139 
 F66em£ 
 
OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 e 
 
 
The Cost of Manikins. —For the benefit of prospective lec¬ 
 turers on Physiology, who may be desirous of obtaining 
 suitable apparatus, with which to illustrate the subject, we 
 l*ave obtained the following particulars with regard to the 
 cost of a suitable cabinet. 
 
 Manikins of the best quality can only be obtained from 
 France. They are no where else manufactured with any 
 thing like the same degree of perfection. The different 
 sizes and prices are as follows. The smallest size, about 
 eighteen inches high, may be had at $90.00. 
 
 The second size, four feet high, with seventeen hundred 
 objects, at $350.00. 
 
 Same size, with twelve hundred objects, for $200. 
 
 The third size, six feet high, with twelve hundred objects, 
 $400. 
 
 Same size, with seventeen hundred objects, $950. 
 
 French skeletons, wired, ready for use, may be had 
 at prices ranging from $26 to $50. 
 
 The time usually required to import these articles by 
 steamer from Paris, is usually from six to eight weeks. 
 Payment is always required at the time of purchase. 
 
 Besides the manikin, and skeleton, a set of Anatomical 
 Drawings, the size of life, representing every part of the 
 human body, colored and mounted, may be had in IJe - # 
 York at $25. A complete set is composed of ele’ven figures, 
 and, inufif absence of other specimens, will serve well, in 
 the lecture-room, to illustrate physiology and anatomy. 
 
 These drawings should be placed in the office of every 
 physician, of whatever faith or practice. Schools and col¬ 
 leges should also be supplied. If it be interesting to con¬ 
 sult a map of a state, or the world, it surely cannot be less 
 useful to study a map of the human body, with all its bones, 
 muscles, nerves, arteries, veins, fibres, and other organs. 
 Let us study the geography of ourselves. 
 
 * 
 
mcretions, and may be relieved bydlie geiliiid! iMJUllliehl 
 ?o invigorate the skin as much as possible, and the strict 
 avoidance of all alkaline, saline, or earthy matter in the 
 [food. Even common salt is bad for you. 
 
 Neuralgia.— S.F., Columbia ><! Roads, Pa. “Pleasepre¬ 
 scribe a course of home-treatment for neuralgia in the hip.” 
 [This is probably what is called “Sciatica.” A tepid half- 
 ibath daily, the wet sheet pack for an hour every other 
 |day, and the dry pack an hour and a half on the alternate day, 
 ;ach followed by the tepid half-bath, a dripping-sheet, are the 
 leading bathing appliances we have found most successful. 
 
 t ^ v 
 
 5ut all this will fail without a rigidly plain and simple diet. 
 
 Stricture of the Rectum.— A. S., Iowa. The case you de¬ 
 scribe as having terminated fatally, could, no doubt, have \ 
 ieen radically cured in a good Water-cure establishment in • 
 few months. 
 
 Sore Throat.— D. M., Andover. Tell your friend to quit 
 lis nitrate of silver cauterizings, and all other druggery, if 
 le does not wish to have the inflammation of the larynx 
 terminate in fatal consumption of the lungs. The proper 
 treatment is given in the Encyclopaedia, under the head of 
 iBronchitis. 
 
 Deafness wira Mismexstruatiox. —M. S. B., Mass. Treat 
 [the latter disease especially, and with its cure the former will 
 [probably disappear. Half-baths at 80°, hip-baths about 
 70°, and foot-baths about G0°, are the best water appliances. 
 [Wear the wet girdle also, and adopt the coarsest kind of a 
 plain vegetable diet. 
 
 .Ho arsenes s and Sore Throat.—“ A Sufferer,” Orange. X. Y. 
 
 bronchitis ; and as that 
 
Return this book on or 
 
 before the 
 
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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 liberte.” 
 
 BOSSUET, Traite du Libre Arbitre. 
 
 Translated from the Second Edition of 1845, by 
 
 / 
 
 CHARLES DE LUCENA MEIGS, M. D. 
 
 MEMB. AMER. PHIL. 80C. ETC. ETC. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 HOGAN & THOMPSON. 
 
 1846 . 
 
Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the tear 1S45, 
 
 By CHARLES D. MEIGS, M. D. 
 
 in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Eastern 
 
 District of Pennsylvania. 
 
; ' 
 
 -J 
 
 I XT 
 
 r' 
 
 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 
 vs, sure, that if you approve of it, the studious 
 ' portion of our countrymen who may peruse it, 
 
 . I 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 
 
 A) 
 
 I f 370813 
 
VI 
 
 to the salutary or evil tendency of the produc¬ 
 tions 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 dis¬ 
 tinguished character, coincide with his acknow¬ 
 ledged learning, and exactness, and zeal, to 
 accumulate upon him the public respect and 
 
Vll 
 
 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 accept¬ 
 able 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 
 
Vlll 
 
 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 
 free-will, 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 appre¬ 
 hensions as to the influence of false metaphy¬ 
 sics 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 mis- 
 
IX 
 
 chievous 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. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 *» *1 
 
 ' f ■ ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 < 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY 
 
 
 DESCARTES. 
 

 
 
 
 
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 if- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 * ' 
 
 
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 phreno¬ 
 logy as it appears in the writings of Gall, 
 of Spurzheim, and of Broussais. 
 
XIV 
 
 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 me¬ 
 mory. 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. Exageration of Broussais, even in phrenology . . 140 
 
 VI. Contractility of Broussais.142 
 
 VII Real labours of Gall as to the brain.143 
 
I. 
 
 OP GALL. 
 
 OF HIS DOCTRINE IN GENERAL. 
 
 The great work in which Gall sets forth his 
 doctrine is well known.* That work shall 
 serve as the groundwork of my examination. 
 I shall examine in succession each of the 
 questions studied by the author; merely intro¬ 
 ducing some slight changes in the order in 
 which they are arranged. 
 
 * Anatomie et Physiologie du systeme nerveux en general, 
 et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possi¬ 
 bility de reconnaitre plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et 
 morales de l’homme et des animaux par la configuration de 
 leurs tetes; 4 vol. 4to, avec planches. Paris, de 1810 a 1819. 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 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 parti¬ 
 cular 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 under¬ 
 standing, there is nothing new. Gall himself 
 admits this to be the case. 
 
 “ For a long time,” says he, “both philoso¬ 
 phers and physiologists, as well as physicians, 
 have contended that the brain is the organ 
 of the soul.”* The opinion that the brain, 
 
 * 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. 
 
19 
 
 (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 
 Soemmerring, who says precisely that, “ the 
 brain is the exclusive instrument of all sensa¬ 
 tion, all thought, and all will,”* &c. He quotes 
 Haller, who proves (proves is the very expres¬ 
 sion made use of by Gall himself,) that “ sen¬ 
 sation does not take place at the point where 
 the object touches the nerve, the point where 
 the impression is made, but in the brain.”t 
 He might have quoted many other authorities 
 to the same effect. 
 
 Were not Cabanis’s writings anterior to the 
 
 * Gall, t. ii. p. 221. 
 
 f Gall, t. ii. p. 222. Haller, Elem. Physiolog. etc., t. iv. 
 p. 304. Sensus prseterea sedem in cerebro esse, atque ad 
 cerebrum per nervos mandari, alia sunt quse ostendunt. 
 
