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Terms and Definitions
Phrenology: This term came into general use around 1819/1820 in Britain where it was coined by the physician T.I.M. Forster
in 1815. It is derived from the Greek roots: phren: 'mind' and logos: 'study/discourse'. Gall himself never approved of the
term phrenology. He called his system simply organology and Schädellehre and later simply 'the physiology of the brain'. The
name phrenology really shows the far-reaching pretensions of the phrenologists to extend their authority over a greater area
than just cerebral anatomy.
Craniology and cranioscopy: Additional, older terms for phrenology. Contrary to what is often alleged, these terms were
not favoured or used by Gall, nor did they originally have different meanings. These two terms, and other variants (such as
craniotome, craniognomy, or craniognosy), were used indiscriminately to refer to the doctrines of Gall and the phrenologists
before the term phrenology was seized upon by Gall's former pupil, and the Saint Paul of phrenology, J.G. Spurzheim and the
more pretentious British phrenologists. Beginning in the mid-1840s a new use for the term cranioscopy arose, meaning specifically
the study of the size, shape, etc. of the skull, especially those of various 'races', as a part of an overtly scientific anthropology.
This use was first made by the German physiologist and psychologist Carl Gustav Carus (1789-1869).
Physiognomy, the study of internal character from external appearances- most notably the face- was a partly aesthetic
and partly philosophical practice which preceded phrenology (its roots lay as far back as the middle ages). Its main advocate
in the late eighteenth century was the Swiss clergyman J. G. Lavater (1741-1801) in his Physiognomical Fragments (1775-8).
See Other Physiognomies. A few physiognomical works are available on-line, see: Other phrenological texts on-line.
Faculty: phrenologists believed "the mind" was divided into a number of discrete departments, each specialized
for certain tasks or tendencies, e.g. "the faculty of Benevolence means every mode of benevolent feeling induced by means
of the organ of Benevolence." The cerebral organs and their faculties carried the same names- so the lists of organs
provided at this site are also lists of mental faculties. Other faculty psychologies contained faculties like memory, reason,
intellect and so on. See: Phrenological Organs.
Organ: the "material instrument" by which a particular faculty was believed to operate. The size of an organ
was the measure of its power or activity. The skull was said to take its shape from the underlying brain and hence, the larger
or smaller an organ, the skull above it was expected to reflect this development. (Phrenologists pointed to cases of hydrocephalus,
collection of water in the brain, in which the skull can become grotesquely distended while brain function may be unimpaired).
The phrenological organs were mirrored in each hemisphere which is why some busts only have organs marked on one side. (i.e.
there were two of each except Amativeness.) Phrenological Organs
Bumpology: is probably one of the best-known aspersions used to lampoon phrenology. See: Ridiculing Phrenology.
Pseudoscience: Historians of science tend no longer use this term as it is widely considered to be biased and judgmental.
It implies the application of a current conception of science, and proper scientific attributes, onto a historical phenomena.
Such value judgments about the so-called virtues and vices of historical subjects are now seen as outside the scope of historians'
projects. Many historians of science today consider the use of this term naive. Nevertheless the word was sometimes used by
contemporaries to describe phrenology.
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