The Phrenological Self: Charting the Mind

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The Phrenological Self Charting the Minds
Faculties
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Erasmus Darwin

• Zoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life
  (1794-1796)

1792 Portrait by Joseph Wright
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Franz Joseph Gall (1758-1828) Neuroanatomist and
Craniologist
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Faculty PsychologyThomas Reid (1710-1796)

• Active Powers self-esteem,
• friendship, sexual affection, emulation, duty,
  veneration, beauty, imagination35 in all
• Intellectual/Cognitive Powers five senses,
  perception, size and novelty, memory, judgment
  and reason, abstraction, conception and moral
  taste.

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Thomas Reid and Common Sense Philosophy

• Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow
  beginning in 1764.
• Succeeded Adam Smith
• Called Humes skepticism metaphysical lunacy.
• Wrote, An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the
  Principles of Common Sense, 1764

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• I went to a university my attention first
  fixed itself on those of my new fellow-students
  who had large prominent eyes projecting from the
  head. Such generally boasted of their excellent
  memories
• (p. 58, Gall).

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Johann Caspar Lavater Essays on Physiognomy,
designed to promote the knowledge and the love of
mankind
Published in German (1789-98)
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Lavaters physiognomy of the four temperaments
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Galls Craniology
On the Functions of the Brain and Each of its
Parts With Observations on the Possibility of
Determining the Instincts, Propensities, and
Talents, or the Moral And Intellectual
Dispositions of Men and Animals, by the
Configuration of the Brain and Head 6 Volumes,
Trans. 1835
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Galls Principles

• That moral and intellectual faculties are innate.
• That their exercise or manifestation depends on
  organization.
• That the brain is the organ of all the
  propensities, sentiments and faculties.
• That the brain is composed of as many particular
  organs as there are propensities, sentiments, and
  faculties, which differ essentially from each
  other.
• (Gall, Vol. 1, p. 55)

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Dr. Galls Lecture Depicted by Thomas
Rowlandson, 1756-1827
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A Selection of Galls 27 Faculties
the instinct of generation (sexual instinct)
love of offspring (philoprogenitiveness),
attachment, self-defense, carnivorous
instinct--likened to a disposition to murder,
cunning, sense of property, pride, vanity and
ambition, cautiousness, memory of things, sense
of locality, recognition of persons, verbal
memory, color-sense, talent for music, numerical
ability, comparative ability, metaphysical
abilities, wit, poetry, goodness, religious
sensibility, and others.
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Jean-Marie Pierre Flourens (1794-1867)
Contested Gall conducted experiments to
show that the brain acted as a whole
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Spurzheim Silhouettes
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Phrenological Head With Illustrated Faculties
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Phrenologys Popularizers Johannes Gaspar
Spurzheim Toured England, 1814 Toured America,
1832 Orson and Lorenzo Fowler, Phrenological
Cabinet, NYC, 1836
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b. October 11, 1809d. August 18, 1887
Professor Orson Squire Fowler

• Born to Congregationalist minister and wife in
  Cohocton, NY.
• Trained for ministry at Amherst College
• Opened Phrenological Cabinet in Philadelphia
  (1838) before moving to NYC in 1841
• Founded The American Phrenological Journal in
  1838
• Started Fowlers and Wells publishing firm with
  brother, Lorenzo, and (later) sister, Charlotte,
  and brother-in-law Samuel R. Wells .

