Part 3

M. Cuvier, in his report, observed: “It is essential to repeat, were it merely for the information of the public, that the anatomical questions we have been considering, have no immediate and necessary connexion with the physiological doctrines taught by M. Gall, as to the functions and relative volume of different parts of the brain; and that all that we have inquired into as to the structure of the brain, might be either true or false, without affording the least conclusion in favour of or against the doctrine.”[89]

It is necessary not to make any mistake as to the real point of the question. Gall’s doctrine goes to establish one and only one thing, to wit, _the plurality of intelligences_ and _the plurality of brains_.[90] That is what constitutes the special and peculiar doctrine; that is to say, different from the common doctrine, which admits but one understanding and a single brain. Whatever goes to prove the plurality of understandings and brains belongs to Gall’s doctrine; and whatever does not tend to prove the plurality of understandings and brains is in opposition to that doctrine.

Gall’s works then really contain two very distinct anatomies: one is a _general anatomy_, which has nothing in particular to do with his doctrine; the other is a _special anatomy_, which, supposing it to be true, would constitute the basis of his doctrine.

Now, a great deal has been said about Gall’s general anatomy; but as to his special anatomy, I know of no one who has spoken of it. Gall himself says as little as possible about it. In other matters he tells his opinions both very clearly and very positively: in this particular we are obliged to guess at them.

When Gall, in his _psycology_, substitutes the _faculties_ for the understanding, he defines those _faculties_. He defines them, as we have already seen, to be _individual intelligences_. How happens it, then, that in his anatomy, when he substitutes the organs of the brain for the brain itself, he does not define these organs? How strange! Gall’s whole doctrine, all _phrenology_, rests upon the _organs of the brain_; for, without distinct cerebral organs, there can be no independent faculties; and without independent faculties there can be no phrenology: and Gall does not say, nor has any phrenologist said for him, what is the thing called a _cerebral organ_.

The truth is: Gall never had any settled opinion upon what he called the organs of the brain; he never saw those _organs_, and he imagined them for the use of his _faculties_. He did what so many others have done. He commenced with imagining a hypothesis, and then he imagined an anatomy to suit his hypothesis.

When the doctrine of animal spirits was believed, the brain was composed of pipes and tubes to convey these spirits.

“The cortical substance which is found in the hemispheres of the brain,” says Pourfour du Petit, “furnishes the whole of the medullary portion, which is a mere collection of an infinite number of pipes.”[91]

“The small arteries of the cortical part of the brain,” says Haller, “transmit a spirituous liquor into the medullary and nervous tubes.”[92]

It is evident that the _organs_ of Gall have no more real existence than the _pipes_ of Pourfour du Petit, or the _tubes_ of Haller. They are two structures that have been imagined, as suitable for two hypotheses.

In searching for the primary idea, the secret notion that led Gall to his doctrine of the _plurality of the intelligences_, I detect it in the analogy that he supposed to exist between the functions of the senses and the faculties of the soul.

He sees the functions of the senses constituting distinct functions, and insists that the faculties of the soul must constitute equally distinct faculties; he sees each particular sense possessing an organ proper to itself, and thinks that each faculty of the soul must have its proper organ;[93] in one word, he looks upon the outer man, and constructs the inner man after the image of the outer man.

According to Gall, every thing between an organ of a sense and an organ of a faculty, between a faculty and sense, is similar. A faculty is a sense. His words are: the _memory or the sense of things_, the _memory or the sense of persons_, the _memory or the sense of numbers_. He talks of the _sense of language_, the _sense of mechanics_, the _sense of the relations of colours_, &c. &c.

“As we must admit,” says he, “five different external senses, since their functions are essentially different, ... so we must agree, after all, to acknowledge the different faculties and the different inclinations as being essentially different moral and intellectual forces, and likewise connected with organic apparatuses, which are special to each and independent of each other.”[94]

“Who,” says he, “can dare to say that sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch, are simple modifications of faculties? Who could dare to derive them from a single and same source, from a single and same organ? In the same way, the twenty-seven qualities and faculties which I recognise as fundamental or primary forces, ... cannot be regarded as the simple modifications of any one faculty.”[95]

On the one hand, Gall gives to the _faculties_ all the independence of the _senses_; and on the other, he gives the _senses_ all the attributes of the _faculties_.

“Here,” says he, “are new reasons why I have always maintained in my public discourses, though these assertions are in opposition to the ideas that prevail among philosophers, that each organ of a sense possesses absolutely its own functions; that each of these organs has its peculiar faculty of receiving and even of perceiving impressions, its own conscience, its own faculty of reminiscence,”[96] &c.

Gall did not foresee that a physiological experiment (and a very sure one it is) would one day demonstrate that the sense receives the impression but does not perceive it, and that, consequently, it is endowed neither with _conscience_ nor _reminiscence_, &c.

