ABSTRACT
The phrenologist George Combe's book The constitution of man considered in relation to external objects became the nineteenth-century bible of naturalism. It was one of the best-selling books of the century. Spurzheim, although a physician, did not much like medical practice, and he preferred to earn his bread by lecturing and writing on phrenology. Given such characteristics, caution is necessary when seeking likely influences for Constitution beyond Spurzheim and the Edinburgh phrenology milieu where Combe first sought to gain attention and status as an authority on the workings of Man and Nature. Combe wrote the essays that formed Constitution in torrents of euphoria because he believed his arguments were unassailable. Constitution, although one of the most important books of the second quarter of the nineteenth century, is little read or understood today. Most modern references to Constitution describe it as a phrenology text or confuse phrenology with the teachings of Constitution.