20 
 
 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. ?* 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 
 Soemmerring 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 re¬ 
 markable phrase is from the pen of Cuvier: 
 “ The proportion of the brain to the medulla 
 
 * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de Thomme, II e Me- 
 moire, § vii. 
 
21 
 
 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 intelli¬ 
 gence, because it is the best index of the pre¬ 
 eminence of the organs of reflection above 
 the organs of the external senses.”* And this 
 other still more remarkable phrase : “ In ani¬ 
 mals the intelligence appears to be greater in 
 proportion as the volume of the hemispheres 
 is greater.”! 
 
 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 re¬ 
 markable proof of this truth. When we wish 
 
 * Legons d’Anat. Comp. t. ii. p. 153. 
 
 | Ibid. p. 173. 
 
22 
 
 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 re¬ 
 gion of the heart, the stomach, or the bowels.”* 
 Doubtless, there is much that might be criti¬ 
 cised in the foregoing words of Bichat; never¬ 
 theless, 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.”! 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 
 
 * Recherches Phys. sur la Vie et la Mort, art vi. § ii. 
 
 t Ibid. 
 
23 
 
 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 consider¬ 
 ably affected by them; hence, I say, the prin¬ 
 cipal 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 imme¬ 
 diately, otherwise than through the brain.”* 
 
 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 speak- 
 
 * Descartes, Lettre a Kegius ou Leroy, t. viii. p. 515, edit, par 
 M. Cousin. 
 
24 
 
 ing, 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.”* 
 
 He elsewhere observes: “ Surprise is ex- 
 
 % 
 
 pressed 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.”! 
 
 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 follow¬ 
 ing passage shows with what precision he 
 
 * 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. 
 
 f T. vi. p. 347. 
 
25 
 
 excluded even the external senses from any 
 participation with the functions of the soul. 
 
 “I have shown,” says he, “that size, dis¬ 
 tance, and form are perceived only by the 
 reason; and that, by deducing them the one 
 from the other.”* 
 
 “ I cannot agree with the assertion that this 
 error (the error caused by the bent appear¬ 
 ance 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 
 
 * T. ii. p. 357. 
 
26 
 
 example, it is the understanding that corrects 
 the error of the sense.”* 
 
 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.”! 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.”f 
 
 Now, if it be the soul only that feels, a 
 
 * T. ii. p. 358. 
 
 | “The piincipal object of this work,” says he, “is to show 
 how all our knowledge, and all our faculties come from the 
 senses.”—Traite des Sensations, preambule de l'Extrait Rai- 
 sonne. 
 
 $ Traite des Sensations, pream. de TExtrait Raisonne. 
 
27 
 
 fortiori, it is the soul only that remembers, that 
 judges, that imagines, &c. Memory, judg¬ 
 ment, 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 exagge¬ 
 rated 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 inde¬ 
 pendent of any greater or lesser perfection of 
 the senses.”* 
 
 But I leave Helvetius and Condillac, and I 
 return to Descartes, to Willis, to Lapeyronie, 
 to Haller, Soemmerring, 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 
 
 * De l’homme, de ses facultes intellectuelles, etc. t. i. p. 186. 
 Liege, 1774. 
 
28 
 
 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 him¬ 
 self 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.* 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 deve¬ 
 loped in the quadruped than in man. Sight 
 
 * He very properly distinguishes the senses from the under¬ 
 standing ; 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. 
 
29 
 
 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 Spurz- 
 heim followed Gall’s opinion; and all the 
 
30 
 
 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 conse¬ 
 quence thereof, its life.* Neither of these parts, 
 therefore, that is to say, the cerebellum, the 
 tubercula quadrigemina, and the medulla ob¬ 
 longata, 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.! 
 
 The brain, en masse, the encephalon , is then 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions du Systeme Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842. 
 
 f Ibid. 
 
31 
 
 a multiple organ ; and this multiple organ con¬ 
 sists of four particular organs: the cerebellum, 
 the seat of the principle that regulates the 
 movements of locomotion; the tubercula quad- 
 rigemina, 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.* 
 
 Therefore, when the phrenologists promis¬ 
 cuously place the intellectual and moral facul¬ 
 ties 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 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 Ies fonctions du Systeme Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842. 
 
32 
 
 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 intel- 
 
 4 
 
 ligence 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 hemi¬ 
 spheres. Birds are the animals most highly 
 endowed with power of motion; their cerebel¬ 
 lum 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 
 
33 
 
 proper, is designed for the purposes of the 
 intellection. 
 
 This being conceded, it is evident that the 
 
 1 
 
 entire brain cannot be divided, as the phreno¬ 
 logists divide it, into a number of small organs, 
 each of which is the seat of a distinct intellec¬ 
 tual 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 ques¬ 
 tion 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 funda¬ 
 mental 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 
 ichole brain , and he thus deceived himself. 
 
 Let us reduce the application of his proposition 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 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.* 
 
 On the other hand, in proportion as these 
 reductions by slicing away the hemispheres 
 are continued, the intelligence becomes en¬ 
 feebled, and grows gradually less; and certain 
 limits being passed, is wholly extinguished. 
 Hence it appears, that the cerebral hemi¬ 
 spheres concur, by their whole mass, in the 
 full and entire exercise of the intelligence.! 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions du Systeme Nerveux. 
 f Ibid. 
 
35 
 
 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 facul¬ 
 ties, 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.* 
 
 The understanding is, therefore, a unit. 
 According to Gall, there are as many par¬ 
 ticular 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.t 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions du Systeme Nerveux. 
 
 f “ From what I have now said, it dearly follows that the 
 aperceptive faculty, the faculty of reminiscence, and that of 
 
36 
 
 “ All the intellectual faculties,” says he, “are 
 endowed with the perceptive faculty, with 
 attention, recollection, memory, judgment, and 
 imagination.”* 
 
 Thus each faculty perceives, remembers, 
 judges, imagines, compares, creates; but these 
 are trifles—for each faculty reasons. “ When¬ 
 ever,” 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.t 
 
 Therefore, each and every faculty is an 
 understanding by itself, and Gall says so ex¬ 
 pressly. “There are,” says he, “as many 
 different kinds of intellect or understanding as 
 
 memory, are nothing but attributes common to all the funda¬ 
 mental 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. 
 
 * Ibid. 328. 
 
 t Ibid. 327. 
 
37 
 
 there are distinct faculties.”* “Each distinct 
 faculty,” says he, further, “ is intellect or 
 understanding — each individual intelligence 
 (the words are precise) has its proper organ.”t 
 
 But, admitting all these kinds of intellects , 
 
 m 
 
 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,! or the collective expression of 
 all the faculties, or even the mere simple result 
 of their common and simultaneous action ;§ 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. 
 
 * Gall. t. iv. p. 339. -j- Ibid. p. 341. 
 
 4 “ 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. 
 
 §“ Reason,” says Gall, “is the result of the simultaneous 
 action of all the intellectual faculties.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 341. 
 
38 
 
 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,* 
 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 Male- 
 branche, 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 
 
 * Gall enumerates twenty-seven of these faculties, Spurzheim 
 enumerates twenty-five, &c. 
 
39 
 
 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.”* 
 
 “ 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,”t &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 diffi¬ 
 culty remains just where it was before. 
 
 * Gall, t. iv. p. 325. f Ibid. p. 330. 
 
40 
 
 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 trans¬ 
 muting into a particular understanding each 
 
41 
 
 separate mode* 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 think¬ 
 ing ; 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.”t 
 
 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, 
 
 * “ 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. 
 t T. viii. p. 169. 
 
