Phrenology, and how to use it in analyzing character.

  • Morgan, Nicholas.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Phrenology, and how to use it in analyzing character. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    £}+—O 0- 4 PHYSIOGNOMY LAVATER's SYSTEM. down by the ancients—of the relationship between external appearances and internal power, and of signs of particular mental traits. He embodied his views in a pamphlet which was published in 1772, and three years later his great work appeared, which gave a fresh impetus to the science, and earned for him an enduring fame. His system gained many adherents, and flourished for nearly a quarter of a century, but ultimately lost caste and fell into the shade. It lacked the enduring elements of completeness and positive know- ledge. Notwithstanding Lavater's acknowledged ability, the principles he laid down for estimating character were not based upon unchangeable laws; hence, they were not in- variably applicable, and were therefore unreliable. An idea of the views of Lavater may be gathered from the following quotations. He says, Of all the organized beings discover- able by our senses, there is no one in which are collected and blended three sorts of life so different from each other, and which at the same time unite, in a manner inconceivably marvellous, to form but one whole; the animal, the intellec- tual, and the moral life; each of which is, moreover, a combination of powers essentially different, but perfectly harmonious. To know, to desire, to act,—ox, rather, to ob- serve or think, to feel and be attracted, to possess the power of motion and resistance—these render man a physical, moral, and intellectual'being. Man can be known only by certain external manifestations—by the body, by his surface. Spiritual and immaterial as the internal principle is, and however elevated by its nature beyond the reach of sense, it is rendered visible and perceptible only by its correspond- ence with the body, where it resides, and in which it acts