Phrenology
Gall's assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in specific areas of the brain is considered an important historical advance toward neuropsychology.
[12] The term phrenology, from Ancient Greek φρήν (phrēn) 'mind' and λόγος (logos) 'knowledge', was used in the early 19th century to refer to what would now be considered psychology: a broader study of the mind and human mental faculties.
Other terms historically used to discuss this specific relationship between the skull and the mind, and especially Gall's study of them include craniology, cranioscopy, zoonomy, organology, bumpology and functionalism.
For example, the faculty of "philoprogenitiveness", from the Greek for "love of offspring", was located centrally at the back of the head (see illustration of the chart from Webster's Academic Dictionary).
The phrenologists put emphasis on using drawings of individuals with particular traits, to determine the character of the person and thus many phrenology books show pictures of subjects.
[18] The Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) introduced the idea that physiognomy related to the specific character traits of individuals, rather than general types, in his Physiognomische Fragmente, published between 1775 and 1778.
(p. 24)In 1796 the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) began lecturing on organology: the isolation of mental faculties[21] and later cranioscopy which involved reading the skull's shape as it pertained to the individual.
[21][22] In 1809 Gall began writing his principal[23] work, The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the possibility of ascertaining the several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal, by the configuration of their Heads.
The popularization of phrenology in the middle and working classes was due in part to the idea that scientific knowledge was important and an indication of sophistication and modernity.
Combe created a system of philosophy of the human mind[28] that became popular with the masses because of its simplified principles and wide range of social applications that were in harmony with the liberal Victorian world view.
[32] Phrenology was not limited to the common people, and both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert invited George Combe to read the heads of their children.
The Phrenological Society of Edinburgh founded by George and Andrew Combe was an example of the credibility of phrenology at the time, and included a number of extremely influential social reformers and intellectuals, including the publisher Robert Chambers, the astronomer John Pringle Nichol, the evolutionary environmentalist Hewett Cottrell Watson, and asylum reformer William A. F. Browne.
[37] He advocated that governments should embrace phrenology as a scientific means of conquering many social ills, and his Memorie Riguardanti La Dottrina Frenologica (1836), is considered "one of the fundamental 19th-century works in the field".
[49] During the early 20th century, a revival of interest in phrenology occurred, partly because of studies of evolution, criminology and anthropology (as pursued by Cesare Lombroso).
In the latter work, which examines the subject of paleoanthropology, Bouts developed a teleological and orthogenetical view on a perfecting evolution, from the paleo-encephalical skull shapes of prehistoric man, which he considered still prevalent in criminals and savages, towards a higher form of mankind, thus perpetuating phrenology's problematic racializing of the human frame.
Broussais, a disciple of Gall, proclaimed that the Caucasians were the most beautiful, while peoples like the Australian Aboriginal and Māori would never become civilized since "they had no cerebral organ for producing great artists".
One of the best examples of this is Félix Voisin, who, for approximately ten years, ran a reform school in Issy for the express purpose of correction of the mind of children who had suffered some hardship.
Those who were considered intellectually disabled could be put to work and housed collectively while only criminals of intellect and vicious intent needed to be confined and isolated.
Many prominent public figures, such as the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (a college classmate and initial partner of Orson Fowler) promoted phrenology actively as a source of psychological insight and self-knowledge.
Phrenology was introduced at a time when the old theological and philosophical understanding of the mind was being questioned and no longer seemed adequate in a society that was experiencing rapid social and demographic changes.
Combe's book On the Constitution of Man and its Relationship to External Objects was one of the most popular of the time, selling over two hundred thousand copies in a ten-year period.
[71] As a result of the changing times, new avenues of exposure and its multifaceted appeal, phrenology flourished in popular culture[72] although it was discredited as scientific theory by 1840.
[74] While Ireland largely mirrored British trends, with scientific lectures and demonstrations becoming a popular pastime of the age, by 1815 phrenology had already been ridiculed in some circles priming the audiences to its skeptical claims.
[75] Because of this the general public valued it more for its comic relief than anything else; however, it did find an audience in the rational dissenters who found it an attractive alternative to explain human motivations without the attached superstitions of religion.
[78] In 1834, John D. Godman, professor of anatomy at Rutgers Medical College, emphatically defended phrenology when he wrote:[79]It is, however, allowable to take as a principle, that there will be a relation betwixt vigour of intellect and perfection of form; and that, therefore, history will direct us to the original and chief family of mankind.
We therefore ask, which are the nations that have excelled and figured in history, not only as conquerors, but as forwarding, by their improvements in arts and sciences, the progress of human knowledge?Phrenological teachings had become a widespread popular movement by 1834, when Combe came to lecture in the United States.
[81] Though a popular movement, the intellectual elite of the United States found phrenology attractive because it provided a biological explanation of mental processes based on observation, yet it was not accepted uncritically.
[82] Gradually the popular success of phrenology undermined its scientific merits in the United States and elsewhere, along with its materialistic underpinnings, fostering radical religious views.
While phrenologists usually claimed the superiority of the European race, they were often sympathetic to liberal causes including the antislavery movement; this sowed skepticism about phrenology among those who were pro-slavery.
They minister to the direction and gratification of all the other powers: Several literary critics have noted the influence of phrenology[87] (and physiognomy) in Edgar Allan Poe's fiction.