42 
 
 He had given a definition of reason : “ The 
 result of the simultaneous action of all the 
 intellectual faculties.”* In the same way he 
 defined will to be “ the result of the simul¬ 
 taneous action of the superior intellectual facul- 
 ties.”t 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.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 indepen- 
 
 * Gall, iv. p. 341. + Ibid, 
 
 t Ibid, t ii. p. 100. 
 
43 
 
 dently of all law, but that he is the creator of 
 his own nature. 55 * 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 phe¬ 
 nomenon occurring without any cause what¬ 
 ever. 55 ! Why without cause ? The cause 
 is in the power of choosing—and this power 
 is a fact. 
 
 GalPs 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 
 
 * Gall, t. ii. p. 97. 
 
 f Ibid. 
 
44 
 
 compulsory determination,* 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. t 
 
 Reason, will, liberty, are therefore, not as 
 in Gall’s doctrine, positive faculties , active 
 powers; or rather, they are the understand¬ 
 ing itself. Reason, will, liberty, are in fact 
 the understanding, as conceiving , willing , 
 choosing , or dcliberating.% 
 
 The consciousness which feels itself to be 
 one, feels itself free. And you will remark, 
 that these two great facts given out by the 
 
 * “ 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. 
 
 j* “But an organ may act with greater energy, and furnish 
 a more powerful motive.”—T. ii. p. 104. 
 
 t “ 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 
 
 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 
 
46 
 
 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 exa¬ 
 mine 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 .” 
 
 * 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. 
 
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,* he 
 substitutes a number of small brains : instead 
 of one general sole understanding, he sub¬ 
 stitutes several individual understandings.! 
 
 * 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 understand¬ 
 ing. See the preceding article, p. 29, et seq. 
 
 f Individual intelligences —an expression of Gall's. “ Each 
 individual intelligence has its own proper organ.”—iv. 341. 
 
48 
 
 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 me¬ 
 mory, its judgment, its imagination ; &c.* 
 
 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. 
 
 * 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, judg¬ 
 ment, 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 
 
 “The sense of numbers,” says he, “pos¬ 
 sesses a judgment for the relations of num¬ 
 bers ; 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.”* 
 
 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.”t 
 
 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 
 
 * Gall, t. iv. p. 325. f Ibid. 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 of each. Such is the entire psycology of 
 Gall. 
 
 To proceed. Gall’s twenty-seven faculties 
 are : the instinct of propagation, love of off¬ 
 spring, 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 rela¬ 
 tions 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/* 
 and this assertion certainly will not be con¬ 
 tested. 
 
 Locke, who so vigorously opposed the doc¬ 
 trine of innate ideas, never decried the innate - 
 
 * See particularly t. ii. p. 5. 
 
51 
 
 ness of our faculties. He always regarded 
 them as natural, that is to say, innate* 
 
 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 .t 
 
 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, 
 
 * “ 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 Under¬ 
 standing. 
 
 f “ 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 some¬ 
 thing 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.”—Traite des Sensations. (Extrait raisonn£.) 
 
52 
 
 they are the soul itself, viewed under different 
 aspects. But the operations of the soul suc¬ 
 ceed each other, and beget each other. There 
 can be no memory without previous percep¬ 
 tion ; there can be no judgment without recol¬ 
 lection. 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 .* 
 
 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 
 
 * See t. iii. p. 81. 
 
53 
 
 the me is no longer one. I am well aware 
 
 i 
 
 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 contem¬ 
 plate 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.”* 
 
 Gall reverses the common philosophy, and 
 it is worthy of remark, that the whole of his 
 philosophy, which he thinks so novel,! is, to 
 
 * T. i. p. 343. 
 
 f “ I may now flatter myself,” says he, “ that the reader is 
 
54 
 
 the very letter, nothing more nor less than 
 this very inversion. According to common 
 philosophy, there is one general understand¬ 
 ing—a unit; and there are faculties which are 
 but modes of this understanding. Gall asserts 
 that there are as many kinds of peculiar intel¬ 
 ligences 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, recollec¬ 
 tion, memory, judgment, and imagination, are 
 not fundamental faculties, but merely their 
 general attributes.”* 
 
 Gall first inverts the common philosophy, 
 and then contends for the existence of all the 
 consequences of that common philosophy. 
 
 sufficiently prepared for quite a new philosophy, deduced 
 directly from the fundamental forces.”—T. iii. p. 11. 
 
 * T. iv. p. 327. 
 
55 
 
 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.”* 
 
 By the contrary reasoning, neither the will, 
 nor the reason, nor the understanding, are 
 
 * T. iv. p. 319. 
 
56 
 
 possessed of any organs, for they are nothing 
 but forces ; they are nothing but nouns collec¬ 
 tive—words. 
 
 “ These observations may suffice,” says Gall, 
 “ to convince the reader that there cannot exist 
 any special organ of the will, or the freewill.”* 
 He adds: “ It is equally impossible that there 
 should be any peculiar organ of the reason.”t 
 
 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 inad¬ 
 missible as the idea of an organ of the 
 instinct.”;}: 
 
 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.§ He divides the under¬ 
 standing into little understandings. 
 
 * T. iv. p. 341. j- Ibid. $ Ibid. 
 
 § “ Each individual understanding possesses its own proper 
 organ.”—T. iv. p. 341. 
 
57 
 
 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.”* 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.”t 
 
 Thus, we find that the faculties alone are 
 
 * T. i. p. 230. 
 
 f T. iv. p. 105. 
 
58 
 
 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. There¬ 
 fore, 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 free¬ 
 will. Will, liberty, reason, in his view,* 
 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 concur¬ 
 rence of several superior faculties is requisite. 
 The motives must be weighed, compared, and 
 
 * See the preceding articles. 
 
59 
 
 judged; the decision resulting from this opera¬ 
 tion is denominated will.”* 
 
 “ Reason,” he further adds, “ supposes a 
 concerted action of the superior faculties. It 
 is the judgment pronounced by the superior 
 intellectual faculties.”! 
 
 Hence, the will is nothing hut a decision; 
 reason is nothing but a judgment . The facul¬ 
 ties concert together . What a singular phi¬ 
 losophy, 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 sup- 
 
 * T. iv. p. 340. “ From all these faculties comes at last 
 
 decision. It is this decision . . . which is really will and wish¬ 
 ing.”—T. ii. p. 105. 
 f T. iv. p. 341. 
 
60 
 
 poses 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 / 5 says Gall, “ that 
 the human race are endowed with an organ 
 by means of which it recognises and admires 
 the Author of the universe.”* 
 
 “ God exists / 5 adds he, “for there is an 
 organ to know and* adore him. 55 t 
 
 But he continues: “Climate and other cir¬ 
 cumstances may obstruct the development of 
 the cerebral part, by means of which the 
 Creator designed to reveal himself to his crea¬ 
 ture man. 55 f 
 
 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. 55 § 
 
 * T. iv. p. 269. -f T. iv. p. 271. 
 
 $ T. iv. p. 252. § T. iv. p. 252. 
 
61 
 
 Farther: “ There is no God for beines whose 
 
 0 
 
 organization does not bear the original stamp 
 of determinate faculties.”* 
 
 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.”t 
 
 My understanding, which perceives itself 
 and feels itself to be an effect; necessarily per* 
 ceives the intelligent Cause which produced 
 it. “ It is a very evident thing,” says Des¬ 
 cartes 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, 
 
 * T. iv. p. 10. 
 
 t T. i. p. 290. 
 
