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Title: Phrenology Examined
Author: Flourens, P.
Language: English
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PHRENOLOGY EXAMINED.
PHRENOLOGY EXAMINED.
BY P. FLOURENS,
MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (INSTITUTE OF FRANCE), MEMBER OF THE
ROYAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON AND EDINBURG, OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY
OF SCIENCES OF STOCKHOLM, OF MUNICH, AND OF TURIN, ETC. ETC.
PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY AT THE NATURAL HISTORY
MUSEUM AT PARIS.
“J’ai un sentiment clair de ma liberté.”
BOSSUET, TRAITÉ DU LIBRE ARBITRE.
Translated from the Second Edition of 1845, by
CHARLES DE LUCENA MEIGS, M.D.
MEMB. AMER. PHIL. SOC. ETC. ETC.
PHILADELPHIA:
HOGAN & THOMPSON.
1846.
ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1845,
BY CHARLES D. MEIGS, M. D.
IN THE CLERK’S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN
DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA.
TO DR. JAMES JACKSON, OF BOSTON.
MY DEAR SIR:
Perhaps I have taken too great a liberty in sending to you in this public
manner, and in praying you to accept a copy of M. Flourens’ ingenious
work. I have a very sincere desire that you should read the Inquiry;
for I feel sure, that if you approve of it, the studious portion of our
countrymen who may peruse it, will concur in the opinion of a gentleman
so justly distinguished as yourself in every good word and work, and
so capable of judging as to the salutary or evil tendency of the
productions of our teeming press.
Inasmuch as many of our countrymen have heretofore felt, and many do
now feel, desirous to know the truth as to the question of the multiple
nature of the human mind, I have here translated the Examination, in
order that they might have an opportunity to learn what is thought of
Gall’s doctrines by one of the best and most precise thinkers in Europe.
Professor Flourens, by his writings on the brain and nervous system, by
his courses of lectures at the Jardin des Plantes, by numerous writings
on various scientific subjects, by his position in the Institute, has
acquired a place among the literary and scientific celebrities of the
present age. The amiable and elegant manners, and the fine disposition of
this distinguished character, coincide with his acknowledged learning,
and exactness, and zeal, to accumulate upon him the public respect and
esteem. It is therefore with great confidence that I present to you this
copy of his criticism upon Phrenology, since I suppose that every writing
of so good a man might prove acceptable to you, and to the studious
portion of our countrymen generally.
I invoke your approbation of what I cannot but deem a masterly criticism
of the doctrines of Gall. So highly have I appreciated it, that I cannot
readily suppose it possible to rise from its perusal, without being
convinced that Gall was wholly mistaken in his views of the human mind;
and of course, that all the cranioscopists, mesmerizers, and diviners,
who have followed his track, or risen up on the basis of his opinions,
are equally in error.
In order to have a just view of human responsibility, it is indispensable
to entertain the justest notions of the nature of the human mind. If
Phrenology _be an unsubstantial hypothesis_, no phrenologist is fit
to be a juror, a judge, or a legislator: for since all human law—the
whole social compact—and indeed all divine law, as relative to human
propensities and actions—is founded on some real nature of the soul
and mind, there is risk that manifestly erroneous conceptions of the
freewill, of the conscience, of the judgment, and the perceptive powers,
&c. may mislead the juror, the judge, and the legislator, in their vote,
their opinion, and their notion of rights and wrongs.
If I am correct in entertaining these apprehensions as to the influence
of false metaphysics on the public characters I have enumerated, there is
abundant cause to rejoice when a blow is struck, like that pulverizing
blow which is given in this work, to so considerable an error. There are
thousands among the young and ardent and curious of our countrymen and
countrywomen, whose minds may be likewise led astray from the truth; but
if it be mischievous for the judge and the juror and the legislator
to entertain erroneous views upon the nature of the understanding, the
mind, or the soul, it is equally to be deprecated where the error is sown
broadcast in the land.
Tares, if not in themselves poisonous, serve at best to choke up the
useful or beautiful plants that ought to be cultivated in the fields of
science or morals; but you will find that M. Flourens regards them as
poisons.
Has not M. Flourens clearly refuted the phrenologists? and has he not, in
doing so, performed a useful and an acceptable service?
I pray you to believe that I am, with the most grateful respect and the
sincerest esteem,
Your obliged and faithful servant,
CHARLES D. MEIGS.
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 10, 1845.
TO THE MEMORY OF DESCARTES.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
Having been a witness to the progress of phrenology, I was led to the
composition of the following treatise.
Each succeeding age has a philosophy of its own.
The seventeenth century recovered from the philosophy of Descartes; the
eighteenth recovered from that of Locke and Condillac: is the nineteenth
to recover from that of Gall?
This is a really important question.
I propose, in this work, to examine phrenology as it appears in the
writings of Gall, of Spurzheim, and of Broussais.
My wish is to be brief. There is, however, one great secret in the art of
being brief: it is to be clear.
I frequently quote Descartes: I even go further; for I dedicate my work
to his memory. I am writing in opposition to a bad philosophy, while I am
endeavouring to recall a sound one.
CONTENTS.
I. Of Gall.—Of his doctrine in general 17
II. Of Gall.—Of the faculties 47
III. Of Gall.—The organs 59
IV. Of Spurzheim 96
V. Of Broussais 115
VI. Broussais’s Psycology 121
VII. Broussais’s Physiology 125
VIII. Of Gall 127
Note I. Anatomical relations supposed by Gall to exist
between the organs of the external senses and
the organs of the intellectual faculties 131
II. Difference between instinct and understanding 133
III. Gall as an observer 137
IV. The animal spirits 139
V. Exaggeration of Broussais, even in phrenology 140
VI. Contractility of Broussais 142
VII. Real labours of Gall as to the brain 143
I.
OF GALL.
OF HIS DOCTRINE IN GENERAL.
The great work in which Gall sets forth his doctrine is well known.[1]
That work shall serve as the groundwork of my examination. I shall
examine in succession each of the questions studied by the author; merely
introducing some slight changes in the order in which they are arranged.
The entire doctrine of Gall is contained in two fundamental propositions,
of which the first is, that understanding resides exclusively in the
brain, and the second, that each particular faculty of the understanding
is provided in the brain with an organ proper to itself.
Now, of these two propositions, there is certainly nothing new in the
first one, and perhaps nothing true in the second one.
Let us commence our examination with the first proposition.
I say that in the first proposition, namely, that the brain is the
exclusive seat of the understanding, there is nothing new. Gall himself
admits this to be the case.
“For a long time,” says he, “both philosophers and physiologists, as
well as physicians, have contended that the brain is the organ of the
soul.”[2] The opinion that the brain, (as a whole, or such and such
parts of the brain considered separately,) is the seat of the soul,
is, in fact, as old as learning itself. Descartes placed the soul in
the _pineal gland_, Willis in the _corpora striata_, Lapeyronie in the
_corpus callosum_, &c. &c.
As to the more recent authorities, Gall quotes Sœmmerring, who says
precisely that, “the brain is the exclusive instrument of all sensation,
all thought, and all will,”[3] &c. He quotes Haller, who proves (proves
is the very expression made use of by Gall himself,) that “sensation does
not take place at the point where the object touches the nerve, the point
where the impression is made, but in the brain.”[4] He might have quoted
many other authorities to the same effect.
Were not Cabanis’s writings anterior to the time of Gall? and did not
he say, “In order to obtain a just idea of those operations whose result
is thought, the brain must be considered as a peculiar organ designed to
produce it, just as the stomach and the bowels are designed to produce
digestion, the liver to secrete the bile,” &c.?[5] a proposition so
extravagant as to become almost ridiculous, but which is in truth the
very proposition of Gall himself, except as to some exaggeration in the
terms employed.
Antecedently to the time of Gall, both Sœmmerring and Cuvier, in the
comparative anatomy of the various classes of animals, had investigated
the ratio existing between the development of the encephalon and that
of the intellectual power. The following remarkable phrase is from the
pen of Cuvier: “The proportion of the brain to the medulla oblongata, a
proportion which is greater in man than in all other animals, is a very
good index of the perfection of the creature’s intelligence, because
it is the best index of the preeminence of the organs of reflection
above the organs of the external senses.”[6] And this other still more
remarkable phrase: “In animals the intelligence appears to be greater in
proportion as the volume of the hemispheres is greater.”[7]
Gall, in an especial manner, contends against the assertion of Bichat,
who remarks that “The influence of the passions is exerted invariably
upon the organic life, and not upon the animal life; all the signs that
characterise them are referable to the former and not to the latter.
Gestures, which are the mute exponents of the sentiments and the
understanding, afford a remarkable proof of this truth. When we wish
to signify something relative to the memory, the imagination, to our
perception, to the judgment, &c. the hand moves involuntarily towards
the head: if we wish to express love, joy, grief, hatred, it is directed
towards the region of the heart, the stomach, or the bowels.”[8]
Doubtless, there is much that might be criticised in the foregoing words
of Bichat; nevertheless, to say that the passions expend their influences
upon the organic life, is not the same thing as to say that they reside
or exist there. Bichat had already remarked, that “Every species of
sensation has its centre in the brain, for sensation always supposes both
impression and perception.”[9] Furthermore, regarding this distinction,
(which as yet has not been drawn with sufficient clearness,) between the
parts that are the seats of the passions, and the parts that are affected
by their action, Gall might have found in Descartes the following
remark, which is not less judicious than acute.
“Although,” says he, writing to Leroy, “the spirits that move the
muscles come from the brain, we must, nevertheless, assign as seats of
the passions, the places that are most considerably affected by them;
hence, I say, the principal seat of the passions, as far as they relate
to the body, is the heart, because it is the heart that is most sensibly
affected by them; but their place is in the brain, in as far as they
affect the soul, for the soul cannot suffer immediately, otherwise than
through the brain.”[10]
As I am quoting Descartes, who, I ask, more clearly than Descartes has
perceived that the soul can have only a very circumscribed seat in the
economy, and that that circumscribed seat is the brain itself?
“We know,” says he, “that, properly speaking, it is not inasmuch as the
soul is in the members that serve as organs to the exterior senses, that
the soul feels, but inasmuch as she is in the brain, where she exercises
the faculty denominated common sense.”[11]
He elsewhere observes: “Surprise is expressed because I do not recognise
any other point of sensation except that which exists in the brain; but
all physicians and surgeons will, I hope, assist me in proving this
point, for they are aware of the common fact that a person who has been
subjected to amputation of a limb, continues to feel pain in a part that
he no longer possesses.”[12]
Here then, according to Descartes, we find that the soul is situated,
that is to say, _feels_ in the brain, and only in the brain. The
following passage shows with what precision he excluded even the
external senses from any participation with the functions of the soul.
“I have shown,” says he, “that size, distance, and form are perceived
only by the reason; and that, by deducing them the one from the
other.”[13]
“I cannot agree with the assertion that this error (the error caused
by the bent appearance of a stick partly plunged into water,) is not
corrected by the understanding but by the touch; for, although the sense
in question makes us judge that the stick is straight, yet that cannot
correct the error of vision; but furthermore, it is requisite that reason
should teach us to confide, in this case, rather to our judgment after
touching, than to the judgment that we come to after using our eyes; but
this reason cannot be attributed to the sense, but to the understanding
alone; and in this very example, it is the understanding that corrects
the error of the sense.”[14]
The brain, then, is the exclusive seat of the soul; and all sensation,
even those operations that appear to depend upon the simple external
sense, is function of the soul.
Gall falls back upon Condillac, who, much less rigorous in this
particular than Descartes, says, that “all our faculties proceed from
the senses.”[15] But when Condillac speaks thus, he evidently speaks
by ellipsis, for he immediately adds these words: “The senses are only
occasional causes. They do not feel; it is the soul that alone feels,
through the medium of the organs.”[16]
Now, if it be the _soul_ only that feels, _à fortiori_, it is the soul
only that _remembers_, that _judges_, that _imagines_, &c. _Memory_,
_judgment_, _imagination_, &c., in a word, all our faculties, are
therefore of the soul, and therefore come from the soul, and not from the
senses.
There is no philosopher who has exaggerated more than Helvetius the
influence of the senses upon the intelligence. But Helvetius says, “In
whatsoever manner we interrogate experience, she always answers that any
greater or lesser superiority of mind is independent of any greater or
lesser perfection of the senses.”[17]
But I leave Helvetius and Condillac, and I return to Descartes, to
Willis, to Lapeyronie, to Haller, Sœmmerring, Cuvier, &c. They all
perceived and all asserted that the brain is the seat of the soul,
and that it is so to the exclusion of the senses. Therefore, the
proposition that the brain is the exclusive seat of the soul is not a
new proposition, and hence does not originate with Gall. It belonged to
science before it appeared in his Doctrine. The merit of Gall, and it is
by no means a slender merit, consists in his having understood better
than any of his predecessors the whole of its importance, and in having
devoted himself to its demonstration. It existed in science before Gall
appeared—it may be said to reign there ever since his appearance. Taking
each particular sense, he excluded them all, one after another, from
all immediate participation in the functions of the understanding.[18]
Far from being developed in the direct ratio of the intellection, most
of them are developed in an inverse ratio. Taste and smell are more
developed in the quadruped than in man. Sight and hearing are more so
in the bird than in the quadruped. The brain alone is in all classes
developed in the ratio of the understanding. The loss of a sense does
not lead to the loss of the intelligence. The understanding survives the
loss of sight and hearing. It might survive the loss of all the senses.
To interrupt the communication between the sense and the brain, is enough
to insure the loss of the sense. The mere compression of the brain, which
abolishes the intellection, abolishes all the senses. Far, therefore,
from being organs of the intelligence, the organs of the senses are not
even organs of the senses, they do not even exercise their functions as
organs of the senses, except through the medium of the intelligence, and
this intelligence resides only in the brain.
