Geo.Combe,b1788-Brit.Phrenologist&Natural Philosopher

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A bold signature and salutation, measuring 2 3/8 by 3 3/4 inches, laid down, with date and place "Edin. 26 June, 1829, of George Combe (1788-1858), the most prolific British phrenologist of the nineteenth century. Combe came from the large family (thirteen children surviving in 1807) of an Edinburgh brewer. In their crowded home which the Combes shared with servants at the base of Edinburgh castle George never felt he received the attention he deserved as a child, though he derived his keenest pleasure from those brief moments when the eyes of the family turned on him while he amused them. His parents insisted on a rote religious education more out of a sense of propriety than of religious fervour. At school also Combe endured a harsh force-feeding educational regime, and occasionally the taws. Roger Cooter argued convincingly for the profound effects of Combe's upbringing for his stifled emotions, stolidness, sternness, and the importance of observing hierarchies, order and routine. Cooter also argued that phrenology filled a gap left by rejecting Calvinism although it is unclear that Combe was ever devout enough to experience a gap later. Combe attended classes at Edinburgh university from 1802-4. Afterwards he was apprenticed as a clerk to Writers to the Signet (lawyers). George's other brothers became brewers, tanners, a sailor, and a baker. Only his younger brother Andrew followed George in a more ambitious career; Andrew became a physician. With increased social status and secure and promising employment, Combe began to think of the education and learning appropriate for a gentleman. He began to read current literature such as the Edinburgh Review and authors such as Adam Smith, Malthus, Reid, Dugald Stewart, William Cobbett and to keep a diary. The praise of others evoked Combe's highest enjoyment as he related in an autobiographical fragment referring to his 1804 private elocution classes to overcome his "vulgar" pronunciation:These words [of vindication from the instructor] produced a thrill of pleasure through my whole frame, for I had so strong a desire for praise for praiseworthy qualities, and had so very rarely enjoyed the gratification of it, that this commendation...wakened me to a higher sense of my own capabilities; or rather gave sanction to emotions of ambition for a higher sp of intellectual life, of which I was conscious, although I feared that they originated in conceit, and not in capacity. Phrenology would later provide Combe with the certainty of that capacity:When yet a child I was animated by the strongest ambition to do some great and good service to my fellowmen, which should render me an object of their love and respect. I conjured up schemes in my imagination for the gratification of the desire until I wept in contemplating them....I owe to Phrenology, presented to me by mere accident, a field in which it has been possible for me to pursue this object... In 1810 Combe joined a small weekly debating society, the Forum, w young men discussed issues of the day such as the death penalty or the comparative advantages and disadvantages of matrimony versus celibacy (matrimony was voted preferable), or "Whether novel-reading is favourable or prejudicial to morality?" Combe valued taking a stand on current issues at social gatherings and displaying knowledge of "general topics, or in writing". Combe became known as one who liked to do all the talking and to pronounce his opinions on all subjects. Later in life the famous American abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed after a social breakfast with Combe: "I was a listener. Mr. Combe did the most of the talking, and did it so well that nobody felt like interposing a word, except so far as to draw him on. ...His manner was remarkably quiet, and he spoke as not expecting opposition to his views. Phrenology explained everything to him, from the finite to the infinite." Many who knew Combe remarked that once he set into opinions he was not easily shifted out of them and that he had little ... read more

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