62 
 
 whatsoever be in fact the cause of my being, 
 I am compelled to confess, that it also is 
 something that thinks.”* 
 
 Hitherto I have considered GalPs 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 to¬ 
 gether, sanctions every monstrous infamy, 
 extinguishes all shame and all remorse, and 
 degrades and deforms without recovery the 
 whole human race.”t 
 
 Nothing astonishes a phrenologist. 
 
 “ Let us imagine,” says Gall, “ a woman in 
 whom the love of offspring is but little deve¬ 
 loped, . . if, unfortunately, the organ of murder 
 
 * T. i. p. 287. 
 
 f Article “ Liberte,” Diction. Encyclop. 
 
63 
 
 be very much developed in her, need we be 
 surprised if her hand.”* &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.”! 
 
 “Let those haughty men,” says he again, 
 “ who cause nations to be slaughtered by thou¬ 
 sands, know that they do not act of their own 
 accord, but that Nature herself has filled their 
 hearts with rage and destructiveness. 
 
 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 
 
 * T. iii. p. 155. Such phrases cannot be concluded, 
 t T. iii. p. 213. * Ibid. 219. 
 
64 
 
 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 re¬ 
 fuge, is a being who degrades his nature. 
 
 Under the title of fundamental faculties , 
 Gall confounds all things together—the pas¬ 
 sions, 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,* 
 inclinations, senses, memories, &c. There is 
 a memory or sense of things, a memory or 
 sense of persons, &c. He confounds the in¬ 
 stinct that leads certain animals to live in 
 
 * “ 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 Tlntelligence des Animaux, etc. 
 Paris, 1845, 2d edit. 
 
65 
 
 elevated regions with pride, which is a moral 
 sentiment in man the carnivorous instinct 
 with courage ;t he believes that conscience, 
 (which is the soul judging itself,) is nothing 
 but a modification of a particular sense, the 
 sense of benevolence, &c.J 
 
 The hesitation of his mind is visible every 
 where. 
 
 * 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 senti¬ 
 ment ! Let the reader imagine the astonishment excited in my 
 mind by such a phenomenon.”—T. iii. 311. 
 
 j- “ 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. 
 
 t “ 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. 
 
 5 
 
66 
 
 “ I leave it to the reader/’ says he, “ to 
 decide whether the fundamental faculty to 
 which this penchant relates, should be deno¬ 
 minated sense of elevation, self-esteem/’ &c.* 
 
 66 To speak correctly,” continues he, “ firm¬ 
 ness is neither a penchant nor a faculty; it is 
 a mode-of-being, which gives to a man a dis¬ 
 tinctive quality, which is called character.”! 
 
 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 
 
 * T. iii. p. 321. 
 
 t T. iv. p. 272. 
 
67 
 
 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.”* 
 
 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 
 
 * T. ii. p. 287. 
 
68 
 
 experiment. In the present one his psycology 
 has been examined, and it is confuted by the 
 consciousness (le sens intime ). It only re¬ 
 mains for us now to examine his anatomy . 
 
 % 
 
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 ;* and M. Cuvier made a report upon 
 that memoir. But neither in that memoir nor 
 
 * Recherches sur le systeme nerveux en general et sur celui 
 du cerveau en particulier; memoire presente a l’lnstitut de 
 France, le 14 Mars, 1808; suivi d’Observations sur le rapport 
 qui en a ete fait a cette compagnie par ses commissaires, par 
 F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim. Paris, 1809. 
 
70 
 
 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 excep¬ 
 tion, 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 con¬ 
 vergent; he supposes that each convolution of 
 this organ, instead of being a full and solid 
 mass, as is generally thought, is merely a fold* 
 of nervous or medullary fibres, &c. &c. 
 
 Such are the questions discussed by Gall; 
 and it is sufficiently clear that, whatever side 
 
 * “ The nervous membrane of the brain forms these folds, 
 which are denominated its convolutions.”—Anat. et Physiol, 
 du Systeme Nerveux, t. iii. p. 82. 
 
71 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 duced by the gray; or whether, which is, to 
 say the least, quite as probable, this be non¬ 
 sense ; whether this or that fibre goes out or 
 comes in, diverges or converges, &c. &c. the 
 doctrine of the plurality of brains, the doc¬ 
 trine of individual intelligences, will be neither 
 more nor less true, more nor less doubtful.* 
 
 M. Cuvier, in his report, observed: “ It is 
 essential to repeat, were it merely for the 
 information of the public, that the anatomical 
 
 * 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 func¬ 
 tions] None at all.”—Obser. sur la Phrenologie, ou la con- 
 naissance de l’homme moral et intellectuel fondee sur les 
 fonctions du Systeme Nerveux, p. 83. Paris, 1818. 
 
72 
 
 questions we have been considering, have no 
 
 t 
 
 immediate and necessary connexion with the 
 physiological doctrines taught by M. Gall, as 
 to the functions and relative volume of dif¬ 
 ferent 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.”* 
 
 It is necessary not to make any mistake 
 as to the real point of the question. Gaiks 
 doctrine goes to establish one and only one 
 thing, to wit, the plurality of intelligences 
 and the plurality of brains .t That is what 
 constitutes the special and peculiar doctrine; 
 
 * Rapport sur un Memoire de MM. Gall et Spurzheim, re- 
 latif a l’anat. du cerveau. Seances des 25 Avril et 2 Mai, 1808. 
 
 •j- “ 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. 
 
73 
 
 that is to say, different from the common doc¬ 
 trine, 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 consti¬ 
 tute 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 
 
74 
 
 faculties for the understanding, he defines 
 those faculties. He defines them, as we 
 have already seen, to be individual intelli¬ 
 gences. 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 
 
75 
 
 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 medul¬ 
 lary portion, which is a mere collection of an 
 infinite number of pipes.”* 
 
 “ The small arteries of the cortical part of 
 the brain,” says Haller, “ transmit a spirituous 
 liquor into the medullary and nervous tubes.”t 
 It is evident that the organs of Gall have 
 no more real existence than the pipes of Pour- 
 four 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 
 
 * Lettre d’un Medecin des HSpitaux du Roi. Namur. 1710. 
 t Elementa Physiologise, t. iv. p. 384. 
 
76 
 
 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 con¬ 
 stituting 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 ;* 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 
 
 * “ 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. 
 
t 
 
 77 
 
 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 lan¬ 
 guage , the sense of mechanics , the sense of 
 the relations of colours , &c. &c. 
 
 “ As we must admit,”* says he, “ five dif¬ 
 ferent 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.”* 
 
 “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 
 
 * T. iv. p. 9. 
 
78 
 
 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.”* 
 
 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 pos¬ 
 sesses 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 reminis¬ 
 cence,”! &c. 
 
 * T. iv. p. 9. 
 
 | T. ii. p. 234. 
 
79 
 
 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* 
 are removed from an animal, the animal im¬ 
 mediately loses its sight. 
 
 And yet nothing, as regards the eyes them¬ 
 selves, has been changed; objects continue to 
 be depicted upon the retina, the iris retains its 
 contractility, and the optic nerve its excita¬ 
 bility. 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 struc¬ 
 ture of the eye, and yet the animal does not 
 
 * The brain, properly so called. 
 
