Hazlitt, Phrenology and Character

Phrenological Illustrations. George Cruikshank. London: 1823.

What is Phrenology?1. The brain is the organ of the mind.2. The mind is composed of multiple, distinct, innate faculties.3. Because they are distinct, each faculty must have a

separate seat or “organ” in the brain.4. The size of an organ, other things being equal, is a

measure of its power.5. The shape of the brain is determined by the development

of the various organs.6. As the skull takes its shape from the brain, the surface of

the skull can be read as an accurate index of psychological aptitudes and tendencies.

So it was believed that by examining the shape and unevenness of a head or skull, one could discover the development of the particular cerebral “organs” responsible for different intellectual aptitudes and character traits.

Phrenology and the Post-Regency Era

“In 1814, after his break with Gall, [Spurzheim] made the first of a series of visits to Britain. He was well received, giving many lecture courses, at one or two guineas per capita. He made many friends, and was given a licentiate’s diploma by the Royal College of Physicians of London. He published several books in English, chiefly dealing with the psychological and psychiatric aspects of phrenology; he increased Gall’s 27 bumps to 35, and made them more clearly defined” (David Simpson, “Phrenology and the Neurosciences: Contributions of F. J. Gall and J. G. Spurzheim,” ANZ Journal of Surgery 75 [2005]: 478).

“The term phrenology…was coined by the English gentleman naturalist and physician Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789-1860) in 1815 and came into general use in the 1820s” (John Van Whye, “The Authority of Human Nature: The ‘Schädellehre’ of Franz Joseph Gall,” The British Journal for the History of Science 35 [2002]: 22).

1820. Edinburgh Phrenological Society established. 1823. Phrenological Journal (of Edinburgh) established. 1826. Spurzheim, Phrenology, in Connexion with the Study of Physiognomy (London and Edinburgh). 1827. Spurzheim, Outlines on Phrenology (London).

Dr. Spurzhei

m Pendleton

1834





Spurzheim, Phrenology, in Connexion with the Study of Physiognomy (London: 1826)

Spurzheim Hardening the Categories

Hazlitt on PhrenologyAfter original impressions, almost everything in human life depends on their association. The pleasure we take in a rose depends on form, colour, smell, and many other particulars; we listen to the notes of a thrush with delight, from the circumstance not only of sound, but of seasons, of solitude, the recollections of a country-life, and of our own. The world, the mind, is an endless miscellany. But there is no organ of association on the phrenological table, nor any symbol to explain its varieties.

There is no account of general character, either in relation to understanding or disposition, in the new code. There are general characters of sprightliness, of gravity, of voluptuousness, of severity, of artfulness, of fickleness, of gloom, of indifference, of impulse, of calculation, &c. in individuals, in nations, in men and women—shall we say that these go for nothing, because there is no room for them in the geographical chart of the human understanding?

– Hazlitt, “Phrenological Fallacies” (The Atlas, 1829).

Hazlitt Hardening the Categories

“On the Literary Character” (The Round Table, 1817).

The defects of the literary character proceed, not from frivolity and voluptuous indolence, but from the overstrained exertion of the faculties, from abstraction and refinement.

Literary men are not attached to the persons of their friends, but to their minds. They look upon them in the same light as on the books in their library, and read them till they are tired.

The moral character of men of letters depends very much upon the same principles. All actions are seen through that general medium which reduce them [actions] to individual significance. Nothing fills or engrosses the mind—nothing seems of sufficient importance to interfere with our present inclination. Prejudices, as well as attachments, lose their hold upon us, and we palter with our duties as we please.

Hazlitt Hardening the Categories

“On the Clerical Character” (Political Essays, 1819).  

Many people seem to think, that the restraints imposed on the Clergy by the nature of their profession, take away from them, by degrees, all temptations to violate the limits of duty, and that the character grows to the cloth. We are afraid this is not altogether the case. The Quaker is, in short, a negative character, but it is the best that can be formed in this mechanical way. The Priest is not a negative character; he is something positive and disagreeable. He is not, like the Quaker, distinguished from others merely by singularity of dress and manner, but he is distinguished from others by pretensions to superiority over them….He is proud, with an affectation of humility; bigoted, from a pretended zeal for truth; greedy, with an ostentation of entire contempt for the things of this world; professing self-denial, and always thinking of self-gratification; censorious, and blind to his own faults; intolerant, unrelenting, impatient of opposition, insolent to those below, and cringing to those above him, with nothing but Christian meekness and brotherly love in his mouth.

