m •j^j s> » *La fttf ■^ I" f*-5? ARMY MEDICAL LIBRARY WASHINGTON Founded 1836 I , Section. Number S-.7..-t...Q..__&_£rr__ Form 113c, W. D., S. G. O. 3—10543 (Revised June 13, 193G) Vi ra O" ^TIEITKLLF.CT, 117 XXIV Sec. 1. In what manner cerebral perception furnishes the ma- terials of all our instinctive, and intellectual operations, 118 Sec. 2. How the emotions of sensibility become motives of all our actions, 121 Sec. 3. In what manner observation, offspring of cerebral per- ception developes our intellectual faculties; and what are those faculties, 123 Sec 4 How the will and the freedom of the will, connect them- selves with perception, 125 Sec. 5 How. intellectual perceptions associate themselves with , instinctive emotions; and what constitutes the passions, 128 Sec. 6. Cause of error of the psychologists on the principle of action in man, 131 Ch. 7. How the instinctive and intellectual'phenomena, are con- nected with Irritation, 133 On volition and the will p 125 and 145 On nervous excitation considered in itself, 147 Ch. 8. On the part which excitation acts in the production of disease, 149 Sec. 1. How the defect of excitation produces abirritative dis- eases, 150 Sec. 2. How the defect of excitation produces irritative dis- eases, 154 Sec. 3. How excess of irritation produces diseases of irritation, and what those diseases are, 158 Sec. 4. Of the changes that take place in the organs in conse- quence of irritation, 162 ON IRRITATION AND INSANITY : part the second, 181 On Insanity considered in reference to the principles of physio- logical medicine, and the phenomena of irritation, 181 Ch. 1. On the causes of Insanity, 181 Ch 2. On the incubation of Insanity, 186 Ch. 3. Characters of Insanitt, 190 Acute furious mania p 190. Acute mania not furious 192. Chronic imnia general and partial, or monomania, 193 1. Instinctive monomanias, founded on the perversion of instinct and the wants termed physical; either complicated with de- lirium or not, 194 A. Perversion of the want or instinct of self-preservation, or suicide, 194 B. Perversion of the instinctive want of muscular exercise, or rest, _ 195 C. Perversion of the instinctive want of associating with other men, 195 D. Perversion of the instinctive want of nutriment, 197 E. Perversion of the instinctive desire of generation, 197 2. Intellectual monomaniacs ; or persons t;»at are sue!) from the perversion of moral wants, with the predominance of one idea, or one series of ideas, acquired, 198 A. Monomania founded on self-satisfaction, 198 B. Momormtnia founded on self-dissatisfaction, 200 C. Monomania of gaiety, 201 I). Monomania of melancholy, 201 E. Complex monomania, 202 F. Intellectual monomania without the predominance of inter- nal emotions, agreeable or painful, 202 Intermittent mania, 205 XXV Ch. 4. Progress, duration, complication, termination of insanity, 206 Dementia, and general paraiysis, 208 Ch. 5. Necroscopy of insane people, 213 Ch. 6. On thfories of Insanity, ancient and modern, until the in- troduction op physiological medicine, 216 I)r Gall's opinions examined, 226 to 233 Ch. 7. Theory of Insanity according to the physiological doc- trine, 233 Dr Gall's opinions on monomania &c. examined, 247 to 254 Ch- 8. Prognostic of insanity, 262 Ch. 9. On the treatment of insanity, * 273 Supplement : examination of the metaphysics of M. Cousin, 280 FINIS. End of M. Broussais' work, 292 APPENDIX: BY THOMAS COOP3R, M. D. Preface to the scripture doctrine of Materialism, 295 Brief account of the scripture doctrine of Materialism, 304 Mr Jefferson's letter thereon, 32ti A view of the metaphysical and physiological arguments 5n favor of materialism, ^^ Mr. Jefftrs.m's letter thereon, „^ Outline of the doctrine of the Association of Ideas, o/9 FINIS, 408 ERRATA. Page 29 for Stahl formerly read formally. 37 for effections read affections. 38 for attributing to read adopting. 39 line 9 from the top for -which read in -which. 44 line 9 from the top for nothing read any thing. 51 middle of the page for principle read principal. 72 line last, dele if. 95 line 13 from the top, for the senses read your senses.? 117 for ch. VH read ch. VI. 197 for B read D 213 line 16 from the top after symptoms add of. 216 line 16 from the bottom for exercise read exorcise. 230 line 11 from the top for than read that. 250 note for organiologists reaa organologists. 271 for 80 of Fah read 90. 272 line 11 from the top for vegetable, fccula, read vegetable fectilu; PREFACE. AFTER many vaccillations in its course, Medicine has at length tekcn thi; only road which can lead to truth ; that is, the observation of the relations of man with external modifiers * and of the organs of man, one with another.,, This method now universally prevails in writings, and in practice, whether it be avowed or not. This is the physio- logical method; because it must be followed by tudy.ng the phenomena of life, which alone render the bodily organs thus modifiable. Let us, however, beware of mistake ; it is not the abstraction, Life, which is to be studied, but the living organs. If the observer wearies himself with inves- tigations of properties or ftrees, considered independently of those living organs, or the natural bodies which iu.ve an influence over them, he will take much labor indeed, but he will fail in his object ; he will know neither organs nor agents; he will know only the dreams of his imagination; his head will be filled with illusions. It is thus that the ancients went a.-tray, as will be seen in this work. The moderns have not escaped the snare; and the same snare is even now preparing to be spread in the path of our cotem- poraries. Since then, true medical observation is that of the organs and their modifiers, it is in fact an observation of the body itself, and can be pursued only by means of the senses : hence the senses must furnish materials, and it belongs to the judgment to draw conclusions from them. But here a difficulty presents itself; if the physician draws false con- * Molificakum. Whatever acts upon and excites any part of the animal frame, producing any alteration whatever in its antecedent state.—Trans. X elusions, or if he be so unfortunate as to forget the true source from whence they should proceed, he loses himself, and deviates into that mistaken road of which we have just spoken. Such an aberration is the more easy in the present day, as this false route is sanctioned by some distinguished men; by names that command respect and inspire confidence in the doctrines they advance. It is under the auspices of these respectable names, some of them dear to France, that education, by means of the senses, is depreciated, and threaten- ed with discredit. Do not let us pass over an important dis- tinction, and a practical truth. If the abstract words, rights, lawfulness, disinterestedness, elevation of soul, are adapted to produce actions, praiseworthy, useful to the public good as;d to the national glory, it is not the same with the words vital properties, vital forces, vis medicatrix, specifics, conta- gion, and others of the same kind, which, in like manner, paint the abstractions of the human intellect; for nothing is more easy than to abuse these expressions ; that is to say, to impress under their sanction, on the living body, modifications hurtful to the health of particular men, and injurious to the good of society. Such a method of philosophising, although it may succeed in politics or diplomacy, is not always appli- cable to medicine ; and if it be sufficient in those two sciences, to abandon ourselves to the sentiment of the beautiful, the sublime, and the just, without searching very profoundly in what manner we have arrived at these ideas, it is not so in medicine, where it becomes necessary to prescribe the regi- men and treatment of a suffering fellow-creature, or to judge of questions that relate to the public health. These ques- tions cannot be resolved by sentiment or inspiration ; the mo- difying mendicaments prescribed, will not act directly upon vital force, upon nature, upon principle: they do not influence these abstractions, until after they have acted upon the or- gans ; and if these last are injured by a blow, the evil which the abstract idea would have produced, will be in future without XI remedy. In politics, on the contrary, the results of the ap- plication of a false principle may be calculated before the existence of society is compromitted ; for nations are much more robust than individuals; some victims there will be, but their sufferings will be perceived if the press be re- spected, and the mass of society may be preserved from similar evils. Society then may proceed in the career of improvement, independently of first principles ; it may be rendered happy or unhappy in the name of God, of the Prince, or of the Laws : experience will settle which of these three motives produce the most durable good, or an evil of most easy cor- rection. Moreover it is of little consequence in politics, whether the notion of justice or injustice comes from the senses, or from some interior revelation. The laws must be good ; and experience will soon pronounce on their advan- tages and disadvantages ; these become manifest to the pub- lic, and every one must at length acknowledge them. It is not so in medicine, while the evil produced by the circum- stances that modify and destroy our organs, are attributed to diseases, as if diseases were separate and real beings ; and the reason of the mischief is, that empirical medicine never corrects itself; experience is lost upon it, and it goes on with a satisfied conscience, sacrificing other victims. A just conception of disease, therefore, is the first object of medicine, nor can this be acquired without explaining in what manner this conception is formed ; that is to say, with- out probing to the bottom the real meaning of the Avoids vital properties, vital forces, vital laws, for the purpose of understanding the words putrid fevers, malignant fevers, &c. &c. It is necessary, therefore, that the physician should al- ways have present to his mind, the substance of the organs, and that he should never forget that the abstract ideas of the science he pursues, have come to him by means of the sen- XII ses, and that he cannot safely proceed to study man, by means of any a priori notions. The object of this book, is to put this truth in a clear light, and to guard medicine from the dangers that threaten her by means of a philosophical sect essentially invading.— Hence the necessity imposed on us, to present to young phy- sicians liable to be seduced by false systems, a true notion of Psychology,* which advances toward them with her ban- ner unfurled, and already anticipates an easy conquest. Introduced into the path of observation by the ideas of Des Cartes on method, and by the advice of Bacon—en- lightened on the nature of the apparatus which we use for this purpose of observation, by the labors of Locke and of Condillac, the French proceed zealously and in concert to- ward the enlargement of every branch of useful knowledge. To this concert of effort, natural philosophy, chemistry and natural history, owe the progress which has distinguished them among ourselves, and which has enabled industry to soar so high. The turn of medicine has now arrived ; the study of this branch of science, vague as it has hitherto been, has assumed more precision, since to the experimen- tal method of the great Holler, it has added a comparison of the diseased organs with the symptoms, and the study of vital properties and forces in pathologic lesions. Professor Chausier by his excellent delineations, had so well traced the path to physiological observation, that it seemed impos- sible to miss it. Pinel had attempted the philosophical anal- ysis of diseases, and if he did not perfectly succeed in this great enterprise, he at least struck out some ideas which the genius of Bichat has happily rendered fruitful of solid con- clusions for pathology, by a faithful analysis of the tissues of the human body. We shall make observations in concert *The doctrine of an immaterial soul, or principle distinct from matter, but some how or other connected with the human body, and presiding over its intellectual functions.—Trans!. - & Ml! with those of our predecessors; we shall profit by the ad- vice of Condillac and improve our scientific language, while the profound and judicious Destut de Tracy, will render his able aid in this difficult undertaking, of which the fulfilment will alone preserve to mankind that knowledge which he has been at so much pains to collect; the wise researches of Cabanis, have given to our nation a philosophic prepon- derance, which will insure us from invasion by foreign sects. The beautiful doctrine of the relation between the physical and moral qualities of man, belongs to us through Cabanis, at least as much as it belongs to England ; for Cabanis had made a step beyond our external senses ; he had noticed the powerful effect of internal viscera upon our thoughts, which was not unknown to Epicurus, who furnished, however, no physiological demonstration of this truth. These precious investigations have conferred on Physi- ology and Medicine, the exclusive right of dictating laws to Ideology, and promise to remove forever, any interference of the ephemeral systems of philosophical schools, with our science. We can now hardly venture to believe in any re- turn of those scholastic subtleties, and those wordy contests which occasioned such loss of time to our ancestors. So we thought, but we were wide of the truth. During the period that was occupied in France in observing the hu- man frame, with all the precautions necessary to exclude il- lusion, and give us a just view of its nature, the metaphysi- cians of Germany and Scotland disfigured the nature of man, under pretext of rectifying the system of Locke. It was indeed necessary to rectify that system, but it was on the data furnished by Cabanis, and not by returning to the no- tions of antiquity and the recal of the system of Plato. The French testified some disgust at the obscurity of Kants' system, which had been to them a frequent subject of raillery. It then became an object to naturalize it among us, under the specious pretext of making us acquainted with XIV the first disciple of the great Socrates : that first martyr to the right of freedom of thinking; the man whom every one had agreed to regard as a sage, and almost as divine. Was not this enough to stimulate the enquiries of our young men, greedy after every kind of knowledge ? Platonism5 twenty times repulsed from the schools—Platonism which the French regarded with disdain, and congratulated them- selves in having escaped its yoke, was offered merely as an object of literary curiosity. This was the first step taken toward disengaging us from actual observation of instruc- tive facts, and replunging us amid the illusions and chi- meras of Ontology. Natural Philosophy, Natural History Chemistry, Mathematics, the study of History, at present truly philosopliical, are walls of brass which Kants' Platon- ism can never subvert. Nevertheless, by favor of surprise it has made some steps among us, and some breaches in our ranks. The first object was to attack Cabanis, of far more consequence than Locke and Condillac. For Cabanis, al- though by no means free from Ontologism, had this advan- tage over his predecessors, that he appealed to facts which any one might verify, instead of confining himself to sys- tematic speculation : in reflecting on these facts, it is hard- ly possible not to discover others equally fatal to Ontology. The Kanto-Platonicians foresaw this; and without being fully aware of what might be discovered by the senses in •observing man, they were desirous of obviating before hand, Ihe results of observation which they could not prevent.