80 
 
 see ! Therefore it is not the eye that perceives, 
 nor is it the eye that sees.* 
 
 The eye does not see; it is the understand¬ 
 ing that sees by means of the eyes.t 
 
 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. Impres¬ 
 sion is multiple ; perception is single. 
 
 When the hemispheres are removed, the 
 animal instantly loses its perception; it no 
 longer sees nor hears,f &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. 
 
 * I see with my eyes.—M. 
 
 j- See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions da Systeme Nerveax, 2d edit. 1842. 
 
 * Ibid. 
 
81 
 
 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 
 
 i 
 
 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 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 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 .* 
 
 According to Gall, the origin, the develop¬ 
 ment, 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 un¬ 
 solved. 
 
 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 neces- 
 
 * See at the end of this work the first Note on Gall’s 
 Anatomy. 
 
83 
 
 sary, 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 pro¬ 
 duce 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.”* 
 
 * 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 Phrenol., &c. 
 p. 74. “ It is found that the brain is composed of many bundles, 
 which must have their functions.”—Ibid. p. 94. “ The organs 
 
84 
 
 t find there are yet some others; be it so ; 
 but they never can amount to twenty-seven. 
 
 Again he says : “ A more extensive develop¬ 
 ment 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.”* 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 blem under consideration,” says he, “ supposes 
 the organs of the soul to be situated at the 
 surface of the brain.”t Indeed, were they 
 not situated at the surface of the brain, how 
 
 . . . . are composed of divergent bundles, of convolutions, and of 
 the commissures.”—Ibid. 
 
 * T. iv. p. 8. “ Bonnet believes, and it is probable, that each 
 nerve fibre has its own proper action.”—Ibid, 
 j- T. iii. p. 2. 
 
85 
 
 could the cranium bear the impression of 
 them ? and what would become of cranios- 
 copy ? 
 
 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 ex¬ 
 plains 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.”* 
 
 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 experi¬ 
 ment that shows how very much mistaken 
 Gall is. 
 
 You can slice off a considerable portion of 
 
 * T. iii. p. 4. 
 
86 
 
 an animal’s brain, either in front, behind, on 
 one side, or on the top, without his losing any 
 one of his faculties.* 
 
 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 oppo¬ 
 site to Gall’s opinions than is direct experi¬ 
 ment 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 .t 
 
 For example; he places what he calls the 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions du Systeme Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842. See also the 
 first article of this work. 
 
 f It must, however, be one or the other; for it must be some¬ 
 thing. Might it be a convolution, as has been since said ! But 
 there are not seven and twentv convolutions,&c. &c. 
 
 r # 
 
87 
 
 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,”* &c. 
 
 What! The cerebellum, so different in its 
 structure from the great brain, is the cere¬ 
 bellum, like the brain,t to be considered an 
 organ of instinct ? And what is more, is it to 
 be regarded as the organ of a single instinct 
 
 * T. ii. p. 163. 
 
 j- Gall, as we have seen, confounds understanding with 
 instinct. Literally, he divides understanding into many in¬ 
 stincts, 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’lnstinct et de Intelligence des Animaux,” 2d 
 edit. 1845. 
 
88 
 
 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* of the animal, and that it is 
 not the seat of any instinct. 
 
 Gall places the love of offspring in the pos¬ 
 terior lobes of the brain.t 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. J 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 
 
 * See my Recherches Experimentales sur les proprietes et 
 les fonctions du Systeme Nervoux, 2d edit. 1842. 
 
 | “ The organ of philogeniture, or the last convolution of the 
 cerebral lobes.”—Spurzheim, Obser. sur la Phren., &c. p. 117. 
 
 $ With very few exceptions. 
 
89 
 
 both man and animals, in the posterior part 
 of the brain ; in the anterior part he places 
 those* that are peculiar to man alone. Accord¬ 
 ing 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 pos¬ 
 terior parts, and those that are most invariably 
 present are the anterior partsA 
 
 If, from the brain, I pass on to consider the 
 cranium, all the foregoing is found to be of 
 
 * “ 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. 
 
 t “ 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. iN'erveux, considere dans ses rapports 
 avec l’lntelligence, t. i. p. 588. Paris, 1839. 
 
90 
 
 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 circum¬ 
 volutions, 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.”* “ There are cer¬ 
 tain species in which there is no frontal 
 sinus; in others, the cells betwixt the two 
 bony laminae are found throughout the whole 
 skull,”t &c. &c. 
 
 The cranium represents the convolutions of 
 
 * T. iii. p. 20. 
 
 f T. iii. p. 26. 
 
91 
 
 the brain only upon its inner surface; it does 
 not represent them upon its external super¬ 
 ficies. 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.* Such confidence surprises one. 
 Nothing is known of the intimate structure of 
 
 * It is curious to see how M. Vimont, a very decided phreno¬ 
 logist 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.”—Traite de Phren. 
 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 indi¬ 
 
 cates 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 
 
 # 
 
92 
 
 the brain,* and yet people are bold enough 
 to trace upon it their circumscriptions, their 
 circles, their boundaries. The external sur¬ 
 face of the skull does not represent the brain’s 
 
 remarks, yet this same M. Vimont inscribes the following 
 twenty-nine names on the skull of a goose! 
 
 1. Conservation. 
 
 15. Configuration. 
 
 2. Choice of aliment. 
 
 16. Extent. 
 
 3. Destruction. 
 
 17. Distance. 
 
 4. Cunning. 
 
 18. Geometrical sense. 
 
 5. Courage. 
 
 19. Resistance. 
 
 6. Choice of locality. 
 
 20. Localities. 
 
 7. Concentration. 
 
 21. Order. 
 
 8. Attachment to life, or 
 
 22. Time. 
 
 marriage. 
 
 23. Language. 
 
 9. Attachment. 
 
 24. Eventuality. 
 
 10. Reproduction. 
 
 25. Construction. 
 
 11. Attachment to the pro¬ 
 
 26. Musical talent. 
 
 duct of conception. 
 
 27. Imitation. 
 
 12. Property. 
 
 28. Comparison. 
 
 13. Circumspection. 
 
 29. Gentleness. 
 
 14. Perception of substance. 
 
 “ 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.” 
 
 * 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 struc¬ 
 ture, &c.”—T. iii. p. 70. 
 
 
93 
 
 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 doc¬ 
 trine, 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 inter¬ 
 locutor touches upon one of our favourite 
 
 
94 
 
 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 play¬ 
 fellows, and his emulators, . . . Ask him about 
 his games, &c. Few persons think it neces¬ 
 sary 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.”* 
 
 * T. iii. p. 63. 
 
95 
 
 Descartes shut himself up in a stove,* 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.”t 
 
 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 doc¬ 
 trine succeeded just as Lavater’s did. Men 
 
 * “ I remained a whole day shut up in an oven.”—T. i. 133. 
 
 f T. i. p. 263. 
 
96 
 
 will always be looking out for external signs 
 by which to discover secret thoughts and con¬ 
 cealed 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 philo¬ 
 sophy, because it is true; because the search 
 after truth, of whatsoever kind, requires 
 strenuous and continual efforts. It is impos¬ 
 sible, 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.”* 
 
 Descartes goes off to die in Sweden, and 
 Gall comes to reign in France. 
 
 * Eloge de Toumefort. 
 
