Part 5

Gall’s progression, then, was from _observation_ to the _cranium_; he first proceeded from _observation_ to the _cranium_, and next from the _cranium_ to the _brain_.

Furthermore, Gall began by studying the _physiognomy_—the _features_ of the _countenance_—like Lavater.

He at first thought that a good memory was connected with a certain _conformation of the eyes_: “I remarked,” says he, “that they all had large projecting eyes.... I suspected, therefore, that there ought to exist some connexion between memory and this conformation of the eyes.”[194] Again he says, “It may be perceived, from the progress of these researches, that the first step consisted in the discovery of certain organs; that it was by degrees only that we allowed facts to speak in order to deduce from them general principles; and that it was subsequently, and towards the close, that we had learned to know the brain.”[195]

Thus it appears that the study of the brain came later than the doctrine; and that is the reason why the anatomy of the brain is a mere series of mistakes and conjectures—I mean here the _special anatomy_, the _secret anatomy_, the _phrenological anatomy_; I mean the anatomy made out to suit the doctrine. I have already sufficiently discriminated between it and the _real anatomy_.[196]

NOTE IV.

OF THE ANIMAL SPIRITS.

Page 116. _He who is so intolerant of the personifications proposed by others makes one personification more._

Broussais explains every thing by the word _irritation_, just as Gall explains every thing by the word _faculties_, and as Malebranche explained them by _animal spirits_.

After serving Descartes, the _animal spirits_ were in the service of Malebranche; they served all the authors of the seventeenth century.

Malebranche commences one of his chapters with these words: “Every body agrees that the _animal spirits_....”[197] He had no idea that every body would agree some day, that the _animal spirits_ is mere nonsense.

There were animal spirits of all sorts; as Gall had _faculties_ of all sorts: there were _agitated_[198] animal spirits, _languid_ animal spirits.[199] There were even _libertine_ animal spirits.

“Wine is so spirituous,” says Malebranche, “that it is _animal spirits_ almost completely formed, but libertine spirits.”[200]

The animal spirits seemed to have become the _ultima ratio_ of the philosophers.

The author of a book, in other respects to be esteemed, thus defined _imagination_: “Imagination is a perception of the soul’s caused by the internal motion of the animal spirits.”[201]

That author had no doubt that he was saying something.

NOTE V.

EXAGGERATION OF BROUSSAIS, EVEN IN PHRENOLOGY.

Page 120. _We ought to read that volume over again, and forget the Cours de Phrénologie._

Broussais does not adopt merely the general ideas of the phrenologists—he adopts even the smallest of them.

Gall had located the _instinct_ of _murder_ in a given part of the brain; and he supposed, be it understood, that this part existed only in the brain of the carnivorous animals. But see, it is found in the brain of the herbivora; and one would suppose that the phrenologists would be in trouble about it. Don’t deceive yourself, the _instinct of murder_ is the _instinct of destruction_. Spurzheim denominates it _destructivity_; and the herbivorous animals must possess it, for they eat plants and consequently _destroy_ them.

“The herbivora” says Broussais, “effect a real destruction among plants.[202] An attempt has been made to turn these ideas into ridicule, even in an Academy.... It was in a learned society of this kind considered ridiculous in the phrenologists to compare the destruction of vegetables to that of animals. For my own part I do not see why the idea should be rejected, if the fundamental object of the organ be to procure the means of alimentation, which seems to be quite certain.”[203]

Gall imagines an organ for religion; he thinks it peculiar to man, and denominates it the _Organ of Theosophy_. The same organ is found quite down in the scale as low as the sheep;[204] and do not suppose that Broussais is at all shocked by the discovery. If necessary he will go further than all the phrenologists taken together.

“The phrenologists” says he, “have denied that this sentiment (the sentiment of veneration) belongs to the animals. I am not of that opinion. A certain shade of _veneration_ exists in many species, among the vertebrate, that choose their leaders, and march according to a signal given by their chiefs and obey them. Thus even among the sheep you may see a chief.”[205]

Who would have believed it? Broussais finds Gall too timorous.

“There is,” says he, “no central organ. This is considered as one of the most powerful objections to Gall. As far as I know he never answered it. As for me, I shall be more frank, perhaps more bold: I shall say it is impossible that there should be one, &c.”[206]

NOTE VI.

CONTRACTILITY OF BROUSSAIS.