— This is the amount of their present attempt, to place by the side of actual and sensible observation, and far above it, some pretended internal observation, which, if we believe them, is as much higher than the observation of our senses, as Morality is above Physics, Heaven above the Earth, or things sacred above profane. For this purpose, some consecrated words have been cho- sen, with no small success, as narrow and wide, low and el- XV evated, grand and little, and these are skilfully arranged.— Every thing that depends on the philosophy of the present day, is low and trifling ; all that flows from Kanto-Platonics is grand, noble and elevated. They attack our youth with arms formerly very efficient, with ridicule ; and they hope that men will fly to their ranks to avoid humiliating impu- tations. I know not whether they have yet discovered, that ridicule changes its object as knowledge progresses, and that words have not at this day their former influence; but whether they have discovered this or not, they have certainly chan- ged their means of attack. Assuming the tone and language of religious fanaticism, they do not insinuate, but they loud- ly proclaim, that no man can be an estimable member of so- ciety, who does not belong to their party. It needs but lit- tle for them to condemn to the gibbet, those who are called Sensualists. Who can be the dupe of their officious zeal to distinguish such as are wanting in philosophy, and to draw from their silence a pretended proof of concealed acquies- cence, or an inconsequence worthy of pity ? Skilled in multiplying the allurements which they deem necessary to offer to our astonished youth, they give them- selves out as eclectics, after having treated every other sys- tem as exclusive : and they say, or seem to say, " O ye who aspire to true knowledge, hasten to us, and we will instruct you in all the doctrines of others, and preserve you from the misfortune of being seduced by any of them. For know, that all other philosophers are monomaniacs : raving on some one idea, and who will soon reduce you to their own situation." What then is the eclectic philosophy of these men ? We now know it: they take their stand between Sensualism and Theology, but on the indispensable condi- tion of being spiritualists. On this we have but a word to say ; if they are essentially spiritualists, they are not eclec- tics ; they can only judge of other systems as spiritualists. and they too are governed by one predominant idea; XVI They borrow lrom the sensualists all the facts of sensation, which they explain after their own fashion, they borrow rev- elation from the Theologians, but they modify it as they think fit. They are true reformers of worship, or rather illuminati who aspire to the universal dominion over con- science. Exclusives as spiritualists, they amalgamate differ- ent dogmas, even those that were heretofore held as con- tradictory. Such is their Eclecticism. It remains to be known whether its base be solid; and whether they will be permitted to exercise the right of demonstration and of proof which they arrogate, and by which they set themselves up above all theologians who rest upon faith alone. This is a question which will be investigated in this volume, without entering into'religious discussions ; for we make it a duty to respect religious belief in a treatise consecrated to Physi- ology, and the exposition of those facts which the senses are competent to verify. We do not aspire to the titles either of dogmatist or eclectic ; it is truth we seek ; and wre seek it by those means of investigation which our organization furnishes. He who is in search of important fact, ought to be indifferent to the appellation which sectaries may bestow on him. The pivot on which this eclectic Ontology turns, is powers (forces,) on which we shall make some observations to ren- der our subject more comprehensible. The Kanto-Platoni- cians of France, affect the utmost contempt for matter, and have no consideration but for the powers that animate it; and believe that by this means, they place themselves far above the observers of facts. We must see if by this puf- fing up, they are rendered able to rise higher than their op- ponents. Let us examine what is meant by force or power. It is necessary to dwell upon this. What then is it, but the in- duction drawn by an observer of something which acts upon or within a body, producing therein some alteration ? The xvn observer is naturally carried on to suppose that the body is moved by something acting on it, as he himself is accus- tomed to act in certain cases on certain other bodies: no doubt there is a tendency to this conclusion. It is impossi- ble not to admit that we are driven to it by analogy ; that is to say, we are compelled to judge of what we do not know, by that which we believe we do know: but it is here, and precisely here, that the fact stops. The man whose judgment govern his imagination, restrains himself, and laments that he is compelled to remain in ignorance of first causes. For him, the word power, force, is but a formula ; the sign of a perception which he has received from some phenomenon, and he makes use of it only to search for others which his senses may equally seize hold of. It is not so with a man whose imagination governs his judgment; a man of a poetical tendency ; a Platonician, ancient or modern: equally credulous and presumptuous, he cannot support the idea of ignorance ; and he passes from vague conjecture, to the most perfect conviction : he does more, he hastens to realize his induction ; he personifies it; he makes it act as if it were an animated, living being; in short, like a man ; then he frames his romance, of which this induction is the hero ; and he is angry at those who refuse to pay it homage. Such is the fanaticism of opinion : it differs in intensity according to the character of the person in whom it is devel- oped ; but it is at the bottom always the same. All authors of this description, whether in medicine, philosophy, or any other branch of knowledge, may profess toleration, but they are not capable of it; they cannot be : they are too much attached to the fiction which has so agreeably occupied them; to their poetic prose, and to the incredible efforts which useless researches have given rise to; and looking at the picture for effect, they cannot support the idea that they have been occupied by chimerical reveries : they forgive a xviii brother romancer, although the portrait of his idol may be different from theirs ; but they never forgive a strict rea- soner who pays them no deference, and passes by the temple of Ontology without bending the knee. A figurative style suits marvellously the picturesque, and the fictions in which poetry deals : let it, if you please, be the style of idyls, or even of the epic ; but it ought not to be the style of philosophy, which it in no wise suits. Frequent experience since Plato, has taught us this: hence, young students cannot understand this figurative philosophy : they regard it with astonishment, and accuse themselves in secret of a want of intellect. There are always some, who by dint of listening, or of reading, succeed in figuring to their imaginations, some of those fantastic beings which this style pourtrays ; these, necessarily few in number, adopt the lan- guage of their teacher, and become violent in proportion as they were humble admirers of his sublime talent. As soon as these new adepts become unintelligible to their friends, and their conviction is carried so far as to make them smile with pity, and shrug up their shoulders at the names of Locke and Condillac—so soon as Cabanis is in their eyes nothing but an Atheist, happy that he escaped the severest punish- ment—so soon as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu, appear to them but sorry philosophers—that the works of Volney excite their indignation—and that the dryness of Destut de Tracy revolts them—their education is finished : they have no longer any occasion to study, or to consult the monuments of French literary glory, unless to criticise them, for they can find nothing of instruction in them; they are far above these legislators of reflection and of taste : what they cannot find in the classics of their own school, they are sure to find in their own consciousness; when discarding the senses, they withdraw within themselves, shut their eyes,avoid all noise,and listen to their own contemplations. When they have arrived at this high degree of perfection. XIX their features become composed, they assume an expression of pride, and they feel an inward conviction that their intel- ligence is infinitely greater than that of the persons who tell them with some surprise, " I do not understand you." The moment, however, seems to have arrived, when we may tear away the veil which renders their masters impene- trable. We hope in this work to make known the secret of their apparent superiority ; and the cause of that singular stupor which they have produced in the literary world. It is to physicians that we shall offer the explanation of these mysteries; for it is their cause that we are now plead- ing ; it belongs to the medico-physiologists to determine, what there is really appreciable in the causes of instinctive and intellectual phenomena. We address ourselves to phy- sicians, because he who has studied nothing more than the regular and healthy physiology of the human being, does not possess facts enough for the solution of these problems. Man is only half understood, if he is observed only in health: sickness constitutes part of his moral, as well as of his phy- sical existence. We must not, therefore, be surprised at the reveries of an Ontologist, who is a stranger to the physiolo- gy both of health and of disease ; or who is content with a superficial knowledge of authors, whom he is unable to com- prehend. Such is the case with the Kanto-Platonicians, and nothing is more strange than the pretension which they set up now-a-days to give laws to our science, especially at a moment when it is undergoing a stormy revolution, the nature of which they cannot understand. On all sides they find discussions of which they know not the true motive ; truth and error, sincerity and dissimulation, honorable dis- interestedness, and vile speculation imitating her language, are afloat, not in the whole medical world, but in the capital of France—in all the saloons—in all the academies ; and the Kanto-Platonicians are at a loss to discover their own tenets: they know not what medicine is, and yet they dare XX calumniate and despise it: they proclaim that the science oi man, such as they conceive it to be, has alone any preten- sions to certainty : without having passed even ten years of their life in studying man as physicians, or knowing him, con- sidered in his organs, living and dead, they think that the external observation of the grown man, is sufficient to explain all the phenomena of the embryo, the infant, the diseased, the deformed, and the dead, submitted to anatomi- cal analysis. The first observation is for them the only true one, because it is theirs; the other is a vain and gross hypo- thesis, calculated for common understandings. It is of con- sequence to show them where the truth really lies; in particular, to make them understand that a victory over a few deserters, or some speculators, who sacrifice to them a science which they do not understand, is immeasurably dis- tant from a victory over medicine. We will not do so much injustice to the French youth, as to believe they can be entirely led estray by the bloated language of the Kanto-Platonicians—the fund of good sense which distinguishes them, will doubtless preserve them now, as it has done formerly. But they may be confounded by the clattering of words which assail their ears on every side, and the schools of medicine will be surprised to hear, that this senseless jargon is to be introduced into the midst of the medical faculty, while so much opposition is to be made to the fruitful and intelligible doctrine of the Physiolo- gical School. We shall endeavor to explain this enigma, and make them feel the dignity of the science they cultivate ; and we shall prove undoubtedly, to every man who has con- secrated the most valuable years of his life to anatomical physiological, and pathological investigations, that the science which he has so laboriously acquired, neither is nor ought to be, tributary to metaphysics, from which it can draw nothing useful; and that so far from receiving its laws from this science of words, ought to supply them to meta- XXI physics which, like an ungrateful child, despises and denies its parent. Following this great truth, we must collect the phenomena of instinct and intelligence around the excited nervous sys- tem, and give them an important place among the genera- ting causes of irritation. We have not hesitated to adopt as the base of our work, the article Irritation, which we published in the Encyclopedic progressive, and which the public has favorably received. But the theory of irritation will receive in the following pages, a fuller developement than suited the plan of that work : so that this is in reality a new treatise on Irritation, which we now offer to our brethren. Since, of the four forms of Irritation, that of the nerves is more particularly developed in this book, as its importance required, and which we have hitherto refused to insist on, until time had matured our ideas,—we thought we could do nothing better than add to it by way of proof, a description of a correspondent malady. We have chosen Insanity, as being the disorder in which nervous irritation plays the most important part. This subject suited us better, as affording new strength to the arguments which we oppose to the ambitious pretentions of the Psychologists. In truth, our design in this work is, to unveil that mystery, under whose protection bad taste threatens to spread itself over the whole science of man, physical and moral; to con- tribute by a new effort, to the progress of physiological medicine, and to mark the causes which have prevented that progress from being more rapid; in fine, to pursue the science which we love, and to whose glory we have conse- crated the greater part of our life, from being subjected to a disgraceful subordination. It required motives like these, to induce us to interrupt the third edition of our Examen des doctrines mcdicales, which we have already put to press, and are sorry to delay so long; but that work shall be resumed with new activity. ON IRRITATION AND INSANITY. First Part.