Slide courtesy of V. Meade-Kelly
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Clinton Hall, NYC

• Features
• Phrenological Cabinet (museum of skulls, death
  masks, and busts)
• Phrenological training center
• Lecture hall
• Reading Room
• Publishing firm and office
• Sales center (books, subscriptions,
  do-it-yourself kits).
• Headquarters for the Vegetarian Society of
  America and meeting place for suffragists
• Patent office

Slide courtesy of V. Meade-Kelly
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Diagram from W. Mattieu Williams, A Vindication
of Phrenology. London, 1894. from
http//pages.britishlibrary.net/phrenology/images.
html
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Partial List of Fowlers 37 Faculties Chart of
the relative size of organ and table of
references. 1846
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FOWLERS HEAD
Fowlers Practical Phrenology 1846
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Intellectual female
Well-balanced Head
War Chief, Miami Indian
Murderer
Fowler, 1846
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Indian Chiefs
Engineer
Cunning and Roguish Cat
Thief and a Liar
Hyena
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Fowlers Phrenological Head
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Practical Phrenology -

• A system of self-analysis and self-improvement
  that was based on phrenological science and
  adapted for use by the masses.

• Uses
• Self-Knowledge
• Child Development and Education
• Marriage Counseling
• Vocational Guidance
• Intellectual Self-Improvement
• Moral Reform
• Penal and Asylum Reform

I think there is no class of men not excepting
clergymen, who have so good an opportunity of
doing good as a practical phrenologist.
Charlotte Fowler Wells
Slide courtesy of V. Meade-Kelly
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• But an even head, in which all the organs are
  equally developed, and the faculties harmoniously
  exercised, facilitates correct judgment,
  consistent conduct, perfection of character, and
  a virtuous, happy life.
• O. Fowler, Self-Culture

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Phrenology in 19th Century Popular Culture

• Reformers often cited phrenology when championing
  movements such as abolition, womens rights, and
  temperance
• Artists of the period sometimes sculpted figures
  to reflect phrenological ideals
• Lectures, including those on phrenology, were
  considered popular entertainment. Orson Fowler
  was ranked by one newspaper as one of the top 50
  lecturers in the country
• Help Wanted ads asked for phrenological
  recommendations Personal ads called for mates
  with compatible heads
• Modern phrases such as high brow, low brow,
  well-rounded, and shrink are believed to have
  phrenological roots
• Women dressed their hair to emphasize best
  phrenological features
• Slide courtesy of V. Meade-Kelly

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A Popular Science

• To teach learners those organic conditions which
  indicate character is the first object of this
  manual. And to render it accessible to all, it
  crowds into the fewest words and pages just what
  learners need to know Short yet clear, is its
  motto. From The New Illustrated Self-Instructor
  in Phrenology and Physiology by O.S. and L.N.
  Fowler
• How would it not be well to employ, or settle, a
  practical phrenologist in every town to give
  advice to parents respecting the children If the
  phrenologist be also a physiologist, as should be
  the case, he would advise how to keep them well
  so they would need no physician with his pills,
  potions and plasters. -From a lecture by O.S.
  Fowler

Source The Traveling Phrenologist in the White
Mountains, Joseph Becker, Frank Leslie's
Illustrated Newspaper, September 9, 1882
Slide courtesy of V. Meade-Kelly
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• Walt Whitmans first version of his poem Song
  of the Broad-axe
• Never offering others always offering himself,
  corroborating his phrenology, Voluptuous,
  inhibitive, combative, conscientious, alimentive,
  intuitive, of copious friendship, sublimity,
  firmness, self-esteem, comparison, individuality,
  form, locality, eventuality

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Herman Melvilles Moby Dick 1851
It is plain then, that phrenologically
the head of this Leviathan, in the
creatures living intact state, is an entire
delusion. As for his true brain, you can
then see no indications of it, nor feel any.
The whale, like all things that are mighty,
wears a false brow to the common world. Chapter
80
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Honoré Daumier, 1845 The Philanthropy of the
Day Monsieur est trés voleur
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Rare Specimens of Comparative Craniology An old
Maids Skull Phrenologized
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Bumpology Pores oer the Cranial map with
learned eyes Each rising hill and bumpy knoll
descries, Here secret fires, and there deep
mines of sense His touch detects beneath each
prominence.
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Bless Me, What a Bump! William Heath 1795-1840
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Localizing Phrenological Organs in Convolutions
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Jerry Fodor The Modularity of Mind,
1983 Cognitive Psychology
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