John van Wyhe

Phrenology and the Origins of Victorian Scientific Naturalism

Contents: Introduction The evolution of phrenology in Britain The nature of controversies Authority over mans constitution The receptions of The Constitution of Man Epidemics of phrenological naturalism Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index.

Mind the gap: did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years?

It is widely believed that Charles Darwin avoided publishing his theory of evolution for many years. Many explanations have been proposed to identify Darwin’s reasons or motives for doing so. This essay demonstrates that Darwin’s delay is a recent historiographical theme for which there is no clear evidence, and indeed is overwhelmingly contradicted by the historical evidence. It is also shown that Darwin’s belief in evolution was not a secret before publication. Instead of a man afraid of his secret theory’s being revealed to his prejudiced contemporaries, it is demonstrated that Darwin was understandably very busy and began his species book when he had completed work in hand, just as he had intended all along. This essay therefore rewrites a fundamental chapter in the story of Darwin’s life and work as usually told.

The authority of human nature: the Schädellehre of Franz Joseph Gall.

: This essay is the first account in English to examine Franz Joseph Gall and the origins of phrenology. In doing so a host of legends about Gall and the beginnings of phrenology, which exist only in the English-language historiography, are dispelled. An understanding of the context of phrenologys origins is essential to to the historicization of the movement as a whole. The first of two sections in the essay, therefore, introduces Galls biography and the context in which his provocative science emerged. It is shown to what extent Gall borrowed from other thinkers of his time. I show that Galls system was meant to be a certain science of human nature. In the second section I analyse the reactions of contemporaries to Galls important two-year lecture tour of Europe. I conclude that although many critics dismissed Gall as a charlatan, there was no consensus about the proper way to disseminate scientific knowledge or the attributes necessary for the gentleman of science. For example, it was not clear whether science could be profitable, whether it should be shared with lay audiences or whether it could in fact be science at all if it was also entertaining. I argue that in any case Galls aim was never really to impart science or to disseminate his system. His science and early means of disseminating it were meant to generate elite intellectual status. In this Gall was quite successful.

Was phrenology a reform science? Towards a new generalization for phrenology

In this essay I argue that the general characterization of phrenology should not be that phrenology was a reform science, as is a common view today, but that phrenology was a science of personal authority. I will show that the reform science characterization, while perfectly appropriate during some periods of phrenology’s history and for some of its advocates, is nevertheless inappropriate for the entirety of phrenology’s history or indeed for the majority of phrenologists. On the other hand, one of the more constant elements of phrenology throughout its existence, besides bumps, was the power it gave to its practitioners to speak authoritatively on all things human. When we encounter the word ‘phrenology’ it naturally elicits certain images and associations in our brains. Often the familiar icon of a glazed plaster bust with its black lines and rows of names is pictured. Since the late nineteenth century, perhaps the most common association with the head-reading and character-delineating science of phrenology has been ‘pseudoscience’. Pseudoscience did, and often still does, evoke the core of meanings commonly associated with phrenology. Roger Cooter, the foremost historian of British phrenology, argued that since the “seventeenth century, the label ‘pseudoscience’ (or the appropriate synonym) has played an ideologically conservative and morally prescriptive social role”, 1 the idea being that those who condemn doctrines as pseudoscience are apophantically eulogizing their own ‘correct’ science.

DARWIN ONLINE AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE DARWIN INDUSTRY