The brain alone, therefore, is the organ of the soul;—is it the whole
brain—the brain taken _en masse_? Gall thought so, and Spurzheim followed
Gall’s opinion; and all the phrenologists who have come after them have
followed the examples of Gall and Spurzheim.
Yet, after all, it amounts to nothing. If we deprive an animal of its
cerebellum, it loses only its locomotive action. If we deprive it of
its tubercula quadrigemina, it loses its sight only; if we destroy its
medulla oblongata, it loses its respiratory movements, and in consequence
thereof, its life.[19] Neither of these parts, therefore, that is to say,
the cerebellum, the tubercula quadrigemina, and the medulla oblongata, is
the organ of the understanding.
The brain, properly so called, is so, and it alone. If we remove from an
animal the brain, properly so called, or the hemispheres, it immediately
loses its understanding, and loses nothing but its understanding.[20]
The brain, en masse, the _encephalon_, is then a multiple organ; and
this multiple organ consists of four particular organs: the cerebellum,
the seat of the principle that regulates the movements of locomotion; the
tubercula quadrigemina, seats of the principle that regulates the sense
of sight; the medulla oblongata, in which resides the principle that
determines the respiratory motions; and the brain proper, the seat, and
the exclusive seat of the intelligence.[21]
Therefore, when the phrenologists promiscuously place the intellectual
and moral faculties in the brain, considered en masse, they deceive
themselves. Neither the cerebellum, the quadrigeminal tubercles, nor
the medulla oblongata can be regarded as seats of these faculties. All
these faculties dwell solely in the brain, properly so called, or the
hemispheres.
The question as to the precise seat of the intelligence, has undergone a
great change since the time of Gall. Gall believed that the intelligence
was seated indifferently in the whole encephalon, and it has been proved
that it resides only in the hemispheres.
Further, it is not the encephalon taken en masse that is developed in
the ratio of the intelligence of the creature, but the hemispheres.
The mammifera are the animals most highly endowed with intelligence;
they have, other things being equal, the most voluminous hemispheres.
Birds are the animals most highly endowed with power of motion; their
cerebellum is, other things being equal, the largest. Reptiles are the
most torpid and apathetic of animals; they have the smallest brain, &c.
Every thing concurs then to prove, that the encephalon, in mass, is a
multiple organ with multiple functions, consisting of different parts, of
which some are destined to subserve the locomotive motions, others the
motions of the respiration, &c., while one single one, the brain proper,
is designed for the purposes of the intellection.
This being conceded, it is evident that the entire brain cannot be
divided, as the phrenologists divide it, into a number of small organs,
each of which is the seat of a distinct intellectual faculty; for
the entire brain does not serve the purposes of what is called the
intelligence. The hemispheres alone are the seats of the intellectual
power; and consequently, the question as to whether the organ, the seat
of the intelligence may be divided into several distinct organs, is a
question relative solely to the uses and powers of the hemispheres.
Gall avers, and this is the second fundamental proposition of his
doctrine, that the brain is divided into several organs, each one of
which lodges a particular faculty of the soul. By the word _brain_, he
understood the _whole brain_, and he thus deceived himself. Let us reduce
the application of his proposition to the hemispheres alone, and we
shall see that he has deceived himself again.
It has been shown by my late experiments, that we may cut away, either
in front, or behind, or above, or on one side, a very considerable slice
of the hemisphere of the brain, without destroying the intelligence.
Hence it appears, that quite a restricted portion of the hemispheres may
suffice for the purposes of intellection in an animal.[22]
On the other hand, in proportion as these reductions by slicing away the
hemispheres are continued, the intelligence becomes enfeebled, and grows
gradually less; and certain limits being passed, is wholly extinguished.
Hence it appears, that the cerebral hemispheres concur, by their whole
mass, in the full and entire exercise of the intelligence.[23]
In fine, as soon as one sensation is lost, all sensation is lost; when
one faculty disappears, all the faculties disappear. There are not,
therefore, different seats for the different faculties, nor for the
different sensations. The faculty of feeling, of judging, of willing any
thing, resides in the same place as the faculty of feeling, judging, or
willing any other thing, and consequently this faculty, essentially a
unit, resides essentially in a single organ.[24]
The understanding is, therefore, a unit.
According to Gall, there are as many particular kinds of intellect as
there are distinct faculties of the mind. According to him, each faculty
has its perception, its memory, its judgment, will, &c., that is to say,
all the attributes of the understanding, properly so called.[25]
“All the intellectual faculties,” says he, “are endowed with the
perceptive faculty, with attention, recollection, memory, judgment, and
imagination.”[26]
Thus each faculty perceives, remembers, judges, imagines, compares,
creates; but these are trifles—for each faculty _reasons_. “Whenever,”
says Gall, “a faculty compares and judges of the relations of analogous
or different ideas, there is an act of comparison, there is an act of
judgment: a sequence of comparisons and judgments constitutes reasoning,”
&c.[27]
Therefore, each and every faculty is an understanding by itself, and Gall
says so expressly. “There are,” says he, “as many different kinds of
intellect or understanding as there are distinct faculties.”[28] “Each
distinct faculty,” says he, further, “is intellect or understanding—each
_individual intelligence_ (the words are precise) has its proper
organ.”[29]
But, admitting all these _kinds of intellects_, all these _individual
understandings_, where are we to seek for the General Intelligence, the
understanding, properly so called? It must, as you may please, be either
an _attribute_ of each faculty,[30] or the _collective expression_ of
all the faculties, or even the mere simple _result_ of their common and
simultaneous action;[31] in one word, it cannot be that positive and
single faculty which we understand, conceive of, and feel in ourselves,
when we pronounce the word _soul_ or _understanding_.
Now here is the sum and the substance of Gall’s psycology. For the
understanding, essentially a unit faculty, he substitutes a multitude
of little understandings or faculties, distinct and isolate. And, as
these faculties, which perform just as he wills them to do—which he
multiplies according to his pleasure,[32] seem in his eyes to explain
certain phenomena which are not well explained by the lights of ordinary
philosophy, he triumphs!
He does not perceive that an explanation, which is words merely, adapts
itself to any and to every thing. In the time of Malebranche, every thing
was explained by _animal spirits_; Barthez explained every thing by his
_vital principle_, &c.
“This,” says Gall, “explains how the same man may possess a judgment
that is ready and sure as to certain objects, while it is imbecile
as to certain others; how he may have the liveliest and most fruitful
imagination upon some subjects, while it is cold and sterile upon
others.”[33]
“Grant,” says he, further, “to the animals certain fundamental faculties,
and you have the dog that follows the chase with _passion_; the weasel
that strangles the poultry with _rage_; the nightingale that sings with
_fervour_ beside his mate,”[34] &c.
No doubt of it. But what sort of philosophy is that, that thinks to
explain a fact by a word? You observe such or such a penchant in an
animal, such or such a taste or talent in a man; _presto_, a particular
faculty is produced for each one of these peculiarities, and you suppose
the whole matter to be settled. You deceive yourself; your _faculty_ is
only a _word_,—it is the name of the fact,—and all the difficulty remains
just where it was before.
Besides, you speak only of the facts that you suppose yourself able
to explain; you say nothing of those that you render by your system
wholly inexplicable. You say not one word as to the unity of the
understanding, the unity of the _me_, or you deny it. But the unity of
the understanding, the unity of the _me_, is a fact of the conscious
sense, and the conscious sense is more powerful than all the philosophies
together.
Gall is always talking about observation, and he was indeed, as an
observer, full of ingenuity. But, in order to follow out an observation,
it must be traced to the very end, and we must accept all that it yields
to our research; and observation every where gives, and shows every
where, and above all things else, the unity of the understanding, the
unity of the _me_.
Gall’s philosophy consists only in transmuting into a particular
understanding each separate _mode_[35] of the understanding, properly so
called.
Descartes had already said, “There are in us as many faculties as there
are truths to be known.... But I do not think that any useful application
can be made of this way of thinking; and it seems to me rather more
likely to be mischievous, by giving to the ignorant occasion for
imagining an equal number of little entities in the soul.”[36]
It may well be supposed that Gall, who in the word understanding sees
nothing but an abstract word, expressive of the sum of our intellectual
faculties, would also, in the word _will_, perceive nothing more than an
abstract word, expressing the sum of our moral faculties.
He had given a definition of _reason_: “The result of the simultaneous
action of all the intellectual faculties.”[37] In the same way he defined
_will_ to be “the result of the simultaneous action of the superior
intellectual faculties.”[38] But Gall always deceives himself; for reason
and will are not _results_—they are _powers_, and primary powers of
thought.
Gall, in a manner equally singular, defines _moral liberty_ or _free
will_.
“Moral liberty,” says he, “is nothing more than the faculty of _being
determined_, and of determining under motive.”[39] Not so: liberty is
precisely the power to determine against all motive. Locke well defined
liberty as _power_: to be determined, is to allow one’s self to be
determined—that is, to _obey_.
Gall says again, “Unlimited liberty supposes not only that man governs
himself independently of all law, but that he is the creator of his own
nature.”[40] Not at all; it supposes that he may have choice—and in fact
he does choose.
Lastly, Gall says, “A phenomenon such as that of absolute liberty, would
be a phenomenon occurring without any cause whatever.”[41] Why without
cause? The cause is in the power of choosing—and this power is a fact.
Gall’s whole doctrine is one series of errors, which press upon each
other cumulatively. He resolves that the part of the brain in which
the understanding resides shall be divided into many small organs,
distinct from each other; a physiological error. He decries the unity
of the understanding, and looks upon the will and the reason as mere
results—psycological errors. In the free will he perceives merely a
compulsory determination,[42] and consequently a mere result—this is a
moral error.
Man’s liberty is a positive faculty, and not the simple passive result of
the preponderance of one _motive_ over another _motive_, of one _organ_
over another _organ_.[43]
Reason, will, liberty, are therefore, not as in Gall’s doctrine,
_positive faculties_, _active powers_; or rather, they are
the understanding itself. Reason, will, liberty, are in fact
the understanding, as _conceiving_, _willing_, _choosing_, or
_deliberating_.[44]
The consciousness which feels itself to be one, feels itself free. And
you will remark, that these two great facts given out by the inward
sense, the consciousness, to wit, the unity of the understanding and the
positive power of the free will, are precisely the two first facts denied
by the philosophy of Gall.
And take good care to observe further, that if there be in us any thing
that belongs to the _consciousness_, it is evidently and par excellence
the sense of our personal unity; or what is more, the consciousness of
our moral liberty.
Man is a moral force, only inasmuch as he is a free force. Any philosophy
that attempts the liberty of man, attempts, without knowing it, morals
itself. Man then is free, and as he is a moral agent only in proportion
as he is free, it would seem that his liberty is the only attribute of
his soul from which Providence has designed to remove all the boundaries.
“What is here very remarkable,” says Descartes, “is that, of all within
me, there is not one thing so perfect or so great, but that I know it
might be greater and more perfect. Thus, for example, if I consider my
faculty of conceiving, I find it of very small extent, and very limited.
If, in the same manner, I examine the memory, the imagination, or any
other one of my faculties, I find not one that is not very limited and
very small. Within me there is only my will or my liberty of free will,
which I feel to be so great that I conceive not the idea of another more
full and of greater extent.”[45]
II.
OF GALL.
OF THE FACULTIES.
Gall’s philosophy consists wholly in the substitution of _multiplicity_
for _unity_. In place of one general and single brain,[46] he substitutes
a number of small brains: instead of one general sole understanding,
he substitutes several individual understandings.[47] These pretended
_individual understandings_ are the _faculties_.
Now, Gall admits the existence of twenty-seven of these faculties, each
one of them (since each one is a peculiar understanding) endowed with its
perceptive faculty, its memory, its judgment, its imagination; &c.[48]
Hence, there are twenty-seven perceptive faculties, twenty-seven
memories, twenty-seven judgments, twenty-seven imaginations, &c.
For, if we are to follow Gall, each attribute is not less distinct than
each faculty. The memory, the judgment, imagination, &c. of one faculty
are not the memory, judgment, or imagination of another faculty.
“The sense of numbers,” says he, “possesses a judgment for the relations
of numbers; the sense of the arts, a judgment for works of art; but where
the fundamental faculty is wanting, the judgment relative to objects of
that faculty must necessarily be wanting likewise.”[49]
He says further: “It is impossible for an individual to possess
imagination and judgment for any object with the fundamental faculty for
which he has not been gifted by nature.”[50]
Thus, beyond all doubt: there are twenty-seven faculties; and as there
are twenty-seven faculties, there must be twenty-seven memories,
judgments, imaginations, &c.
In one word, there is no such thing as a general understanding; but
there are twenty-seven special understandings, with three or four times
twenty-seven distinct attributes of each. Such is the entire psycology
of Gall.
To proceed. Gall’s twenty-seven faculties are: the instinct of
propagation, love of offspring, self-defence, the carnivorous
instinct, the sense of property, friendship, cunning, pride, vanity,
circumspection, memory for things, memory for words, sense of locality,
sense of persons, sense of language, of relations of colours, relations
of sounds, relations of numbers, of mechanics, of comparative sagacity,
the metaphysical genius, sarcasm, poetic talent, benevolence, imitation,
religion, firmness.
Gall says that these faculties are innate,[51] and this assertion
certainly will not be contested.
Locke, who so vigorously opposed the doctrine of innate ideas, never
decried the _innateness_ of our faculties. He always regarded them as
natural, that is to say, _innate_.[52]
Condillac himself, who charges Locke with having considered the faculties
of the soul as _innate_, in making these charges confounds the _faculties
of the soul_ with the _operations of the soul_.[53]
Now, that which is perfectly true as to the _operations of the soul_,
is by no means so as regards her _faculties_. All the faculties of the
soul are innate and contemporary, for they are nothing more than _modes_
of the soul; indeed, they are the soul itself, viewed under different
aspects. But the operations of the soul succeed each other, and beget
each other. There can be no memory without previous perception; there can
be no judgment without recollection. In order that there may be a will,
there must have been a judgment, &c.
