Phrenology Research Environment

LEWES, George Henry (1817-1878)

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Metadata

Born: 1817

Died: 1878

Editorial Description

writer on physiology and philosophy; common-law husband of George Eliot; contributed to the major journals and was on friendly terms with most of the leading intellectuals; said to have included discussion of GALL in his Biographical History of Philosophy at the prompting of George Eliot. Although no partisan of phrenology, Lewes perceived GALL as "having formed an epoch in the History of Philosophy" by finally ending the reduction of philosophy to psychology and by inaugurating a new positivist method, i.e., the reduction of mind to biology. (DNB; and A58)

Works as Listed by Roger Cooter (1989)

• 659.1 — 659.1 "Psychology: A New Cerebral Theory," in his Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences: Being an Exposition of the Princi ples of the Cours de Philosophie Positive of August Comte. London: H. G. Bohn's Scientific Library, vol 20, 1847, edn 1853: 213-32. (On the intellectual marriage of GALL and COMTE.)
• 659.2 — 659.2 "Phrenology," in his The Biographical History of Philosophy from its origins in Greece down to the present day. "Much enlarged and thoroughly revised," London: John W. Parker, 1857: 629-45. (One of best brief accounts of GALL'S life and estimation of his place in the history of philosophy.)
• 659.3 — 659.3 "Phrenology in France," BLACKWOOD'S EDIN MAG, 82 (Dec 1857): 665-74.
• 659.4 — 659.4 "Psychology Finally Recognized as a Branch of Biology. The Phrenological Hypothesis," revised version of the "Phrenology" chapter in the Biographical History, now retitled: The History of Philosophy from Thales to Comte. Vol. 2, London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1867: 394-435. (Only minor changes were made to the 4th and 5th edns of 1871 and 1880.) LEWINS, Robert, MD, FRCS Edin; biographer and friend of FLETCHER and posthumous editor of his Rudiments of Physiology

Editorial Information

659. LEWES, George Henry (1817-78), writer on physiology and
philosophy; common-law husband of George Eliot; contributed to the
major journals and was on friendly terms with most of the leading
intellectuals; said to have included discussion of GALL in his Biographical History of Philosophy at the prompting of George Eliot.
Although no partisan of phrenology, Lewes perceived GALL as "having formed an epoch in the History of Philosophy" by finally ending
the reduction of philosophy to psychology and by inaugurating a new
positivist method, i.e., the reduction of mind to biology. (DNB;
and A58)