Page 126. _He assigns it to every tissue, and, like them, he explains every thing by means of it._

He assigns it to every tissue. Haller attributed this property to the muscles alone, “but it is a common property of the tissues.”[207]

He explains every thing by means of it: every thing, even _innervation_ itself. But he is constrained to add: “Doubtless _something more occurs_ in the interior of the nervous tissue; doubtless we are unacquainted and ignorant as to how _that other thing_ is connected with the motions in question, and how it may employ them in the act of innervation,” &c.[208]

So we perceive, in the first place, _contractility_ explains _innervation_; and then, that _something more_ is wanting. And as nervous contractility is nothing but a mental fiction (a nerve never moves, never _contracts_, when it is touched) the whole matter tapers down to this _something more_, or to _that other thing_.

See how very far from being rigorous are those who construct systems.

NOTE VII.

REAL LABOURS OF GALL AS TO THE BRAIN.

Page 128. _Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist._

He found that the medullary substance of the brain was fibrous throughout;[209] he saw the fibres of the medulla oblongata decussate before they form the pyramidal eminences,[210] those of the corpora olivaria, &c.; that is to say, all the ascending fibres of the medulla oblongata across the pons varolii, thalami nervor opticorum, and the corpora striata, as far as the vault of the hemispheres; he saw the bundles formed by these fibres increased in magnitude at each of these passages; he distinguished the fibres which go out in order to expand in the hemispheres, from those that go in in order to give birth to the commissures: many nerves that were regarded as coming out immediately from the brain, were by him traced even into the medulla oblongata, &c.

And I repeat that all these facts, with the discovery of which he has enriched the science of anatomy, all of them are the results of a happy thought of his—the idea of _tracing_ the fibres of the brain, or to use a common expression, of substituting in the dissection of the brain the method of _developments_ for that of _sections_.

Those of Gall’s opinions which it seems ought not to be adopted, are: that in which he supposes the nerve fibres to be born (he understands the word to the letter) of the gray matter; that in which he contends that the convolutions of the brain are merely foldings of the medullary fibres, and can therefore be _unfolded_; that in which he compares the rete mucosum of the skin to the gray matter of the encephalon, &c., &c.

Gall had a mind which impelled him to the formation of hypotheses; and even in his real anatomy there is a decided smack of a system-author.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Anatomie et Physiologie du système nerveux en général, et du cerveau en particulier, avec des observations sur la possibilité de reconnaître plusieurs dispositions intellectuelles et morales de l’homme et des animaux par la configuration de leurs têtes; 4 vol. 4to, avec planches. Paris, de 1810 à 1819.

[2] T. ii. p. 217. “It is generally understood,” says he further, “that the brain is the peculiar organ of the soul.” T. ii. p. 14.

[3] Gall, t. ii. p. 221.

[4] Gall, t. ii. p. 222. Haller, Elem. Physiolog. etc., t. iv. p. 304. Sensus præterea sedem in cerebro esse, atque ad cerebrum per nervos mandari, alia sunt quæ ostendunt.

[5] Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l’homme, IIe Mémoire, § vii.

[6] Leçons d’Anat. Comp. t. ii. p. 153.

[7] Ibid. p. 173.

[8] Recherches Phys. sur la Vie et la Mort, art. vi. § ii.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Descartes, Lettre à Regius ou Leroy, t. viii. p. 515, edit, par M. Cousin.

[11] T. v. p. 34. “I remark,” says he again, “that the mind does not receive the impression from all parts of the body, but from the brain only.”—T. i. p. 344.

[12] T. vi. p. 347.

[13] T. ii. p. 357.

[14] T. ii. p. 358.

[15] “The principal object of this work,” says he, “is to show how all our knowledge, and all our faculties come from the senses.”—Traité des Sensations, préambule de l’Extrait Raisonné.

[16] Traité des Sensations, préam. de l’Extrait Raisonné.

[17] De l’homme, de ses facultés intellectuelles, etc. t. i. p. 186. Liege, 1774.

[18] He very properly distinguishes the senses from the understanding; but, as will be elsewhere seen, he endows each sense with all the attributes of the understanding. He escapes from one error only to fall into another.

[19] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842.

[20] Ibid.

[21] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. Paris, 1842.

[22] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux.

[23] Ibid.

[24] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux.

[25] “From what I have now said, it clearly follows that the aperceptive faculty, the faculty of reminiscence, and that of memory, are nothing but attributes common to all the fundamental faculties.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 319. “All that I have just said, is also applicable to the judgment and the imagination,” &c.—Ibid. p. 325. “The sentiments and the propensities also have their judgment, their imagination, their recollection, and their memory.”—Ibid. p. 327.