— On Irritation considered in its application to Health and Disease. Chap. I.—Idea of Irritation. The word Irritation represents to Physicians the action of irritating substances, or the state of the living parts that are irritated. We give the name of Irritants, to all those modifiers of our bodily economy which increase the irrita- bility, or sensibility of living tissues, and which raise these phenomena beyond their (normal*) regular degree. The word Irritation, is applicable to every living body, all of which are endowed with irritability ; but in medical lan- guage this word is used to designate the unusual increase of irritability, or of sensibility, among the higher order of animals. Our intention is, to consider irritation as applied to man alone, leaving to others the task of applying it to the veterinary art. To say that a man is capable of irritation, is, no doubt, to say that he is irritable ; but the irritability, which is the property of every tissue, is not taken in a pathological, or morbid sense. We express by this word, the property pos- sessed by the tissue, of moving on the contact of" a foreign body, which induces us to say, that a tissue has felt that con- tact. Haller confined this property to the muscular fibre : it is now agreed, that it belongs to every tissue. When a man is conscious of the motions excited by a foreign body, .Yormal: within the usual and regular limits of the laws of healthy life. Abnormal what is out of those usual and regular limits from whate- ver cause. L ^ J which we frequently call a modifier, he is said to have leit the impression of that body, and we give to the faculty which he possesses of feeling or perceiving it, the name of Sensibility. Sensibility then, belongs to the individual, (Moi,*) and irritability to every fibre of the human body. A part affected by a foreign body, may be excited to motion without the individual (Moi) being conscious of it. In this case, there is nothing but irritability ; but if the individual (Moi) experiences that kind of modification which induces the man to say, " I feel, I perceive," there is both irritability and sensibility. Sensibility, then, is the consequence of ir- ritability, and not irritability of sensibility: in other words, we must be irritable, before we are sensible. The embryo is not yet sensible, it is only irritable : an apoplectic man is no longer sensible, but he is irritable. We see that irrita- bility is common to all living beings, from the vegetable to the man, and that it is constant; while sensibility is a pro- perty belonging to certain animals only, and is manifested only under certain circumstances ; these circumstances are the existence of a nervous apparatus, furnished with a cen- tre, to wit, the brain ; there must also be a particular state or condition of that apparatus, for it is not always in a condi- tion to give to the animal a consciousness of the motions which pass within its tissue. The apoplectic man, and the embryo, are proofs of this. Some persons have erected into a property, the faculty which the fibre possesses, of yielding to the impression of a stimulant, without the animal himself being conscious of it. They have designated this pretended property, by the phrase Organic Sensibility, because it is in such manner inherent in the organs, that it may be observed in them when separated from the collection ; but as the movement of the stimulated fibre is the only phenomenon that is seen— as it is impossible to separate, to insulate the feeling from the motion—as the word feeling here, has no other meaning than self-motion—and as by like reasoning, the word feeling may be applied to inert bodies, since nothing hinders us from saying, that the ball which is moved, has felt the con- tact of the ball which is impelled against it.—This organic sensibility is a superfluous abstraction, which cannot find entrance into the exact language of philosophical physiology. *Moi: one's self—that which constitutes me a different being from every other thing or creature. This seems, among the French metaphy- sicians, to be the expression for individual consciousness,personal identity. Trnnsl.' [ 25 j The modifiers which put irritability into action, are called excitants, or stimulants, and their effect, excitation or stimulation. Excitation, considered under a general aspect, separate from the place where it exists, and the modifier which produced it, is also called excitement. When excita- tion, or stimulation exceeds the (normal) ordinary bounds, it puts on the character of irritation, and the agents wrhich produce this, are called irritants. This is the irritation which forms the base of the physiological doctrine in medi- cine ; but prior to considering it pathologically, and before investigating the part that it plays in the production, the course and the treatment of diseases, it may be useful to cast an eye over the eras of medical science, to discover by what gradations we have at length arrived at the point where we find ourselves. > Chap. II.—History of Irritation. Hippocrates had no idea of irritation, but he admitted a consent among the organs, which he attributed to an inter- nal principle (enormon) which a modern physician has translated impetum faciens, (producing an impulse;) by this occult force, he explained the phenomena of health and dis- ease. The dogmatists, who followed the father of medicine, acknowledged a material soul, etherial or igneous, formed of whatever was most subtile in matter, and they made it pre- side over every vital action : this material soul held its place for a long time among the schools, sometimes alone, and sometimes as subordinate to an immaterial and imperishable soul, but they had no idea of irritability in the living tissue. Neither is the theory of Strictum and Laxum of Themi- son, developed by Thessalus, irritation: it related to the facility or the difficulty which atoms experienced, in pene- trating into the cavities appropriated to them ; and the therapeutics which resulted from these hypothetical specu- lations, was absurd and without any relation to the modern theories of excitement and irritation. They proposed to open and shut the pores of all bodies which they considered like the skin, upon which they most frequently experiment- ed. Hence they set to work by means of frictions ; some- times executed with substances attractive, sometimes astringent, repulsive, adstrictive, &c. and they emptied the body by vomits, by purgatives, and by regimen; to fill it a"ain within a certain regulated number of hours or days. 1 L & I Men who had no idea of anatomy, or of the functions of the body, conceived that by these practices they could empty all the channels of the system, expel the old matter, and intro- duce new, more proper to sustain health, and this they termed metasyncrasy, or reincorporation ; they flattered themselves that by this pretended regeneration, they could give more force, suppleness, and permeability to ihe living channels ; correct the excess of constriction or relaxation, and place them in that middle condition, most favorable to health and longevity. We see, then, upon what slight foun- dations it is asserted, that the notion of irritability is found- ed upon.this system. Galen developed the elementary and humoral theory of which the germs were found in the writings attributed to Hippocrates. He was the father of humoralism—he estab- lished forces to act upon the elements, earth, water and air, or pneuma, to convert them into humors, regulate their mix- tures and their relations to each other, and enable them to direct the functions of life, and the conservative efforts of nature in disease. He lost himself in subtleties on almost every question he-discussed, and had no idea whatever of animal irritability. The doctrine of Irritation is not to be sought for in the oriental application of magic and the Cabala to the art of healing ; nothing is there to be found but what is degrading to the human intellect. The Arabians, who cultivated medicine with so much ardour before the invasion of the Turks, were mere copyists or imitators of Galen and the Greeks. They explained all the phenomena of life by occult forces, which they multi- plied prodigiously. They were the founders of Materia Medica, and of Chemistry, but they had no idea of Irritation. Dissection was interdicted, and experiment was unknown. They had no anatomy, but that of Aristotle or of Galen, or of the Physicians of the Alexandrian School. Surely it was not from these sources, they could derive any just notions of the vital properties of the human body. On the revival of letters, some authors, Jerom Fracasto- rius, for example, spoke of the irritation produced by the humours on the solids ; but they built up no system on this vital action. The word Irritation is found among them, merged and lost amid a deluge of expressions, more or less faulty, belonging to the elementary and humoral pathologv. [ 27 ] In this author, irritation is considered in the abstract, and not as seen in this or that part, or as a state of the body. During the 16th century, and the universal attack on the Galenical Theory, a Professor of the Faculty of Montpelier, Joubert, who first opposed " the dread of a vacuum," made use of Irritation to explain the phenomena of convulsions, which he attributed to the reaction of the solids against the morbific causes. He also attributed the action of medicines to a species of Irritation, viz. the disagreeable impression made on the stomach. Still the humoral pathology predo- minated ; no system was yet founded on the irritability of the animal fibre. This, indeed was not even suspected, though manifest in some of the functions. The Alchemists, the melters of metals, were for a long time occupied in discovering specifics and panaceas for the cure of disorders. Paracelsus their Coryphoeus, imagined a kind of soul attached to the organs and residing in the stomach. He called it Archceus, and gave to it in charge, the government of the functions ; but he did not assign to it Irritation as its prime minister, and irritability played no part in his absurd system of galimatias. Yet to one of the votaries of medical chemistry, Van Helmont, we owe the first notions clearly expressed of Irritation. Van Helmont admitted the Archceus of Paracelsus, and like him, placed it in the stomach. This physician was the first who gave a just notion of the local cause of Inflammation. He attribu- ted it to the anger of Archceus, who, offended by the pre- sence of morbid causes, sent a ferment into the part, which the Archceus aiways had at command. This ferment irrita- ted the tissues, which called upon the blood, and thus became the immediate cause of inflammation. He exemplified this by a thorn forced into a sensible part, and thus gave an idea of the mechanical production of Inflammation. He attribu- ted also to Inflammation some diseases which, till that time, had been very differently considered, such as dysentery, which he placed in the first rank of phlegmasia, declaring that it differed from pleurisy, only by the part effected.— His notion of the manner in which inflammation was produ- ced occupied the famous article Aiguillon in the Encyclo- pedic, which has laid the foundation for the modern works on the vitality belonging to each of the organs. But this idea had not all the success which we might have suspected; for, from the system of Descartes arose the phy- sioloo-ico-chemical school of Sylvius, the mechanico-mathe- [ ^ ] matical and animal'school of Stahl, who, for some time, turned aside the physicians from using the theory of ir- ritation. It is true, that Van Helmont placed this pheno- menon in the second rank only, and that his seeds of disease and his ferment, savored too much of the humoral theories, and his Archceus manifestly tended to place the soul at the head of all the physiological phenomena. This author may then be considered as the principal founder of medical spir- itualism, but his irritation is too much separated from matter, to serve as abase for any reasonable theory of the irritability of living tissues. Sylvius de le Boc, used the word irritation to give an idea of the action of acrid humors, which he conceived to arise from the fermentations, precipitations, and distillations, of wThich the human body was the continual seat. To blunt these acrid humors, he employed methods, more or less irritating: hence his theory does not rest upon irritability considered as a fundamental property of the body, and a source of vital phenomena ; irritation was for him, only something accessary, frequently very ill applied. We may say as much of all his followers who, like Floyer, multiplied their acrimonies, and sought their specifics among the incras- sating, always joined to irritating medicaments. In the system of Borelli, one of the founders of the me- chanical school, irritation plays an important part.