When the cerebral lobes or hemispheres[97] are removed from an animal, the animal immediately loses its sight.

And yet nothing, as regards the eyes themselves, has been changed; objects continue to be depicted upon the retina, the iris retains its contractility, and the optic nerve its excitability. The retina continues to be sensible of light, for the iris contracts or dilates according as the light admitted to it is more or less intense.

No change has taken place as to the structure of the eye, and yet the animal does not see! Therefore it is not the eye that perceives, nor is it the eye that sees.[98]

The eye does not see; it is the understanding that sees by means of the eyes.[99]

When Gall concludes from the independence of the external senses to the independence of the faculties of the soul, he confounds, as to the sense itself, two things that are essentially distinct, impression and perception. Impression is multiple; perception is single.

When the hemispheres are removed, the animal instantly loses its perception; it no longer sees nor hears,[100] &c. notwithstanding all the organs of the senses, the eye, the ear, &c. subsist, and the impressions take place.

Therefore the principle that perceives is _one_. Lost for one sense, it is lost for all the senses. And if it be _one_ for the external senses, how can it be other than _one_ for the faculties of the soul?

Gall therefore cannot suppose the existence of several distinct principles for the faculties of the soul, otherwise than because he supposes several distinct principles for the perceptions; and he only supposes several principles for the perceptions because he confounds impression with perception. The whole of his psycology arises from a mistake; and the whole of his anatomy is constructed for the sake of his psycology.

In psycology he endeavours to prove that the faculties of the soul are merely _internal senses_; in anatomy, he endeavours to prove that the organs of the faculties of the soul only repeat and reproduce the organs of the _external senses_.

Now an _organ_, that is to say, under the present point of view, the _nerve_ of an _external sense_, is nothing more than a _fascicle_ of _nervous fibres_. Therefore the brain, under the theory, can be nothing but a collection of _fascicles_ of _fibres_.[101]

According to Gall, the origin, the development, the structure and mode of termination, as to the organs of the faculties of the soul and the organs of the external senses, every thing is similar, every thing is in common. And yet the primitive difficulty remains unsolved.

When I say an _organ of the senses_, I speak of a very determinate nervous apparatus. But is the same thing true when I say an organ of the brain? What is an organ of the brain? Is it a _fascicle_ of _fibres_? Is it each particular fibre? But if it be a _fascicle_ of _fibres_, there are too few of them, for there are not twenty-seven of them; and twenty-seven are necessary, for there are twenty-seven faculties. If it be each particular fibre, then there are too many of them, and far too many, because there are only twenty-seven faculties. What are we to do in this difficulty? We must do as Gall does: sometimes say it is a fascicle of fibres; at other times, that it is each fibre in particular.

In one place he says: “The brain consisting of several divisions whose functions are totally different, there are several primary bundles, which contribute by their development to produce it. Among these bundles we place the anterior and posterior pyramids, the bundles that come off direct from the corpora olivaria, and some others that are concealed in the interior of the medulla oblongata.”[102]

_And there are yet some others_; be it so; but they never can amount to twenty-seven.

Again he says: “A more extensive development of the same conjecture, might perhaps dispose the reader to consider each nervous fibrilla, whether in the nerves or in the brain itself, as a little special organ.”[103]

Even this is not all. For the sake of Gall’s doctrine, the anatomy of the brain must have a connexion with cranioscopy. And Gall takes great care to place all his organs upon the surface of the brain.

“The possibility of a solution of the problem under consideration,” says he, “supposes the organs of the soul to be situated at the surface of the brain.”[104] Indeed, were they not situated at the surface of the brain, how could the cranium bear the impression of them? and what would become of cranioscopy?

Cranioscopy has nothing to fear. Gall has made provision for it; all the organs of the brain are placed at the surface of the brain; and Gall most judiciously adds, “This explains the relation or the correspondence that exists between craniology and the doctrine of the cerebral functions (cerebral physiology), the sole aim and end of my researches.”[105]

But as to the pretended _organs of the brain_, are they really situated at the surface of the brain, as Gall asserts? In plain terms, is the surface of the brain the only active part of the organ? Here is a physiological experiment that shows how very much mistaken Gall is.

You can slice off a considerable portion of an animal’s brain, either in front, behind, on one side, or on the top, without his losing anyone of his faculties.[106]

The animal may, therefore, lose all that Gall calls surface of the brain, without losing any of his faculties. Therefore it cannot be that the organs of the faculties reside at the _surface of the brain_.

And comparative anatomy is not less opposite to Gall’s opinions than is direct experiment itself. I shall not follow him here in the detail of his localizations. How could these localizations have any meaning? He does not even know whether an organ is a _fascicle of fibres_, or a _fibre_.[107]

For example; he places what he calls the instinct of propagation in the cerebellum, and what he calls the _instinct of the love of offspring_, in the posterior cerebral lobes; and he looks upon these two localizations as the very surest in his book.

