PHRENOLOGY, the name given to the empirical system of psychology formulated by F. J. Gall, about the year i800 and developed by his followers, especially by J. K. Spurzheim and G. Combe. The principles upon which it is based are five : (I) the brain is the organ of the mind; (2) the mental powers of man can be analysed into a definite number of independent faculties; (3) these faculties are innate, and each has its seat in a definite region of the surface of the brain; (4) the size of each such region is the measure of the degree to which the faculty seated in it forms a constituent element in the character of the indi vidual; (5) the correspondence between the outer surface of the skull and the contour of the brain-surface beneath is sufficiently close to enable the observer to recognize the relative sizes of these several organs by the examination of the outer surface of the head. It professes primarily to be a system of psychology, but its sec ond and more popular claim is that it affords a method whereby the disposition and character of the subject may be ascertained.
The Faculties and Their Localities.—The system of Gall was constructed by a method of pure empiricism, and his so-called organs were for the most part identified on slender grounds. Having selected the place of a faculty, he examined the heads of his friends and casts of persons with that peculiarity in common, and in them he sought for the distinctive feature of their char acteristic trait. Some of his earlier studies were made among low associates, in gaols and in lunatic asylums, and some of the qualities located by him were such as tend to become perverted to crime. These he named after their excessive manifestations, mapping out organs of murder, theft, etc. ; but as this cast some discredit on the system the names were changed by Spurzheim, who claimed as his the moral and religious considerations asso ciated with it. Gall marked out on his model of the head the places of twenty-six organs as round enclosures with vacant inter spaces. Spurzheim and Combe divided the whole scalp into oblong and conterminous patches (see the accompanying figures) and separated the component faculties of the human mind into two great groups, subdivided as follows :— I. Feelings, divided into—
I. Propensities, internal impulses inviting only to certain actions.
2. Sentiments, impulses which prompt to emotion as well as to action.
A. Lower—those common to man and the lower animals.
B. Higher—those proper to man.
II. Intellectual faculties.
In the following list the localities are appended to the names, which are mostly the inventions of Spurzheim. Gall's names are placed in brackets. For topography, Broca's names are adopted.
2. Philoprogenitiveness (Amour de la progeniture), median, on the squama occipitis.
3. Concentrativeness, below the obelion and over the lambda.
4. Adhesiveness (Amitie), over the lateral area of the lamb doidal suture.
5. Combativeness (Instinct de la defense), above the asterion.
6. Destructiveness (Instinct carnassier), above the ear meatus. 6a. Alimentiveness, over the temporal muscle and above the ear.
7. Secretiveness (Ruse, Finesse), the posterior part of the squamous suture.
8. Acquisitiveness (Sentiment de la propriete), on the upper edge of the front half of the squamous suture.
9. Constructiveness (Sens de mechanique), on the stephanion. The organ of Vitativeness, or love of life, is supposed by Combe to be seated at the base of the skull.
II. Love of Approbation (V anite), outside the obelion.
12. Cautiousness (Circonspection), on the parietal eminence. Superior Sentiments.-i3. Benevolence (Bonte), on the mid dle of the frontal bone in front of the coronal suture.
14. Veneration (Sentiment religieux), median at the bregma. 55. Conscientiousness, Believingness (Forster), unknown to Gall; recognized by Spurzheim usually from its deficiency, and placed between the last and the parietal eminence.