Unconventional Views of Racial Brains in the 19th Century

Abstract

Abstract In this article two protagonists of nineteenth-century anthropological culture, Samuel George Morton and Paul Broca, are presented as the embodiment of mainstream stances on the relationship between brain and race. More or less close to their successful raciological tenets, a host of other names might be recalled. However, the main purpose here is to point out some ‘deviant’ opinions that challenged the scientific common sense of an epoch, starting with the nigrophilie expressed by the abbé Grégoire early in the century, to then discuss the cautious ‘egalitarianism’ professed by James Cowles Prichard and William Hamilton or the more explicit view sustained, over time, by Friedrich Tiedemann and Luigi Calori. Their focus was the influence of the brain – its shape, volume, and weight – on intellectual and moral manifestations: a tormented issue that for decades was addressed in different ways and with outcomes that always proved inconclusive.