other race, is to blur the essential difference between the races, and forget the lessons of history, which records Greek and Roman antiquity as the cradle of every civilization, as well as the lessons of biology, which reveals a slow degradation of the species, the ill characteristics of the father being strengthened in the son in direct proportion to the loss of vitality that comes with time to both man and civilizations. Second, our science of phrenology — of whose scientific truth not one of us has any doubt (pause for the confirmatory shaking of heads to subside) — our science of phrenology argues against the assumption that the Chinaman or the Negro is almost a Caucasian, failing only in degree. There is a difference in the size of the brain and the organic quality of the body, with which the brain must inevitably correspond. We know that a piece of wrought iron is tougher than a piece of cast iron of the same size: why should we suppose that both will cut as deeply if fashioned into a sword?’
Longer pause, in which thumps of support were mixed with a few murmurs of dissent, the loudest from Captain Meadows.
‘Moreover, gentlemen, we phrenologists know that organs and faculties do not operate in isolation: one faculty is tempered by another. Forsooth, there is no organ for murder, but indeed, there is a faculty intended to impart energy, force and effectiveness in character and action. In races such as the Red Indian, where these faculties are not restrained by firmness, conscientiousness, ideality and by the more conservative powers of the mind, or where they are accentuated by the faculties of destructiveness and acquisitiveness, as in the Negro, we need not look for an organ for murder before adducing that the individual concerned will be, or is, a murderer.’
Was this a reference to his exhibition earlier today of Amir Ali, wondered Captain Meadows. Should he object? But no, the reference was too oblique, and an objection would sound churlish. But why did he find Lord Batterstone’s ideas so hard to accept? They did not contain many differences, perhaps nothing beyond Batterstone’s belief in the final irreducibility of difference and his related conviction that character had to be read from the skull and not from ‘incidental’ attributes like eyebrows and ears. And why was it so hard for Lord Batterstone to countenance any opposition in that area? Was it, thought Meadows, because of Lord Batterstone’s blue blood, his aristocratic pedigree, while Meadows himself, being only a middle-class gentleman, having risen over the past three generations through trade, found it as difficult to accept a world not capable of progress, evolution, movement towards a greater sharing, a sameness of peoples?
He brought himself back to M’lord’s speech. ‘The brain in texture, size and configuration reflects the soul, whose seat it is. And as the brain is the means by which we may recognize the shadowy workings of our eternal soul, so is the cranium a reflection of the brain. On its bony casement may be read, in universal forms and particular elevations, in folds and depressions, a correct and indisputable outline of the moral character and intellectual propensities of that man. But just as God did not give the same soul to all men (more murmurs of dissent here, which made Captain Meadows hopeful) — some are saved and some are not and some, it is argued, do not have souls — just as God did not create all beings equal, it stands to reason that the marks on the skull are as permanent as souls and not liable to be erased by education, or wealth.’
Pause, again, as Lord Batterstone prepared to end his speech.
‘It is indisputable, at least in scientific circles, that the brain is the organ of the mind and that each faculty of the mind has its special organ in the brain. The contention that the brain functions in a general way can be dismissed with the help of practical experiments as well as, and more
Longer pause, in which thumps of support were mixed with a few murmurs of dissent, the loudest from Captain Meadows.
‘Moreover, gentlemen, we phrenologists know that organs and faculties do not operate in isolation: one faculty is tempered by another. Forsooth, there is no organ for murder, but indeed, there is a faculty intended to impart energy, force and effectiveness in character and action. In races such as the Red Indian, where these faculties are not restrained by firmness, conscientiousness, ideality and by the more conservative powers of the mind, or where they are accentuated by the faculties of destructiveness and acquisitiveness, as in the Negro, we need not look for an organ for murder before adducing that the individual concerned will be, or is, a murderer.’
Was this a reference to his exhibition earlier today of Amir Ali, wondered Captain Meadows. Should he object? But no, the reference was too oblique, and an objection would sound churlish. But why did he find Lord Batterstone’s ideas so hard to accept? They did not contain many differences, perhaps nothing beyond Batterstone’s belief in the final irreducibility of difference and his related conviction that character had to be read from the skull and not from ‘incidental’ attributes like eyebrows and ears. And why was it so hard for Lord Batterstone to countenance any opposition in that area? Was it, thought Meadows, because of Lord Batterstone’s blue blood, his aristocratic pedigree, while Meadows himself, being only a middle-class gentleman, having risen over the past three generations through trade, found it as difficult to accept a world not capable of progress, evolution, movement towards a greater sharing, a sameness of peoples?
He brought himself back to M’lord’s speech. ‘The brain in texture, size and configuration reflects the soul, whose seat it is. And as the brain is the means by which we may recognize the shadowy workings of our eternal soul, so is the cranium a reflection of the brain. On its bony casement may be read, in universal forms and particular elevations, in folds and depressions, a correct and indisputable outline of the moral character and intellectual propensities of that man. But just as God did not give the same soul to all men (more murmurs of dissent here, which made Captain Meadows hopeful) — some are saved and some are not and some, it is argued, do not have souls — just as God did not create all beings equal, it stands to reason that the marks on the skull are as permanent as souls and not liable to be erased by education, or wealth.’
Pause, again, as Lord Batterstone prepared to end his speech.
‘It is indisputable, at least in scientific circles, that the brain is the organ of the mind and that each faculty of the mind has its special organ in the brain. The contention that the brain functions in a general way can be dismissed with the help of practical experiments as well as, and more
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