Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815-1920, by James Poskett

Abstract

Reviewed by: Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815–1920 by James Poskett Anne Stiles (bio) Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815–1920, by James Poskett; pp. vii + 373. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2019, $45.00, $44.99 ebook. James Poskett's Materials of the Mind: Phrenology, Race, and the Global History of Science, 1815–1920 presents a bold take on a fascinating subject. By any measure, this is an extraordinarily ambitious project involving substantial archival research, international travel, and translations from at least six languages. The resulting book encourages readers to take phrenology seriously as a worldwide social and scientific movement, its current status as pseudoscience notwithstanding. Today, historians of science view phrenology as a misguided early attempt at what would later be called cerebral localization: that is, the connection of specific regions of the brain with given behaviors, aptitudes, and personality traits. Beginning in the 1860s, British and continental scientists such as Paul Broca, David Ferrier, and Santiago Ramón y Cajal conducted clinical studies and controversial animal experiments that demonstrated correspondences between brain regions and behaviors. For instance, Ferrier's cortical maps, published in his book The Functions of the Brain (1876), allowed brain surgeons to locate a hemorrhage or tumor without first opening the skull. Such advances saved many lives. More recently, technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) scans, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) have enabled twenty-first-century scientists to pinpoint areas of brain activity with increasing precision. Phrenology, which posited the brain as the organ of mind, was the more speculative forebear of these revolutionary scientific developments. Lacking the surgical and technical know-how of later researchers, pioneering phrenologists like Franz Joseph Gall, Johann Spurzheim, and George Combe made educated guesses about which brain regions corresponded to personality traits and behaviors (for instance, Gall famously [End Page 592] postulated that bulging so-called cow's eyes accompanied a strong verbal memory). They then theorized that bumps and depressions on the skull indicated the size of nearby brain regions. Phrenologists read the heads of prominent men and women, including authors such as Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot, sometimes making plaster casts for instructional purposes. Phrenological enthusiasts also collected skulls from around the world, favoring those that suggested extraordinary ability, criminal tendencies, or racial differences. Materials of the Mind proves—if proof is needed—that histories of so-called pseudosciences can be just as informative as histories of established scientific fields. Given the porous disciplinary boundaries of the era, phrenology might reasonably be considered "a quintessentially nineteenth-century science" that "combined materialist philosophy, international collaboration, and practical investigation," as Poskett argues (4). In fact, many Victorian intellectuals viewed phrenology as a system of ideas capable of reforming and restructuring society. Phrenology informed discussions of slavery, prison reform, and educational reform, among other topics. Chapter 4, for example, explores how phrenological arguments figured in debates about antebellum slavery. Supporters of slavery used skulls and phrenological busts to "prove" African inferiority to Europeans, or even to assert that Africans and Europeans belonged to different "species" (119). Meanwhile, abolitionists like Lydia Maria Child and Lucretia Mott focused on the talents and improvability of the African mind as an argument for the peaceable integration of formerly enslaved people. A third group, which included Combe himself, deplored slavery but believed that freed Blacks should be resettled in Liberia, their minds being unfit for full participation in American society. Such examples show how identical phrenological evidence (often, the very same skulls, plaster busts, or photographs) could be interpreted to support opposing political positions. What is most novel about this book, however, is its global reach. As Poskett notes, previous histories of phrenology tended to confine themselves to a specific nation-state, usually in Europe or North America. Such an approach helped historians limit an otherwise bewildering range of material. By taking a transnational and multilingual approach, Poskett sheds new light on his subject. We learn not just what European and American readers believed about phrenology, but also what Bengali medical students, descendants of West Indian slaves, and twentieth...