[26] Ibid. 328.

[27] Ibid. 327.

[28] Gall, t. iv. p. 339.

[29] Ibid. p. 341.

[30] “The _intellectual faculty_ and all its subdivisions, such as perception, recollection, memory, judgment, imagination, &c. are not fundamental faculties, but merely general attributes of them.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 327.

[31] “Reason,” says Gall, “is the result of the simultaneous action of all the intellectual faculties.”—Gall, t. iv. p. 341.

[32] Gall enumerates twenty-seven of these faculties, Spurzheim enumerates twenty-five, &c.

[33] Gall, t. iv. p. 325.

[34] Ibid. p. 330.

[35] “I find in myself,” says Descartes, “divers faculties of thought, that have each their own way, ... whence I conclude, they are distinct from me, as modes are distinct from things.”—T. i. p. 332.

[36] T. viii. p. 169.

[37] Gall, iv. p. 341.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid. t. ii. p. 100.

[40] Gall, t. ii. p. 97.

[41] Ibid.

[42] “It is a law of moral liberty, that man shall be always determined, and that he shall himself determine from the most numerous and most powerful motives.”—T. ii. p. 137.

[43] “But an organ may act with greater energy, and furnish a more powerful motive.”—T. ii. p. 104.

[44] “There is no person who, upon contemplating himself, does not feel and experience that will and liberty are one and the same; or rather, that there is no difference between that which is voluntary and that which is free.”—T. i. p. 496.

[45] Descartes, t. i. p. 299. “It is always in our power to prevent ourselves from pursuing a good which is clearly known to us, provided we should think it a good to show in that way our free will.”—Descartes, t. vi. p. 133. “The fulness of liberty consists in the great use of our positive ability to follow the worse, while we truly know the better.”—Ibid. p. 138.

[46] The question here relates solely to the brain, properly so called, (the lobes or cerebral hemispheres.) The rest of the encephalon does not serve in the operations of the understanding. See the preceding article, p. 29, et seq.

[47] _Individual intelligences_—an expression of Gall’s. “Each individual intelligence has its own proper organ.”—iv. 341.

[48] Even the instincts, according to Gall, have their memory, imagination, &c. “The instinct of propagation, that of the love of offspring, pride, vanity, possess, beyond contradiction, their perceptive faculty, their recollection, their memory, judgment, imagination, and their own attention.”—T. iv. p. 331. “The propensities and the sentiments likewise possess their judgment, their taste, their imagination, their recollection, and their memory.”—iv. 344.

[49] Gall, t. iv. p. 325.

[50] Ibid.

[51] See particularly t. ii. p. 5.

[52] “Had I to do with readers wholly free from prejudice, I should, in order to convince them of this, (the supposition of innate ideas,) have nothing to do but show them that mankind acquire all the knowledge they possess by the simple use of their natural faculties.”—Philos. Essay on the Human Understanding.

[53] “Locke contents himself,” says he, “with acknowledging that the soul perceives, doubts, believes, reasons, knows, wills, and reflects: that we are convinced of the existence of these _operations_; ... but he seems to have regarded them as something innate.” A short time before he had said, “We shall see that all the faculties of the soul appeared to him to be innate qualities.”—Traité des Sensations. (Extrait raisonné.)

[54] See t. iii. p. 81.

[55] T. i. p. 343.

[56] “I may now flatter myself,” says he, “that the reader is sufficiently prepared for quite a new philosophy, deduced directly from the fundamental forces.”—T. iii. p. 11.

[57] T. iv. p. 327.

[58] T. iv. p. 319.

[59] T. iv. p. 341.

[60] Ibid.

[61] Ibid.

[62] “Each individual understanding possesses its own proper organ.”—T. iv. p. 341.

[63] T. i. p. 230.

[64] T. iv. p. 105.

[65] See the preceding articles.

[66] T. iv. p. 340. “From all these faculties comes at last decision. It is this decision ... which is really will and wishing.”—T. ii. p. 105.

[67] T. iv. p. 341.

[68] T. iv. p. 269.

[69] T. iv. p. 271.

[70] T. iv. p. 252.

[71] T. iv. p. 252.

[72] T. iv. p. 10.

[73] T. i. p. 290.

[74] T. i. p. 287.

[75] Article “Liberté,” Diction. Encyclop.