OF SPURZHEIM. 
 
 Spurzheim published two works; the first 
 of which is entitled, “ Observations sur la 
 Phrenologie, ou la connaissance de Phomme 
 moral et intellectuel, fondee sur les fonctions 
 du systeme nerveux the title of the second 
 is, “Essai philosophique sur la nature morale 
 et intellectuelle de Phomme ;”t and these two 
 works are merely a reproduction of the doc- 
 
 * One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1818. Phrenology is the very 
 name given by Spurzheim to the doctrine of Gall. 
 
 d 
 
 f One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1820. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 trine of Gall. Spurzheim makes Gall’s book 
 over again—the same book that they com¬ 
 menced together—and abridges it. 
 
 Spurzheim tells us how he heard Gall, and 
 having heard him, felt himself drawn to par¬ 
 ticipate 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.* 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 sisrht of it as an 
 
 * 
 
 * Observ. sur la Pkrenol. &c. p. 8. 
 
99 
 
 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.* * * § 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.t 
 
 In fact, the two authors, uniting their 
 labours, first published, in 1808, their fine 
 memoir upon the anatomy of the brain,J and 
 subsequently, in 1810 and 1812, the two first 
 volumes of Gall’s great work.§ 
 
 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 
 
 * Observ. sur la Phren. p. 20. 
 
 -j- Ibid. p. 22. 
 
 t Rech. sur le Syst. Nerv. en general, &c. par F. J. Gall et 
 G. Spurzheim. 
 
 § Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerveux, &c., the work which has 
 been examined in the three preceding articles. 
 
100 
 
 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 facul¬ 
 ties, by understanding, by will, &c. &c. and 
 it is there that he defines the faculties of the 
 individual understandings;* understanding, a 
 simple attribute of each faculty ;t will, a 
 simple result of the simultaneous action of 
 superior faculties, &c.f 
 
 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. 
 
 * T. iv. p. 341. j- Ibid. p. 327. 
 
 4 Ibid. p. 341. 
 
101 
 
 Gall’s mind was full of address. We have 
 seen his method of studying men.* In his 
 great work there is a dominant tone of phi¬ 
 losophy ; for the doctrine was already esta¬ 
 blished 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 pro¬ 
 duced by the doctrine.! “If,” writes Gall at 
 the period in question, “ the exterminating 
 angel was under my orders, wo to Kaestner, 
 to Kant, to Wieland, and others like them. . . . 
 Why is it, that no one has ever preserved 
 
 * In the preceding article, p. 93. 
 
 f Lettre de Charles Villers a Georges Cuvier, sur une 
 nouvelle theorie du cerveau, par le Docteur Gall, &c. Metz, 
 1802. 
 
i 
 
 102 
 
 for our times, the skulls of Ilomer, Virgil, 
 Cicero, &c. ?”* 
 
 “ 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 distin¬ 
 guished 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 espe¬ 
 cially longed for by him, as a specimen of the 
 utmost importance to the success of his ex¬ 
 periments. 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.”! 
 
 * Lettre de Charles Villers, &c. p. 34. 
 
 f Ibid. 
 
103 
 
 Gall and Spurzheim differ from each other 
 upon several points: upon the offices of the 
 external senses ; upon the names of the facul¬ 
 ties of the soul; upon their number; and upon 
 the classification of the faculties, &c. Let 
 us examine a few of the points more par¬ 
 ticularly. 
 
 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. 
 
104 
 
 I do not believe we can conclude that the eyes 
 or the ears are the seats of reminiscence.”* 
 Spurzheim is right, as we have sufficiently 
 seen;t 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 particu¬ 
 lar and secondary error :± the error that he 
 does not perceive, the error that he follows, is 
 a general and capital one. From the inde¬ 
 pendence 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 Spurz¬ 
 heim reasons just as Gall does. * N 
 
 “ In the nervous system,” says he, “ we 
 find the five external senses separate and 
 
 * Observ. sur la Phren., &c. p. 10. 
 f Especially in the last article. 
 
 $ 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. 
 
105 
 
 independent of each other .”* “ The faculties 
 
 of the external senses are attached to different 
 organs ; they may exist separately. The same 
 holds true of the internal senses.”t “We 
 assert that there is a particular organ for 
 each species of sentiment or thought, as there 
 is for each species of exterior sensation.”:): 
 
 Like Gall, Spurzheim denominates the facul¬ 
 ties 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 ,Ӥ &c. &c. 
 
 Both authors begin by calling the faculties 
 of the soul internal senses; and then, misled 
 by the word, they conclude from the indepen¬ 
 dence of the external senses , to the indepen¬ 
 dence of their internal senses; that is to say, 
 the independence of the faculties of the soul. 
 
 * Observ. sur la Phren., &c. p. 65. f Ibid. p. 67. 
 
 $ Ibid. p. 75. 
 
 § See particularly the Essai philosophique sur la morale et 
 intellectuelle de l’homme, p. 54, et seq. 
 
10G 
 
 2. Names of the faculties . Spurzheim ac¬ 
 cuses 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 cere¬ 
 bral part from the action; thus, he spoke of 
 the organs of music, poetry, &c.”* “ 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.”! 
 
 Gall replies: “ M. Spurzheim cannot have 
 forgotten how often we reasoned without end, 
 with a view to determine the primitive desti- 
 
 * Observ. sur la Phrcn. p. 17. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 127. 
 
107 
 
 nation of an organ.I confess, that there 
 
 are several organs, with whose primary facul¬ 
 ties 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.”* 
 
 Indeed, Spurzheim’s expedient for render¬ 
 ing himself master of the primary faculties is 
 very simple. He creates a word: he calls the 
 instinct of propagation amativity , the pro¬ 
 pensity to steal, convoitivity; courage is com - 
 bativity , &c. &c. 
 
 Gall and Spurzheim talk a great deal about 
 nomenclature ; but they do not perceive, that 
 as to nomenclature, the first difficulty, and 
 
 * Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., &c. t. iii. p. 19. This 
 volume came out the same year as Spurzheim’s Observ., &c. 
 
108 
 
 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 ac¬ 
 customed, that it therefore understands scarcely 
 any thing perfectly well.”* 
 
 3. Number of the faculties . Spurzheim 
 adds eight faculties to those established by 
 
 * T. iv. p. 67. 
 
109 
 
 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 ?* 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 
 
 * 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, recog¬ 
 nises 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 manifesta¬ 
 tion 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. 
 
110 
 
 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 attri¬ 
 butes 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.”* 
 
 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 clas¬ 
 sification agreed upon are omitted.! 
 
 * Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 216. 
 
 j- See the Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 47, et scq. 
 
Ill 
 
 In the first place, there are two orders of 
 
 4 
 
 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,* and the affective faculties peculiar 
 to man alone.t The second has three genera: 
 the faculties or internal senses which make 
 external objects known the faculties or 
 internal senses which make known the rela¬ 
 tions of objects in general ;§ and the faculties 
 or internal senses that reflect.\ 
 
 * 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 Circum¬ 
 spection, the sense of Approbation, the sense of Self-love. 
 (What a chaos, and what words!) 
 
 f 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. 
 
 f The sense of Individuality, of Extent, of Configuration, of 
 Consistence, of Weight, of Colour. f 
 
 § The sense of Localities, of Numeration, of Order, of 
 Phenomena, of Time, of Method, of Artificial Language. 
 
 || The sense of Comparison, the sense of Causality. 
 
