Phrenology Research Environment

SPENCER, Herbert (1820-1903)

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Metadata

Born: 1820

Died: 1903

Editorial Description

philosopher; trained as an engineer, he became one of England's foremost philosophers of evolutionism; author of System of Synthetic Philosophy (1862-92); claimed that when he was 11 years old he heard SPURZHEIM lecture; had his head read by RUMBALL and was in his early years a firm believer in phrenology; his first papers submitted to the ZOIST were rejected by the PHREN J because they questioned the location of certain of the faculties; phrenology, with its idea of the organization of character, provided him with the basis for his critique of the associationist psychology of Hartley, Bentham and J. S. Mill. (DNB; DSB and A140)

Works as Listed by Roger Cooter (1989)

1060.1 — 1060.1 "A New View of the Functions of Imitation and Benevolence," ZOIST, 1 (Jan 1844): 369-85.
1060.2 — 1060.2 "On the Situation of the Organ of Amativeness," ZOIST, 2 (July 1844): 186-9.
1060.3 — 1060.3 "A Theory Concerning the Organ of Wonder," ZOIST, 2 (Oct 1844): 316-25.
1060.4 — 1060.4 "On a Proposed Cephalograph," Appendix H of vol 1. of An Autobiography. London: Williams & Norgate, 1904: 540-3. (The article, with illustration, was intended to be submitted to the ZOIST, but Spencer had begun to lose his faith in phrenology.)
1060.5 — 1060.5 [Criticism of phrenology in his] Principles of Psychology. London: Longman & Co, 1855: 607-11. (Criticizes the detail of phrenology while accepting the merit of the idea of the physiological division of labor in the brain.)

Editorial Information

Identifier	1060.
Type	Person
Source	Roger Cooter, Phrenology in the British Isles (1989)
PDF page	313
Printed page	308
Database ID	2961

Original Transcription

1060. SPENCER, Herbert (1820-1903), philosopher; trained as an



engineer, he became one of England's foremost philosophers of evolutionism; author of System of Synthetic Philosophy (1862-92); claimed
that when he was 11 years old he heard SPURZHEIM lecture; had his
head read by RUMBALL and was in his early years a firm believer
in phrenology; his first papers submitted to the ZOIST were rejected
by the PHREN J because they questioned the location of certain of
the faculties; phrenology, with its idea of the organization of character, provided him with the basis for his critique of the associationist psychology of Hartley, Bentham and J. S. Mill. (DNB; DSB
and A140)