After saying that the faculties are innate, Gall says also that they are
_independent_.[54]
And if, by the word _independent_, he means distinct, there is nothing
less contestible. But if, by this word _independent_, he understood (as
indeed he does understand) that each faculty is a real understanding, the
question is altered and the difficulty begins.
For, if each individual faculty is a proper understanding, it follows
that there are as many understandings as there are faculties, and the
understanding ceases to be _one_, and the _me_ is no longer _one_. I
am well aware that this is exactly what Gall means; he says it, and
reiterates it throughout his work. He says it, but does not prove it. And
how should he prove it? Can we prove any thing against our consciousness?
“I remark here, in the first place,” says Descartes, “that there is a
great difference between the mind and the body, in that the body is, by
its nature, always divisible, and the mind wholly indivisible. For, in
fact, when I contemplate it—that is, when I contemplate my own self—and
consider myself as a thing that thinks, I cannot discover in myself any
parts, but I clearly know and conceive that I am a thing absolutely one
and complete.”[55]
Gall reverses the common philosophy, and it is worthy of remark, that
the whole of his philosophy, which he thinks so novel,[56] is, to the
very letter, nothing more nor less than this very inversion. According to
common philosophy, there is one general understanding—a unit; and there
are faculties which are but modes of this understanding. Gall asserts
that there are as many kinds of peculiar intelligences as there are
faculties, and that the understanding in general is nothing more than a
mode or attribute of each faculty. He says so expressly.
His words are: “The intellectual faculty and all its subdivisions, such
as perception, recollection, memory, judgment, and imagination, are not
fundamental faculties, but merely their general attributes.”[57]
Gall first inverts the common philosophy, and then contends for the
existence of all the consequences of that common philosophy.
He suppresses the _me_, but insists that there is a soul. He abolishes
the freewill, and yet contends that there is such a thing as morals. He
makes of the idea of God an idea that is merely relative and conditional,
but yet asserts that there may be such a thing as religion.
I say he abolishes the _me_; for the _me_ is the soul. The soul is the
understanding, general and one; but if there be no understanding as
general, there can be no soul.
According to Gall, there is nothing real and positive except the
_faculties_.
And these faculties alone are possessed of organs. “None of my
predecessors,” says he, “had any knowledge of those forces which alone
are the functions of special cerebral organs.”[58]
By the contrary reasoning, neither the will, nor the reason, nor the
understanding, are possessed of any organs, for they are nothing but
forces; they are nothing but nouns collective—words.
“These observations may suffice,” says Gall, “to convince the reader that
there cannot exist any special organ of the will, or the freewill.”[59]
He adds: “It is equally impossible that there should be any peculiar
organ of the reason.”[60]
Finally he says: “From all that I have now said it follows, that the idea
of an organ of the intellect or understanding is quite as inadmissible as
the idea of an organ of the instinct.”[61]
Hence there can be nought but the faculties; and, according to Gall,
these faculties are so distinct, that he attributes to each particular
one a separate organ.[62] He divides the understanding into little
understandings.
Descartes expressed himself in the following words: “We do not conceive
of any body, except as divisible; whereas the human mind cannot conceive
of itself except as indivisible; for in fact we are incapable of
conceiving of half a soul.”[63] Gall, however, settles that point. He
makes half souls. He retrenches or adds as many faculties as suits his
plan. These faculties are separated by material limits. He goes so far
as to say that such or such a faculty acts with greater or less facility
upon such or such another faculty, according as one happens to be
situated nearer to or farther off from the other.
“As the organ of the arts,” says he, “is located far from that of the
sense of colour, the circumstance explains why historical painters have
rarely been colourists.”[64]
Thus, we find that the faculties alone are possessed of _forces_. These
forces alone are endowed with organs; and these organs, by which they are
kept separate from each other, separate them to distances sufficiently
great to hinder, in certain cases, one given faculty from exercising any
influence over another. Therefore, there is no such thing as unity; there
is no unit faculty, no unit understanding; there is no _me_; and if there
be no _me_, there can be no soul.
In the same way he abolishes the _freewill_. Will, liberty, reason, in
his view,[65] are nothing but _results_, as I have already stated.
“To the end,” says he, “that man may not be confined merely to the
ability to wish—in order that he may actually will—the concurrence of
several superior faculties is requisite. The motives must be weighed,
compared, and judged; the decision resulting from this operation is
denominated will.”[66]
“Reason,” he further adds, “supposes a concerted action of the superior
faculties. It is the judgment pronounced by the superior intellectual
faculties.”[67]
Hence, the will is nothing but a _decision_; reason is nothing but a
_judgment_. The faculties _concert together_. What a singular philosophy,
which always substitutes the fictions of language for the facts of the
conscious sense, and which is satisfied with those fictions!
Freewill is either a power, a force, or it is nothing. He resolves that
it is merely a _result_. Gall therefore abolishes the freewill.
Indeed, he makes of the idea of God nothing but a relative and
conditional idea, for he supposes that this idea comes from a particular
organ; and he supposes that that organ may possibly, in some case, be
wanting.
“It cannot be doubted,” says Gall, “that the human race are endowed with
an organ by means of which it recognises and admires the Author of the
universe.”[68]
“God exists,” adds he, “for there is an organ to know and adore him.”[69]
But he continues: “Climate and other circumstances may obstruct the
development of the cerebral part, by means of which the Creator designed
to reveal himself to his creature man.”[70]
Again: “If there were a people whose organization should be altogether
defective in this respect, they would be as little susceptible as any
other kinds of animal, of the religious idea or sentiment.”[71]
Further: “There is no God for beings whose organization does not bear the
original stamp of determinate faculties.”[72]
What! If I happen not to possess a little peculiar organ, (for it
may be wanting,) can I not feel that God exists! And how can I be an
intelligence, knowing myself, and yet not knowing that God is? I do not
more strongly feel that I am, than that God is. “This idea,” (the idea of
God) says Descartes, “is born and produced along with me, just as is the
idea of myself.”[73]
My understanding, which perceives itself and feels itself to be an
effect, necessarily perceives the intelligent Cause which produced it.
“It is a very evident thing,” says Descartes again, “that there must
be at least as much reality in a cause as in the effect it produces;
and since I am a thing that thinks, whatsoever be in fact the cause of
my being, I am compelled to confess, that _it also_ is something that
thinks.”[74]
Hitherto I have considered Gall’s philosophy only under its speculative
points of view; what would it be, if considered in a practical relation?
In one of his happy moments, Diderot wrote the following very remarkable
phrase: “The ruin of liberty overthrows all order and all government,
confounds vice and virtue together, sanctions every monstrous infamy,
extinguishes all shame and all remorse, and degrades and deforms without
recovery the whole human race.”[75]
Nothing astonishes a phrenologist.
“Let us imagine,” says Gall, “a woman in whom the love of offspring is
but little developed, ... if, unfortunately, the organ of murder be very
much developed in her, need we be surprised if her hand....”[76] &c.
Organization explains every thing.
“These last named facts show us,” says Gall, “that this detestable
inclination (the inclination to commit murder) has its source in a vice
of the organization.”[77]
“Let those haughty men,” says he again, “who cause nations to be
slaughtered by thousands, know that they do not act of their own
accord, but that Nature herself has filled their hearts with rage and
destructiveness.”[78]
No, indeed! This is not what they must know; for, thanks be to God, it is
not true. What they ought to know, what they ought to be told, is, that
although Providence has left to man the power to do evil, he has also
endowed him with the power to do good. That which man ought to know, that
which should be instilled into his mind and heart is, that he has a free
power, and that this power ought not to be misdirected; and that he who
in his own nature misdirects it, no matter under what form of philosophy
he takes refuge, is a being who degrades his nature.
Under the title of _fundamental faculties_, Gall confounds all things
together—the passions, the instinct, the intellectual faculties. These
faculties, which are at the basis of his whole philosophy, he knows not
even how to denominate them. He calls them instincts,[79] inclinations,
senses, memories, &c. There is a memory or sense of things, a memory
or sense of persons, &c. He confounds the instinct that leads certain
animals to live in elevated regions with pride, which is a moral
sentiment in man;[80] the carnivorous instinct with courage;[81] he
believes that conscience, (which is the soul judging itself,) is nothing
but a modification of a particular sense, the sense of benevolence,
&c.[82]
The hesitation of his mind is visible every where.
“I leave it to the reader,” says he, “to decide whether the fundamental
faculty to which this penchant relates, should be denominated sense of
elevation, self-esteem,” &c.[83]
“To speak correctly,” continues he, “firmness is neither a penchant nor
a faculty; it is a mode-of-being, which gives to a man a distinctive
quality, which is called character.”[84]
Finally, he writes the following paragraph, perhaps the most singular
one that he ever wrote, for it shows in the clearest manner how little
confidence he had in his own psycology.
“If we are materialists because we do not admit the existence of a
unit-faculty of the soul, but recognise several primitive faculties,
we ask whether the ordinary division of the faculties of the soul
into understanding, will, attention, memory, judgment, imagination,
and affections and passions, expresses nothing more than a primitive
unit-faculty? If it be asserted that all these faculties are merely
modifications of a sole and same faculty, what can hinder us from making
the same assertion as to the faculties whose existence we do admit.”[85]
To be sure, nothing prevents you. Or rather every thing constrains you
to do so. There is therefore one sole faculty, of which all the other
faculties are but moods. You return then to the common philosophy, and
consequently you no longer possess a peculiar philosophy.
The problem proposed by Gall is at the same time physiological,
psycological, and anatomical.
In our first article an account has been given of Gall’s _physiology_,
and it has been shown to be generally disproved by direct experiment.
In the present one his _psycology_ has been examined, and it is confuted
by the consciousness (_le sens intime_). It only remains for us now to
examine his _anatomy_.
III.
OF GALL.
THE ORGANS.
Of all Gall’s writings, his anatomy is that which has been most talked
of, and yet it is the part least known.
In the year 1808, Gall read to the first class of the Institute a memoir
on the anatomy of the brain;[86] and M. Cuvier made a report upon that
memoir. But neither in that memoir nor in the report do we find one
word of _special anatomy_, of _secret anatomy_, of what might be called
_anatomy of the Doctrine_; or, in other terms, and as it would be
expressed at the present day, of _phrenological anatomy_.
The anatomy of Gall’s memoir is nothing but a very ordinary anatomy.
He insists that the cerebral nerves, all of them without exception,
rise upwards from the medulla oblongata towards the encephalon; that
the cineritious matter produces the white matter: he divides the fibres
of the brain into _divergent_ and _convergent_; he supposes that each
convolution of this organ, instead of being a full and solid mass, as is
generally thought, is merely a fold[87] of nervous or medullary fibres,
&c. &c.
Such are the questions discussed by Gall; and it is sufficiently clear
that, whatever side we take upon these questions, his doctrine assuredly
would neither gain nor lose any thing.
Whether such or such a nerve ascends or descends; whether the white
matter is produced by the gray; or whether, which is, to say the least,
quite as probable, this be nonsense; whether this or that fibre goes out
or comes in, diverges or converges, &c. &c. the doctrine of the plurality
of brains, the doctrine of individual intelligences, will be neither more
nor less true, more nor less doubtful.[88]
M. Cuvier, in his report, observed: “It is essential to repeat, were it
merely for the information of the public, that the anatomical questions
we have been considering, have no immediate and necessary connexion with
the physiological doctrines taught by M. Gall, as to the functions and
relative volume of different parts of the brain; and that all that we
have inquired into as to the structure of the brain, might be either true
or false, without affording the least conclusion in favour of or against
the doctrine.”[89]
It is necessary not to make any mistake as to the real point of the
question. Gall’s doctrine goes to establish one and only one thing, to
wit, _the plurality of intelligences_ and _the plurality of brains_.[90]
That is what constitutes the special and peculiar doctrine; that
is to say, different from the common doctrine, which admits but one
understanding and a single brain. Whatever goes to prove the plurality
of understandings and brains belongs to Gall’s doctrine; and whatever
does not tend to prove the plurality of understandings and brains is in
opposition to that doctrine.
Gall’s works then really contain two very distinct anatomies: one is
a _general anatomy_, which has nothing in particular to do with his
doctrine; the other is a _special anatomy_, which, supposing it to be
true, would constitute the basis of his doctrine.
Now, a great deal has been said about Gall’s general anatomy; but as to
his special anatomy, I know of no one who has spoken of it. Gall himself
says as little as possible about it. In other matters he tells his
opinions both very clearly and very positively: in this particular we are
obliged to guess at them.
When Gall, in his _psycology_, substitutes the _faculties_ for the
understanding, he defines those _faculties_. He defines them, as we have
already seen, to be _individual intelligences_. How happens it, then,
that in his anatomy, when he substitutes the organs of the brain for the
brain itself, he does not define these organs? How strange! Gall’s whole
doctrine, all _phrenology_, rests upon the _organs of the brain_; for,
without distinct cerebral organs, there can be no independent faculties;
and without independent faculties there can be no phrenology: and Gall
does not say, nor has any phrenologist said for him, what is the thing
called a _cerebral organ_.
The truth is: Gall never had any settled opinion upon what he called the
organs of the brain; he never saw those _organs_, and he imagined them
for the use of his _faculties_. He did what so many others have done. He
commenced with imagining a hypothesis, and then he imagined an anatomy
to suit his hypothesis.
When the doctrine of animal spirits was believed, the brain was composed
of pipes and tubes to convey these spirits.
