Prodromus towards a philosophical inquiry into the intellectual powers of the negro / by E. Binns.

  • Binns, Edward, -1851.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prodromus towards a philosophical inquiry into the intellectual powers of the negro / by E. Binns. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    liarities of their faces, with the expression of their features, 1 am enabled to give a description of their physiognomies, which will in part supply the place of the portraits. Their names were—Captains Angus M*Cail, Jack Anderson, Nelson Carr, Alexander Burt, and Deputy Commissary General Richard M'lntosh. The foreheads of these men were high even for Europeans, particularly that of Burt; nor were they depressed back- wards more than those of Warbuiton, George IV., Dr. Johnson, Dibden, Murphy, and Nares, whose portraits were before me at the moment that I instituted the comparison. I place great stress upon this circumstance, because the outlines of Burt’s forehead, which are by no means heightened or flattened, as is the case, after the imme- morial custom of painters, with those of the celebrated persons enumerated, are typical of the facial lines of the others generally. He had a fine Roman nose, which, without exaggeration, might be termed beautiful; his lips were thick, but the chin was well formed and deeply chiselled. The portrait of M‘Intosh might have been at first mistaken for that of an ancient philosopher, for his beard and grey hair was exactly modelled (I suspect, without his knowledge, however) after those of the philosophers in the time of Hadrian— indeed, he somewhat resembled the bust of Hadrian in the British Museum. His features also possessed a more pleasing expression than either those of Heraclitus or Diogenes, and, altogether, there was a manliness anci poetry about the expression of this man’s head and face that are rarely 'met with even among the portraits of many of our dis- tinguished men. The portrait of Angus M‘Cail, on the contrary, presented the receding forehead. The head was bald to the coronal suture; but the height of the forehead, if measured from the eyes to the promontory of the frontal bone, was greater even than Burt’s ; while bis chin, like that of M‘In tosh, was thickly covered with beard. Jack Anderson’s profile was exactly that of a Highlander. In Nelson Carr all the features were decidedly African, with the exception of the nose, which was that of a Hindoo, and on the whole his expression was sinister, the contour being expressive of guilt, fear, and meanness. I am sorry that I could not obtain any particulars of the lives of these men, because I am convinced they would have thrown additional light upon the subject of this paper. All I know of them is, that Can- received a military flogging; M‘Cail was executed on the 9th March, 1832, as was Burt; but what became of MHntosh and Anderson I did not learn, and neglected to inquire. I am reminded here, that I have forgotten to mention, that in speaking of the physiognomical and phrenological developments of the Africans, 1 have adopted the facial line of Camper throughout, but which Lawrence rejects. This gentleman considers, what Blumenbach calls, and, after him, Dr. Elliotson, designates the norma verticalis— more philosophical, and more consonant with physiology and anatomy. But it is of little consequence, whether he adopts the facial line of Camper, or the norma verticalis of Blumenbach, since there is such a numerous and overwhelmning host of facts to oppose his theory, that I feel certain he will never again attempt to defend it. To n