112 
 
 What an apparatus for saying very simple 
 things; for saying that there are propensi¬ 
 ties * * * § sentiments ,t and intellectual faculties! 
 What singular personification of all these 
 faculties: faculties that know; faculties that 
 reflectlf Spurzheim elsewhere speaks of 
 happy faculties .§ Indeed, what arbitrariness 
 in the distribution of facts! And Gall, too, 
 is he not half right? 
 
 “By what right,” says he, “does M. Spurz¬ 
 heim exclude from the intellectual faculties 
 imitation, wit, ideality or poetry, circumspec¬ 
 tion, secretivity, constructivity ? How are per¬ 
 severance, circumspection, imitation; how are 
 
 * “ Some of the affective faculties produce only a desire, an 
 inclination. ... I shall call them propensities.’'—Observ. sur la 
 Phrenol., &c. p. 124. 
 
 ■f “ Other affective faculties are not restricted to a simple 
 inclination, but something beyond; which is what is called 
 sentiment or feeling."—Ibid. 
 
 i “ The intellectual faculties are also double: some of them 
 know; others reflect."—Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 225. 
 
 § “The faculties peculiar to man are happy in themselves, 
 per se.”—Ibid. p. 167. 
 
113 
 
 they sentiments? What reason have we for 
 counting among the propensities construe- 
 tivity rather than melody, benevolence, or 
 imitation ?* 
 
 Gall, by endowing each faculty with all the 
 attributes of an understanding, makes as many 
 understandings as faculties. Spurzheim makes 
 several kinds of understandings: understand¬ 
 ings 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; Spurz¬ 
 heim looks upon it as a peculiar faculty. 
 Gall resolves that there is only one organ of 
 religion , and Spurzheim insists upon three— 
 
 * Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv. &c. t. iii. p. 27. 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 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. 
 
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;* 
 but soon, by an immoderate generalization of 
 this fine result, he perceives all affections in 
 the same affection, all diseases in the same 
 
 * See his Histoire des Phlegmas. Chron. 1808. 
 
116 
 
 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 ;* and he who 
 is so intolerant of the personifications pro¬ 
 posed 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 form¬ 
 ing 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 locali¬ 
 zations to establish. 
 
 Broussais ought not to be judged of by his 
 “ Cours de Phrenologie.”t The five or six 
 
 * See his work entitled, “ De l’lrritation et de la Folie,” 1828. 
 
 | Cours de Phrenologie, 1 vol. 8vo. 1836. 
 
117 
 
 first lessons, or, as he calls them, generalities ,* * * § 
 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 ;t he calls perception 
 a primary faculty ,t &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 ;§ 
 that the instincts and the sentiments possess 
 a memory, as the external perceptions || have 
 theirs; that the mind is the sum of the facul¬ 
 ties ,1 &c.; and Gall could not say it more 
 clearly. 
 
 * Cours de Phrenologie, p. 82. 
 
 f Ibid. p. 140. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 37. 
 
 § “ Memory is not an isolated faculty; and there are as many 
 memories as organs.”—p. 131. 
 
 || “ The instincts and the sentiments have a memory as well 
 as the external perceptions.”—p. 36. 
 
 Tf “. . . . The study of the human mind, not indeed that of a 
 
118 
 
 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. . . 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 ,t intra-cranial central 
 being,\ person par excellence, &c.§ 
 
 He laughs at the moi of Descartes; he 
 forgets that the moi of Gall is either no¬ 
 thing else than the sum ( ensemble ) of the 
 intellectual faculties, or nothing else than a 
 word; and he makes for himself a peculiar 
 
 fictitious one bearing this mysterious appellation, but of the 
 ensemble of the mental faculties of man.”—p. 82. 
 
 * Page 48. 
 
 \ “ The favorers of the intra-cranial entity.”—p. 153. 
 
 $ “ Their central intra-cranial being, to which they attribute 
 all their faculties.” 
 
 § “ Suppose they had called this being po'son par excel¬ 
 lence. . . .”— p. 75. 
 
119 
 
 moi,* which he locates in the organ of com¬ 
 parison. “ We owe,” says he, “ to the organ 
 of general comparison the distinction of one 
 person expressed by the sign me .”t 
 
 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 ,X and the medical doctrines are shook 
 
 * Let us examine, as to this particular ( moi) me, all Brous- 
 sais’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.’ 5 —Cours de Phren., 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 rae, 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 percep¬ 
 tions.”—Ibid. p. 119. 
 
 f Cours de Phrenologie, p. 684. 
 
 4 Examen de la Doctrine Medicale, etc. 1816. 
 
120 
 
 for half a century: we ought to read that 
 
 volume over again, and forget the “Cours 
 
 « 
 
 de Phr^nologie.” 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 
 
 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 think¬ 
 ing : u The understanding and its different 
 manifestations are,” says he, “ the phenomena 
 of the nervous actions.”* “The faculties,” 
 says he further, “ are the actions of the mate¬ 
 rial organs,”t &c. 
 
 * Cours de Phrenologie, p. 717. 
 
 f Cours de Phrenologie, p. 77. He also says, “ Their central 
 intra-cranial being, to which they attribute all the faculties of a 
 
122 
 
 Broussais’s whole psycology is contained in 
 these words. The organ, and the phenome¬ 
 non 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 * 
 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 
 
 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 phy¬ 
 siology ; and even (for it should be clearly understood) nothing 
 but Broussais’s physiology. 
 
 * “ In order to form for one’s self a just notion of the opera¬ 
 tions 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, II me- 
 moire, § vii. 
 
123 
 
 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.”* 
 
 The consciousness tells me that I am one , 
 
 0 
 
 and Gall insists that I am multiple; the con¬ 
 sciousness tells me I am free , and Gall avers 
 that there is no moral liberty; the conscious¬ 
 ness endows me with the continuity of my 
 
 * Whence he concludes still more admirably, to the immor¬ 
 tality of the soul. “ I cannot,’ 5 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 remem¬ 
 brance 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. 
 
124 
 
 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, Irrita¬ 
 tion constitutes the basis of the physiological 
 doctrine.”* But what is irritation ? Broussais 
 replies; “It is the exaggeration of contrac¬ 
 tility.^! 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 pro- 
 
 * De limitation et de la Folie, p. 4. 
 
 | “ The exaggeration of the phenomena of contractility is 
 what constitutes irritation.”—Ibid. p. 77. 
 
12G 
 
 perty 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. 
 
I RETURN tO Gall. 
 
 Those who wish to learn GalPs doctrine, 
 will always go up to Gall himself. Spurz- 
 heim 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.”* 
 
 * Anat. et Physiol, du Systeme Nerveux, &c. iii. 15. 
 
128 
 
 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 ana¬ 
 tomy, 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 ? 
 
129 
 
 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. 
 
 9 
 

 
 » ♦ > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 
 V • I 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
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 deve¬ 
 lopment, 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 mat¬ 
 ter. 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 ,* nervous filaments, nerves. All the 
 
 *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 Soemmer¬ 
 ing 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. 
 
132 
 
 nerves in the body must arise in this way. The spinal 
 nerves arise from the gray matter which is in the in¬ 
 terior 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,* 
 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 cere¬ 
 bellum 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 fila¬ 
 ments 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 fila¬ 
 ments 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 ex- 
 
 * 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. 
 
133 
 
 pansion 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.* 
 
 NOTE II. 
 