“I should wish,” says he, “that all young naturalists might begin their researches with the study of these two organs. They are both easily to be recognised,”[108] &c.

What! The cerebellum, so different in its structure from the great brain, is the cerebellum, like the brain,[109] to be considered an organ of instinct? And what is more, is it to be regarded as the organ of a single instinct only, while the brain shall have twenty-six of them?

I have already said that the cerebellum is the seat of the principle that presides over the locomotion[110] of the animal, and that it is not the seat of any instinct.

Gall places the love of offspring in the posterior lobes of the brain.[111] Now, the love of offspring, and especially maternal love, is every where to be found among the superior animals; it is found in all the mammifera, in all the birds.[112] The posterior lobes of the brain, therefore, ought to be found in all these beings. Not at all: the posterior lobes are wanting in most of the mammifera; they are wanting in all the birds.

Gall locates the faculties that are common to both man and animals, in the posterior part of the brain; in the anterior part he places those[113] that are peculiar to man alone. According to this plan, the most _persistent_ portion of the brain will be the posterior portion, and the least persistent the anterior portion. But the inverse of the proposition holds. The parts that are most frequently wanting are the _posterior parts_, and those that are most invariably present are the _anterior parts_.[114]

If, from the brain, I pass on to consider the cranium, all the foregoing is found to be of still greater force. How can the localizations that are destitute of meaning as to the brain—how can they, I say, have any meaning as relative to the cranium itself?

The cranium, especially the external surface of it, represents the superficial configuration of the brain but very imperfectly. Gall knows it. “I was the first,” says he, “to maintain that it is impossible for us to determine with exactitude the development of certain circumvolutions, by the inspection of the external surface of the cranium. In certain cases, the exterior lamina of the cranium is not parallel with the internal lamina.”[115] “There are certain species in which there is no frontal sinus; in others, the cells betwixt the two bony laminæ are found throughout the whole skull,”[116] &c. &c.

The cranium represents the convolutions of the brain only upon its inner surface; it does not represent them upon its external superficies. And as to the _fibres_, as to the _bundles of fibres_, it does not even represent them on its inner surface; for the fibres are covered with a layer of gray matter, and the bundles of fibres are situated in the interior of the nervous mass.

Gall is aware of all this, and nevertheless he inscribes his twenty-seven faculties upon the skulls.[117] Such confidence surprises one. Nothing is known of the intimate structure of the brain,[118] and yet people are bold enough to trace upon it their circumscriptions, their circles, their boundaries. The external surface of the skull does not represent the brain’s surface, it is admitted; and yet they inscribe upon this surface twenty-seven names, each of which names is written within a small circle, each little circle corresponding to one precise faculty! And what is stranger yet, people are to be found who, under each of these names inscribed by Gall, imagine that there is concealed something more than a name!

Those who, seeing the success of Gall’s doctrine, imagine that the doctrine therefore rests upon some solid foundation, know very little of mankind. Gall knew mankind better. He studied them in his own way, but he studied them very closely. Let us hear his own words:

“In society, I employ many expedients to find out the talents and inclinations of people. I start the conversation upon a variety of topics. In general, we let fall in conversation whatsoever has little or no concern with our faculties and penchants; but when the interlocutor touches upon one of our favourite subjects, we at once become interested in it.... Do you wish to spy out the character of a person, without the fear of being misled as to your conclusions, even though he might be on his guard? Set him to talking about his childhood and boyhood; make him relate his schoolboy exploits; his conduct towards his parents, his brothers and sisters, and his playfellows, and his emulators.... Ask him about his games, &c. Few persons think it necessary to dissemble upon these points; they do not suspect they are dealing with one who knows perfectly well that the basis of character remains ever the same; and that the objects only that interest us change with the progress of years.... Besides, when I discover what it is that a person admires or despises; when I see him act; when he is an author, and I merely read his book, &c. &c. the whole man stands unveiled before me.”[119]

Descartes _shut himself up in a stove_,[120] in order that he might meditate. According to Gall, there is no necessity for one’s shutting himself up in a stove.

Descartes says: “Now I shall shut my eyes, I shall stop my ears, I shall turn my senses aside; I shall even efface from my memory every image of corporeal objects, or at least, as that can hardly be done, I will repute them as vain and false; and thus, shut up within myself, and contemplating what is within me, I shall endeavour gradually to become more and more familiarly acquainted with my own real nature.”[121]

According to Gall, there is no occasion for this absolute gathering one’s self together within. All that is needful is to look at and touch the skulls of people. Gall’s doctrine succeeded just as Lavater’s did. Men will always be looking out for external signs by which to discover secret thoughts and concealed inclinations: it is vain to confound their curiosity upon this point: after Lavater came Gall; after Gall some one else will appear.