—It is by this means, that the nervous fluid disseminated through the muscles by the action of the brain, determines their contrac- tion. Irritation figures also in producing diseases; for the nervous fluid becomes acrid by the vitious action of glandu- lar secretion, (although the blood does not participate this action,) excites fever by irritating the heart. But this appears to be the sum of their explanations, founded upon irritability ; for their calculation of the force of the hcurt, and the fibres of the stomach—their dissertations on the effects of trituration—the velocity of the blood—the impulse of the molecules against the sides of their containing vessels— the influence which angles and curvatures produce on the course of fluids, and similar researches to which they always applied calculation, absorbed the attention of these physi- cians, and drew them aside from the principal phenomenon. It was elasticity, considered as a mechanical force, which formed the fundamental property of the living body, and not irritability, a word which was employed, not in a literal, but [ 2«J j in a metaphysical sense, to give an idea oi the principle of action. Hence all the explanations of this school were me- chanical, and most of the physicians that belonged to it were empyrics in Pathology, and mechanicians and calculators in Physiology. Hence, no doubt, the opinion which prevails at present among certain practitioners, that mathematical sciences can render no service to the practice of medicine. Nevertheless, some physicians, convinced of the insuffi- ciency of mechanico-mathematical calculations, to explain the movements of the blood, and the congestions in, and derangements of the secretory organs, had recourse to irrita- tion, by means of which the blood is attracted, independently of the impulsive force of the heart. This irritation was, ac- cording to them, a vital phenomenon which they did not place in subjection to ferments, such as those of Van Hel- mont. Nevertheless, in spite of these flashes of reason over the physiology of life, irritation was nothing yet but an accessory phenomenon, not essentially inherent in the ani- mal fibre, so as to force itself into the explanation of all Physiological and Pathological appearances. It was from this cause that the authors who were not mechanicians in Physiology, were always either humouralists or empyrics, whenever the causes of the treatment of diseases come in question. \/ Stahl formerly denied that the parts of the body were brought into action by stimulants, and that they contract themselves under the influence of stimulants : this was de- nying the fundamental point of the doctrine of irritation. He acknowledged no active power capable of producing motion, excepting the soul, which he borrowed from Van Helmont. It was the soul that perceived impressions; but '^ is soul made use of tonicity as the only agent capable of producing motion, although the notion of making the modi- fiers of the body act immediately upon an immaterial sub- stance, without counting any thing of the impression made upon living matter, and introducing this last solely for the purpose of producing a reaction of the spiritual being, seems strange and contradictory; yet, on studying the system of this physician, we cannot help perceiving that it was favor- able to the progress of the theory of irritation. In effect, it was only necessary to place this phenomenon between the body impressed and the soul, just as he had placed what he calls tonicity between the action of the soul and bodily L m J motion, to perceive that irritation presides over the pheno- mena of health and disease. But the properties of the seve- ral tissues which compose our organs and other apparatus, was not sufficiently understood to lead readily to this con- clusion. Nevertheless they employed the word irritation to give an idea of the manner in which the soul is effected by its modifiers.—It is the soul, according to the disciples of Stahl, which is irritated by the light that strikes upon the retina; and it is the soul which determines the closing of the eyelids and the contraction of the iris. One said that the soul was irritated by the impression of acrid matter which affected (not irritated) the nerves, and which excited fever. Another, Robert Whytt, acknowledged three spe- cies of muscular motion : one natural, another produced by nervous influence and voluntary, and a third, involuntary, produced by direct irritation. But the soul was always brought forward ;* they always regarded it as the cause of motion, and to explain the motions which took place in a separated muscular fibre, they maintained that the soul was divisible, and that its presence in each portion of a divided heart, was the cause of the contractions which took place. They employed the same reasoning to explain the repeti- tion of the contractions in a heart, torn out of a living animal, when they ceased to puncture it; they saw no mean be- tween Mechanism and Animism, and if the heart did not move mechanically, it must move by means of the soul; they regarded as nothing the inherent irritability of the liv- ing fibre ; they gave the same explanation of the irritations applied immediately to the nerves, and more or less pro- longed after the substraction of the modifiers. This, there- fore, was not the true theory of irritation. Others, never- theless, pretended that the will always acted as an irritant upon the parts ; this was one step more toward the truth, but the system was not yet generalized; indeed it could not be while irritability was separated from the living fibre, and while tonicity, the substitute of elasticity, was regarded as the principle property of tissues, and the abstract entity, irritation, was in this system brought into play, in lieu of the irritability of living animal matter. Sauvages Avas mechanician in Physiology, and empyric * No man who has glanced at the prevailing Physiology, and the pre- vailing Theology of any period, can doubt but the absurdities of Physiolo- gy must be ascribed to clerical influence.—Trar.sl. L 31 ] in Pathology : he subjected all the mechanical phenomena of the living body to the soul, and studied diseases by groups of symptoms, as is seen in his Nosologic Methodique. He had no just idea of irritation. The reasonable soul of Stahl became now superceded by the vital principle. This was only changing the word. Thus, Casimir Medicus maintained that matter was of itself incapable of all motion, and that the irritation of tissues which had forced itself into notice, explained nothing with- out the intervention of this foundation-principle. Another author revived the material soul of the ancients, and assign- ed to it the same functions as the reasonable soul of Stahl. Each portion of the body was endowed with its peculiar sentiment and imagination, which was under the general government of this material soul. There is no assignable termination to the entities created and interposed between the immaterial soul and the organic fibres. But this arbi- trary creation could not resist the progress of physical sciences. Nothing is seen in these hypotheses, but the system of Van Helmont under different colours. Theophilus Bordeu admits in each organ a particular feeling. But he does not erect it into an intellectual feeling. Each organ being possessed of its own proper life, has also its own particular internal agents of irritation, which it draws from the blood, the nerves, &c. This author brought the glands greatly into play, conferred a principle of action on the blood, and submitted the whole to the vital principle, which in truth was not the reasonable soul of Stahl, nor an etherial or igneous material principle like that of the ancients. It was something abstract; the general result of the particular lives of the respective organs ; but it was also an active force which directed the mass of par- ticular and special forces. Irritation here is only a secondary means. It is not that force, which reflected from one organ upon the others, com- municates motion and supports life : it is the general force, a result of all the particular forces, which feels the wants, calls in the means of supplying them, disposes the concert of motions, assimilating, depurating, conservating, repro- ducing, and directing the phenomena of nutrition. This is not yet the theory of Irritation. Shall I speak of the chimerical functions to which this author put the cellular tissue ? the pains and cachexies proceeding from the vicious [32 ] action of the different secreting organs, which the vital prin- ciple had to remedy by laborious efforts of coction, more or less prolonged, by crises, depurations, &c? It is evident that the theory of Bordeu, though much superior to those of his predecessors, is nothing like the true doctrine of irri- tation. It carries also with it an impression of Animism. It seems to give ideas and action to a principle, and to princi- ples of which no one can form a precise idea. It is so far good that it unites these principles to particular organs, so that you cannot think of the one, without contemplating at the same time the other, and their modifiers. As to the theory of Coction, and efforts made with irritation, this is a remains of the Ontology of the Hippocratic Schools. La Caze, so much thought 01 by some, spoke of irritation ; but he nearly confined it, in the production of vital motions, to the tendinous centre of the diaphragm which he consider- ed as nervous. He wandered so far from the truth, that we cannot place him among the physicians who contributed to the progress of the theory of Irritation. These errors would not have been committed, if physiolo- gists had been content to reason on facts well established. But the mad propensity derived from the ancients of guess- ing at functions instead of studying them ; and that other not less erroneous of considering every thing abstractly— of talking for a long time about functions without noticing the organs to which they belong—of placing the organs in a subordinate point of view, and creating some immaterial being to hover over them, and direct all their movements— this Ontologic mania was as yet too fashionable to permit physicians, under the influence of their imagination, to escape from it. On the other hand, wise men, who had no anatomi- cal and physiological analysis to resort to, for no one had as yet established such abranch of knowledge, had no resource but to empiricism or scepticism. But scepticism prescribes no formulas, and diseases demand them. There was no remedy, therefore, in medicine, but empericism and a re- nunciation of physiological reasoning. Content with a superficial view of facts, exclaiming with Horace, Permute Divis ccelcra. Barthez, a noted favorer of the vital principle, placed in subordination to it too many particular forces, and brought it upon the stage as a kind of intelligent mil: although he [ 33 ] protested to mean no more by this than the cause, whatever it might be, of vital motions. This author admits also of humoral charges, founded partly on the theory of the Ga- lenists, and partly on that of Bordeu ; for he strove as much as possible to make the different theories agree. He re- garded irritation as a secondary phenomenon, and did not make it the base of any regular system of Physiology, or of Medicine. Ernest Plainer, in his great work on Anthropology, admits a nervous spirit, a kind of material soul, which he proposes as the general instrument of the immaterial soul. The or- gans pump it out of the atmosphere: it corresponds to the Pneuma of the old physicians. It is an emanation of the general soul of the world, and proceeds from the ether.— This material soul, diversified in each organ, produces therein sentiment, desire, aversion, and explains all phenomena. In this explanation irritation acts but very feebly. Hitherto nothing appears on irritation but what is vague. Arriving at Francois Glisson, we shall see something more precise. Without entering into the details of the system of this philosophical physician, we shall remark, that he ascribes to each animal fibre, a property which he terms irri- tability, and of which the results are perception and desire (appetit). Perception differs from sensation. Perception precedes the motion which is the effect of irritability, and is converted into sensation so soon as it reaches the soul. This perception is natural to the fibres; the nerves possess it; it renders the fibres irritable ; it is the source of natural movement, which the author distinguishes from sensitive movement, the result of sensation. The soul having received a sensation from a natural perception, acts upon this for the purpose of moving the muscles, without acting immediately on the muscles. The will put into action by the soul, acts upon the irritable fibres by means of the nerves, or their natural perception. Irritability is divided into natural, vital and animal; and the humors partake of it. There are vital spirits also, intermediate between the immaterial soul and the organs. The sympathies between these two, are explain- ed by the communication of animal irritability. In spite of all this Ontology, it is easy to see that the first theory of Irritation is comprised in Glisson's, and the germs also of the theory of excitement. To find this, it is only necessarv to take awav the immaterial beings which he has 5 * L 34 j placed between the impression of the excitants and the movement of the fibre ; and then will remain the irritability of the fibre, and its result, irritation. Still this irritability is too general, too vague. It becomes necessary to appreciate its degree and its function in each tissue. This precision, however, belongs to a period much nearer to our own. But we shall see that the first notions of the theory of excitement must not be refused to Hoffman. Irritation occupied an important place in the system of this author, but it did not form the basis, of that system. The blood contains an etherial fluid which it dispenses to all parts of the body ; which is secreted in the brain, and distributed in the nerves. This fluid is the first mover of life ; it is this which gives irritability to all the tissues ; it is the intermedium by whose aid the immaterial soul acts upon the body ; it constitutes of itself a sensitive soul, and each of its parts has an idea of the mechanism of its whole organization. It is according to these ideas, that the mate- rial soul forms a body for its own habitation ; she takes care of it, she repairs it, &c. &c. We can easily see that the thinking particles of this sensitive soul, do not differ from the Monads of Leibnitz. Is there any question of the movements which are execu- ted by this sensitive soul ? Hoffman studies and explains them by Mechanics and Hydraulics. Life consists in the preservation of this union, through the movement which is produced by the spirit contained in the blood, and it is this movement which keeps up the animal heat. Independently of this movement, Hoffman admits another, which he regards as fundamental; that is, the diastole and systole of the membranes of the brain, or meninges, already discovered by Pacchioli and Baglivi. It is this new motion propagated in the dura matter of the spinal marrow, which forces the nervous fluid into the different parts of the body. The excess of this motion furnished him with the explana- tion of convulsions. In general, diseases depend on irregu- larities in this motion, or in the imperfect mixture of the humors produced by the faulty action of the spirit, dissemi- nated through the blood, whose mixture it does not properly regulate. Excess of this motion produces spasm ; when too feeble, the result is atony; while the faults of the mix- ture engender humoral diseases. Hence arose a pathology, arbitrary and fantastical. We I 35 j see clearly that the physicians of that day, to whatever sect they belonged, were embarrassed by the obligation they believed imposed on them, to make room, some how or other, for an immaterial soul,* and to explain its relations with every part of the body. Descartes located this soul in the pineal gland; others placed it in other parts of the brain; but Hoffman, brought up in the school of Van Helmont, distributed it to every part of the body. The great difficul- ty to be overcome still remained : that is, the contact of an immaterial substance with matter. They had long been in the habit of extricating themselves by means of spirits : that is, a subtile matter, more or less like ether, from whence they frequently derived it; but as these kinds of gasses were capable of contact, in part with the soul, and in part with the organs of the body, they had only to explain their ope- rations, by the Chemistry or Philosophy of the day. Whe- ther they employed two souls, and two sorts of spirits, or one, the idea was at bottom the same. Hoffman sometimes made his soul and his spirits mechanicians, sometimes che- mists ; at other times they seem to put the molecules into action according to the blind laws of vegetative life, as if these molecules had not labored under the eyes of their immaterial principles, and in some measure under their hands. His pathology conducted him to stimulants, though he abused them much less than many others. All this is very unlike the true theory of Irritation, toward which, Hoffman had not advanced so far as Plattner. Hitherto, irritability had been considered confusedly and always abstractedly. The great Holler, first of all determin- ed by precise experiments, what tissues were really irritable: the result with him was, that their property was confined to the muscular fibre. Of the other tissues, some, like the nervous, and those which were abundantly furnished with nerves, were endowed with sensibility only: others, not the fewest in number, were declared to have neither sensi- bility nor irritability, but a vis inertias only. The connec- tion of the nerves, which, according to Haller, produced nothing but sensibility, served to explain the sympathies, or the propagation of excitement from the fibres of one part, to those of another. This theory was a great step gained ; for it gave consis- tence to ideas, before that time, too abstracted to fix the *'An obligation imposed on thorn by the clergy.