Part 6

[143] See particularly the Essai philosophique sur la morâle et intellectuelle de l’homme, p. 54, et seq.

[144] Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 17.

[145] Ibid. p. 127.

[146] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., &c. t. iii. p. 19. This volume came out the same year as Spurzheim’s Observ., &c.

[147] T. iv. p. 67.

[148] The eight organs added by Spurzheim, are the organs of habitativity, order, time, right, supernaturality, hope, extent, weight. Gall’s remarks upon these eight organs proposed by Spurzheim are as follows: “M. Spurzheim, it is true, recognises eight organs more than I admit. As to the organs of habitativity, order, time, and supernaturality, I have already spoken. I admit an organ of the moral sense, or sense of right (_juste_), but I have very strong reasons for believing that benevolence is nothing more than a very strong manifestation of the moral sense; therefore I treat these two organs under the rubric of a single organ. What M. Spurzheim says on the organs of hope, of extent, and of weight, has not as yet convinced me: and, in fact, he has hitherto proved nothing in respect to them.”—T. iii. p. 25.

[149] Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 216.

[150] See the Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 47, et seq.

[151] The sense of Amativity, the sense of Philogeniture, the sense of Destructivity, the sense of Affectivity, the sense of Thievishness, the sense of Secretivity, the sense of Circumspection, the sense of Approbation, the sense of Self-love. (What a chaos, and what words!)

[152] The sense of Benevolence, the sense of Veneration, the sense of Firmness, the sense of Duty, the sense of Hope, the sense of the Marvellous, the sense of Ideality, the sense of Gaiety, the sense of Imitation.

[153] The sense of Individuality, of Extent, of Configuration, of Consistence, of Weight, of Colour.

[154] The sense of Localities, of Numeration, of Order, of Phenomena, of Time, of Method, of Artificial Language.

[155] The sense of Comparison, the sense of Causality.

[156] “Some of the affective faculties produce only a desire, an inclination.... I shall call them propensities.”—Observ. sur la Phrénol., &c. p. 124.

[157] “Other affective faculties are not restricted to a simple inclination, but something beyond; which is what is called sentiment or feeling.”—Ibid.

[158] “The intellectual faculties are also double: some of them know; others reflect.”—Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 225.

[159] “The faculties peculiar to man are happy in themselves, per se.”—Ibid. p. 167.

[160] Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv. &c. t. iii. p. 27.

[161] See his Histoire des Phlegmas. Chron. 1808.

[162] See his work entitled, “De l’Irritation et de la Folie,” 1828.

[163] Cours de Phrénologie, 1 vol. 8vo. 1836.

[164] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 82.

[165] Ibid. p. 140.

[166] Ibid. p. 37.

[167] “Memory is not an isolated faculty; and there are as many memories as organs.”—p. 131.

[168] “The instincts and the sentiments have a memory as well as the external perceptions.”—p. 36.

[169] “ ... The study of the human mind, not indeed that of a fictitious one bearing this mysterious appellation, but of the _ensemble_ of the mental faculties of man.”—p. 82.

[170] Page 48.

[171] “The favorers of the intra-cranial entity.”—p. 153.

[172] “Their central intra-cranial being, to which they attribute all their faculties.”

[173] “Suppose they had called this being _person par excellence_....”—p. 75.

[174] Let us examine, as to this particular (_moi_) ME, all Broussais’s _variorums_. In one place the _me_ comes from only one organ—the organ of general comparison: “We owe to the organ of general comparison the distinction of our person expressed by the sign _me_.”—Cours de Phrén., p. 684. Further on it comes from two—the organ of comparison and the organ of causality: “The organ of causality is as necessary to the distinction of the _me_, and of the _person_, as the organ of general comparison.”—Ibid. p. 685. Next there is no organ at all: “To assign to the _me_ a special organ appears to me to be out of the question.”—Ibid. p. 119. And then it comes from every where: “There is no special and central organ, and our perception of ourselves has for its basis the sensitive perceptions.”—Ibid. p. 119.

[175] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 684.

[176] Examen de la Doctrine Médicale, etc. 1816.

[177] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 717.

[178] Cours de Phrénologie, p. 77. He also says, “Their central intra-cranial being, to which they attribute all the faculties of a man, is not cognisable by any of our senses, ... it is therefore a pure hypothesis.”—Ibid. p. 153. Thus there is no _mind_ (pure hypothesis); no _faculties_ but those of the _organs_ (the faculties are the acts of _material organs_); no understanding, except as a simple phenomenon of the nervous action (understanding and all its manifestations are _phenomena of nervous action_); consequently, there is no psycology; there is nothing but physiology; and even (for it should be clearly understood) nothing but Broussais’s physiology.