“The cortical substance which is found in the hemispheres of the brain,”
says Pourfour du Petit, “furnishes the whole of the medullary portion,
which is a mere collection of an infinite number of pipes.”[91]
“The small arteries of the cortical part of the brain,” says Haller,
“transmit a spirituous liquor into the medullary and nervous tubes.”[92]
It is evident that the _organs_ of Gall have no more real existence than
the _pipes_ of Pourfour du Petit, or the _tubes_ of Haller. They are two
structures that have been imagined, as suitable for two hypotheses.
In searching for the primary idea, the secret notion that led Gall to
his doctrine of the _plurality of the intelligences_, I detect it in the
analogy that he supposed to exist between the functions of the senses and
the faculties of the soul.
He sees the functions of the senses constituting distinct functions, and
insists that the faculties of the soul must constitute equally distinct
faculties; he sees each particular sense possessing an organ proper to
itself, and thinks that each faculty of the soul must have its proper
organ;[93] in one word, he looks upon the outer man, and constructs the
inner man after the image of the outer man.
According to Gall, every thing between an organ of a sense and an organ
of a faculty, between a faculty and sense, is similar. A faculty is a
sense. His words are: the _memory or the sense of things_, the _memory
or the sense of persons_, the _memory or the sense of numbers_. He talks
of the _sense of language_, the _sense of mechanics_, the _sense of the
relations of colours_, &c. &c.
“As we must admit,” says he, “five different external senses, since their
functions are essentially different, ... so we must agree, after all, to
acknowledge the different faculties and the different inclinations as
being essentially different moral and intellectual forces, and likewise
connected with organic apparatuses, which are special to each and
independent of each other.”[94]
“Who,” says he, “can dare to say that sight, hearing, taste, smell, and
touch, are simple modifications of faculties? Who could dare to derive
them from a single and same source, from a single and same organ? In
the same way, the twenty-seven qualities and faculties which I recognise
as fundamental or primary forces, ... cannot be regarded as the simple
modifications of any one faculty.”[95]
On the one hand, Gall gives to the _faculties_ all the independence of
the _senses_; and on the other, he gives the _senses_ all the attributes
of the _faculties_.
“Here,” says he, “are new reasons why I have always maintained in my
public discourses, though these assertions are in opposition to the ideas
that prevail among philosophers, that each organ of a sense possesses
absolutely its own functions; that each of these organs has its peculiar
faculty of receiving and even of perceiving impressions, its own
conscience, its own faculty of reminiscence,”[96] &c.
Gall did not foresee that a physiological experiment (and a very sure one
it is) would one day demonstrate that the sense receives the impression
but does not perceive it, and that, consequently, it is endowed neither
with _conscience_ nor _reminiscence_, &c.
When the cerebral lobes or hemispheres[97] are removed from an animal,
the animal immediately loses its sight.
And yet nothing, as regards the eyes themselves, has been changed;
objects continue to be depicted upon the retina, the iris retains its
contractility, and the optic nerve its excitability. The retina continues
to be sensible of light, for the iris contracts or dilates according as
the light admitted to it is more or less intense.
No change has taken place as to the structure of the eye, and yet the
animal does not see! Therefore it is not the eye that perceives, nor is
it the eye that sees.[98]
The eye does not see; it is the understanding that sees by means of the
eyes.[99]
When Gall concludes from the independence of the external senses to
the independence of the faculties of the soul, he confounds, as to the
sense itself, two things that are essentially distinct, impression and
perception. Impression is multiple; perception is single.
When the hemispheres are removed, the animal instantly loses its
perception; it no longer sees nor hears,[100] &c. notwithstanding all the
organs of the senses, the eye, the ear, &c. subsist, and the impressions
take place.
Therefore the principle that perceives is _one_. Lost for one sense, it
is lost for all the senses. And if it be _one_ for the external senses,
how can it be other than _one_ for the faculties of the soul?
Gall therefore cannot suppose the existence of several distinct
principles for the faculties of the soul, otherwise than because he
supposes several distinct principles for the perceptions; and he only
supposes several principles for the perceptions because he confounds
impression with perception. The whole of his psycology arises from a
mistake; and the whole of his anatomy is constructed for the sake of his
psycology.
In psycology he endeavours to prove that the faculties of the soul are
merely _internal senses_; in anatomy, he endeavours to prove that the
organs of the faculties of the soul only repeat and reproduce the organs
of the _external senses_.
Now an _organ_, that is to say, under the present point of view, the
_nerve_ of an _external sense_, is nothing more than a _fascicle_ of
_nervous fibres_. Therefore the brain, under the theory, can be nothing
but a collection of _fascicles_ of _fibres_.[101]
According to Gall, the origin, the development, the structure and mode of
termination, as to the organs of the faculties of the soul and the organs
of the external senses, every thing is similar, every thing is in common.
And yet the primitive difficulty remains unsolved.
When I say an _organ of the senses_, I speak of a very determinate
nervous apparatus. But is the same thing true when I say an organ of the
brain? What is an organ of the brain? Is it a _fascicle_ of _fibres_?
Is it each particular fibre? But if it be a _fascicle_ of _fibres_,
there are too few of them, for there are not twenty-seven of them; and
twenty-seven are necessary, for there are twenty-seven faculties. If it
be each particular fibre, then there are too many of them, and far too
many, because there are only twenty-seven faculties. What are we to do in
this difficulty? We must do as Gall does: sometimes say it is a fascicle
of fibres; at other times, that it is each fibre in particular.
In one place he says: “The brain consisting of several divisions whose
functions are totally different, there are several primary bundles, which
contribute by their development to produce it. Among these bundles we
place the anterior and posterior pyramids, the bundles that come off
direct from the corpora olivaria, and some others that are concealed in
the interior of the medulla oblongata.”[102]
_And there are yet some others_; be it so; but they never can amount to
twenty-seven.
Again he says: “A more extensive development of the same conjecture,
might perhaps dispose the reader to consider each nervous fibrilla,
whether in the nerves or in the brain itself, as a little special
organ.”[103]
Even this is not all. For the sake of Gall’s doctrine, the anatomy of the
brain must have a connexion with cranioscopy. And Gall takes great care
to place all his organs upon the surface of the brain.
“The possibility of a solution of the problem under consideration,” says
he, “supposes the organs of the soul to be situated at the surface of the
brain.”[104] Indeed, were they not situated at the surface of the brain,
how could the cranium bear the impression of them? and what would become
of cranioscopy?
Cranioscopy has nothing to fear. Gall has made provision for it; all the
organs of the brain are placed at the surface of the brain; and Gall most
judiciously adds, “This explains the relation or the correspondence that
exists between craniology and the doctrine of the cerebral functions
(cerebral physiology), the sole aim and end of my researches.”[105]
But as to the pretended _organs of the brain_, are they really situated
at the surface of the brain, as Gall asserts? In plain terms, is the
surface of the brain the only active part of the organ? Here is a
physiological experiment that shows how very much mistaken Gall is.
You can slice off a considerable portion of an animal’s brain, either in
front, behind, on one side, or on the top, without his losing anyone of
his faculties.[106]
The animal may, therefore, lose all that Gall calls surface of the brain,
without losing any of his faculties. Therefore it cannot be that the
organs of the faculties reside at the _surface of the brain_.
And comparative anatomy is not less opposite to Gall’s opinions than
is direct experiment itself. I shall not follow him here in the detail
of his localizations. How could these localizations have any meaning?
He does not even know whether an organ is a _fascicle of fibres_, or a
_fibre_.[107]
For example; he places what he calls the instinct of propagation in the
cerebellum, and what he calls the _instinct of the love of offspring_, in
the posterior cerebral lobes; and he looks upon these two localizations
as the very surest in his book.
“I should wish,” says he, “that all young naturalists might begin their
researches with the study of these two organs. They are both easily to be
recognised,”[108] &c.
What! The cerebellum, so different in its structure from the great brain,
is the cerebellum, like the brain,[109] to be considered an organ of
instinct? And what is more, is it to be regarded as the organ of a single
instinct only, while the brain shall have twenty-six of them?
I have already said that the cerebellum is the seat of the principle that
presides over the locomotion[110] of the animal, and that it is not the
seat of any instinct.
Gall places the love of offspring in the posterior lobes of the
brain.[111] Now, the love of offspring, and especially maternal love,
is every where to be found among the superior animals; it is found in
all the mammifera, in all the birds.[112] The posterior lobes of the
brain, therefore, ought to be found in all these beings. Not at all: the
posterior lobes are wanting in most of the mammifera; they are wanting in
all the birds.
Gall locates the faculties that are common to both man and animals,
in the posterior part of the brain; in the anterior part he places
those[113] that are peculiar to man alone. According to this plan, the
most _persistent_ portion of the brain will be the posterior portion,
and the least persistent the anterior portion. But the inverse of the
proposition holds. The parts that are most frequently wanting are the
_posterior parts_, and those that are most invariably present are the
_anterior parts_.[114]
If, from the brain, I pass on to consider the cranium, all the foregoing
is found to be of still greater force. How can the localizations that
are destitute of meaning as to the brain—how can they, I say, have any
meaning as relative to the cranium itself?
The cranium, especially the external surface of it, represents the
superficial configuration of the brain but very imperfectly. Gall knows
it. “I was the first,” says he, “to maintain that it is impossible for us
to determine with exactitude the development of certain circumvolutions,
by the inspection of the external surface of the cranium. In certain
cases, the exterior lamina of the cranium is not parallel with the
internal lamina.”[115] “There are certain species in which there is no
frontal sinus; in others, the cells betwixt the two bony laminæ are found
throughout the whole skull,”[116] &c. &c.
The cranium represents the convolutions of the brain only upon its
inner surface; it does not represent them upon its external superficies.
And as to the _fibres_, as to the _bundles of fibres_, it does not even
represent them on its inner surface; for the fibres are covered with
a layer of gray matter, and the bundles of fibres are situated in the
interior of the nervous mass.
Gall is aware of all this, and nevertheless he inscribes his twenty-seven
faculties upon the skulls.[117] Such confidence surprises one. Nothing
is known of the intimate structure of the brain,[118] and yet people
are bold enough to trace upon it their circumscriptions, their circles,
their boundaries. The external surface of the skull does not represent
the brain’s surface, it is admitted; and yet they inscribe upon this
surface twenty-seven names, each of which names is written within a small
circle, each little circle corresponding to one precise faculty! And what
is stranger yet, people are to be found who, under each of these names
inscribed by Gall, imagine that there is concealed something more than a
name!
Those who, seeing the success of Gall’s doctrine, imagine that the
doctrine therefore rests upon some solid foundation, know very little of
mankind. Gall knew mankind better. He studied them in his own way, but he
studied them very closely. Let us hear his own words:
“In society, I employ many expedients to find out the talents and
inclinations of people. I start the conversation upon a variety of
topics. In general, we let fall in conversation whatsoever has little or
no concern with our faculties and penchants; but when the interlocutor
touches upon one of our favourite subjects, we at once become interested
in it.... Do you wish to spy out the character of a person, without the
fear of being misled as to your conclusions, even though he might be
on his guard? Set him to talking about his childhood and boyhood; make
him relate his schoolboy exploits; his conduct towards his parents, his
brothers and sisters, and his playfellows, and his emulators.... Ask
him about his games, &c. Few persons think it necessary to dissemble
upon these points; they do not suspect they are dealing with one who
knows perfectly well that the basis of character remains ever the same;
and that the objects only that interest us change with the progress of
years.... Besides, when I discover what it is that a person admires or
despises; when I see him act; when he is an author, and I merely read his
book, &c. &c. the whole man stands unveiled before me.”[119]
Descartes _shut himself up in a stove_,[120] in order that he might
meditate. According to Gall, there is no necessity for one’s shutting
himself up in a stove.
Descartes says: “Now I shall shut my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall
turn my senses aside; I shall even efface from my memory every image
of corporeal objects, or at least, as that can hardly be done, I will
repute them as vain and false; and thus, shut up within myself, and
contemplating what is within me, I shall endeavour gradually to become
more and more familiarly acquainted with my own real nature.”[121]
According to Gall, there is no occasion for this absolute gathering
one’s self together within. All that is needful is to look at and touch
the skulls of people. Gall’s doctrine succeeded just as Lavater’s did.
Men will always be looking out for external signs by which to discover
secret thoughts and concealed inclinations: it is vain to confound their
curiosity upon this point: after Lavater came Gall; after Gall some one
else will appear.
We soon become wearied of a true philosophy, because it is true; because
the search after truth, of whatsoever kind, requires strenuous and
continual efforts. It is impossible, moreover, always to have the very
same philosophy: even the same philosopher cannot be always approved of.
Approbation must change its object, especially in France.
It was for the French that Fontenelle wrote these words: “The approbation
of mankind is a sort of forced state, which seeks nothing so much as to
come to an end.”[122]
Descartes goes off to die in Sweden, and Gall comes to reign in France.
IV.
OF SPURZHEIM.
Spurzheim published two works; the first of which is entitled,
“Observations sur la Phrénologie, ou la connaissance de l’homme moral
et intellectuel, fondée sur les fonctions du système nerveux:”[123]
the title of the second is, “Essai philosophique sur la nature morâle
et intellectuelle de l’homme;”[124] and these two works are merely a
reproduction of the doctrine of Gall. Spurzheim makes Gall’s book over
again—the same book that they commenced together—and abridges it.
Spurzheim tells us how he heard Gall, and having heard him, felt himself
drawn to participate in his labours, and propagate his doctrine.
“In 1800, I attended for the first time a course of lectures which
M. Gall had from time to time repeated at Vienna for four years. He
spoke then of the necessity there was for a brain to give out the
manifestations of the soul; and of the plurality of organs; ... but he
had not as yet begun to examine into the structure of the brain.[125]
From the very first, I found myself much attracted by the doctrine of the
brain; and from the period of my first attention to that subject to the
present moment, I have never lost sight of it as an object of study.