—Transl. t 30 ] attention of strict reasonei s, and too difficult to convince them. But it did not furnish a sufficient reason of the phe- nomena of motion, particularly such as took place in the numerous tissues to which Haller had refused both irrita- bility and sensibility, and allowed them only a vis inertias; for what idea can you have of a vis inertise in a living body ? The cellular tissue, and the organs, which, according to that author, are formed out of it, such as the tendons, had no distinct properties. How then could be explained the union of these tissues with those that were sensible or irritable ? Besides the first defect, Haller's system had a second, not less weighty. Sensibility, that part of the ancient soul, be- came materialized, when it attached itself to the nervous tissue, and assumed an heretical character, when taking its place by the side of the irritability of the muscular fibre. This, of course, excited grave suspicions among the physi- ologists and the philosophers. Notwithstanding all the efforts they made at that time to remedy this very inconve- nient materialization, and which encroached upon the do- main of the soul, it has remained even to our day ; and our spiritual philosophers cannot get rid of this cruel thorn, but by interposing the soul between the Almighty and their sen- sibility, just as the ancients interposed spirit, or ether, between the soul and matter. We shall of course consider this subject again, by-and-bye. Nevertheless, the successors of Haller perfected their theory as far as they were able. One re-established the irritability of Glisson, and made it the source of all the mo- tions of the body, dispensed it to every tissue, and assigned to the nerves alone, the power of exciting, and of putting it in action. Some time after, another proved that irritability was independent of the vital spirits, and belonged originally to the fibres; for he demonstrated it in zoophytes and in plants. Others showed that the essence of the human body, consisted in the re-union of the forces of its several tissues. They saw that irritability remained in those parts whose sensibility had been destroyed by tying, or cutting the nerve, distributed through them ; they specified the external agents which excited, diminished, extinguished, or exhaust- ed it by excess. (Works of the school of Winter.) These exciters of irritability assumed the name of stimulants, which they have kept to the present day. Many authors went so far as to deny the existence of the nervous fluid. L 37 J Many disputes arose concerning the sensibility of differ- ent parts : some refused to allow it in conformity to the experiments made on living animals; they pretended to judge of it, rather by the pain excited by the inflammation produced, than by the presence of nerves. They maintain- ed that contractility is an original property of living matter, and therefore that every part of the body, without exception, is endowed with it. This opinion found many supporters. Thus by degrees the bases of the theory of Irritation were laid down. After such facts established, how was it possible to remain so long adherents, to medical Ontology; how could every thing remain in doubt, and how could medicine come down to our day, without having been able to associate itself de- finitively with Physiology by the intervention of irritation ? Peter Anthony Faber, however, gave it a valuable sup- port. He demonstrated better than any one else, the irrita- bility of the capillaries, independent of cerebral innervation. He remarked in frogs, that the blood followed all directions, sometimes a course retrograde in the small arteries, and direct in the small veins. Dr. Sarlandiere repeated this experiment before us, by placing the mesentery of a frog in the focus of a microscope. We had ascertained that the molecules of the fluids came from all parts, convergingly even across the veins, toward the point irritated by the puncture of a pin, and were there accumulated so as to form a congestion. At length the molecules of the circumference were able to disengage themselves, and take an inverse direction if you establish a new point of inflammation in the neighborhood of the former. This fact became decisive in the theory of many inflammatory disorders, and of the effect of revulsion. Faber had made a very happy application of this fact to the theory of inflammations. If it was not sa- tisfactory in his hands when applied to fevers, it was because he had not viewed these effections as phlegmasiae. In fact, while fevers were not reduced to a phenomenon of inflammatory irritation, they remained within the domain of the vital principle, a kind of immaterial soul, but perisha- ble—subordinate to the immortal soul, but strictly connected with it. This foreseeing principle—this interior providence of Hippocratic origin, all whose doings had a purpose to be guessed at, reduced the business of a Physician to that of an Augur or Auruspex, at least in the greater number and most [ as J prominent of the cases, and especially in those which were most interesting for the multitude and mobility of the scenes they presented. How could a series of notions so incom- plete, for the most part, associate'themselves to irritability so as to become a real science ? WTas it not necessary to throw down this monstrous colossus of specific fevers, so labori- ously raised by the successive efforts of physicians, from the very first epoch of civilization ? This new theory of inflammation, which consisted in attributing to a local irritation, attractive of the neighboring fluids, furnished in all cases the means of attacking with success, the system of Boerhaave, on the obstruction of the small vessels, by the globules of the blood, as being the cause of inflammation, and furnished a better foundation for the therapeutics of disease ; but physicians did not derive all the advantages of which this theory was capable, for inflammations were too confined, and systems were afloat which diminished their number. Ontology was too power- ful at that day, to permit the full developement of the theory of irritation, and the physiological doctrine of medicine. Some established an identity between nervous power and irritability, and made the soul contribute to all the irrita- tive movements ; but as it was proved that irritability did not depend on nervous influence, these notions did not gain ground. Innervation is for the fibre no more than an exci- ting cause to put it in action, and which renders irritability more marked and distinct. Hence arose the nervous theory, which took its origin at Edinburgh, and of which Cullen was the father. He dedu- ced it indeed from the doctrines of Hoffman, who frequently sought for the cause of disease in the nerves. But Hoffman made the nerves subordinate to the dura mater: he made this to act mechanically, so that the causes of disease were with him mechanical: he admitted also of humoral diseases, which Cullen rejected, referring every thing to the modifi- cations of the nerves. Cullen is properly the father of solidism, although he often wanders. He combined the notions of Hoffman, with vital forces. In his theory of fevers, he sets out from the principle that all the causes of these affections are debilitating. This debility exists at the surface; and the reaction of the vis medicatrix excites the powers of the body and produces heat ; but the debility at the surface exists during the whole L 3U J progress of the fever. The internal coat of the stomach partakes of it. The diminution of energy in the brain, is the first cause of that in the skin. Spasm succeeds atony, and the mutual reaction goes on. Hence, Quinquina and other tonics be- come specifics in these cases. Cullen attributed inflammation to the irritation of the sanguineous capillaries. Rheumatism is a type of this state, which visceral phlegmasia? are passed over. The gout dif- fers greatly from rheumatism, as being a disease of the whole system—a nervous debility arising from atony of digestion. This atony assumes periodicity, in which the gouty fit arises from congestions taking place at the articu- lations. Irritation becomes in this system an important agent, but almost always a secondary one. This is a bad use to put it to. The author makes it arise from debility, and in vain we ask, what is the primitive debility in those disorders which are more successfully treated by debilitating the patient, than by exciting him, with a view to give strength ? Irritation is not in its proper place here, nor is this the doctrine of Irritation. Cullen, moreover, passes by many diseases. He admits, against his own principles, of acrid humors, and dwells al- most always on cure by tonics. It is to Cullen we owe the tonic therapeutics in fevers, and in those chronic affections where he always saw relaxation of the stomach. These notions supported by his disciple Brown, have prevailed in the European schools even to this day. The atony which here appears again upon the stage, is the laxum of Themison, who located it in the vessels. But it had been already presented under another aspect, for Stahl had acknowledged the general relaxation of fibre. Hoff- man rather placed it in the nerves than the vessels. Cul- len saw it in every tissue. Nature no longer struggles, as Boerhaave supposed, with a stagnation of the fluids. He has now to contend according to Cullen, with relaxation con- verted into spasm. The disciples of Boerhaave at least, left some energy in their organ of reaction : irritated by the obstacle which stopt the blood it would otherwise have pushed forward, the heart redoubled its vigor, and its in- creased efforts produced inflammation and fever. This an- ger of the heart, substituted for the anger of the Archaeus, was in truth gratuitous, but it involved no contradiction. I 40 ] Aut so with the "atonico-spasmodic system of Cullen : the atony was not confined to the skin and the surface-vessels, but extended to the stomach and particularly to the brain ; a thoughtlessness surprising, considering that in this system the nervous apparatus was the chief organ of life, and the source of all reaction. For if the brain be in a state of de- bility, we see not whence that reaction is to come, which raises up a fever to overcome atony and spasm. If Cullen had been an animist, one would have supposed he would have assigned this part to the soul to perform : but he talks of nothing but nature, life, and matter. In his system, therefore, we are driven to suppose that the vital principle, something different from matter, acts upon it and produces reaction. Still, Cullen rendered great service to medicine, by shew- ing the true manner in which medicaments act. He has enabled us to banish specifics, by shewing that medicine acts only on the nervous system. They act indeed first upon the stomach, which by its numerous sympathies acts upon every other part of the body and corrects the tendency to disease ; which was as much as to say, that they did not act directly or specifically on the morbid entites, which diseases were considered to be. It is true, Cullen usually proposed to increase the tone of the stomach; but he was not blind to the relaxing and dissolving properties of emollient medi- cines, or the vital reaction which rendered astringents and narcotics irritating. With such principles, we might have been led in due time to perceive, that therapeutic agents did nothing but modify the vital properties, and augment or di- minish the excitation of the organs. He therefore furnish- ed to the doctrine of irritation, a foundation which subsequent observers might render more substantial. James Gregory, a Professor at Edinburgh, and one of the proposers of the new nervous theory, pretends that every thing is nervous in the animal economy ; and doubts wheth- er sedatives directly diminish irritation ; he is inclined to regard them in the first instance as irritants. This notion adopted by Brown, and from him to Ravori, has served as the base of all the disputation on excitement. Samuel Musgrave, of London, was of the same school. Every disease even to dropsy, typhus, and contagion, were affections of the nervous system, and medicines acted only upon that system. De la Roche, (analyse des fonctions du systeme nerveux'i [ 41 ] professed similar principles. Like Gregory, he established a distinction between the rapidity and the intensity of ner- vous phenomena ; the first increases as the latter diminish- es. Stimulants according to him, increased the rapidity, tonics the intensity of nervous action. This theory has gained ground. Even at present a distinction is made be- tween excitation and tonic action; but this latter is only a shade of the former, which according to the physiological physicians, is in fact the