

“ ALMOST every one has at some time wondered whether there is any truth in phrenology. The figures of heads, on which various mental faculties are marked, are to be seen everywhere, and the notion that from the shape of the head the character can be determined has enough of the mysterious in it to prove attractive. ”

“ I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting mechanism of Phrenology, which is very similar to that of the Pseudo-sciences. An example will show it most conveniently.
A. is a notorious thief. 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 Hay 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 ”

“ Long after she [Pg 47] had ceased to have very much faith in phrenology, she blessed the day that sent a phrenologist into her home. When asked in later years what book had influenced her most, she wrote the following reply:
THE BOOK WHICH HAS MOST INFLUENCED ME
Superlatives are difficult to deal with, the comparative is always so near. ”

“ The all important question is, not whether phrenologists have properly located and rightly earned all the faculties of mind, but have their expositions been useful in the development of truth. While endeavoring to connect each mental power with a local habitation in the brain, the system of phrenology may be chargeable with some incongruous classification of the faculties, and yet it has furnished an analysis of the mind which has been of incalculable service to writers upon mental philosophy. ”

“ Phrenology is useful, because it forms the most correct basis of a system of mental philosophy.
In a previous number of this Journal (see Art. I, page 161) , we entered somewhat at length upon the discussion of the above proposition. We there contrasted the merits of phrenology, as the true science of the mind, with other systems of mental philosophy, particularly Dugald Stewart’s. We pointed out several important defects which have hitherto existed in every system of mental science. ”

“ The reader, especially if he dabble in phrenology, might well imagine that such a practice must act injuriously upon the mental capacities of those who are subjected to it. Let us, for example, fancy a skull which has been so ruthlessly compressed that it only measures an inch and a half, or at the most two inches, in depth, at the back ”

“ If, however, the old phrenology has been displaced from the cerebellum by the new, no less important is it to note that, regarding the functions of the true brain, modern research has been equally successful in deposing the old ideas of the "organs" and their attendant faculties as exhibited on the phrenological charts and busts. Experimentation on the brain of higher animals, quoad the brain itself, is absolutely painless—contrary to popular notions and ideas. ”

“ It requires no philosopher or psychologist to see that every single faculty is a part of an inseparable indivisible whole. Instead of endowing the mind [Pg 49] with certain faculties and designating these according to the nature of their function, the phrenologist designates them according to the nature of object upon which they are exercised. According to this, to be logical, he should have as many faculties and compartments as there are things in the universe.
There are two ways of looking at phrenology. ”

“ At the same time it must be admitted that a similar "simplicity"—the apparently easy explanation of complex phenomena—also constitutes the charm of such matters as hydropathy and phrenology, in the eyes of the unlearned or half-educated public. ”

“ At last comes along a case which is apparently a settler, for there is a little brain with vast and varied powers—a case like that of Byron, for instance. Then comes out the grand reserve—reason which covers everything and renders it simply impossible ever to corner a phrenologist. "It is not the size alone, but the quality of an organ, which determines its degree of power."
Oh! oh! I see. The argument may be briefly stated thus by the phrenologist: "Heads I win, tails you lose." Well, that's convenient. It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain resemblance to the pseudosciences. ”

“ Casual examination of the skulls of friends who chanced to possess particularly marked traits to an extreme degree was in some cases relied on to give guidance in the assignment of these patches to the respective traits. In some of the schemes the human traits conceived were so numerous that the bilateral symmetry and functions of the brain were ignored, and the two sides of the skull were assigned quite different functions. Thus arose phrenology, one of the most persistent fallacies of vocational analysis. ”

“ If you desire light from without upon the best path to pursue, I would advise you to find a good phrenologist, and have a careful reading made of your head. Its formation and the development of its organs would indicate in what direction lay your greatest strength, and where you needed to be especially watchful.
But remember if your phrenologist tells you that you have a weak will, it does not mean that you must necessarily always have a weak will. It means that you are to strengthen it, by concentration. There is a great truth underlying phrenology, palmistry, and astrology ”