After finishing my studies in 1800, I joined M. Gall, in order to pursue
in a special manner the anatomical part of the researches.[126] In 1805,
we left Vienna for the purpose of travelling together; from which time,
up to the year 1813, we made our observations in common,” &c.[127]
In fact, the two authors, uniting their labours, first published,
in 1808, their fine memoir upon the anatomy of the brain,[128] and
subsequently, in 1810 and 1812, the two first volumes of Gall’s great
work.[129]
In the year 1813 they separated, and that separation even proved useful.
Gall, when writing independently, has a freer movement. Had he continued
united with Spurzheim, he either would not have written the last chapter
of his fourth volume, or he would have written it very differently, and
we should not have obtained the definite expression of his doctrine.
That chapter, entitled “Philosophy of Man,” is Gall’s philosophy entire.
It is in that chapter that he says what he does understand by faculties,
by understanding, by will, &c. &c. and it is there that he defines
the faculties of the individual understandings;[130] understanding, a
simple _attribute of each faculty_;[131] will, a simple result of the
simultaneous action of superior faculties, &c.[132]
Spurzheim never would have imagined the doctrine: he found it already
concocted; he follows it, and in doing so, always hesitates. He did not
imagine it; and perhaps never could have had the facilities enjoyed
by Gall for carrying it successfully into the world. Gall’s mind was
full of address. We have seen his method of studying men.[133] In his
great work there is a dominant tone of philosophy; for the doctrine was
already established at the period of the publication of that work. When
the doctrine was inchoate, Gall’s tone was not quite so grave, for it
is above all things necessary to awaken the public curiosity, and the
philosophic tone does not answer for that purpose.
Charles Villers has preserved some of his souvenirs, touching the first
impressions produced by the doctrine.[134] “If,” writes Gall at the
period in question, “the exterminating angel was under my orders, wo to
Kæstner, to Kant, to Wieland, and others like them.... Why is it, that
no one has ever preserved for our times, the skulls of Homer, Virgil,
Cicero, &c.?”[135]
“At one time,” says Charles Villers, “every body in Vienna was trembling
for his head, and fearing that after his death it would be put in
requisition to enrich Dr. Gall’s cabinet. He announced his impatience
as to the skulls of extraordinary persons—such as were distinguished
by certain great qualities or by great talents—which was still greater
cause for the general terror. Too many people were led to suppose
themselves the objects of the doctor’s regards, and imagined their
heads to be especially longed for by him, as a specimen of the utmost
importance to the success of his experiments. Some very curious stories
are told on this point. Old M. Denis, the Emperor’s librarian, inserted a
special clause in his will, intended to save his cranium from M. Gall’s
scalpel.”[136]
Gall and Spurzheim differ from each other upon several points: upon the
offices of the external senses; upon the names of the faculties of the
soul; upon their number; and upon the classification of the faculties,
&c. Let us examine a few of the points more particularly.
1. _Offices of the external senses._ “M. Gall is disposed,” says
Spurzheim, “to attribute to the external senses, as well as to each
and every internal faculty, not only perception, but also memory,
reminiscence, and judgment.... It seems to me that such facts (the facts
cited by Gall) do not prove the conclusion. In the first place, memory,
being nothing more than the repetition of knowledge, must have its seat
in the point where perception takes place. The impressions of the nerves
that give rise to the sensation of hunger, &c. are indisputably perceived
in the head, which likewise has the reminiscence of hunger.... I do
not believe we can conclude that the eyes or the ears are the seats of
reminiscence.”[137]
Spurzheim is right, as we have sufficiently seen;[138] perception is not
in the organ of the sense.
But the error that Spurzheim combats is not the whole of Gall’s error; it
is only a particular and secondary error:[139] the error that he does not
perceive, the error that he follows, is a general and capital one. From
the independence of the external senses, Gall concludes the independence
of the faculties of the soul: he reasons upon an apparent analogy, which
conceals a profound dissimilitude; and Spurzheim reasons just as Gall
does.
“In the nervous system,” says he, “we find the five external senses
separate and independent of each other.”[140] “The faculties of the
external senses are attached to different organs; they may exist
separately. The same holds true of the internal senses.”[141] “We assert
that there is a particular organ for each species of sentiment or
thought, as there is for each species of exterior sensation.”[142]
Like Gall, Spurzheim denominates the faculties of the soul _internal
senses_; in the same spirit he says: “The _sense of colour_, the _sense
of number_, _sense of language_, _sense of comparison_, _sense of
causality_,”[143] &c. &c.
Both authors begin by calling the faculties of the soul _internal
senses_; and then, misled by the word, they conclude from the
_independence of the external senses_, to the _independence_ of their
_internal senses_; that is to say, the independence of the faculties of
the soul.
2. _Names of the faculties._ Spurzheim accuses Gall of having given
denominations only to actions, and not to the principles of those actions.
“Finding,” says he, “a relation betwixt the development of a cerebral
part and a sort of action, M. Gall denominated the cerebral part from the
action; thus, he spoke of the organs of music, poetry, &c.”[144] “The
nomenclature,” says he further, “ought to be conformed to the faculties,
without regard to any action whatever.... When we attribute to an organ
cunning, management, hypocrisy, intrigue, &c. we do not make known the
primary faculty which contributes to all these modified actions.”[145]
Gall replies: “M. Spurzheim cannot have forgotten how often we reasoned
without end, with a view to determine the primitive destination of an
organ.... I confess, that there are several organs, with whose primary
faculties I am not yet acquainted; and I continue to denominate them from
the degree of activity that led me to the discovery of them. M. Spurzheim
thinks himself more fortunate: his metaphysical temperament has led him
to the discovery of the fundamental or primitive faculty of every one of
the organs. Let us put it to the proof.”[146]
Indeed, Spurzheim’s expedient for rendering himself master of the primary
faculties is very simple. He creates a word: he calls the instinct of
propagation _amativity_, the propensity to steal, _convoitivity_; courage
is _combativity_, &c. &c.
Gall and Spurzheim talk a great deal about nomenclature; but they do not
perceive, that as to nomenclature, the first difficulty, and indeed the
only one, is to get at simple facts. Whoever has come to simple facts, is
very nigh to a good nomenclature.
Descartes says: “Had some one clearly explained the simple ideas that
exist in the imagination of men, and which constitute all that they
think, I should venture to hope for a language that it would be very easy
to learn, ... and, which is the principal matter, that would assist the
judgment, representing to it things so distinctly that it would be almost
impossible for it to be deceived; whereas, on the contrary, the words we
now have possess, so to speak, only confused significations, to which the
human mind has been so long accustomed, that it therefore understands
scarcely any thing perfectly well.”[147]
3. _Number of the faculties._ Spurzheim adds eight faculties to those
established by Gall, and Gall is vexed by it. One does not see why.
What! Shall Gall endow twenty-seven faculties, and Spurzheim not have the
same privilege for seven or eight?[148] Shall Gall have a faculty for
_space_, one for _number_, &c. and Spurzheim be refused one for _time_,
one for _extent_, &c.? Is not Spurzheim half right, when he says:
“One does not readily perceive why M. Gall should desire to suggest to
his readers that his method of treating the doctrine of the brain is the
only admissible one, and that there are no other organs than those he has
recognised; that the organs do nothing but what he attributes to them;
... that all he says and all he does (and that only) bears the stamp of
perfection; and that his decision constitutes the supreme law.”[149]
4. _Classification and attributes of the faculties._ Gall, by giving
the same attributes to all the faculties, and to each faculty all the
attributes of the understanding, in fact forms out of the faculties only
two groups: the group of faculties that he supposes common to man and the
animals, and the group of faculties that he supposes to be proper to man
alone. Spurzheim divides and subdivides them.
None of the formulas required for the classification agreed upon are
omitted.[150]
In the first place, there are two _orders_ of faculties: the _affective_
and the _intellectual faculties_; then each of these _orders_ is divided
into _genera_. The first _order_ has two _genera_: the affective
faculties common to man and animals,[151] and the affective faculties
peculiar to man alone.[152] The second has three genera: the faculties
or _internal senses_ which make external objects known;[153] the
faculties or internal senses which make known the relations of objects in
general;[154] and the faculties or internal senses that _reflect_.[155]
What an apparatus for saying very simple things; for saying that there
are _propensities_,[156] _sentiments_,[157] and _intellectual faculties_!
What singular personification of all these faculties: faculties that
know; faculties that reflect![158] Spurzheim elsewhere speaks of _happy
faculties_.[159] Indeed, what arbitrariness in the distribution of facts!
And Gall, too, is he not half right?
“By what right,” says he, “does M. Spurzheim exclude from the
intellectual faculties imitation, wit, ideality or poetry,
circumspection, secretivity, constructivity? How are perseverance,
circumspection, imitation; how are they sentiments? What reason have we
for counting among the propensities constructivity rather than melody,
benevolence, or imitation?”[160]
Gall, by endowing each faculty with all the attributes of an
understanding, makes as many understandings as faculties. Spurzheim makes
several kinds of understandings: understandings that know, understandings
that reflect, &c. He restores the _sensitive_ and _rational souls_.
In fine, Gall and Spurzheim rarely agree as to their faculties. In
_hope_ Gall sees nothing more than an attribute; Spurzheim beholds it
as a primary faculty. In _conscience_ Gall sees nothing but an effect
of _benevolence_; Spurzheim looks upon it as a peculiar faculty. Gall
resolves that there is only one organ of _religion_, and Spurzheim
insists upon three—the organ of causality, that of supernaturality, and
that of veneration, &c. &c.
We should never end, were we to follow them throughout their debates. I
have said enough to show the case, and I now pass on to Broussais.
V.
OF BROUSSAIS.
Broussais appears to have been born solely for the purpose of imagining
or propagating systems.
Guided by facts which he seized upon with a rare sagacity, Broussais
begins by bringing back certain affections to their real seats;[161] but
soon, by an immoderate generalization of this fine result, he perceives
all affections in the same affection, all diseases in the same malady;
he imagines one _abstract affection_, by means of which he explains all
other affections: _fevers_ are nothing but irritations of the digestive
apparatus; _insanity_ is nothing but an _irritation_ of the brain;[162]
and he who is so intolerant of the _personifications_ proposed by others,
makes one _personification_ more; in fine, his exclusive and headstrong
genius carries him beyond himself, and, as if merely to amuse him after
the fatigue of forming his systems, plunges him into the question of
_phrenology_, where he enjoys himself so much the more, because he finds
in it his own accustomed method, his own ideas, and his own language:
there are plenty of faculties to bring back to their organs, plenty of
localizations to establish.
Broussais ought not to be judged of by his “Cours de Phrénologie.”[163]
The five or six first _lessons_, or, as he calls them, _generalities_,[164]
are merely a confused mixture of ideas: the notions of Condillac rejected
by Cabanis, and the ideas of the phrenologists.
He says that sensibility is the _common origin_ of the faculties;[165] he
calls _perception_ a _primary faculty_,[166] &c. &c.; and Condillac would
not speak differently.
But, on the other hand, he says that there are as many _memories_ as
there are organs;[167] that the instincts and the sentiments possess a
memory, as the _external perceptions_[168] have theirs; that the mind
is the _sum of the faculties_,[169] &c.; and Gall could not say it more
clearly.
Broussais is particularly opposed to the _moi_ of Descartes. “Seduced,”
says he, “by the _moi_ of Descartes, philosophers have been led to reason
according to the testimony of their consciousness....”[170] And according
to what testimony does Broussais think they ought to reason?
He thinks it very funny to call the _moi_ an _intra-cranial entity_,[171]
_intra-cranial central being_,[172] _person_ par excellence, &c.[173]
He laughs at the _moi_ of Descartes; he forgets that the _moi_ of Gall
is either nothing else than the sum (_ensemble_) of the intellectual
faculties, or nothing else than a word; and he makes for himself a
_peculiar moi_,[174] which he locates in the organ of _comparison_. “We
owe,” says he, “to the organ of general comparison the distinction of one
person expressed by the sign _me_.”[175]
Broussais was never designed for compliance with the ideas of others; a
yoke oppresses him; he is never truly Broussais, except in the midst of
conflict. In 1816 he publishes a volume,[176] and the medical doctrines
are shook for half a century: we ought to read that volume over again,
and forget the “Cours de Phrénologie.”
VI.
BROUSSAIS’S PSYCOLOGY.
The fact is, Broussais is busier with his own opinions than with what
Gall thought; and here is a specimen of his way of thinking: “The
understanding and its different manifestations are,” says he, “the
phenomena of the nervous actions.”[177] “The faculties,” says he further,
“are the actions of the material organs,”[178] &c.
Broussais’s whole psycology is contained in these words. The organ, and
the phenomenon produced by the organ. To speak more clearly, the organ
and the action of the organ. To speak like Cabanis, the organ and the
_secretion_ of the organ, or _thought_.[179] That’s all!
The understanding, therefore, is merely a _phenomenon_, a product, an
act. But if this be the case, how can there be a _continuity of the
moi_? Now, the consciousness which gives me the _unity_ of the _moi_,
gives me not less assuredly the _continuity_ of the _moi_. Descartes’
admirable words are: “I find that there is in us an _intellectual
memory_.”[180]
The consciousness tells me that I am _one_, and Gall insists that I
am _multiple_; the consciousness tells me I am _free_, and Gall avers
that there is no _moral liberty_; the consciousness endows me with the
continuity of my understanding, but Cabanis and Broussais tell me that
my understanding is nothing but an _act_.
Philosophers will talk.
VII.
BROUSSAIS’S PHYSIOLOGY.
The whole of Broussais’s physiology is founded upon _irritation_.
