NOTE VII.

NOTE VII.Real Labours of Gall as to the Brain.Page 128.Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist.

Real Labours of Gall as to the Brain.Page 128.Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist.

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 oftracingthe fibres of the brain, or to use a common expression, of substituting in the dissection of the brain the method ofdevelopmentsfor that ofsections.

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 beunfolded; 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]“Theintellectual facultyand 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 theseoperations; ... 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]Isee withmyeyes.—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 thelocalizationsof Gall and Spurzheim. “Gall’s work,” says M. Vimont, “is fitter to lead into error than to give a just idea of the seats of the organs.”—Traité de Phrén. t. ii. p. 12. “Gall says he has remarked, that horses whose ears are widely separated at the roots, are sure-footed and courageous. Possibly the fact may be true; but I cannot comprehend the connexion that may exist betwixt the outward mark and the quality of courage, whose seat, in the horse, Gall indicates at a point where there is no brain.”—Ibid. 281. “Spurzheim indicates the region of the frontal sinuses as the seat of gentleness, while courage is located upon the muscles that go to be inserted on the os occipitis.”—Ibid. p. 117. Such are M. Vimont’s remarks, yet this same M. Vimont inscribes the following twenty-nine names on the skull of a goose!1. Conservation.2. Choice of aliment.3. Destruction.4. Cunning.5. Courage.6. Choice of locality.7. Concentration.8. Attachment to life, or marriage.9. Attachment.10. Reproduction.11. Attachment to the product of conception.12. Property.13. Circumspection.14. Perception of substance.15. Configuration.16. Extent.17. Distance.18. Geometrical sense.19. Resistance.20. Localities.21. Order.22. Time.23. Language.24. Eventuality.25. Construction.26. Musical talent.27. Imitation.28. Comparison.29. Gentleness.“All this upon the cranium of a goose!” says M. Leuret upon this occasion, (page 355.) “And there is no place so small but it is occupied.... The faculties are so crowded,” adds he, “that it would be a marvellous thing to be able to write their names upon the brain.... It would be a greater marvel to discover them.”[118]Gall himself says: “In whatever region we examine the two substances that compose the brain, it is with difficulty that we can discern any difference between them as to their structure, &c.”—T. iii. p. 70.[119]T. iii. p. 63.[120]“I remained a whole day shut up in an oven.”—T. i. 133.[121]T. i. p. 263.[122]Eloge de Tournefort.[123]One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1818. Phrenology is the very name given by Spurzheim to the doctrine of Gall.[124]One volume, 8vo. Paris, 1820.[125]Observ. sur la Phrénol. &c. p. 8.[126]Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 20.[127]Ibid. p. 22.[128]Rech. sur le Syst. Nerv. en général, &c. par F. J. Gall et G. Spurzheim.[129]Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerveux, &c., the work which has been examined in the three preceding articles.[130]T. iv. p. 341.[131]Ibid. p. 327.[132]Ibid. p. 341.[133]In the preceding article, p. 93.[134]Lettre de Charles Villers à Georges Cuvier, sur une nouvelle théorie du cerveau, par le Docteur Gall, &c. Metz, 1802.[135]Lettre de Charles Villers, &c. p. 34.[136]Ibid.[137]Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 10.[138]Especially in the last article.[139]And which was not taken up by Gall, except from the necessity he was under of assimilating at all points the external senses with the faculties of the soul.[140]Observ. sur la Phrén., &c. p. 65.[141]Ibid. p. 67.[142]Ibid. p. 75.[143]See particularly the Essai philosophique sur la morâle et intellectuelle de l’homme, p. 54, et seq.[144]Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 17.[145]Ibid. p. 127.[146]Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv., &c. t. iii. p. 19. This volume came out the same year as Spurzheim’s Observ., &c.[147]T. iv. p. 67.[148]The eight organs added by Spurzheim, are the organs of habitativity, order, time, right, supernaturality, hope, extent, weight. Gall’s remarks upon these eight organs proposed by Spurzheim are as follows: “M. Spurzheim, it is true, recognises eight organs more than I admit. As to the organs of habitativity, order, time, and supernaturality, I have already spoken. I admit an organ of the moral sense, or sense of right (juste), but I have very strong reasons for believing that benevolence is nothing more than a very strong manifestation of the moral sense; therefore I treat these two organs under the rubric of a single organ. What M. Spurzheim says on the organs of hope, of extent, and of weight, has not as yet convinced me: and, in fact, he has hitherto proved nothing in respect to them.”—T. iii. p. 25.[149]Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 216.[150]See the Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 47, et seq.[151]The sense of Amativity, the sense of Philogeniture, the sense of Destructivity, the sense of Affectivity, the sense of Thievishness, the sense of Secretivity, the sense of Circumspection, the sense of Approbation, the sense of Self-love. (What a chaos, and what words!)[152]The sense of Benevolence, the sense of Veneration, the sense of Firmness, the sense of Duty, the sense of Hope, the sense of the Marvellous, the sense of Ideality, the sense of Gaiety, the sense of Imitation.[153]The sense of Individuality, of Extent, of Configuration, of Consistence, of Weight, of Colour.[154]The sense of Localities, of Numeration, of Order, of Phenomena, of Time, of Method, of Artificial Language.[155]The sense of Comparison, the sense of Causality.[156]“Some of the affective faculties produce only a desire, an inclination.... I shall call them propensities.”—Observ. sur la Phrénol., &c. p. 124.[157]“Other affective faculties are not restricted to a simple inclination, but something beyond; which is what is called sentiment or feeling.”—Ibid.[158]“The intellectual faculties are also double: some of them know; others reflect.”—Essai Philosophique, &c. p. 225.[159]“The faculties peculiar to man are happy in themselves, per se.”—Ibid. p. 167.[160]Anat. et Phys. du Syst. Nerv. &c. t. iii. p. 27.[161]See his Histoire des Phlegmas. Chron. 1808.[162]See his work entitled, “De l’Irritation et de la Folie,” 1828.[163]Cours de Phrénologie, 1 vol. 8vo. 1836.[164]Cours de Phrénologie, p. 82.[165]Ibid. p. 140.[166]Ibid. p. 37.[167]“Memory is not an isolated faculty; and there are as many memories as organs.”—p. 131.[168]“The instincts and the sentiments have a memory as well as the external perceptions.”—p. 36.[169]“ ... The study of the human mind, not indeed that of a fictitious one bearing this mysterious appellation, but of theensembleof 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 beingperson par excellence....”—p. 75.[174]Let us examine, as to this particular (moi)me, all Broussais’svariorums. In one place themecomes 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 signme.”—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 theme, and of theperson, as the organ of general comparison.”—Ibid. p. 685. Next there is no organ at all: “To assign to themea 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 nomind(pure hypothesis); nofacultiesbut those of theorgans(the faculties are the acts ofmaterial organs); no understanding, except as a simple phenomenon of the nervous action (understanding and all its manifestations arephenomena 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 thediverging fibres. Coming from the interior, they proceed towards the exterior: theconverging fibrescoming 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 theconvolutions, while the latter compose thecommissures. 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.

