“Essay of the Phrenological Mode of Investigation”, Combe (1839)
George Combe, perhaps one of Britain’s most renowned phrenologists, illustrates two major forms of scientific investigation, including the mode that is used in phrenology and is credited by some as the roots of the scientific method we know today.
Combe divides his essay into three major sections. The first is the Aristotelian philosophy, which dominated science up to the seventeenth century. The second is the Baconian philosophy and the impact of Lord Bacon’s “Novum Organon”. The final section discusses the works of the young phrenologist François Joseph Gall.
The Aristotelian philosophy was practiced for many centuries. In short, people had total faith in Aristotle’s hypotheses, and the few who questioned his beliefs would be disowned or punished. Universities would, as Combe points out, require professors to follow Aristotle’s teachings, and no one else’s.
One such person to bring to light Aristotle’s inaccuracies was Galileo Galilei. Aristotle suggested that should one mass weigh n times more than another, that heavier mass will fall at a rate of n times faster. Galileo demonstrated through direct observation (specifically, dropping two masses of different weights at the leaning tower of Pisa) that this was not the case (sans any “opposing air” friction). Aristotelians discredited the proof, despite witnessing the proof themselves.
While Galileo was among the first who challenged Aristotle’s philosophy, no one redefined the building of reasoning better than Lord Francis Bacon did years later. He explains in his work “Novum Organum” that the only way Man can discover “nature’s laws” is through our own experiences, and our experiences can only be gathered through observations. This is the process of inductive reasoning, something Aristotle neglected, and a critical piece of the logistical puzzle.
There are two forms of observation: (1) the presented, and (2) the produced. The presented is the form of observation from which we merely watch nature without our interference. The produced is the form in which we set controls and conduct experiments. Phrenological investigations, Combe explains, are mostly observed through presentation.
Furthermore, Lord Bacon lists “tests” which identify when “two facts bear to each other the relation of cause and effect, or of sign and power.” They are (1) “invariable connection”, (2) “invariable negation of the effect, with absence of the cause”, and (3) “increase or diminution of the effect, with the increased or diminished intensity of the cause.” He makes up an example where the degree of all animals’ musical talents are based on the length of a dark line on their heads. It is quite the preposterous example, but all “tests” pass, and as such the observation cannot be discarded.
Combe credits this inductive philosophy as the destroyer of “the philosophic pretensions of those who essayed to explain natural phenomena by reasoning on conjecture” and the establisher of Phrenology.
In the final section of his essay, he acknowledges François Joseph Gall as following that inductive philosophy more than anyone else, “rigidly scruteniz[ing] and verif[ying] facts” in his discoveries. Combe specifically addresses Gall’s observations of innate minds and the connectivity “between prominent eyes and verbal memory” (which, of course, Gall developed into much greater explanation after the initial observation). Combe addresses several more of Gall’s discoveries, including the relations of size to mental power, and the size of the “outer surface of the brain” to the size of the brain itself.
Works Cited
Combe, George, and Andrew Boardman. "Essay on the Phrenological Mode of Investigation." Lectures on Phrenology. New York: Samuel Colman, 1839. 13-25. Print.
Van Wyhe, John. "Images of the Combes." The History of Phrenology on the Web. Web. 18 Sept. 2011. .
I thought this essay was especially interesting because of the author's obvious devotion to the scientific method, but endorsement of phrenology, a practice that is nowadays considered nothing but a pseudoscience.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Combe's says that only real science comes from direct observation, I think he's missing a key point. The observations of one person can differ from the next. What's really need is confirmation via statistical means.This ensures that a relationship actually exists between two traits, and not just suggested by a subjective viewer.
I think if rigorous statistical techniques would have been applied to phrenology when it first emerged, it would have been disproved almost instantly.
I think that it is interesting that Combe spends so much time and energy setting up phrenology as a revolutionary science. It is as if he is trying to "sell" the reader on phrenology. He tries to do this by making grand comparisons and statements. He places its importance up there with Galileo's discoveries about gravity. He says that phrenology will never be disproved like other theories, because it is based on direct observation. Of course we know that both of these positions will prove to be false.
ReplyDeleteI think it is evident that what Combe lacked was factual evidence. It seems as though Combe formulated his research based on correlation not causation, which is what is needed to be a credible science. Although I agree that this is an interesting topic, which helped lead scientists to observations today, I do not see why Combe put so much emphasis on a science of observation that was not applicable to test.
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