same. According to Albert Thaer, fever is nothing else than an excitement of the nerves of the vital organs ; whence re- sults an increase of irritability in the heart and arteries. He repeats after Baglivi, that crudity in fevers is the result of spasmodic and irregular contraction ; and when the spasm ceases, a healthy coction succeeds. These expressions are vague, and the seat of spasm is undetermined ; but we see clearly that the doctrine of irritation promises to become the prevailing system. Stall himself, with all his humoril- ism, entertained the notion that fever and inflammation were owing to the augmentation of irritability in the heart and arteries, and Selle did not hesitate to place the cause of fe- ver in a particular disposition of the nervous system, which can only be referred to irritation. The theory of Schceffer, physician at Eatisbon, is much nearer what we acknowledge at present in France, although it differs, as we shall see, in many essential points. Accor- ding to him, all diseases depend on an unnatural irritation of the nervous system. Excitement, crudity, coction, are all nervous. Critical evacuations do not decide upon febrile diseases ; they are nothing but relaxations produced by the cessation of spasm. This author pays more attention to ner- vous affections and irritations, than to pretended acrimonies. Medicines act upon the nerves of the stomach, and bring the sympathies into play, by aid of the great intercostal nerve. Here is, without doubt, an important position ta- ken, to found thereupon the theory of acute disorders ; but we want intermediate facts to render it useful. The author deduces from his theory, the necessity of emetics to shake the system powerfully, to overcome spasm, to hasten coction, &c. &c. But to recur to irritation, for the purpose of over- coming irritation, without having revulsion in view, (that is to say, without meaning to create a new and counter irri- tation) and to suppose that irritants have a specific. L ** J anti-irritative effect, as he supposes after Rasori, is to entertain .a false idea of the irritability of the tissues ; for the proper view of the subject is founded on the knowledge of the mode of action of internal fluids and external agents upon the same tissues ; and a just notion of this mode of action constitutes the true science of medicine. We find in John Gardiner an excellent application of the nervous theory of that day. He attributes catarrh, to a transfer of irritation from the skin to the air passages. What more precise can be said of the sedative action of cold ? And why did not the other parts of the theory agree with this? Some classifiers have reproduced in our day, a system ex- plained by Vanderheuvel. This author based it upon the different aberrations of vital energy; the genera of disease, rested upon the disorder of the general functions; and the species of disease, on the disorder of the special functions. This gave us diseases arising from excess of general, and diseases arising from excess of local irritability. The fault of this system has already been shewn : you cannot separate the vital properties of the organs from the organs, to make these properties as distinct entities, preside over organic af- fections. You must study the lesions of these properties in the organs themselves that are diseased, and not the le- sion of the organs in the disease of the properties : these last are chimerical entities, resulting from medical On- tology. (The property of any thing by which it is known or characterized, is not an independent being, separate from the thing of which it is a property : it is not a noun substan- tive but a noun adjective, as a peculiar yellow brilliancy is the property of gold. It is the thing itself.—Trans.) All these efforts shew that the attention of physicians was no longer voluntarily directed to ch'meras, although from the influence of prevailing prejudices, they were undesign- edly led in that direction ; but their intent was to rest upon the phenomena, from whence we derive our notions of life. These phenomena were known in a great measure —no one could lose sight of them. It required only a good and clear method of studying them, which they were yet far from possessing. Henceforward the soul of Stahl presides no more over diseases: vital force, nature, were substituted ; and the Ammists for Psychists,) had become Solidists. According I ^ J to Vacca Berlinghieri, Professor at Pisa, we ought no lon- ger to talk about humors. It was necessary to study the so- lids and the forces that animate them. No more of putre- faction in the circulating fluids ; this takes place not within but out of the vessels. The constitution of the atmosphere alters the humors only by acting on the solids. He admits a principle of reaction which is the cause of salutary and morbid changes, and is in fact vital energy ; and medicine acts by means of the substances prescribed, on this vital energy. The base of this theory is good ; not so its appli- cation. Physicians dwelt as yet among important generali- ties. In spite of themselves they were drawn on to consid- er the vital principle as some separate abstract being: irri- tation was not studied in its actual effects on each organ, nor was the connection traced between the irritability of each tissue and the irritants actually employed. Grimaud, Professor at the school at Montpelier, was among the vitalists, but in a peculiar way. He discovered a great affinity between nervous diseases and fevers. He ob- served among the phenomena the principle of reaction. The heat and cold of fever are equally affections of the nerves. But the faults of the humors, (the fluids) are not the result of those of the solids, for the vital principle acts equally on the fluids. These fluids then have their appro- priate diseases independent of the solids. This modifica- tion of the humoral pathology, adopted also by Bordeu, has always had its partizans. But to adopt a vital principle which sometimes hovers over the solids, and sometimes over the fluids, separated from both, is Ontology. (It is Proso- popeia.—Trans.) To see morbid entities all ready formed in the fluids, before the solids are affected by them, is illu- sion and chimera. The fluids, as we shall see by and by, may contain a cause of disease resident for sometime within themselves, but the disease itself does not reside there. To make the curative modifiers act upon the fluids instead of the solids, is another illusion supported by no fact. What- ever part we choose to assign to the living solid in that theo- ry, we can see nothing that induces us to confound it with the doctrine of Irritation. Notwithstanding all the labors of the solidists, they had not yet extended unity to the different phenomena of the animal body. Most of the physicians were inclined to sep- arate as Haller did, nervous energy from muscular irritabili- L 44 ] iy, so that the irritation of the nerves was not iike that of the muscles ; nor had they any idea of the irritability of tis- sues, which Haller had condemned to" vis inertia?. They sought to establish this desirable unity, by saying that the nerves are the base of all the tissues, and that in fact every theory is reducible to ner_vous substance. But this hypo- thesis could not mislead the anatomists ; and it found itself at variance with the practitioners, who could not bring them- selves to see nothing but nervous modification, in the influ- ence exerted by the causes of disease, and the action of re- medies. On the other hand, the vital principle was not suf- ficiently of the nature of matter, to be put in connection with the agency of external substances : and it was not to be con- cealed, that in seeking to modify it according to prevailing theories, the results were not always satisfactory. The uneasiness which arose from this unpleasant state of uncertainty, hurried many able men into empiricism, till the system of John Brown, (Johannes Bruno, as he wras often called—Trans.) long unknown and neglected, began to spread, and attracted strongly the attention of physicians in general. Brown had been a disciple of Cullen. He adop- ted like Cullen the notion that debility was the cause of ma- ny diseases; but he did not convert spasm into a distinct being. He saw but one modification of debility; and he re- jected the whole humoral explanation. Brown borrowed from Cullen the idea that remedies were not specific ; and he acknowledged but one modification of life in its action on the organs. He discarded the words " vital principle ;" nor did he trouble himself in reducing all the functions to ner- vous phenomena. He seized upon two ideas, excess and defeat of excitement; and made these equivalent to excess and defect of vital force, The hypothesis of strictum and laxum had been already advanced. Brown connected these two expressions with his own theory ; so that excess of excitement, or of vital force was excess of tone, strictum, while laxum became defect of excitement ?nd vital force. Brown laid it down as a principle that life is kept up by excitement; and to live is nothing but being excited. Thus far all was just. It is manifest that whatever it be that makes us live, it is reducible in the eyes of an accurate observer to those phenomena, which we include under the term life : these phenomena go on with decreasing effect and seem dis- posed to wear out, But to make use of this principle, we I. 45 j must study each part of the body in its i elation to the ex- ternal agents of excitation, and ascertain how the respective organs mutually excite each other ; and we must attentively study the effects of internal and external excitants, on each of the tissues of which the bodily organs are composed. Brown neglected this : for this manner of studying excita- tion, is no other than the modern physiological method of the French school. Let us see then what Brown did, and what was the cause of his mistakes. He considered excitation abstractedly; separately from the excited organs, and he threw himself by his very first step among the Ontologists. Then he applied to the organs his reveries on excitability. He held that excitability, in a general view of it as a modification of life, is consumed and worn out by excitement and the action of excitants; it is then accumulated by rest, or the absence of excitement. From this view he deduced many consequences by no means just. Hence with him, a moderate excitement sustains the equilibrium of the vital forces, as no person will contest: a greater degree of excitement produces an increase of strength, and becomes a source of sthenic disease or disease from excess of force. A still stronger excitement exhausts excitability and produces debility or indirect asthenia. Di- rect asthenia, is the consequence of defect of excitement. The more this defect is increased, the greater is the quanti- ty of excitability accumulated, till it becomes excessive. Brown formed a regular double scale, representing on one side, all the degrees of augmentation and excitement by the action of stimulants to the highest degree, which then be- came converted into indirect debility or asthenia ; and on the other side, all the degrees of augmented excitability by reason of want of stimulus, till direct debility or asthenia was induced, as far as extreme weakness, terminating in death. It cannot but be felt how absurd is a theory which places the highest degree of excitability at that moment when excitability itself is about to be extinguished by death. But thisjs not the least fault: the great objection is, that it led the Brunonians on to a most fatal practice. The false position that the vital force constantly diminishes by a high degree of excitement, introduced to make room for indirect debility, led Brown to treat by excitants all those inflamma- tory affections, which overwhelmed and oppressed muscular L 40 j motion. The opinion not less erroneous, that whenever ex- citants had acted in a less quantity than usual upon the sys- tem, excitability accumulated was to be consumed and used up by excitants, compelled him to employ those kinds of modifiers to all persons who were affected by chronic disor- ders. Brown placed all excitants on the same line; ali- ments and the fluids contained in the vessels, formed the prin- cipal part: hence it clearly followed, that if persons were more lean than in their usual state of health, they had not been sufficiently excited, and therefore they must submit to excitations. But the physiological doctrine of our day teaches us, that the greater part of chronic diseases are in- flammations produced and kept up by excitants, and must be cured by practice conducted on opposite principles. Had Brown studied excitement in connection with, and as it appears in the organs themselves, in lieu of treating it by personification and abstractedly, he would have avoided these errors. He would have acknowledged that persons whose regimen is too exciting, instead of becoming as he supposed less excitable, are more so, and end by being una- ble to bear any further excitation. He would have under- stood that excitability may be augmented in some organs of the body, while it is diminished in others; for instance, when persons who have indulged to excess in alcoholic li- quors, fall into a stupor with violent fever, they are easily excited at the internal surface of their digestive organs while their surface is torpid. Had he been convinced of this im- portant truth, he would not have treated acute disorders by wine, by bark, and other stimulants of that kind; and hu- manity would not have had to deplore the astonishing pro- gress which his system has made, even within our day. Had Brown carefully observed persons, enfeebled and emaciated by diseases of debility, he might have assured himself that their leanness was owing to their being too ex- citable, or having been too much excited, and not for want of it, consequently we could not hope to diminish their ex- citability by any new excitement. Had he made this re- mark, we should not have seen many physicians in these days, treat patients, afflicted with chronic diseases, by stimu- lants, and thus hasten the disorganization of their viscera. The abstract speculations of this author on excitability, did not disclose to him the laws of this phenomenon. He never saw them but in cases where patients already too much L 47 j excited were cured by excitants ; but this is to be ascribed to revulsion ; that is, where there is a change of the local- ity of excitation, transferred from organs of the first neces- sity to life, to another set of organs or to tissues of second- ary importance, which are often sacrificed to preserve the more essential ones primarily affected. Brown did not per- ceive that these fortunate crises were so uncommon/that in a great majority of cases the exciting treatment destroys the principal organs, or