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]“Theintellectual facultyand 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 theseoperations; ... 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]Isee withmyeyes.—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 thelocalizationsof 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.”

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

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

[119]T. iii. p. 63.

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

[121]T. i. p. 263.

[122]Eloge de Tournefort.

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

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

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

[126]Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 20.

[127]Ibid. p. 22.

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

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

[130]T. iv. p. 341.

[131]Ibid. p. 327.

[132]Ibid. p. 341.

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

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

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

[136]Ibid.

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

[138]Especially in the last article.

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

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

[141]Ibid. p. 67.

[142]Ibid. p. 75.

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

[144]Observ. sur la Phrén. p. 17.

[145]Ibid. p. 127.

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

[147]T. iv. p. 67.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[164]Cours de Phrénologie, p. 82.

[165]Ibid. p. 140.

[166]Ibid. p. 37.

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

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

[169]“ ... The study of the human mind, not indeed that of a fictitious one bearing this mysterious appellation, but of theensembleof 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 beingperson par excellence....”—p. 75.

[174]Let us examine, as to this particular (moi)me, all Broussais’svariorums. In one place themecomes 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 signme.”—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 theme, and of theperson, as the organ of general comparison.”—Ibid. p. 685. Next there is no organ at all: “To assign to themea 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 nomind(pure hypothesis); nofacultiesbut those of theorgans(the faculties are the acts ofmaterial organs); no understanding, except as a simple phenomenon of the nervous action (understanding and all its manifestations arephenomena 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 thediverging fibres. Coming from the interior, they proceed towards the exterior: theconverging fibrescoming 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 theconvolutions, while the latter compose thecommissures. But I shall, further on, return to this subject.

I here speak only of thediverging fibres. Coming from the interior, they proceed towards the exterior: theconverging fibrescoming 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 theconvolutions, while the latter compose thecommissures. 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.

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