Hazlitt Hardening the Categories

“On the Regal Character” (Political Essays, 1819)

[Kings] all possess what Dr. Spurzheim would call the organ of individuality, or the power of recollecting particular local circumstances, nearly in the same degree; though we shall attempt to account for it without recurring to his system. Spurzheim, Outlines of Phrenology (1827;

1832)

Hazlitt Hardening the Categories

“On Effeminacy of Character” (Table Talk, vol. 2, 1822).  Effeminacy of character arises from a prevalence of the sensibility over the will: or it consists in a want of fortitude to bear pain or to undergo fatigue, however urgent the occasion. We meet with instances of people who cannot lift up a little finger to save themselves from ruin, nor give up the smallest indulgence for the sake of any other person. There is another branch of this character, which is the trifling or dilatory character. Such persons are always creating difficulties, and unable or unwilling to remove them.

We may observe an effeminacy of style, in some degree corresponding to effeminacy of character….one that is all florid, all fine; that cloys by its sweetness, and tires by its sameness….The Della Cruscan school comes under this description, but is now nearly exploded….I cannot help thinking that the fault of Mr Keats’s poems was a deficiency in masculine energy of style….His Endymion is a very delightful description of the illusions of a youthful imagination, given up to airy dreams—we have flowers, clouds, rainbows, moonlight, all sweet sounds and smells, and Oreads and Dryads flitting by—but there is nothing tangible in it, nothing marked or palpable—we have none of the hardy spirit or rigid forms of antiquity. He painted his own thoughts and character; and did not transport himself into the fabulous and heroic ages. There is a want of action, of character, and so far, of imagination, but there is exquisite fancy. All is soft and fleshy, without bone or muscle.

Hazlitt Hardening the Categories

“On Personal Character” (The Plain Speaker, 1826)

No one ever changes his character from the time he is two years old; nay, I might say, from the time he is two hours hold. We may…mend our manners…but the character, the internal, original bias, remains always the same, true to itself to the very last.

[Circumstances do] little more than minister occasion to the first predisposing bias—than assist, like the dews of heaven, or retard, like the nipping north, the growth of the seed originally sown in our constitution—than give a more or less decided expression to that personal character, the outlines of which nothing can alter.

Do we not say, habit is a second nature? And shall we not allow the force of nature itself? If the real disposition is concealed for a time and tampered with, how readily it breaks out with the first excuse or opportunity! How soon does the drunkard forget his resolution and constrained sobriety, at sight of the foaming tankard and blazing hearth!

Thus, if we turn to the characters of women, we find that the shrew, the jilt, the coquette, the wanton, the intriguer, the liar, continue all their lives the same...They might as well not be, as cease to be what they are by nature and custom.

Ethology: the “Science of the Formation of Character.”

J. S. Mill. A System of Logic (1843). Book VI. Chapter 5. Argues that “there was a great need for a ‘science of the formation of character.’ This science, which he termed Ethology, would be the science of human nature which Psychology itself could not provide. According to his suggested division of labor, Psychology would be the science for discovering the universal laws of mind, whereas Ethology would be the science entrusted with the task of explaining particular individual minds, or characters, according to the general laws provided by Psychology. Ethology too would have its laws, but they would be derivative; that is, they would be deduced from the universal laws of Psychology.

David Leary, “The Fate and Influence of John Stuart Mill’s Proposed Science of Ethology, Journal of the History of Ideas 43 (1982): 154.

Ethology: the “Science of the Formation of Character.”

In Mill’s view, any individual character, or the collective character of any group of people, must be explained in terms of the application of universal laws to particular circumstances. The reason people differ is not that they operate according to different principles. The principles—for Mill, the laws of association—are the same for all; but differences arise from the circumstances in which people find themselves. Ethology is the science which seeks to explain the practical, or circumstantial, application of the general laws of mind. Being a true science, its laws are necessarily universal. But its applications to individual cases will never be exact for the simple reason that we can never fully determine all the factors which have entered into a given person’s life history. The goal which Mill proposed, therefore, was that Ethology be developed to a point where the best possible predictions could be made regarding the ‘tendencies’ which different characters would exhibit in certain circumstances. Only when this was done could the moral and social sciences be developed to any degree of theoretical and practical utility.

David Leary, “The Fate and Influence of John Stuart Mill’s Proposed Science of Ethology, Journal of the History of Ideas 43 (1982): 154.