[76] T. iii. p. 155. Such phrases cannot be concluded.

[77] T. iii. p. 213.

[78] Ibid. 219.

[79] “This term, instinct, is applicable,” says he, “to all the fundamental forces.”—T. iv. p. 334. And he does not see that as to the instincts and the understanding all is contrast. Upon this difference of instinct and understanding, see my work De l’Instinct et de l’Intelligence des Animaux, etc. Paris, 1845, 2d edit.

[80] It is true that this approximation astonishes him. “The predilection of animals for elevated places depends,” says he, “upon the same parts as pride, which is in man a moral sentiment! Let the reader imagine the astonishment excited in my mind by such a phenomenon.”—T. iii. 311.

[81] “Co-existing with the love of war, it (the carnivorous instinct) constitutes the intrepid warrior.”—T. iii. p. 258. “I know a head which, as to the organ of murder, approaches that of Madeline Albert, and the la Bouhours, except only that nature has executed it upon a grander scale. To witness suffering, is for this person to have the keenest enjoyment. Whoever does not love blood, is in his eyes contemptible.”—T. iii. p. 259. The pen refuses to transcribe such things, which fortunately, however, are pure extravagances.

[82] “From my reflections it follows that conscience is nothing but a modification, an affection of the moral sense,” (organ.)—T. iv. p. 210. “From all that I have said as to conscience, it follows that it can by no means be regarded as a fundamental quality: that it is really only an affection of the moral sense—or benevolence.”—T. iv. p. 217.

[83] T. iii. p. 321.

[84] T. iv. p. 272.

[85] T. ii. p. 287.

[86] Recherches sur le système nerveux en général et sur celui du cerveau en particulier; mémoire présenté à l’Institut de France, le 14 Mars, 1808; suivi d’Observations sur le rapport qui en a été fait à cette compagnie par ses commissaires, par F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim. Paris, 1809.

[87] “The nervous membrane of the brain forms these folds, which are denominated its convolutions.”—Anat. et Physiol. du Système Nerveux, t. iii. p. 82.

[88] Spurzheim justly remarks: “Admitting that the direction of the fibres is known, that we know their consistence to be greater or less, that their colour is more or less white, that their magnitude is more or less considerable, &c. what conclusions can we, from all these circumstances, draw as to their functions? None at all.”—Obser. sur la Phrénologie, ou la connaissance de l’homme moral et intellectuel fondée sur les fonctions du Système Nerveux, p. 83. Paris, 1818.

[89] Rapport sur un Mémoire de MM. Gall et Spurzheim, rélatif à l’anat. du cerveau. Séances des 25 Avril et 2 Mai, 1808.

[90] “The determination of the fundamental forces and the seat of their organs constitutes the most striking portion of my discoveries. The knowledge of the primary faculties and qualities, and the seat of their material conditions, constitutes precisely the phrenology of the brain.”—Gall, Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., t. iii. p. 4.

[91] Lettre d’un Médecin des Hôpitaux du Roi. Namur. 1710.

[92] Elementa Physiologiæ, t. iv. p. 384.

[93] “But if it be supposed that each fundamental faculty, as well as each particular sense, is dependent on a particular part of the brain,” &c. Gall, Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., t. iii. p. 392.

[94] T. iv. p. 9.

[95] T. iv. p. 9.

[96] T. ii. p. 234.

[97] The brain, properly so called.

[98] _I_ see with _my_ eyes.—M.

[99] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842.

[100] Ibid.

[101] See at the end of this work the first Note on Gall’s Anatomy.

[102] T. i. p. 271. Spurzheim explains himself in like manner. “The organs of the internal faculties are as separate as the bundles of the nerves of the five senses.”—Observ. sur la Phrénol., &c. p. 74. “It is found that the brain is composed of many bundles, which must have their functions.”—Ibid. p. 94. “The organs ... are composed of divergent bundles, of convolutions, and of the commissures.”—Ibid.

[103] T. iv. p. 8. “Bonnet believes, and it is probable, that each nerve fibre has its own proper action.”—Ibid.

[104] T. iii. p. 2.

[105] T. iii. p. 4.

[106] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842. See also the first article of this work.

[107] It must, however, be one or the other; for it must be something. Might it be a convolution, as has been since said? But there are not seven and twenty convolutions, &c. &c.

[108] T. ii. p. 163.

