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Phrenology

What Is Phrenology?

Phrenology is a system that claims to analyse personality by examining the morphology (shape and structure) of a person's skull and the various lumps and bumps it may have. It was initially invented in the 19th century and was very popular for a while. It has since largely been rejected by conventional science although there are still a few people who study the subject.

History

The invention of phrenology is usually credited to Franz Joseph Gall, a German physician. Exactly when he invented the discipline is unclear, however its roots were probably early in the 19th century. The word phrenology was coined in 1815 by Thomas Foster.

The theoretical basis of phrenology was set out by Gall in his work The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular. In essence Gall argues that properties such as intelligence and morality are "inate" (nature as opposed to nurture), that these depend on the brain and that since the shape of the skull reflects the shape of the brain it must therefore reflect the moral and intellectual standing of the individual.

Gall studied many people and attempted to find correlations between the shape of their skull and their personality. He eventually created a map of 27 distinct regions of the brain - and hence of the skull - that he believed were connected with various traits and faculties. These included some basic traits such as capacity for language and sense of colour however they also included more contentious "faculties" such as the sense of religion and even the inclination towards murder! This is in keeping with the mistaken Victorian ideas of moral character being a result of breeding - some people being simply "born bad". Thus if most thieves were found amongst the working classes then it was because the workers were of an inferior breed rather than because they were poor.

Phrenology was very popular during the middle 19th century then declined somewhat. It had a renewal during the early 20th century before dying out almost completely. The British Phrenological Society disbanded in 1967.

Criticisms

Victorian phrenology is today widely considered at best misguided and at worst racist. Modern science agrees that certain areas of the brain are connected with certain activities such as memory and sight, however the conections between brain and thought are far more complex. There is no single physical site that can be associated with many of phrenology's traits. Even where a brain-mind lin is identified (eg between the occipital lobe and vision) the relationship is far too complex to be analysed by a crude reading of skull size.

Victorian phrenology was also often called upon as "scientific" support for social approaches based on racism or other forms of polygenism. This usually involved a rather circular form of reasoning: members of a certain race were assumed inferior, therefore any physical characteristics they shared were taken as indicators of such inferiority. Other members of the same race were then "demonstrably" inferior because they too possessed these features. Such nonsensical arguments went on to form part of the pseudo-anthropometry used by the Nazis as one pretext for their dangerous, offensive and absurd racial beliefs.