We soon become wearied of a true philosophy, because it is true; because the search after truth, of whatsoever kind, requires strenuous and continual efforts. It is impossible, moreover, always to have the very same philosophy: even the same philosopher cannot be always approved of. Approbation must change its object, especially in France.

It was for the French that Fontenelle wrote these words: “The approbation of mankind is a sort of forced state, which seeks nothing so much as to come to an end.”[122]

Descartes goes off to die in Sweden, and Gall comes to reign in France.

IV.

OF SPURZHEIM.

Spurzheim published two works; the first of which is entitled, “Observations sur la Phrénologie, ou la connaissance de l’homme moral et intellectuel, fondée sur les fonctions du système nerveux:”[123] the title of the second is, “Essai philosophique sur la nature morâle et intellectuelle de l’homme;”[124] and these two works are merely a reproduction of the doctrine of Gall. Spurzheim makes Gall’s book over again—the same book that they commenced together—and abridges it.

Spurzheim tells us how he heard Gall, and having heard him, felt himself drawn to participate in his labours, and propagate his doctrine.

“In 1800, I attended for the first time a course of lectures which M. Gall had from time to time repeated at Vienna for four years. He spoke then of the necessity there was for a brain to give out the manifestations of the soul; and of the plurality of organs; ... but he had not as yet begun to examine into the structure of the brain.[125] From the very first, I found myself much attracted by the doctrine of the brain; and from the period of my first attention to that subject to the present moment, I have never lost sight of it as an object of study. After finishing my studies in 1800, I joined M. Gall, in order to pursue in a special manner the anatomical part of the researches.[126] In 1805, we left Vienna for the purpose of travelling together; from which time, up to the year 1813, we made our observations in common,” &c.[127]

In fact, the two authors, uniting their labours, first published, in 1808, their fine memoir upon the anatomy of the brain,[128] and subsequently, in 1810 and 1812, the two first volumes of Gall’s great work.[129]

In the year 1813 they separated, and that separation even proved useful. Gall, when writing independently, has a freer movement. Had he continued united with Spurzheim, he either would not have written the last chapter of his fourth volume, or he would have written it very differently, and we should not have obtained the definite expression of his doctrine.

That chapter, entitled “Philosophy of Man,” is Gall’s philosophy entire. It is in that chapter that he says what he does understand by faculties, by understanding, by will, &c. &c. and it is there that he defines the faculties of the individual understandings;[130] understanding, a simple _attribute of each faculty_;[131] will, a simple result of the simultaneous action of superior faculties, &c.[132]

Spurzheim never would have imagined the doctrine: he found it already concocted; he follows it, and in doing so, always hesitates. He did not imagine it; and perhaps never could have had the facilities enjoyed by Gall for carrying it successfully into the world. Gall’s mind was full of address. We have seen his method of studying men.[133] In his great work there is a dominant tone of philosophy; for the doctrine was already established at the period of the publication of that work. When the doctrine was inchoate, Gall’s tone was not quite so grave, for it is above all things necessary to awaken the public curiosity, and the philosophic tone does not answer for that purpose.

Charles Villers has preserved some of his souvenirs, touching the first impressions produced by the doctrine.[134] “If,” writes Gall at the period in question, “the exterminating angel was under my orders, wo to Kæstner, to Kant, to Wieland, and others like them.... Why is it, that no one has ever preserved for our times, the skulls of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, &c.?”[135]

“At one time,” says Charles Villers, “every body in Vienna was trembling for his head, and fearing that after his death it would be put in requisition to enrich Dr. Gall’s cabinet. He announced his impatience as to the skulls of extraordinary persons—such as were distinguished by certain great qualities or by great talents—which was still greater cause for the general terror. Too many people were led to suppose themselves the objects of the doctor’s regards, and imagined their heads to be especially longed for by him, as a specimen of the utmost importance to the success of his experiments. Some very curious stories are told on this point. Old M. Denis, the Emperor’s librarian, inserted a special clause in his will, intended to save his cranium from M. Gall’s scalpel.”[136]

Gall and Spurzheim differ from each other upon several points: upon the offices of the external senses; upon the names of the faculties of the soul; upon their number; and upon the classification of the faculties, &c. Let us examine a few of the points more particularly.

1. _Offices of the external senses._ “M. Gall is disposed,” says Spurzheim, “to attribute to the external senses, as well as to each and every internal faculty, not only perception, but also memory, reminiscence, and judgment.... It seems to me that such facts (the facts cited by Gall) do not prove the conclusion. In the first place, memory, being nothing more than the repetition of knowledge, must have its seat in the point where perception takes place. The impressions of the nerves that give rise to the sensation of hunger, &c. are indisputably perceived in the head, which likewise has the reminiscence of hunger.... I do not believe we can conclude that the eyes or the ears are the seats of reminiscence.”[137]