He says, “Irritation constitutes the basis of the physiological
doctrine.”[181] But what is irritation? Broussais replies: “It is the
exaggeration of contractility.”[182] But then, what is _contractility_?
In Haller, the term _irritability_ (for that is his term for
_contractility_) possesses a precise meaning and import. _Irritability_
is a property of muscular fibre, by which it shortens or contracts
itself when touched.
Haller demonstrated, and it is his glory, that the muscle alone _moves_
when it is touched. What is that to Broussais? He goes back again to
the vague irritability of Glisson and de Gorter: like those authors, he
assigns it to every tissue, and, like them, he explains every thing by
means of it.
Broussais’s _irritation_ is merely Haller’s _irritability_ exaggerated
and deformed.
The genius of Broussais was too impatient to allow him to proceed step by
step up to the idea—too impassioned to hinder him from being satisfied
with the name—and for that very reason he appears to have been by nature
fitted for success in a school where the name is every thing.
But here is the great difference. Gall and Broussais laboured for the
School: Descartes toiled for the human mind.
VIII.
I return to Gall.
Those who wish to learn Gall’s doctrine, will always go up to Gall
himself. Spurzheim already alters the spirit of that doctrine, and Gall
complains of it. “M. Spurzheim,” says he, “knows my discoveries better
than any body else, but he tries to introduce among them a spirit quite
foreign to that in which they were begun, continued and perfected.”[183]
Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist. His idea of tracing the fibres
of the brain is, as to the anatomy of that organ, the fundamental idea.
The idea is not his own: two French anatomists, Vieussens and Pourfour
du Petit, had admirably understood it long before his time; but at the
period of his appearance it had been long forgotten. The brain was not
then dissected by any one: it was cut in slices.
It was a great merit in Gall to have recalled the true method of
dissecting the brain; and there was still greater address on his part,
in connecting with his labours in positive anatomy, his doctrine of
independent faculties and multiple brain.
This strange doctrine has had a fortune still more strange. Gall and
Spurzheim forgot to place _curiosity_ among their primary faculties. They
were wrong. But for the credulous curiosity of mankind, how could they
have explained the success of their doctrine?
Fortunately, a system never lives otherwise than as a system lives. That
of the moment is abandoned for the sake of another: and almost always
for a perfectly opposite one. Systems multiply and pass away; and we are
indebted to the systems themselves for an escape from the mischiefs of
systems.
NOTES.
NOTE I.
ANATOMICAL RELATIONS SUPPOSED BY GALL TO EXIST BETWEEN THE ORGANS OF THE
EXTERNAL SENSES, AND THE ORGANS OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES.
Page 82. _According to Gall, the origin, the development, the
structure and mode of termination, as to the organs of the
faculties of the soul and the organs of the external senses,
every thing is similar, every thing is in common._
It is known that two substances compose the nervous system—the gray
matter, and the white or fibrous matter. Well, according to Gall, one
of these substances produces the other. The _gray matter_ produces the
_white matter_.
Wherever, therefore, there happens to be any _gray matter_, white matter
must appear; that is to say, _nervous fibres_,[184] _nervous filaments_,
nerves. All the nerves in the body must arise in this way. The spinal
nerves arise from the gray matter which is in the interior of the spinal
marrow; the cerebral nerves from the gray matter that is in the interior
of the medulla oblongata.
Hence, the nerves of the body are _organs of the senses_.
On the other hand, the brain and the cerebellum,[185] which are _the
organs of the faculties of the soul_, must arise like the nerves: the
brain from the gray matter of the _pyramidal eminences_; the cerebellum
from the gray matter that surrounds the _restiform bodies_.
In the second place, whenever a nerve traverses a mass of gray matter, it
receives from it, according to Gall, certain new nervous filaments; and
in this way it grows and developes itself. The cerebrum and cerebellum
will not fail therefore to grow and be developed likewise. The primitive
bundles of the cerebellum, (_the restiform bodies_,) will grow by means
of the filaments which will be imparted to them by the gray matter of the
_ciliary body_: the primitive bundles of the cerebrum, (the _pyramidal
eminences_,) by the filaments imparted to them by, first, the gray matter
of the _pons varolii_; secondly, by that of the _optic strata_; and then
by that of the olivary bodies, _corpora striata_, &c. &c.
Finally, in the same manner as a nerve of sense expands at its
termination, and by means of such expansion forms the organ of the
sense, so the primitive bundles of fibres of the brain and of the
cerebellum terminate in expansions, and constitute the _organs of the
internal senses_; that is to say, the lobes of the cerebellum and the
hemispheres of the brain.[186]
NOTE II.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INSTINCT AND UNDERSTANDING.
Page 64 (Note). _And he does not see that as to the instincts
and the understanding all is contrast._
Here is what I have elsewhere said upon this question, so long debated,
of the _instinct and understanding of animals_.
“There is a most complete difference between _instinct_ and
_understanding_.
“In _instinct_ all is blind, necessary, and invariable. In
_understanding_ every thing is elective, conditional, and modifiable.
“The beaver which builds its house, and the bird that constructs its
nest, act only by instinct.
“The dog and the horse, that learn even the meaning of several of our
words, and who pay obedience to us, do so by understanding.
“In _instinct_ all is innate. The beaver builds without having learned
to build: all that he does is from fatality. The beaver builds under the
impulsion of a constant and irresistible force.
“In _understanding_, every thing results from experience and
_instruction_. The dog obeys only because he has learned to obey: he is
perfectly free in this respect; for he obeys only because he will obey.
“Finally, in regard to _instinct_ every thing is particular. That
admirable industry that the beaver exhibits in the construction of his
hut, can be employed in no other occupation than the building of his hut.
Now, in _understanding_ every thing is general; for the dog could apply
the same flexibility of attention, and of conception, which he uses in
obeying, to do any other thing.
“In animals there are, therefore, two distinct and primary
forces—_instinct_ and _understanding_. As long as our conceptions of
these forces were confused, all our views and opinions in regard to
the actions of animals remained obscure and contradictory. Among these
actions, some exhibited man every where superior to the brute; while
others appeared to accord to the brute creation the superiority over
man—a contradiction almost as deplorable as absurd! By the distinction
that separates blind and necessary actions from elective and conditional
ones—or, in a word, instinct from intelligence—all contradiction
disappears, and order succeeds to confusion. Whatever in animals is
_understanding_, does not in any degree approach the excellence of
the human understanding; and whatsoever, under the appearance of
_understanding_, seemed superior to the human understanding, is in fact a
mere result of a mechanical and blind force.”[187]
Here is what I say as to the boundaries between the intelligence of man
and of animals.
“Animals receive, through their senses, impressions similar to those that
we receive through the medium of our senses; like ourselves, they retain
the traces of these impressions: these impressions, when preserved, form
for them, as well as for us, numerous and various associations: they
combine them, they draw from them inferences, and deduce judgments from
them: therefore they possess understanding.
“But the whole of their understanding stops at that point. The
understanding they possess is not one that can consider itself: it cannot
see itself, does not know itself. They do not possess _reflection_, that
supreme faculty with which the mind of man is endowed, and which enables
him to turn his intellectual power inwards, so as to study and know the
nature of his own understanding.
“Reflection, thus defined, is then the boundary that separates human
intelligence from that of the brute creation: and in fact it cannot be
denied that this furnishes a strong line of demarcation between them.
Thought, which contemplates itself; understanding, which sees itself and
studies itself; knowledge, which knows itself; these evidently constitute
an order of determinate phenomena of a decided character, and to which no
brute animal can ever attain. This is, if one might so speak, a purely
intellectual domain; and it appertains to man alone. In one word, animals
feel, know, think; but man is the only one of all created beings to whom
has been given the power of feeling that he feels, of knowing that he
knows, and of thinking that he thinks.”[188]
I will quote, also, the following passage from my work sur _l’instinct et
l’intelligence des animaux_, p. 178, et seq.
“ ... There are three facts: _instinct_, _understanding of brutes_, and
_human understanding_; and each of these facts has its definite limits.
“Instinct acts without knowing; understanding knows in order to act; the
human understanding alone knows, and knows itself.
“Reflection, closely defined, is the _knowledge of thought by thought_.
And this power of thought over thought gives us a whole order of new
relations. As soon as the mind perceives itself it judges itself; as
soon as it can act upon itself it is free; as soon as it becomes free it
becomes moral.
“Man is only moral because he is free.
“The brute animal follows its body; in the midst of this body, which
shrouds it completely in matter, the human mind is free, and so free that
it can, whenever it prefers to do so, immolate its very body.
“‘The great power of the will over the body,’ says Bossuet, ‘consists in
this prodigious effect, that man is so completely master of his frame,
that he can even sacrifice it for the sake of some greater good in view.
To rush into the midst of blows, and plunge into a flight of arrows from
a blind impetuosity, as happens among brute creatures, shows nothing
superior to the body itself; but to resolve to die with understanding,
and for reasons, notwithstanding the whole disposition of the body to the
contrary, evinces a principle superior to the body; and among all the
tribes of animals, man is the only one in whom this principle exists.’”
NOTE III.
GALL, AS AN OBSERVER.
Page 93. _He studied them (mankind) in his own way, but he
studied them very closely._
Gall was a practical observer. He observed and studied always, and with
so much the greater success because “people never suspected that they
had to do (these are his own words) with a man who knew perfectly well
that the basis of human character continues to be always the same, and
that merely the objects that interest us change with the progress of
years.”[189]
He examined “families, schools, hospitals, &c.”[190] And he never was
satisfied with appearances only. “The occupations that we pursue as our
business, generally prove nothing either as to our faculties or our
propensities: but those which we engage in as recreation are almost
always in conformity with our tastes and our talents.”[191]
His observations on men were more serviceable to him in judging of and
describing their characters, than the _bumps on the skull_.
“I often said to my friends, show me the fundamental forces of the soul,
and I will find the organ and the seat for each one of them.[192] ...
When I had become convinced that a distinguished talent, and one fully so
recognised, was especially the work of nature, I examined the head of the
individual, ... &c.”[193]
Gall’s progression, then, was from _observation_ to the _cranium_; he
first proceeded from _observation_ to the _cranium_, and next from the
_cranium_ to the _brain_.
Furthermore, Gall began by studying the _physiognomy_—the _features_ of
the _countenance_—like Lavater.
He at first thought that a good memory was connected with a certain
_conformation of the eyes_: “I remarked,” says he, “that they all had
large projecting eyes.... I suspected, therefore, that there ought
to exist some connexion between memory and this conformation of the
eyes.”[194] Again he says, “It may be perceived, from the progress of
these researches, that the first step consisted in the discovery of
certain organs; that it was by degrees only that we allowed facts to
speak in order to deduce from them general principles; and that it was
subsequently, and towards the close, that we had learned to know the
brain.”[195]
Thus it appears that the study of the brain came later than the doctrine;
and that is the reason why the anatomy of the brain is a mere series of
mistakes and conjectures—I mean here the _special anatomy_, the _secret
anatomy_, the _phrenological anatomy_; I mean the anatomy made out to
suit the doctrine. I have already sufficiently discriminated between it
and the _real anatomy_.[196]
NOTE IV.
OF THE ANIMAL SPIRITS.
Page 116. _He who is so intolerant of the personifications
proposed by others makes one personification more._
Broussais explains every thing by the word _irritation_, just as Gall
explains every thing by the word _faculties_, and as Malebranche
explained them by _animal spirits_.
After serving Descartes, the _animal spirits_ were in the service of
Malebranche; they served all the authors of the seventeenth century.
Malebranche commences one of his chapters with these words: “Every body
agrees that the _animal spirits_....”[197] He had no idea that every body
would agree some day, that the _animal spirits_ is mere nonsense.
There were animal spirits of all sorts; as Gall had _faculties_ of all
sorts: there were _agitated_[198] animal spirits, _languid_ animal
spirits.[199] There were even _libertine_ animal spirits.
“Wine is so spirituous,” says Malebranche, “that it is _animal spirits_
almost completely formed, but libertine spirits.”[200]
The animal spirits seemed to have become the _ultima ratio_ of the
philosophers.
The author of a book, in other respects to be esteemed, thus defined
_imagination_: “Imagination is a perception of the soul’s caused by the
internal motion of the animal spirits.”[201]
That author had no doubt that he was saying something.
NOTE V.
EXAGGERATION OF BROUSSAIS, EVEN IN PHRENOLOGY.
Page 120. _We ought to read that volume over again, and forget
the Cours de Phrénologie._
Broussais does not adopt merely the general ideas of the phrenologists—he
adopts even the smallest of them.
Gall had located the _instinct_ of _murder_ in a given part of the brain;
and he supposed, be it understood, that this part existed only in the
brain of the carnivorous animals. But see, it is found in the brain of
the herbivora; and one would suppose that the phrenologists would be in
trouble about it. Don’t deceive yourself, the _instinct of murder_ is
the _instinct of destruction_. Spurzheim denominates it _destructivity_;
and the herbivorous animals must possess it, for they eat plants and
consequently _destroy_ them.
“The herbivora” says Broussais, “effect a real destruction among
plants.[202] An attempt has been made to turn these ideas into ridicule,
even in an Academy.... It was in a learned society of this kind
considered ridiculous in the phrenologists to compare the destruction of
vegetables to that of animals. For my own part I do not see why the idea
should be rejected, if the fundamental object of the organ be to procure
the means of alimentation, which seems to be quite certain.”[203]
Gall imagines an organ for religion; he thinks it peculiar to man, and
denominates it the _Organ of Theosophy_. The same organ is found quite
down in the scale as low as the sheep;[204] and do not suppose that
Broussais is at all shocked by the discovery. If necessary he will go
further than all the phrenologists taken together.
