Phrenology

The fundamental hypothesis which underlies phrenology as a system of mental science is that mental phenomena are resolv able into i the manifestations of a group of separate faculties. The assumption is contained in the definition that the exercise of a faculty is the physical outcome of the activity of the organ, and in several of the standard works this is illustrated by misleading analogies between these and other organs ; • thus the organs of benevolence and of firmness are said to be as distinct as the liver and pancreas.

Adverse Conclusions.

"Die Schadellehre ist allerdings nicht so sehr Irrthum in der Idee als Charlatanerie in der Ausfiihrung," says one of its most acute critics. Even though no fault could be found with the physiology and psychology of phrenology, it would not necessarily follow that the theory could be utilized as a practical method of reading character ; for, although the inner surface of the skull is moulded on the brain, and the outer sur face approximates to parallelism thereto, yet the correspondence is sufficiently variable to render conclusions therefrom uncertain. The spongy layer or diploe which separates the two compact tables may vary conspicuously in amount in different parts of the same skull, as in the cases described by Professor Humphry (bourn. of Anat., viii. 137). The frontal sinus, that opprobrium phrenologicum, is a reality, not unfrequently of large size, and may wholly occupy the regions of five organs. The centres of ossification of the frontal and parietal bones, the muscular crests of these and of the occipital bones also, differ in their prominence in different skulls. Premature synostoses of sutures mould the brain without doing much injury to its parts. In such cases there are compensatory dilatations in other directions modifying some times to an extreme degree the relation of brain-surface to skull surface. The writer has found such displacements in extremely scaphocephalic skulls; the same is true of accidental deformations due to pressure on the infantile skull before it consolidates.

All these and other cogent reasons of a like kind, whose force can be estimated by those accustomed to deal with the compo nent soft parts of the head, should lead phrenologists to be care ful in predicating relative brain-development from skull-shape.

Psychology, physiology and experience alike contribute to dis credit the practical working of the system and to show how worthless the so-called diagnoses of character really are. Its appli cation by those who are its votaries is seldom worse than amusing, but it is capable of doing positive social harm, as in its proposed application to the discrimination or selection of servants and other subordinate officials.

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Smith,

The Old and the New Phrenology (Edinburgh, 1924).