produces diseases of debility almost always incurable. But Brown was neither a practitioner or an anatomist, nor in his day was the degree of vitality of the several tissues suf- ficiently known, to render it possible to observe accurately their excitability, or to obtain a just idea how excitation was transmitted from one to another ; a system of analytic anat- omy was wanting ; and a nation was wanting which posses- sed a Chaussicr and a Bichet. Such is the substance of the famous Brunonian system. It was not rigorously adopted in the schools of medicine. Some modified it without changing its basis; in others it w as made to amalgamate with the humoral theories ; that is, the treatment was sometimes applied to peccant humors, and sometimes to excess or defect of vital force. Others adop- ted a kind of empiricism, wherein BroAvn's theory indicated the curative treatment. Each disease was regarded, not as an affection of this or that organ, but as a group of symp- toms bearing a certain name, and requiring as a matter of course, debilitants or tonics. When the patient Avas visited, the symptoms Avere counted and noted, Avithout noting Avhat organ Avas affected, and furnished them. To this collection of symptoms, a name of that disease Avas given, to which they seemed to have most relation. The name A\'as drawn from ancient authors; but as to the treatment, that Avas drawn from the Scotch practice. If the disease was of a sthenic character, according to BroAvn, debilitants Avere ex- hibited : if it appeared to be asthenic, stimulants Avere pre- ferred ; and this was most frequently the case. This method-Avas not always strictly pursued, for none of these systems had any regular foundation. For instance, among febrile diseases, someAvhere called after the part af- fected pneumonies, peritonitis, hepatitis ; others after the state of the patients strength, as adynamic (or typhoid) fe- vers.sthenics or asthenics: some were denominated from the M* J nature of the fluid secreted from the parts affected, as ca- tarrhal, mucous, bilious fevers ; some from the danger ac- companying them, as pernicious fevers ; some from the sur- prise or apprehension they excited in the physician, as ma- lignant, irregular, or ataxic fevers ; others from certain ac- cidents accompanying them, as syncopal, painful, nervous, &c. The same confusion prevailed as to chronic affections. Dyspepsies qualified according to the difficulty of digestion ; hypochondrias named after sensations referred to the region of the hypochondria from obstructions imperfectly under- stood ; cutaneous eruptions and scrophulas Avhose relation to the stomach and boAvels Avere not Avell knoAvn. In treat- ing these ailments, sometimes, they Avould dissipate a con ■ gestion AArithout regard to the excitement produced by the medicines applied ; sometimes they Avould make a determi- nation to the skin, without considering the gastric stimula- tion necessary to produce sweat; in many cases a virus Avas attacked by methods which only injured the stomach ; in most cases the object was to increase the gastric energy and the nutrition, without considering that this Avas a fulness and a factitious strength communicated to the patient Avhich concealed the alteration of the principal organs, and render- ed their ultimate destruction more certain. In fact the ir- ritability of the organs Avas misunderstood, and the remedies Avere applied to unmeaning denominations, Avhile the mis- takes committed, Avere such, as did not teach hoAV to avoid mistakes hereafter. This disgusting confusion turned aAvay all the best tal- ents from medicine, or rendered them empirics. But what good could be expected from empiricism, while the true notion of disease was so unsettled ? Empiricism pretends to find a remedy appropriate to the malady, without being at the trouble of explaining the malady, or how it is modi- fied by the medicine. But what idea of disease could the medical knoAvledge of that day present ? If the explanation of the disease was rejected, what was it but a group of symp- toms or a single symptom, such as inappetence or want of appetite ? But this was sometimes cured by water, some- times by AAine, by purging or by fasting, or by eating more in quantity, or of food more stimulating than usual. In such a case Avhat Avas to be done ? What course avus to be fol- IoAA'ed ? If you Avill not reason, or adopt some theory to [ 49 ] discover aa hich of these methods you should resort to, noth- ing remains but to try the one after the other ; and if, un- luckily, you should first pitch upon that remedy which does not suit the disease, you will increase the evil, and perhaps render it incurable. What I say here, concerning defect of appetite, is applicable to the greater part of other diseases ; so that physicians were unable to adopt the empyrical method exclusively. They divided into two great classes; the one credulous and superficial, gave themselves up to a theory, especially if it was fashionable in their own country, or that some eloquent professor had given it a value from the chair of an university. The other class, difficult to be convinced, either from the severity of their judgement or the natural vaccillation of their intellect, throAV them- selves upon empiricism, or upon an eclectic system of the most dangerous kind ; and lamented, before men of science, the uncertainty and impotence of the art of healing. By dint of enquiry, and a desire to learn every thing relating to the animal Man, they seem to have arrived at doubt up- on every thing. It is easy to see, after this sketch, that medicine Avas not a science ; and that excitation, which they had taken so much pains to understand, had not yet become the base of any regular system, applicable at once to health, and to dis- ease. Still there remained no other metho^ of laying thefoun- dation of a real science ; as every one will see, after Ave have stated the principal truths of physiological medicine. Chapter III. PRINCIPLES OF THE PHYSIOLOGICAL DOCTRINE. This is based upon Irritation. We acknoAvledge Avith BroAvn that life is maintained by excitation alone. But Ave must soon abandon this author, for he takes the road of abstraction, and considers excitement insulated and in itself. Our object is, to consider it in the organs and tissues affect- ed, or rather to consider those organs and tissues when ex- cited. This study supplies a certain number of general truths, which we propose to state with illustrative examples. Man cannot live but by means of that excitement or stimulation, (synonimous expressions) Avhich the circum- stances or media amid Avhich he lives, exert upon him. These media are not confined in their action to his skin or hisAision, they penetrate all the natural openings of the L ^ J body, which are themselves sensible organs, with exten- sive surfaces communicating Avith the skin. These surfa- ces Avhich may be regarded as internal senses, occupy the interior of many viscera, and like the external senses, re- ceive the stimulations or excitations of foreign bodies. These surfaces are membranous like the skin, but their structure is somewhat different. Such is the internal membrane of the larynx, which penetrates by the trachea and the bronchial vessels through all the pulmonary vessels; and the mem- brane of the pharynx which descends by the oesophagus and the stomach, and lines the Avhole intestinal canal to the anus. These surfaces are incessantly in contact Avith the foreign bodies; the first with the air and the particles it contains; the second Avith the air, the aliments, the bever- age, and whatever can be introduced by the mouth or by the anus : of all this, the result is excitation. . This excitation takes place on the nervous matter distri- buted through and among these external surfaces, which we shall call surfaces of relation. This nervous matter being excited, transmits the excitation to the nervous system ; and this last, either by means of single nerves, or by its cerebral center, reflects and distributes it through the web of all the tissues Avithout excepting the surfaces of relation. These surfaces then, are placed betAveen two agents of ex- citation ; 1st, the fo*eign bodies with Avhich they are in con- tact, and 2ndly, the influence of the brain. This last Ave call Innervation.* This motion, a disturbance Avhich takes place in the ner- vous system by being excited or stimulated, keeps up through life the movements Avhich commenced in the foe- tus, which is a diminitive mass of living matter. This mass cannot sustain its life but by the excitement produced in it by the nutriment conveyed to it. The embryo finds that nu- triment in the fluids of uterus, Avhich had been already sub- jected to the action of external modifiers. The fluids al- ready animalized, are therefore the first excitements, in quality of being the first sources of nutriment—Avhenthe em- bryon organs become developed to a certain point, they re- * It is a. cpiestion at present whether electricity is not the cause of ner- vous excitation. It is not for us to discuss this question. Admit that the nerves are conductors of electricity or any other fluid or form of mat ter, the irritation of the organs remains a fact discernible by the senses: and being established as a fact, may be so taken in treating of the histo- ry of this science. „ ~.m__ c • - j [ 31 j quired the external stimulants of nature. On being born, the nutritive fluids contained in the vessels of the infant, Avould be quickly exhausted, if not renewed, or else would lose their stimulating and nutritive properties. But the action of the heart, the action of the capillary tissues, and by con- sequence life itself, is kept up by the stimulation of the sur- faces of relation—the stimulation that takes place in the nervous apparatus—the impression made by extraneous par- ticles of various kinds absorbed—and by all these united excitations, added to those Avhich are occasioned by the blood, and by the fluids already assimilated. Here then are three orders of stimulating or exciting powers, viz. 1st, the bodies exterior to us, producing excite- ment which converges to the brain as a centre. 2dly, Inner- A'ation, or diverging excitement; being the action of the brain on the several tissues : 3dly, the stimulations which are produced by the motion of the fluids assimilated or not as- similated, in the midst of the solids; a general excitement Avhich takes place in all directions. To these three clas- ses of stimulation, Ave may add the action of the organs on each other, either by the intervention of the brain, or imme- diately by the nervous cords ; a stimulation that takes place also in all directions. These comprise the principle stimu- lations of the animal economy. But they are not all. The fluids in their connection with each other, and with the solids, are subjected to new combin- ations, changes of form, and perpetual transmutations. By the conversion of nutritious substances into fluids peculiar to the individual, the conversion of chyle into blood, of blood into various fluids, liquids into solids, and solids into li- quids. But Ave may consider all the molecular movements founded on the affinities peculiar to living bodies, and which constitute Avhat is called organic chemistry, as so many new excitations. In fact, to these is OAving the disengagement of caloric; thus disengaged within the tissues it becomes a stim- ulant of the same kind as external caloric. To these numerous causes of stimulation, all of them vi- tal, are added the non vital stimulants, such as attraction and its modifications, electricity, inorganic chemistry, which often acts with foreign bodies upon the surface of relation. These poAvers tend to assimilate organic to inorganic bo- dies, and if they do not ahvays succeed, it is because the laws of life react against them and neutralize their action. [ o-l | This reaction itself is no other than an excitation. It is under the continual influence of these numerous cau- ses of excitation, that life maintains itself. So necessary are they, that if they are absent, death ensues. Much has been written in favor of vital power, the vis conservatrix. This power is no doubt calculated to excite our admiration, but we must not attribute too much to it. Man has been represented as an independent being, free in the midst of nature which he is destined to rule over. Will you judge accurately of this pretended independence ? Nothing more is necessary to bring it very low, but the powers of nature of heroic activity, Poison, Fire, Volcanic explosion: remove him for a few minutes from the exciting influence of oxy- gen and caloric, then call upon him to exert that vis conser- vatrix which has been so much extolled in diseases of all descriptions. It assumed all the characters of a physical agent, but the want of power in this modifier has deprived it of them. Stop for a short time the operation of these stimulants; you have not broken the instruments of this vital energy, you have taken nothing from it; you have only diverted the course of this unknown but material prin- ciple ; you have suspended it for a few moments, and al- ready the man is a mass of inanimate matter. Let criti- cism then attack if it pleases, the fundamental principle of the physiological doctrine! We have referred to excitation, the manifestation of all those phenomena which have been at all times considered as entering into the idea of life : to wit, the motion of fixed organic matter disposed in fibres, contractility; and as a consequence the motions of the fluids or moveable animal matter; also the consciousness of these movements, sensi- bility ; Avhose modifications include all the intellectual ope- rations. Upon these phenomena depend all the rest; as the production of animal heat, and nutrition, (or the substi- tution of annualized materials in lieu of other bodies) gene- ration, &c. As contractility is the principal instrument of the secon- dary phenomena of the animal economy, (for the primary are the molecular affinities) it is very impoitant to settle the idea of contractility. In our treatise on physiology, Ave have defined it, a condensation, a shortening of the animal fibre : and we have stated that this was not confined to the muscular fibre, but was participated by all the forms of liv- L 33 J ing matter ot which our bodily organs are composed ; and maybe reduced to the folloAving : fibrine ; gelatine; and albumen. But as experiments and even engravings have been published to shew that muscular fibre experiences no shortening during its contraction, but a kind of ^ig-zag fold- ing which produced no great diminution in its length, it seems proper, to saA'e our readers some laborious research, that we should sum up those facts which induce us to make contractility a general property, and to view it in the light now presented. I would be understood hoAveA'er, as not