Reading You Like An Open Book

I don't think phrenology is going to come up too often in the course of actually writing my thesis, but because of its popularity in the early 19th century it crops up in my research from time to time (especially, oddly enough, in Hegel). Each time that it does, it becomes a bit more interesting to note once again the recalcitrance of "text" and interpretation sticking just to the written page. We're always trying, perhaps even needing, to read people, too, to get under their skin to the heart of the matter, or, as it were, to the singing bone that unites mind and matter, interior and exterior, in the synthesis of that thing we call truth. Case in point, phrenology -- sure, it's bollocks, but interesting all the same. The British Library has a nice, readable introduction to this dead science, if you're up for it and have time for a little cultural education.