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_.