William H. Sheldon's constitutional psychology: the somatotype as fiction

Abstract

In this thesis I argue that William H. Sheldon's somatotypes can be seen as fictional constructions. The traditional notion of idealization in prose fiction intrudes into Sheldon's reading of his somatotypes; the same kind of idealization, based on anthropological stereotyping, that had marked the science, or pseudo-science, of physiognomy. An integral aspect of physiognomy had been biological hierarchy and distinction, which had undergirded both the ancient and the European class systems, and which had provided a palpable benchmark for identifying nobility, heroism, and aristocracy. Sheldon's constitutional psychology, I argue, is a thinly disguised revolt against the falling away of this biological hegemony. The demise of heroism and "Promethean Will" or individuality was, for Sheldon, a matter of nostalgia and alienation. The somatotype studies, while fostering the illusion of detached empiricism, actually allow Sheldon to judge contemporary humanity according to antique (heroic) standards. Sheldon's somatotypes, therefore, are artifactual; to the degree that they express as much about the "temperamene" of their "author" as they do about the somatotypes themselves. In this way, Sheldon constrlcts his subjects. Sheldon's proposed program of "biological humanics", a variety of eugenics, was, in truth, an agenda (a fantasy) for recapturing the glory of the past. It was a scheme to reinvest power, beauty, heroism (primitive splendor), into the physical body; qualities and relationships which had characterized the ancient world, and which had been compromised by the "shopkeeper" and cowardly mentality of modern society.