Within weeks of Charles Darwin’s death in April 1882 accounts of his life began to appear around the world in the form of obituaries. These were followed by numerous biographies over the ensuing years. Most important of these was the three-volume Life and letters of Charles Darwin (1887) edited by his son Francis Darwin (1848–1925). This not only made available a large number of letters to and from Darwin but also reproduced most of his privately written autobiography and extracts from other manuscripts as well as many recollections from family, friends and colleagues. This work arguably no longer receives the attention it deserves. Reading it today one is sometimes surprised to see how many recent discoveries and themes were already apparent in this foundational work. It was followed by two volumes of More letters of Charles Darwin in 1903. In 1909, the centenary of Darwin’s birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Origin of species, Francis Darwin published transcriptions of Darwin’s 1842 and 1844 species theory sketches in Foundations of the Origin of Species. These materials, in addition to Darwin’s own publications, were the basis for the majority of writings about Darwin until his granddaughter, Nora Barlow (1885–1989), began a remarkable career of publishing additional transcriptions of Darwin manuscripts. In the wake of the 1959 centenary celebrations of the Origin of species the next important instalment of Darwin materials occurred with the publication of Darwin’s theoretical and transmutation notebooks by Paul Barrett, Gavin de Beer and M. J. Rowlands between 1960 and 1967. These, combined with the publication in 1960 of the Handlist of Darwin papers at the University Library Cambridge, triggered interest in the Darwin Archive, deposited at Cambridge University Library after the Second World War. In a sense the modern Darwin industry had begun. By the late 1960s academic historians and philosophers of science began to dominate the field of Darwin studies in place of scientists. Since that time the changing trends of the discipline as a whole have naturally been reflected in Darwin studies. A straight line from his early theorizing to modern evolutionary biology was found to be overly simplistic, and contextual and social studies of science became predominate. Many important and highly sophisticated focused studies opened up ever more novel aspects of Darwin’s life and work. The industry was fully underway by the 1970s when other important unpublished Darwin manuscripts were edited and published in Robert Stauffer’s Natural selection, the second part of Darwin’s big species book written from 1856 to 1858. Also of great importance were P. Barrett’s Collected papers of Charles Darwin and SandraWithin weeks of Charles Darwin’s death in April 1882 accounts of his life began to appear around the world in the form of obituaries. These were followed by numerous biographies over the ensuing years. Most important of these was the three-volume Life and letters of Charles Darwin (1887) edited by his son Francis Darwin (1848–1925). This not only made available a large number of letters to and from Darwin but also reproduced most of his privately written autobiography and extracts from other manuscripts as well as many recollections from family, friends and colleagues. This work arguably no longer receives the attention it deserves. Reading it today one is sometimes surprised to see how many recent discoveries and themes were already apparent in this foundational work. It was followed by two volumes of More letters of Charles Darwin in 1903. In 1909, the centenary of Darwin’s birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of the Origin of species, Francis Darwin published transcriptions of Darwin’s 1842 and 1844 species theory sketches in Foundations of the Origin of Species. These materials, in addition to Darwin’s own publications, were the basis for the majority of writings about Darwin until his granddaughter, Nora Barlow (1885–1989), began a remarkable career of publishing additional transcriptions of Darwin manuscripts. 1 In the wake of the 1959 centenary celebrations of the Origin of species the next important instalment of Darwin materials occurred with the publication of Darwin’s theoretical and transmutation notebooks by Paul Barrett, Gavin de Beer and M. J. Rowlands between 1960 and 1967. 2 These, combined with the publication in 1960 of the Handlist of Darwin papers at the University Library Cambridge, 3 triggered interest in the Darwin Archive, deposited at Cambridge University Library after the Second World War. In a sense the modern Darwin industry had begun. By the late 1960s academic historians and philosophers of science began to dominate the field of Darwin studies in place of scientists. Since that time the changing trends of the discipline as a whole have naturally been reflected in Darwin studies. A straight line from his early theorizing to modern evolutionary biology was found to be overly simplistic, and contextual and social studies of science became predominate. Many important and highly sophisticated focused studies opened up ever more novel aspects of Darwin’s life and work. 4

Going the whole orang: Darwin, Wallace and the natural history of orangutans

This article surveys the European discovery and early ideas about orangutans followed by the contrasting experiences with these animals of the co-founders of evolution by natural selection, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. The first non-human great ape that both of them interacted with was the orangutan. They were both profoundly influenced by what they saw, but the contexts of their observations could hardly be more different. Darwin met orangutans in the Zoological Gardens in London while Wallace saw them in the wild in Borneo. In different ways these observations helped shape their views of human evolution and humanitys place in nature. Their findings played a major role in shaping some of the key questions that were pursued in human evolutionary studies during the rest of the nineteenth century.

Charles Darwin 1809-2009.

The year 2009 is the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. This article briefly surveys his life and work, dispelling some common myths and summarizes Darwins achievement and legacy at his death in 1882.

The impact of A. R. Wallace's Sarawak Law paper reassessed

This article examines six main elements in the modern story of the impact of Alfred Russel Wallaces 1855 Sarawak Law paper, particularly in the many accounts of Charles Darwins life and work. These elements are: Each of these are very frequently repeated as straightforward facts in the popular and scholarly literature. It is here argued that each of these is erroneous and that the role of the Sarawak Law paper in the historiography of Darwin and Wallace needs to be revised.

Darwin's body-snatchers?

For decades creationists have claimed that Charles Darwin sought the skulls of full-blooded Aboriginal Tasmanian people when only four were left alive. It is said that Darwin letters survive which reveal this startling and distasteful truth. Tracing these claims back to their origins, however, reveals a different, if not unfamiliar story.

The evolution revolution

Evolution is the most revolutionary concept in the history of science. Nothing else has more radically changed human understanding of the natural world and ourselves. The work of Charles Darwin showed, irrefutably, that humans are lust another animal occupying a small branch on a vast tree of life. No divine spark is needed to explain our existence and traits. Here, van Wyhe discusses the story of how one of sciences greatest ideas came into being is both remarkable and riddled with myths.