the image above is from george combe’s a system of phrenology, 5th edn, 2 vols. 1853, perhaps the most detailed and authoritative popular phrenology text ever written, and in print across the 19th century.

as noted by allan sekula in the body and the archive, “the proliferation of photography and that of phrenology were quite coincident”, with the discourse of phrenology determining that appearance and mental capacities and character are concomitant, within the same period that the popular discourse of photography was itself developing.

a glance at any photograph of darwin is sufficient to convince any one that his brain was so imperfectly developed that he was not naturally capable of exhibiting any higher functions of mind, and could only be a keen observer of facts and a steady plodder in experiments. (s. mckinney, the science and art of religion (london: kegan paul, trench & co. 1888), pp. 35–36.)

these are the words of samuel bigger giffen mckinney (1848 – 1908), one of the eight siblings of william fee mckinney.  samuel bigger giffen mckinney practised medicine and was an author of five books on religious and moral subjects (i). his commentary on darwinism and religion was a contribution to the dynamic debate on darwin’s theories – primarily in the manner of vehement rebuttal – across the late 1870s and into the 1880s  amongst the presbyterian hierarchy and the broader calvinist, pan-presbyterian communities in and around belfast and within groups such as the belfast natural history and philosophical society. william fee mckinney was an active participant and presence within these circles across this period, just as his nascent interest and enthusiastic amateur photographic practice was developing.

these debates and vehement rebuttals of darwin’s theories had taken particular strength within the presbyterian hierarchy and the broader calvinist, pan-presbyterian communities in and around belfast as response to an address and subsequent publication in 1874 by john tyndall to the annual meeting of the british association for the advancement of science, which was held in belfast that year. tyndall’s address was essentially a call to liberate the discourse of science from theological control.

for william fee mckinney and his circles what were the other active forces with the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings?

notes:

(i)

it is worth noting here that i will return later to the fact that samuel mckinney’s texts continues on to accuse the evolutionary anthropologist defenders of darwinism – in strikingly ‘progressive modern’ terms – of racism and imperialism

(ii)

“i will call an apparatus literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control, or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings.” giorgio agamben, what is an apparatus and other essays, stanford university press (2009)