Chapter 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.