[109] Gall, as we have seen, confounds understanding with instinct. Literally, he divides understanding into many instincts, and then out of each instinct constructs an intellectual faculty. See the second article of this work. “The term instinct suits all the fundamental faculties.”—T. iv. p. 334. For the characters peculiar to the instincts, see my work entitled “De l’Instinct et de l’Intelligence des Animaux,” 2d edit. 1845.

[110] See my Recherches Expérimentales sur les propriétés et les fonctions du Système Nerveux, 2d edit. 1842.

[111] “The organ of philogeniture, or the last convolution of the cerebral lobes.”—Spurzheim, Obser. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 117.

[112] With very few exceptions.

[113] “The qualities and faculties common to man and animals, are situated in the posterior portions,” &c.—T. iii. p. 79, and t. iv. p. 13. “The qualities and faculties that man exclusively enjoys, are situated in the cerebral portions, of which the brute creation is deprived; and we must consequently seek for them in the antero superior portion of the frontal bone.”—T. iii. page 79.

[114] “The anterior parts of the brain are not wanting in the mammifera, but the posterior parts,” says Leuret, very justly, in his fine work on the circumvolutions of the brain, entitled, Anat. Compar. du Syst. Nerveux, consideré dans ses rapports avec l’Intelligence, t. i. p. 588. Paris, 1839.

[115] T. iii. p. 20.

[116] T. iii. p. 26.

[117] It is curious to see how M. Vimont, a very decided phrenologist as well as an able anatomist, expresses himself on the subject of the _localizations_ of Gall and Spurzheim. “Gall’s work,” says M. Vimont, “is fitter to lead into error than to give a just idea of the seats of the organs.”—Traité de Phrén. t. ii. p. 12. “Gall says he has remarked, that horses whose ears are widely separated at the roots, are sure-footed and courageous. Possibly the fact may be true; but I cannot comprehend the connexion that may exist betwixt the outward mark and the quality of courage, whose seat, in the horse, Gall indicates at a point where there is no brain.”—Ibid. 281. “Spurzheim indicates the region of the frontal sinuses as the seat of gentleness, while courage is located upon the muscles that go to be inserted on the os occipitis.”—Ibid. p. 117. Such are M. Vimont’s remarks, yet this same M. Vimont inscribes the following twenty-nine names on the skull of a goose!

1. Conservation. 2. Choice of aliment. 3. Destruction. 4. Cunning. 5. Courage. 6. Choice of locality. 7. Concentration. 8. Attachment to life, or marriage. 9. Attachment. 10. Reproduction. 11. Attachment to the product of conception. 12. Property. 13. Circumspection. 14. Perception of substance. 15. Configuration. 16. Extent. 17. Distance. 18. Geometrical sense. 19. Resistance. 20. Localities. 21. Order. 22. Time. 23. Language. 24. Eventuality. 25. Construction. 26. Musical talent. 27. Imitation. 28. Comparison. 29. Gentleness.

“All this upon the cranium of a goose!” says M. Leuret upon this occasion, (page 355.) “And there is no place so small but it is occupied.... The faculties are so crowded,” adds he, “that it would be a marvellous thing to be able to write their names upon the brain.... It would be a greater marvel to discover them.”

[118] Gall himself says: “In whatever region we examine the two substances that compose the brain, it is with difficulty that we can discern any difference between them as to their structure, &c.”—T. iii. p. 70.

[119] T. iii. p. 63.

[120] “I remained a whole day shut up in an oven.”—T. i. 133.

[121] T. i. p. 263.

[122] Eloge de Tournefort.

[123] One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1818. Phrenology is the very name given by Spurzheim to the doctrine of Gall.

[124] One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1820.

[125] Observ. sur la Phrénol. &c. p. 8.

[126] Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 20.

[127] Ibid. p. 22.

[128] Rech. sur le Syst. Nerv. en général, &c. par F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim.

[129] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerveux, &c., the work which has been examined in the three preceding articles.

[130] T. iv. p. 341.

[131] Ibid. p. 327.

[132] Ibid. p. 341.

[133] In the preceding article, p. 93.

[134] Lettre de Charles Villers à Georges Cuvier, sur une nouvelle théorie du cerveau, par le Docteur Gall, &c. Metz, 1802.

[135] Lettre de Charles Villers, &c. p. 34.

[136] Ibid.

[137] Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 10.

[138] Especially in the last article.

[139] And which was not taken up by Gall, except from the necessity he was under of assimilating at all points the external senses with the faculties of the soul.

[140] Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 65.

[141] Ibid. p. 67.

[142] Ibid. p. 75.