“The phrenologists” says he, “have denied that this sentiment (the
sentiment of veneration) belongs to the animals. I am not of that
opinion. A certain shade of _veneration_ exists in many species, among
the vertebrate, that choose their leaders, and march according to a
signal given by their chiefs and obey them. Thus even among the sheep you
may see a chief.”[205]
Who would have believed it? Broussais finds Gall too timorous.
“There is,” says he, “no central organ. This is considered as one of the
most powerful objections to Gall. As far as I know he never answered it.
As for me, I shall be more frank, perhaps more bold: I shall say it is
impossible that there should be one, &c.”[206]
NOTE VI.
CONTRACTILITY OF BROUSSAIS.
Page 126. _He assigns it to every tissue, and, like them, he
explains every thing by means of it._
He assigns it to every tissue. Haller attributed this property to the
muscles alone, “but it is a common property of the tissues.”[207]
He explains every thing by means of it: every thing, even _innervation_
itself. But he is constrained to add: “Doubtless _something more occurs_
in the interior of the nervous tissue; doubtless we are unacquainted and
ignorant as to how _that other thing_ is connected with the motions in
question, and how it may employ them in the act of innervation,” &c.[208]
So we perceive, in the first place, _contractility_ explains
_innervation_; and then, that _something more_ is wanting. And as nervous
contractility is nothing but a mental fiction (a nerve never moves, never
_contracts_, when it is touched) the whole matter tapers down to this
_something more_, or to _that other thing_.
See how very far from being rigorous are those who construct systems.
NOTE VII.
REAL LABOURS OF GALL AS TO THE BRAIN.
Page 128. _Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist._
He found that the medullary substance of the brain was fibrous
throughout;[209] he saw the fibres of the medulla oblongata decussate
before they form the pyramidal eminences,[210] those of the corpora
olivaria, &c.; that is to say, all the ascending fibres of the medulla
oblongata across the pons varolii, thalami nervor opticorum, and the
corpora striata, as far as the vault of the hemispheres; he saw the
bundles formed by these fibres increased in magnitude at each of these
passages; he distinguished the fibres which go out in order to expand
in the hemispheres, from those that go in in order to give birth to the
commissures: many nerves that were regarded as coming out immediately
from the brain, were by him traced even into the medulla oblongata, &c.
And I repeat that all these facts, with the discovery of which he has
enriched the science of anatomy, all of them are the results of a happy
thought of his—the idea of _tracing_ the fibres of the brain, or to use
a common expression, of substituting in the dissection of the brain the
method of _developments_ for that of _sections_.
Those of Gall’s opinions which it seems ought not to be adopted, are:
that in which he supposes the nerve fibres to be born (he understands
the word to the letter) of the gray matter; that in which he contends
that the convolutions of the brain are merely foldings of the medullary
fibres, and can therefore be _unfolded_; that in which he compares the
rete mucosum of the skin to the gray matter of the encephalon, &c., &c.
Gall had a mind which impelled him to the formation of hypotheses; and
even in his real anatomy there is a decided smack of a system-author.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Anatomie et Physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau
en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaître
plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’homme et des
animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes; 4 vol. 4to, avec planches.
Paris, de 1810 à 1819.
[2] T. ii. p. 217. “It is generally understood,” says he further, “that
the brain is the peculiar organ of the soul.” T. ii. p. 14.
[3] Gall, t. ii. p. 221.
[4] Gall, t. ii. p. 222. Haller, Elem. Physiolog. etc., t. iv. p. 304.
Sensus præterea sedem in cerebro esse, atque ad cerebrum per nervos
mandari, alia sunt quæ ostendunt.
[5] Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’homme, IIe Mémoire, § vii.
[6] Leçons d’Anat. Comp. t. ii. p. 153.
[7] Ibid. p. 173.
[8] Recherches Phys. sur la Vie et la Mort, art. vi. § ii.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Descartes, Lettre à Regius ou Leroy, t. viii. p. 515, edit, par M.
Cousin.
[11] T. v. p. 34. “I remark,” says he again, “that the mind does not
receive the impression from all parts of the body, but from the brain
only.”—T. i. p. 344.
[12] T. vi. p. 347.
[13] T. ii. p. 357.
[14] T. ii. p. 358.
[15] “The principal object of this work,” says he, “is to show how all
our knowledge, and all our faculties come from the senses.”—Traité des
Sensations, préambule de l’Extrait Raisonné.
[16] Traité des Sensations, préam. de l’Extrait Raisonné.
[17] De l’homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles, etc. t. i. p. 186.
Liege, 1774.
[18] He very properly distinguishes the senses from the understanding;
but, as will be elsewhere seen, he endows each sense with all the
attributes of the understanding. He escapes from one error only to fall
into another.
[19] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions
du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842.
[20] Ibid.
[21] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions
du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842.
[22] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions
du Système Nerveux.
[23] Ibid.
[24] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions
du Système Nerveux.
[25] “From what I have now said, it clearly follows that the aperceptive
faculty, the faculty of reminiscence, and that of memory, are nothing but
attributes common to all the fundamental faculties.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 319.
“All that I have just said, is also applicable to the judgment and the
imagination,” &c.—Ibid. p. 325. “The sentiments and the propensities also
have their judgment, their imagination, their recollection, and their
memory.”—Ibid. p. 327.
[26] Ibid. 328.
[27] Ibid. 327.
[28] Gall, t. iv. p. 339.
[29] Ibid. p. 341.
[30] “The _intellectual faculty_ and all its subdivisions, such as
perception, recollection, memory, judgment, imagination, &c. are not
fundamental faculties, but merely general attributes of them.”—Gall, t.
iv. p. 327.
[31] “Reason,” says Gall, “is the result of the simultaneous action of
all the intellectual faculties.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 341.
[32] Gall enumerates twenty-seven of these faculties, Spurzheim
enumerates twenty-five, &c.
[33] Gall, t. iv. p. 325.
[34] Ibid. p. 330.
[35] “I find in myself,” says Descartes, “divers faculties of thought,
that have each their own way, ... whence I conclude, they are distinct
from me, as modes are distinct from things.”—T. i. p. 332.
[36] T. viii. p. 169.
[37] Gall, iv. p. 341.
[38] Ibid.
[39] Ibid. t. ii. p. 100.
[40] Gall, t. ii. p. 97.
[41] Ibid.
[42] “It is a law of moral liberty, that man shall be always determined,
and that he shall himself determine from the most numerous and most
powerful motives.”—T. ii. p. 137.
[43] “But an organ may act with greater energy, and furnish a more
powerful motive.”—T. ii. p. 104.
[44] “There is no person who, upon contemplating himself, does not feel
and experience that will and liberty are one and the same; or rather,
that there is no difference between that which is voluntary and that
which is free.”—T. i. p. 496.
[45] Descartes, t. i. p. 299. “It is always in our power to prevent
ourselves from pursuing a good which is clearly known to us, provided we
should think it a good to show in that way our free will.”—Descartes,
t. vi. p. 133. “The fulness of liberty consists in the great use of
our positive ability to follow the worse, while we truly know the
better.”—Ibid. p. 138.
[46] The question here relates solely to the brain, properly so called,
(the lobes or cerebral hemispheres.) The rest of the encephalon does not
serve in the operations of the understanding. See the preceding article,
p. 29, et seq.
[47] _Individual intelligences_—an expression of Gall’s. “Each individual
intelligence has its own proper organ.”—iv. 341.
[48] Even the instincts, according to Gall, have their memory,
imagination, &c. “The instinct of propagation, that of the love of
offspring, pride, vanity, possess, beyond contradiction, their perceptive
faculty, their recollection, their memory, judgment, imagination, and
their own attention.”—T. iv. p. 331. “The propensities and the sentiments
likewise possess their judgment, their taste, their imagination, their
recollection, and their memory.”—iv. 344.
[49] Gall, t. iv. p. 325.
[50] Ibid.
[51] See particularly t. ii. p. 5.
[52] “Had I to do with readers wholly free from prejudice, I should, in
order to convince them of this, (the supposition of innate ideas,) have
nothing to do but show them that mankind acquire all the knowledge they
possess by the simple use of their natural faculties.”—Philos. Essay on
the Human Understanding.
[53] “Locke contents himself,” says he, “with acknowledging that the soul
perceives, doubts, believes, reasons, knows, wills, and reflects: that we
are convinced of the existence of these _operations_; ... but he seems to
have regarded them as something innate.” A short time before he had said,
“We shall see that all the faculties of the soul appeared to him to be
innate qualities.”—Traité des Sensations. (Extrait raisonné.)
[54] See t. iii. p. 81.
[55] T. i. p. 343.
[56] “I may now flatter myself,” says he, “that the reader is
sufficiently prepared for quite a new philosophy, deduced directly from
the fundamental forces.”—T. iii. p. 11.
[57] T. iv. p. 327.
[58] T. iv. p. 319.
[59] T. iv. p. 341.
[60] Ibid.
[61] Ibid.
[62] “Each individual understanding possesses its own proper organ.”—T.
iv. p. 341.
[63] T. i. p. 230.
[64] T. iv. p. 105.
[65] See the preceding articles.
[66] T. iv. p. 340. “From all these faculties comes at last decision. It
is this decision ... which is really will and wishing.”—T. ii. p. 105.
[67] T. iv. p. 341.
[68] T. iv. p. 269.
[69] T. iv. p. 271.
[70] T. iv. p. 252.
[71] T. iv. p. 252.
[72] T. iv. p. 10.
[73] T. i. p. 290.
[74] T. i. p. 287.
[75] Article “Liberté,” Diction. Encyclop.
[76] T. iii. p. 155. Such phrases cannot be concluded.
[77] T. iii. p. 213.
[78] Ibid. 219.
[79] “This term, instinct, is applicable,” says he, “to all the
fundamental forces.”—T. iv. p. 334. And he does not see that as to the
instincts and the understanding all is contrast. Upon this difference
of instinct and understanding, see my work De l’Instinct et de
l’Intelligence des Animaux, etc. Paris, 1845, 2d edit.
[80] It is true that this approximation astonishes him. “The predilection
of animals for elevated places depends,” says he, “upon the same parts
as pride, which is in man a moral sentiment! Let the reader imagine the
astonishment excited in my mind by such a phenomenon.”—T. iii. 311.
[81] “Co-existing with the love of war, it (the carnivorous instinct)
constitutes the intrepid warrior.”—T. iii. p. 258. “I know a head which,
as to the organ of murder, approaches that of Madeline Albert, and the la
Bouhours, except only that nature has executed it upon a grander scale.
To witness suffering, is for this person to have the keenest enjoyment.
Whoever does not love blood, is in his eyes contemptible.”—T. iii. p.
259. The pen refuses to transcribe such things, which fortunately,
however, are pure extravagances.
[82] “From my reflections it follows that conscience is nothing but a
modification, an affection of the moral sense,” (organ.)—T. iv. p. 210.
“From all that I have said as to conscience, it follows that it can by
no means be regarded as a fundamental quality: that it is really only an
affection of the moral sense—or benevolence.”—T. iv. p. 217.
[83] T. iii. p. 321.
[84] T. iv. p. 272.
[85] T. ii. p. 287.
[86] Recherches sur le système nerveux en général et sur celui du cerveau
en particulier; mémoire présenté à l’Institut de France, le 14 Mars,
1808; suivi d’Observations sur le rapport qui en a été fait à cette
compagnie par ses commissaires, par F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim. Paris,
1809.
[87] “The nervous membrane of the brain forms these folds, which are
denominated its convolutions.”—Anat. et Physiol. du Système Nerveux, t.
iii. p. 82.
[88] Spurzheim justly remarks: “Admitting that the direction of the
fibres is known, that we know their consistence to be greater or less,
that their colour is more or less white, that their magnitude is more
or less considerable, &c. what conclusions can we, from all these
circumstances, draw as to their functions? None at all.”—Obser. sur la
Phrénologie, ou la connaissance de l’homme moral et intellectuel fondée
sur les fonctions du Système Nerveux, p. 83. Paris, 1818.
[89] Rapport sur un Mémoire de MM. Gall et Spurzheim, rélatif à l’anat.
du cerveau. Séances des 25 Avril et 2 Mai, 1808.
[90] “The determination of the fundamental forces and the seat of
their organs constitutes the most striking portion of my discoveries.
The knowledge of the primary faculties and qualities, and the seat of
their material conditions, constitutes precisely the phrenology of the
brain.”—Gall, Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., t. iii. p. 4.
[91] Lettre d’un Médecin des Hôpitaux du Roi. Namur. 1710.
[92] Elementa Physiologiæ, t. iv. p. 384.
[93] “But if it be supposed that each fundamental faculty, as well as
each particular sense, is dependent on a particular part of the brain,”
&c. Gall, Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., t. iii. p. 392.
[94] T. iv. p. 9.
[95] T. iv. p. 9.
[96] T. ii. p. 234.
[97] The brain, properly so called.
[98] _I_ see with _my_ eyes.—M.
[99] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions
du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842.
[100] Ibid.
[101] See at the end of this work the first Note on Gall’s Anatomy.
[102] T. i. p. 271. Spurzheim explains himself in like manner. “The
organs of the internal faculties are as separate as the bundles of the
nerves of the five senses.”—Observ. sur la Phrénol., &c. p. 74. “It is
found that the brain is composed of many bundles, which must have their
functions.”—Ibid. p. 94. “The organs ... are composed of divergent
bundles, of convolutions, and of the commissures.”—Ibid.
[103] T. iv. p. 8. “Bonnet believes, and it is probable, that each nerve
fibre has its own proper action.”—Ibid.
[104] T. iii. p. 2.
[105] T. iii. p. 4.
[106] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les
fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842. See also the first article
of this work.
[107] It must, however, be one or the other; for it must be something.
Might it be a convolution, as has been since said? But there are not
seven and twenty convolutions, &c. &c.
[108] T. ii. p. 163.
[109] Gall, as we have seen, confounds understanding with instinct.