[179] “In order to form for one’s self a just notion of the operations which result in the production of thought, it is necessary to conceive of the brain as a peculiar organ, specially designed for the production thereof, just as the stomach is designed to effect digestion, the liver to form the bile, &c.”—Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du moral de l’homme, IIe mémoire, § vii.

[180] Whence he concludes still more admirably, to the immortality of the soul. “I cannot,” says he, “conceive otherwise of those who die, than that they pass into a more pleasing and tranquil life than ours, even carrying with them the remembrance of the past: for I find there is within us an intellectual memory.... And although religion teaches us many things upon this subject, I must, notwithstanding, confess my infirmity on this point, which it appears to me that I possess in common with most people, which is, that although we might wish to believe, and even might suppose ourselves to be firm believers in the doctrines of religion, we are not so deeply touched with those things that are taught by faith alone, and which our mere reason cannot attain, as by those that are instilled into us by natural and very evident reasons.”—T. viii. p. 684.

[181] De l’Imitation et de la Folie, p. 4.

[182] “The exaggeration of the phenomena of contractility is what constitutes irritation.”—Ibid. p. 77.

[183] Anat. et Physiol. du Système Nerveux, &c. iii. 15.

[184] The white matter is every where fibrous. No person has contributed more than Gall to the demonstration of this great fact. He justly remarks: “Those authors who, with Sœmmerring and Cuvier, &c., recognise the fibrous structure of the brain, in many of its parts, have nevertheless, not yet ventured to say that it is so in all its parts.”—T. i. 235.

[185] The cerebellum serves only for the motions of locomotion. (See the first article of this work.) But, I am here setting forth Gall’s opinions.

[186] “The particular systems of the brain terminate in fibrous expansions arranged in layers, just as the other nervous systems expand in fibres at their peripheral extremity.”—T. i. 318. “All the diverging bundles of the brain, after they come out from the last apparatus of reinforcement, expand in layers and form convolutions.”—T. i. 283. “The nerves of sensation and motion expand in the skin and the muscles; the nerves of the senses, each in the external instrument to which they belong: for example, the pituitary membrane upon the bones of the nose: the nerve of taste in the tongue, and the expansion of the optic nerve in the retina.... Nature obeys precisely the same law in the brain. The different parts of the brain originate and are reinforced at different points; they form fibrous bundles of various sizes, which terminate in expansions. All these expansions of the various bundles constitute, when reunited, the hemispheres of the brain.”—T. iii. p. 3.

I here speak only of the _diverging fibres_. Coming from the interior, they proceed towards the exterior: the _converging fibres_ coming from the exterior, that is, according to Gall, from the gray matter that envelopes the brain and the cerebellum, are directed inwards. The former constitute the _convolutions_, while the latter compose the _commissures_. But I shall, further on, return to this subject.

[187] See my work, De l’instinct et de l’intelligence des animaux, &c. p. 46, 2d edit.

[188] Opus citat. p. 49.

[189] T. iii. p. 64.

[190] T. iii. p. 64.

[191] T. iii. p. 64.

[192] T. iii. p. 58.

[193] T. iii. p. 59.

[194] T. i. p. 3.

[195] T. i. p. 18.

[196] T. i. p. 64 & 67.

[197] De la Rech. de la Verité, liv. ii. chap. ii.

[198] Ibid.

[199] Ibid.

[200] Du bel esprit, p. 80.

[201] Ibid.

[202] Cours de Phrén. 218.

[203] P. 221.

[204] See M. Leuret: Anat. Comp. du Syst. Nerv. &c. 1839.

[205] Cours de Phrén. p. 350.

[206] Ibid. p. 117.

[207] De l’Irritation et de la Folie, p. 2.

[208] Ibid. p. 76.

[209] Steno had already said, “If the medullary substance be every where fibrous, as in fact, in most parts it appears to be, you must confess that the disposal of these fibres must be arranged with great skill, since the whole diversity of our feelings and motions depend upon them. We wonder at the artifice of the fibres in each muscle, but how much more are they worthy of admiration in the brain, where these fibres, enclosed within so small a space, perform each its own function without confusion and without disorder.”—_Discours sur l’anat. du cerveau_, 1668.

[210] Long before his time the same had been seen by Mistichelli, Pourfour du Petit, Winslow, and several others, but it had been forgotten. “Each pyramidal body,” says Pourfour du Petit, “is divided at its inferior part into two large bundles of fibres, most frequently into three, and in some instances into four. Those of the right pass to the left side, and those of the left pass to the right side, mingling with each other.”—_Lettre d’un médecin des hôpitaux du Roi._ Namur 1710.