 Difference between Instinct and Understanding. 
 
 Page 64 (Note), find he does not see that as to 
 the instincts and the understanding all is contrast . 
 
 Here is what I have elsewhere said upon this ques- 
 
 * “ 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 mo¬ 
 
 tion 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 expan¬ 
 sions of the various bundles constitute, when reunited, the hemi¬ 
 spheres 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. 
 
134 
 
 tion, so long debated, of the instinct and understand¬ 
 ing 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 mean¬ 
 ing of several of our words, and who pay obedience 
 to us, do so by understanding. 
 
 “ In instinct all is innate. The beaver builds with¬ 
 out 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 expe¬ 
 rience 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 parti¬ 
 cular. That admirable industry that the beaver exhi¬ 
 bits 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 
 
135 
 
 our views and opinions in regard to the actions of ani¬ 
 mals 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 intel¬ 
 ligence—all contradiction disappears, and order suc¬ 
 ceeds to confusion. Whatever in animals is under¬ 
 standing, does not in any degree approach the excel¬ 
 lence of the human understanding; and whatsoever, 
 under the appearance of understanding , seemed supe¬ 
 rior to the human understanding, is in fact a mere result 
 of a mechanical and blind force.”* 
 
 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: there¬ 
 fore 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 
 
 *See my work, De l’instinct et de l’intelligence des animaux, 
 &c. p. 46, 2d edit. 
 
136 
 
 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 fur¬ 
 nishes 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 think¬ 
 ing that he thinks.”* 
 
 I will quote, also, the following passage from my 
 work sur Vinstinct et Vintelligence dcs animaux , p. 
 178, et seq. 
 
 44 .There are three facts: instinct, under¬ 
 
 standing of brutes , and human understanding ; and 
 each of these facts has its definite limits. 
 
 44 Instinct acts without knowing; understanding 
 knows in order to act; the human understanding alone 
 knows, and knows itself. 
 
 * Opus citat. p. 49. 
 
137 
 
 
 “ 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 supe¬ 
 rior 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 
 
138 
 
 because “ people never suspected that they had to do 
 (these are his own words) with a man who knew per¬ 
 fectly 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.”* 
 
 He examined “families, schools, hospitals, &c.”t 
 And he never was satisfied with appearances only. 
 “ The occupations that we pursue as our business, gene¬ 
 rally prove nothing either as to our faculties or our 
 propensities : but those which we engage in as recrea¬ 
 tion are almost always in conformity with our tastes 
 and our talents. 
 
 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 funda¬ 
 mental forces of the soul, and I will find the organ and 
 the seat for each one of them.§ .... When I had become 
 convinced that a distinguished talent, and one fully so 
 recognised, was especially the work of nature, I exa¬ 
 mined the head of the individual,.&c.”|| 
 
 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 physiog¬ 
 nomy —the features of the countenance —like Lavater. 
 
 He at first thought that a good memory was con¬ 
 nected with a certain conformation of the eyes: “ I 
 remarked,” says he, “that they all had large projecting 
 
 * T. iii. p. 64. t T. iii. p. 64. X T. iii. p. 64. 
 
 $ T. iii. p. 58. II T. iii. p. 59. 
 
139 
 
 eyes.I suspected, therefore, that there ought 
 
 to exist some connexion between memory and this con¬ 
 formation of the eyes.”* Again he says, “It may be 
 perceived, from the progress of these researches, that 
 the first step consisted in the discovery of certain or¬ 
 gans ; that it was by degrees only that we allowed facts 
 to speak in order to deduce from them general prin¬ 
 ciples ; and that it was subsequently, and towards the 
 close, that we had learned to know the brain.”t 
 
 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.% 
 
 NOTE IV. 
 
 Of the Animal Spirits. 
 
 Page 116. He who is so intolerant of the personi¬ 
 fications proposed by others makes one personification 
 more. 
 
 Broussais explains every thing by the word irrita¬ 
 tion , just as Gail explains every thing by the word 
 faculties , and as Malebranche explained them by ani¬ 
 mal spirits. 
 
 After serving Descartes, the animal spirits were in 
 
 * T. i. p. 3. +T.i. p. 18. X T. i. p. 64 & 67. 
 
140 
 
 the service of Malebranche ; they served all the authors 
 of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Malebranche commences one of his chapters with 
 these words: 44 Every body agrees that the animal 
 spirits . . . He had no idea that everybody would 
 agree some day, that the animal spirits is mere non¬ 
 sense. 
 
 There were animal spirits of all sorts; as Gall had 
 faculties of all sorts: there were agitated t animal 
 spirits, languid animal spirits.J There were even 
 libertine animal spirits. 
 
 44 Wine is so spirituous,'’ says Malebranche, “that it 
 is animal spirits almost completely formed, but libertine 
 spirits.” § 
 
 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 percep¬ 
 tion of the soul’s caused by the internal motion of the 
 animal spirits.”|| 
 
 That author had no doubt that he was saying some¬ 
 thing. 
 
 NOTE V. 
 
 Exaggeration of Broussais, even in Phrenology. 
 
 Page 120. We ought to read that volume over 
 again , and forget the Cours de Phrenologie . 
 
 Broussais does not adopt merely the general ideas of 
 the phrenologists—he adopts even the smallest of them. 
 
 * Dc la Rech. de la Verite. liv. ii. chap. ii. 
 § Du bel esprit, p. 80. 
 
 tlbid. t Ibid. 
 I! Ibid. 
 
141 
 
 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 carnivo¬ 
 rous animals. But see, it is found in the brain of the 
 herbivora; and one would suppose that the phrenolo¬ 
 gists would be in trouble about it. Don’t deceive your¬ 
 self, the instinct of murder is the instinct of destruc¬ 
 tion. 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 de¬ 
 struction among plants.* 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 destruc¬ 
 tion 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 cer¬ 
 tain.”! 
 
 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 ;i 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 
 
 * Cours de Phren. 218. t P.221. 
 
 X See M. Leuret: Anat. Comp, du Syst. Nerv. &c. 1839. 
 
142 
 
 animals. I am not of that opinion. A certain shade 
 of veneration exists in many species, among the ver- 
 tebrata, 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.”'* 
 
 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.”t 
 
 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.”! 
 
 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.§ 
 
 * Cours de Phren. p. 350. + Ibid. p. 117. 
 
 t De l’Irritation et de la Folie, p.2. § Ibid p. 76. 
 
143 
 
 So we perceive, in the first place, contractility ex¬ 
 plains 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, ivas a great anatomist . 
 
 He found that the medullary substance of the brain 
 was fibrous throughout ;* he saw the fibres of the me¬ 
 dulla oblongata decussate before they form the pyra¬ 
 midal eminences,! those of the corpora olivaria, &c.; 
 
 * 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 feel¬ 
 ings 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 Vanat. du cerveau , 1668. 
 
 t 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 .”—Leitre d'un mede- 
 cin des hopitaux du Roi. Namur 1710. 
 
144 
 
 that is to say, all the ascending fibres of the medulla 
 oblongata across the pons varolii, thalami nervor opti- 
 corum, 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 pas¬ 
 sages ; 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 ob¬ 
 longata, &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 ?infolded; 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 forma¬ 
 tion of hypotheses ; and even in his real anatomy there 
 
 is a decided smack of a system-author. 
 
 % 
 
 * 
 
 THE END.