ABSTRACT
The development of the science of phrenology and the naturalism used by its advocates is a story of forging ways of demonstrating worth and truth. Gall linked the convincing power of empiricism and unbiased Nature to claims about human nature and psychology. Gall and Spurzheim's ideas were combined with the needs of people in a different culture and context. To the German science of mind and brain was added British institutional structures and terminology. The promises of phrenology's superiority were brought to bear on new targets. Phrenology itself was not about making or gathering scientific knowledge. It was that knowledge. Phrenology was, compared to geology or other contemporary sciences, almost a static body of knowledge. Benevolence and Philo-progenitiveness remained sequestered under their respective cranial carapaces sharing the same neighbours and enacting the same functions. Constitution's purported effects are sometimes confused with its aims.
