The Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Albert W. Hicks by Albert W. Hicks - HTML preview

PHRENOLOGICAL CHARACTER
 OF
 ALBERT W. HICKS,
 GIVEN AT
 FOWLER AND WELLS’ PHRENOLOGICAL CABINET,
 308 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.
 BY L. N. FOWLER, PROFESSOR OF PHRENOLOGY.
 June 29th, 1860

He has a remarkably strong muscular organization, and bony system, which has a powerful influence on the tone, quality and direction of his mind. His mental temperament is fairly developed, but not to such an extent as to give the finer qualities to the mind and character. He is excitable, and susceptible of intense feeling, yet it is rather a heated impulse of passion, than a delicate and refined sensibility.

He has a large brain, which gives a great amount of general mental power, and with a good education and proper direction, he would be able to exert a leading and extensive influence over others.

His Phrenological developments are very marked. His head is high in the crown, and long, but rather narrow. Destructiveness is not a leading organ, and it acts chiefly as the servant of his excessive will and other strong propensities, which circumstances and bad training may have made sources of temptation to him. He is however, strongly developed in Combativeness, which gives the spirit of resistance, self-defence, and power to overcome obstacles, and if provoked, and had some selfish purpose to subserve, his Combativeness and Firmness would render him capable of almost any act of desperation.

His social organs are large, and he is susceptible of strong love to woman, but with such a temperament that love would take an animal direction. He is interested in children and home, and in friends when they do not oppose his course. He is also very continuous and protracted in mind, and never gives up any project that he has once resolved to accomplish.

His Alimentiveness is large; he loves to gratify the appetite highly, and is liable to indulge it too freely. His love of property acts strongly in proportion to his want of it, and he seeks it to spend, rather than to lay up, and if he had an abundance, it would go freely in the gratification of his various desires.

The tendency to be cunning and artful, is not very strong. He is more likely to do things openly and undisguised, than he is to work shrewdly behind the curtain, and do things in such a mysterious way as to defy detection; yet he has much Cautiousness, and is watchful where there are dangers and difficulties to be encountered.

He has a great amount of ambition to excel in what he does. He has also excessive Self-Esteem, independence, self-reliance, and desire to be the master spirit, and maintain his own individuality. His will is the strongest element of his mind, and his character is more affected by it than by any other one faculty; for whatever he may purpose to do through the influence of circumstances, he will carry out at all hazards.

His moral brain indicates large Hope and anticipation, but only medium Conscientiousness and Benevolence, which hardly ever act in a controlling manner.

His Spirituality is very deficient; he has very little idea of the unseen, and of subjects pertaining to the higher life, and has scarcely any Veneration at all, which leads him to act without due regard to the Higher Power, and without feeling his dependence on, or much responsibility to, his Creator.

His mechanical talent, sense of beauty, and love of the sublime, are only average in power. His ability to imitate and copy, is good, and his love of fun rather strong, without being particularly given to joking and fun-making. He has a correct eye for proportion, can judge well of forms and outlines; has a good degree of order and arrangement, has good native talents for making estimates and calculations; has a superior memory of places and localities, and decidedly good abilities for any kind of mental operation where order, method, system, knowledge of principles and places is required.

His conversational talents are poor, and his memory of events not very good. His powers of comparison are excellent; intuition, and ability to judge of character and motives, good; agreeableness and suavity of manner rather wanting; in fact, the leading features of his character grow out of his will, determination, and continuity of mind; a domineering, proud, unsubmissive spirit, joined to strong watchfulness and forethought, and the desire to accomplish what he attempts, in the most signal and positive manner. He should be known for love of his female friends, fondness for children, attachment to home, and a fair degree of sympathy with his friends. He has a deficiency of tact and power to conceal his feelings, and those qualities that give spirituality, religious feeling, and sense of dependence. The crimes that he has been led to commit, are full as much the result of a want of the right kind of education, as from his natural organization. He has strong passions, and an unbending and headstrong will; but with proper culture, and good circumstances, he would, most likely, have used his energy and talents in a way to secure success and respectability, instead of warring upon the rights and interests of his fellow men.

FOOTNOTES:

1. The name is spelled as Hicks pronounced it, but it is evidently not the correct name.

2. This was in answer to a direct question.—ED.