Literally, he divides understanding into many instincts, and then out of
each instinct constructs an intellectual faculty. See the second article
of this work. “The term instinct suits all the fundamental faculties.”—T.
iv. p. 334. For the characters peculiar to the instincts, see my work
entitled “De l’Instinct et de l’Intelligence des Animaux,” 2d edit. 1845.
[110] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les
fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842.
[111] “The organ of philogeniture, or the last convolution of the
cerebral lobes.”—Spurzheim, Obser. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 117.
[112] With very few exceptions.
[113] “The qualities and faculties common to man and animals, are
situated in the posterior portions,” &c.—T. iii. p. 79, and t. iv. p. 13.
“The qualities and faculties that man exclusively enjoys, are situated
in the cerebral portions, of which the brute creation is deprived; and
we must consequently seek for them in the antero superior portion of the
frontal bone.”—T. iii. page 79.
[114] “The anterior parts of the brain are not wanting in the mammifera,
but the posterior parts,” says Leuret, very justly, in his fine work
on the circumvolutions of the brain, entitled, Anat. Compar. du Syst.
Nerveux, consideré dans ses rapports avec l’Intelligence, t. i. p. 588.
Paris, 1839.
[115] T. iii. p. 20.
[116] T. iii. p. 26.
[117] It is curious to see how M. Vimont, a very decided phrenologist
as well as an able anatomist, expresses himself on the subject of the
_localizations_ of Gall and Spurzheim. “Gall’s work,” says M. Vimont,
“is fitter to lead into error than to give a just idea of the seats of
the organs.”—Traité de Phrén. t. ii. p. 12. “Gall says he has remarked,
that horses whose ears are widely separated at the roots, are sure-footed
and courageous. Possibly the fact may be true; but I cannot comprehend
the connexion that may exist betwixt the outward mark and the quality of
courage, whose seat, in the horse, Gall indicates at a point where there
is no brain.”—Ibid. 281. “Spurzheim indicates the region of the frontal
sinuses as the seat of gentleness, while courage is located upon the
muscles that go to be inserted on the os occipitis.”—Ibid. p. 117. Such
are M. Vimont’s remarks, yet this same M. Vimont inscribes the following
twenty-nine names on the skull of a goose!
1. Conservation.
2. Choice of aliment.
3. Destruction.
4. Cunning.
5. Courage.
6. Choice of locality.
7. Concentration.
8. Attachment to life, or marriage.
9. Attachment.
10. Reproduction.
11. Attachment to the product of conception.
12. Property.
13. Circumspection.
14. Perception of substance.
15. Configuration.
16. Extent.
17. Distance.
18. Geometrical sense.
19. Resistance.
20. Localities.
21. Order.
22. Time.
23. Language.
24. Eventuality.
25. Construction.
26. Musical talent.
27. Imitation.
28. Comparison.
29. Gentleness.
“All this upon the cranium of a goose!” says M. Leuret upon this
occasion, (page 355.) “And there is no place so small but it is
occupied.... The faculties are so crowded,” adds he, “that it would be a
marvellous thing to be able to write their names upon the brain.... It
would be a greater marvel to discover them.”
[118] Gall himself says: “In whatever region we examine the two
substances that compose the brain, it is with difficulty that we can
discern any difference between them as to their structure, &c.”—T. iii.
p. 70.
[119] T. iii. p. 63.
[120] “I remained a whole day shut up in an oven.”—T. i. 133.
[121] T. i. p. 263.
[122] Eloge de Tournefort.
[123] One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1818. Phrenology is the very name given by
Spurzheim to the doctrine of Gall.
[124] One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1820.
[125] Observ. sur la Phrénol. &c. p. 8.
[126] Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 20.
[127] Ibid. p. 22.
[128] Rech. sur le Syst. Nerv. en général, &c. par F. J. Gall et G.
Spurzheim.
[129] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerveux, &c., the work which has been
examined in the three preceding articles.
[130] T. iv. p. 341.
[131] Ibid. p. 327.
[132] Ibid. p. 341.
[133] In the preceding article, p. 93.
[134] Lettre de Charles Villers à Georges Cuvier, sur une nouvelle
théorie du cerveau, par le Docteur Gall, &c. Metz, 1802.
[135] Lettre de Charles Villers, &c. p. 34.
[136] Ibid.
[137] Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 10.
[138] Especially in the last article.
[139] And which was not taken up by Gall, except from the necessity he
was under of assimilating at all points the external senses with the
faculties of the soul.
[140] Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 65.
[141] Ibid. p. 67.
[142] Ibid. p. 75.
[143] See particularly the Essai philosophique sur la morâle et
intellectuelle de l’homme, p. 54, et seq.
[144] Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 17.
[145] Ibid. p. 127.
[146] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., &c. t. iii. p. 19. This volume came
out the same year as Spurzheim’s Observ., &c.
[147] T. iv. p. 67.
[148] The eight organs added by Spurzheim, are the organs of
habitativity, order, time, right, supernaturality, hope, extent,
weight. Gall’s remarks upon these eight organs proposed by Spurzheim
are as follows: “M. Spurzheim, it is true, recognises eight organs
more than I admit. As to the organs of habitativity, order, time, and
supernaturality, I have already spoken. I admit an organ of the moral
sense, or sense of right (_juste_), but I have very strong reasons
for believing that benevolence is nothing more than a very strong
manifestation of the moral sense; therefore I treat these two organs
under the rubric of a single organ. What M. Spurzheim says on the organs
of hope, of extent, and of weight, has not as yet convinced me: and, in
fact, he has hitherto proved nothing in respect to them.”—T. iii. p. 25.
[149] Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 216.
[150] See the Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 47, et seq.
[151] The sense of Amativity, the sense of Philogeniture, the sense of
Destructivity, the sense of Affectivity, the sense of Thievishness,
the sense of Secretivity, the sense of Circumspection, the sense of
Approbation, the sense of Self-love. (What a chaos, and what words!)
[152] The sense of Benevolence, the sense of Veneration, the sense
of Firmness, the sense of Duty, the sense of Hope, the sense of the
Marvellous, the sense of Ideality, the sense of Gaiety, the sense of
Imitation.
[153] The sense of Individuality, of Extent, of Configuration, of
Consistence, of Weight, of Colour.
[154] The sense of Localities, of Numeration, of Order, of Phenomena, of
Time, of Method, of Artificial Language.
[155] The sense of Comparison, the sense of Causality.
[156] “Some of the affective faculties produce only a desire, an
inclination.... I shall call them propensities.”—Observ. sur la Phrénol.,
&c. p. 124.
[157] “Other affective faculties are not restricted to a simple
inclination, but something beyond; which is what is called sentiment or
feeling.”—Ibid.
[158] “The intellectual faculties are also double: some of them know;
others reflect.”—Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 225.
[159] “The faculties peculiar to man are happy in themselves, per
se.”—Ibid. p. 167.
[160] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv. &c. t. iii. p. 27.
[161] See his Histoire des Phlegmas. Chron. 1808.
[162] See his work entitled, “De l’Irritation et de la Folie,” 1828.
[163] Cours de Phrénologie, 1 vol. 8vo. 1836.
[164] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 82.
[165] Ibid. p. 140.
[166] Ibid. p. 37.
[167] “Memory is not an isolated faculty; and there are as many memories
as organs.”—p. 131.
[168] “The instincts and the sentiments have a memory as well as the
external perceptions.”—p. 36.
[169] “ ... The study of the human mind, not indeed that of a fictitious
one bearing this mysterious appellation, but of the _ensemble_ of the
mental faculties of man.”—p. 82.
[170] Page 48.
[171] “The favorers of the intra-cranial entity.”—p. 153.
[172] “Their central intra-cranial being, to which they attribute all
their faculties.”
[173] “Suppose they had called this being _person par excellence_....”—p.
75.
[174] Let us examine, as to this particular (_moi_) ME, all Broussais’s
_variorums_. In one place the _me_ comes from only one organ—the organ
of general comparison: “We owe to the organ of general comparison the
distinction of our person expressed by the sign _me_.”—Cours de Phrén.,
p. 684. Further on it comes from two—the organ of comparison and the
organ of causality: “The organ of causality is as necessary to the
distinction of the _me_, and of the _person_, as the organ of general
comparison.”—Ibid. p. 685. Next there is no organ at all: “To assign to
the _me_ a special organ appears to me to be out of the question.”—Ibid.
p. 119. And then it comes from every where: “There is no special and
central organ, and our perception of ourselves has for its basis the
sensitive perceptions.”—Ibid. p. 119.
[175] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 684.
[176] Examen de la Doctrine Médicale, etc. 1816.
[177] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 717.
[178] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 77. He also says, “Their central
intra-cranial being, to which they attribute all the faculties of a
man, is not cognisable by any of our senses, ... it is therefore a pure
hypothesis.”—Ibid. p. 153. Thus there is no _mind_ (pure hypothesis);
no _faculties_ but those of the _organs_ (the faculties are the acts
of _material organs_); no understanding, except as a simple phenomenon
of the nervous action (understanding and all its manifestations are
_phenomena of nervous action_); consequently, there is no psycology;
there is nothing but physiology; and even (for it should be clearly
understood) nothing but Broussais’s physiology.
[179] “In order to form for one’s self a just notion of the operations
which result in the production of thought, it is necessary to conceive
of the brain as a peculiar organ, specially designed for the production
thereof, just as the stomach is designed to effect digestion, the liver
to form the bile, &c.”—Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du moral de
l’homme, IIe mémoire, § vii.
[180] Whence he concludes still more admirably, to the immortality of
the soul. “I cannot,” says he, “conceive otherwise of those who die,
than that they pass into a more pleasing and tranquil life than ours,
even carrying with them the remembrance of the past: for I find there
is within us an intellectual memory.... And although religion teaches
us many things upon this subject, I must, notwithstanding, confess my
infirmity on this point, which it appears to me that I possess in common
with most people, which is, that although we might wish to believe, and
even might suppose ourselves to be firm believers in the doctrines of
religion, we are not so deeply touched with those things that are taught
by faith alone, and which our mere reason cannot attain, as by those that
are instilled into us by natural and very evident reasons.”—T. viii. p.
684.
[181] De l’Imitation et de la Folie, p. 4.
[182] “The exaggeration of the phenomena of contractility is what
constitutes irritation.”—Ibid. p. 77.
[183] Anat. et Physiol. du Système Nerveux, &c. iii. 15.
[184] The white matter is every where fibrous. No person has contributed
more than Gall to the demonstration of this great fact. He justly
remarks: “Those authors who, with Sœmmerring and Cuvier, &c., recognise
the fibrous structure of the brain, in many of its parts, have
nevertheless, not yet ventured to say that it is so in all its parts.”—T.
i. 235.
[185] The cerebellum serves only for the motions of locomotion. (See the
first article of this work.) But, I am here setting forth Gall’s opinions.
[186] “The particular systems of the brain terminate in fibrous
expansions arranged in layers, just as the other nervous systems expand
in fibres at their peripheral extremity.”—T. i. 318. “All the diverging
bundles of the brain, after they come out from the last apparatus of
reinforcement, expand in layers and form convolutions.”—T. i. 283. “The
nerves of sensation and motion expand in the skin and the muscles; the
nerves of the senses, each in the external instrument to which they
belong: for example, the pituitary membrane upon the bones of the nose:
the nerve of taste in the tongue, and the expansion of the optic nerve
in the retina.... Nature obeys precisely the same law in the brain. The
different parts of the brain originate and are reinforced at different
points; they form fibrous bundles of various sizes, which terminate in
expansions. All these expansions of the various bundles constitute, when
reunited, the hemispheres of the brain.”—T. iii. p. 3.
I here speak only of the _diverging fibres_. Coming from the interior,
they proceed towards the exterior: the _converging fibres_ coming from
the exterior, that is, according to Gall, from the gray matter that
envelopes the brain and the cerebellum, are directed inwards. The
former constitute the _convolutions_, while the latter compose the
_commissures_. But I shall, further on, return to this subject.
[187] See my work, De l’instinct et de l’intelligence des animaux, &c. p.
46, 2d edit.
[188] Opus citat. p. 49.
[189] T. iii. p. 64.
[190] T. iii. p. 64.
[191] T. iii. p. 64.
[192] T. iii. p. 58.
[193] T. iii. p. 59.
[194] T. i. p. 3.
[195] T. i. p. 18.
[196] T. i. p. 64 & 67.
[197] De la Rech. de la Verité, liv. ii. chap. ii.
[198] Ibid.
[199] Ibid.
[200] Du bel esprit, p. 80.
[201] Ibid.
[202] Cours de Phrén. 218.
[203] P. 221.
[204] See M. Leuret: Anat. Comp. du Syst. Nerv. &c. 1839.
[205] Cours de Phrén. p. 350.
[206] Ibid. p. 117.
[207] De l’Irritation et de la Folie, p. 2.
[208] Ibid. p. 76.
[209] Steno had already said, “If the medullary substance be every where
fibrous, as in fact, in most parts it appears to be, you must confess
that the disposal of these fibres must be arranged with great skill,
since the whole diversity of our feelings and motions depend upon them.
We wonder at the artifice of the fibres in each muscle, but how much more
are they worthy of admiration in the brain, where these fibres, enclosed
within so small a space, perform each its own function without confusion
and without disorder.”—_Discours sur l’anat. du cerveau_, 1668.
[210] Long before his time the same had been seen by Mistichelli,
Pourfour du Petit, Winslow, and several others, but it had been
forgotten. “Each pyramidal body,” says Pourfour du Petit, “is divided at
its inferior part into two large bundles of fibres, most frequently into
three, and in some instances into four. Those of the right pass to the
left side, and those of the left pass to the right side, mingling with
each other.”—_Lettre d’un médecin des hôpitaux du Roi._ Namur 1710.
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