Phrenology

Among the nineteenth century's perversions of the Enlightenment, phrenology is a particularly dark note. Though it now seems utterly ridiculous, phrenology was once a widely practiced method of character analysis, touted by reputable scientists and supported by public figures such as Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens.

The premise of phrenology is that different sections of the brain have different functions. So far, so good -- contemporary physiologists also believe this to be true. However, according to phrenologists, these functions are the sole determinant of character; in other words, phrenologists believed that circumstances play no part in development. Instead, they merely reflect the mandates of character. Thus, if you are poor, according to phrenologists, it is because your character destines you to be poor, and your character destines you to be poor because you have an underdeveloped organ of acquisitiveness. This is how phrenologists made their money: By inspecting the shape of the head, they could determine the quality and size of the sections of the brain responsible for various traits.

It all began with Franz Joseph Gall, a fashionable Viennese doctor. It was his idea that behavior and personality could be traced to the organic composition of the brain and it was he who made the quantum -- and nonsensical -- leap of imagination that allowed him to assume that the shape of the skull denoted the shape of the brain. (After all it was easier to get hold of a living head attached to a living body than to get your hands on an actual brain.) In the course of Gall's career, he located thirty-three different "organs" of the brain, each responsible for a different trait. His disciple, J. K. Spurzheim, who was, if anything, even less devoted to scientific methodology than Gall, found another four. Typically, the organs were located by finding a subject with a pronounced characteristic and measuring his head. For example, Gall determined the placement of the "organ of self esteem" by inspecting the head of a beggar who said he had been brought low by excessive pride. Both Gall and Spurzheim were censored and then run out of town -- primarily because their theory that a person's physical composition creates his character contradicts all religious belief -- but were later accepted and even welcomed in France and England. Spurzheim, less austere than Gall, allowed as how the organs themselves could be altered by exemplary living, which made phrenology compatible with liberal ideals and therefore palatable to a wider audience than ever before. By the 1830's, phrenology was hailed as an infallible judge of character.

The science was particularly popular in America, due mostly to the proselytizing of Spurzheim's followers, who ranged from serious scholars of medicine to sideshow quacks. The Fowler Brothers, who should probably be placed at the center of that continuum, were the most vocal popularizers of phrenological theory. Between them, they wrote dozens of pamphlets and books on the topic, and even thoughtfully included a map of the human head with the thirty-seven organs clearly displayed, labeled, and symbolized.

Phrenology would be very amusing to contemplate if it had not been so successful. It codified, and in so doing, authorized the primitive and childish aversion that many people have towards those who appearance seems strange, different, and occasionally ugly. Moreover, the notion that character is biological -- and therefore inescapable and unchangeable -- has been the basis for racism of the most repulsive kind. Among the more insidious forms of propaganda that the Nazis used against Jews was the argument of biological inferiority based on phrenology. In this regard, phrenology -- or, rather, the parade of narrow minded bigots who propounded it -- has a lot to answer for.

Despite its fall from grace, phrenology is not without its charm. Various exponents have used slightly different cranial divisions, but all began with three main areas of the head. The lower back portion of the skull concerns instinctive qualities; the top area of the head involves emotions, talents, health and moral attitudes; the forward area of the cerebrum comprises intellectual aptitude.