supposing this explanation necessary to establish the physio- logical doctrine ; it is indeed superabundant; and even if it should be true that muscular contraction produces no di- minution in the length of the fibre, the basis of that doctrine Avould remain unshaken. But to the facts. The muscles are the agents of motion: for this purpose they contract, and in contracting they are shortened; our eye sight suffices to furnish evidence of this. If we could bring ourselves to doubt of this shortening in the muscles of men and of animals attached to a bone, it cannot be denied in Avorms and the whole of molluscous animals. In a word the muscles of every animal not furnished wTith a bony skel- eton, shorten so manifestly during motion, that we must be deprived of eye-sight not to observe it. It is equally evident in hot blooded as in cold blooded an- imals, as in the trunk of an elephant; a simple folding could not produce the evident diminution of its length — How can any one deny the shortening that takes place in the fibres of the muscular coat of the stomach, the intes- tines, the bladder, the matrix ? For it is manifest that their fibres are shorter Avhen empty and Avhen their sides are in contact, than when distended by foreign bodies Avithin the cavity. The shortening of the muscular fibre then, is certain ; nor can it be deemed hypothetical reasoning to lead off from this ascertained fact, in explanation of others; on the contrary it is a mode of reasoning perfectly legitimate, to argue from Avhat is known to what is unknown. If we were tempted to attribute the contraction of the muscles generally to the nervous tissue, Avhich is distributed through them in red blooded animals, (an error formerly adopted and Avhich some may yet incline to adopt) it may be answered that the polypi and the other pulpy animals Avhere this shortening is so manifest to the eye, have no L 5-1 j nervous apparatus. Moreover you may see the contractil- ity exerted in fibrine separated from the blood, and in some of the'plants cercalia. Shortening is therefore a property of the muscles and of fibrine generally. It is a property dependent on this form of organization in living matter : it is independent of the nerves. To deny these propositions is to deny proof positive, for no artificial experiment can invali- date the manifest facts of nature. A multitude of agents may bring into play muscular con- tractility ; but the stimulations communicated by the ner- vous tissue produces them most efficaciously. This tissue has a center, the Brain, and a croAvd of expanded fibres, differently formed, called nerves. The extremeties of these expansions present themselves on the external or sensitive surfaces, and the organs of sense ; also on the internal sen- sitive surfaces forming the internal senses. Moreover, they are found in all the other organs, but neither so numerous or so developed. In all these places the nervous extreme- ties receive stimulations ; these are conducted to the cerebral center, from Avhence they are reflected by other nerves, to the muscles ; the fibrine of these muscles shortens or be- comes condensed, Avhich is the same thing, and thus deter- mines the motions necessary to the exercise of the functions. Some physiologists think that Avhat pervades the nerves and serves to excite the muscular fibre, is of the nature of electricity : others reject this explanation, alloAving that electricity may follow the course of the nerves, Avithout pen- etrating their substance. They admit therefore a particular fluid running along the fibrils of the nerves. What is cer- tain, is, that if a current of electricity be passed along the principal nerve of a limb separated from the body, all the muscular fibres connected by nervous filaments with the principal nerve, are excited to contraction. But this fact does not bear upon the question before us. The motions that take place by the shortening of the muscular fibre are those of locomotion which are prodigious- ly numerous; those of the voice, of deglutition ; the pro- gressive motion of the matters thrown into the digestive ca- nal ; the greater part of those AA'hich are subservient to the exoneration of the body, all the voluntary motions, and to a certain extent all the involuntary ones which serve to ex- press our Avants, our passions, and some of our most lively sensations, all the motions Avhich propel the circulating flu- ids, &c. L 33 ] Here then is a prodigious quantity of movements execu- ted by the fibrine of the body which forms the muscular fibre, and which depend entirely on its shortening or conden- sation. Is not this condensation brought about evidently by the stimulation of the nerves by different agents, which stimulation is by the nerves transmitted to the librine ? The exaggeration or excess of all these movements, constitutes one kind of morbid excitation, a species of irritation. But even if no shortening of the fibre should take place, this ex- cess will not be less real; it will have been produced by the same agents, calculable by the same means ; and will not less constitute one of the grand classes of disease acknoAvl- cdged by the physiological doctrine, as we shall soon see. Let us now pass to another form of animal matter, Gelatin. This constitutes the greater part of the tissues that are not muscular ; it is found in all the organs intermixed Avith other forms of animal matter. Every Avhere it exhibits con- tractility, Avhich as in fibrine, is a shortening or conden- sation. The cellular and areolar tissue which serves to unite all parts of the body, and is the depositary of fat, is composed of gelatin. It is shortened when in marasmus it becomes emptied; it is condensed, and carries with it the skin, Avhich becomes Avrinkled in proportion as the subject is young and vigorous. It is sufficient to have dissected a dead body that is lean and one that is fat, to be satisfied that the cellular membrane returns upon itself in condensing, and Avhen dilated, admits of a considerable extension. It brings back to their former situation not only the skin Avhen it is separated from the other organs by corpulence, by serous effusions, &c. but also all the other serous membranes des- tined to facilitate the movement of the organs on each oth- er, and Avhich have changed their situation by tumours either normal or abnormal, (healty or morbid) as alimentary reple- tions, pregnancy, serous collections, dropsies, inflammatory tumors, &c. . The fibrous tissue that serves as the base of the skin, is gelatinous (the skin itself is gelatin) and every one knows with Avhat energy it contracts in fear, and several other pas- sions, Avhich produce that roughness called goose-skin, and which makes the hair stand erect, (horripilatio.) The fibrous tissues of the cavernous parts of the body are formed of gelatin ; and their contractility is so strong under the influence of cold, of anger, of fear, of shame, &c. that the penis appears to be draAvn in and hardened. This re- L w J traction and hardening of the penis, is more observable in animals of the genus Equus. The vascular system is com- posed of gelatin, excepting the larger arteries, in which fibrine appears under a peculiar modification. Can any thing be more contractile than these sanguineous capillaries, which return upon themselves almost immediately after hav- ing been distended by the influx of fluids ? than all those excretories which ejaculate their fluids, such as the salival capillaries, the lachymal, &c. ? all the excretory ducts do not, like these, spirt out their fluids, but all of them have force enough to drive out their contents and conduct them toward the place of their destination. It cannot be said that this is not a shortening of their fibres; for it is so, to that de- gree, that most of these canals close of themselves, and be- come obliterated Avhen they cease to act. But are not we noAV speaking of that vascular apparatus destined to the purposes either of the blood, the lymph, or the secreted fluids which constitutes the greater part of the viscera ? It Avill therefore be useless to dwell on the proof, that contractility, shortening, and condensation of sub- stance, takes place in these organs, and determines the move- ment of the fluid columns that pass through them. It is by nervous influence, innervation, that all these vas- cular movements are excited, sustained, and accumulated. Experience permits no doubt on this subject, since every thing which excites the nerves of a vascular apparatus, eve- ry thing which exalts its sensibility, calls to it the fluids in greater quantity, and determines either their accumulation or their rejection in more than the usual proportion, or their different transformations and combinations. Stimulation then, reaches the Arascular fibres formed of gelatine essen- tially contractile, as it does the fibrine of the muscular fibre. It produces in them, in like manner, condensation folloAved by elongation and relaxation. The relations and the alter- nations of these two movements, explains all the displace- ments of the columns or masses of fluid which circulate in all directions across our organs. Why do they not say that the nerves are the sole agents in all these phenomena, and that the movement of condensation of a vein or a lymphatic which diminishes the caliber of the containing vessel to suit the size of the column of fluid, is a nervous phenomenon Avith Avhich gelatin has nothing to do ? This would be just as reasonable as to say that the muscular fibres are passive when the muscles contract ! [ 37 j Gelatin, moreover, forms ligaments, cartilages, and bones. This animal matter has not lost its contractility in these organs, for that property is essential to it; but its effects are Something entrammelled by the crossing and decussations of the gelatinous fibres, and sometimes by their combination Avith inert matter, as phosphate of lime, which gives solidity to the bone. It is in this manner that Gelatin is prepared to ansAver the purpose of support to the organs, and determine the form and attitude of the animal. We come noAV to the third form of animal matter Albu- men. We had better study it in the brain, for it is there in considerable mass, and the eye can decide upon its motions. But the motion producing condensation is manifest beyond dispute, Avhen the upper part of the scull is removed. After every pulsation of the heart, and after every inspiration, the brain is seen to retreat upon itself after having been raised up and enlarged. The condensation takes place in the di- rection of the Avhite fibres, from the circumference to the centre, and to the base. Moreover, the serous membrane insinuated between the different folds and surfaces of the encephalic matter, admits beyond doubt, that an undu- latory motion continually takes place among the fibres, and the encephalic mass is in continual agitation. A man Avho AA7ould doubt this fact, must be devoid of all talent for ob- servation and induction. We have already stated, and we repeat, that these encephalic movements are antecedent to the serous surfaces of the encephalon, and ought to produce them; for two gelatinous surfaces in contact, and at rest, Avith no intervening motion, would adhere to each other. Since motions of alternate contraction and relaxation take place in a mass of albuminous matter, it ought to exist in each fibre in particular ; nor can we suppose them strangers to the influence of innervation. No doubt something else takes place in the interior of nenTous tissues ; but avc cannot say hoAv it is connected with these movements, or hoAV it may contribute to innervation. Still, contractility remains as a vital property of the nerves ; the envelopes of the ence- phalon, and the neurilema of the nerves, and the vascular system of the one and of the other, possess contractility as gelatinous tissues. The albuminous nervous fibre possesses this property as Albumen. It is by means of this important substance that AA*e are connected with oxygen, AA'ith caloric. Avith electricity, mid 'bo other L 38 J imponderable forms of matter ; in fact, Avith that perpetual and unknoAvn cause of life, of whose essence we are igno- rant, and which in excess or defect for a moment, may destroy us. It is not permitted to us to explain the first acts of Avhat Ave term life, because we cannot place under our inspection the phenomena that constitute us sensible beings ; nor can Ave place ourselves above that act by which we contemplate ourselves for the purpose of contemplating that act; nor have the physiological physicians ever held out such a pre- tension. But every thing which results as a consequence of the first impulse—every thing which takes place in conse- quence of the movements of the means and instruments of this first impulse, this superior force, (that is to say, by means of the two other forms of animal matter, fibrine and gelatin,) are manifested by the phenomenon of contractility. But this is of immense extent, as Ave have proved ; for there is not a shudder that takes place in a muscular fibre—there is not an impulse given by a containing vessel—not a resist- ance by means of ligament, but what is referable to contrac- tility. It is the unusual, unnatural exaggeration of these phenomena of contractility that constitutes irritation in the tissues spoken of. One may easily guess, therefore, Iioav important it must be to know hoAV to obser\7e it Avell and accurately. In fact, all the spontaneous acts of a man, whether instinc- tive or voluntary, Avhose assemblage insure the performance of the various functions, tend either to preserve him from the continually imminent causes of destruction, or to satisfy that feeling of curiosity which impels him to observe and compare himself Avith the things which are not himself. All these acts and their repetitions are the effects of excitement upon the animal fibre. We do not assert, however, that these acts are themselves excitement. We assert only that they manifest themselves to us as the results of excitement. Certainly the molecular combinations which alter the chemi- cal properties of the aliments in the digestive canal; those Avhich take place in the bile, in the milk, in the urine, forms of animal matter, not found in the blood; those which at- tach moveable and circulating matter to fixed and organized matter ; those Avhich cause the embryo to germinate and to groAV, &c. cannot be reduced to excitation, produced by foreign bodies. Indeed if the fibre be excitable, it must pxiV in that form AA'hich is fitted for excitation. If it do so L 39 J exist, it is in consequence of the laws of vital affinity which has arranged the molecules of which it is composed. The phenomena of composition then, are in the developement of each animal, anterior to the phenomena of excitation: these two phenomena therefore are not the same. This seems to be plain and simple reasoning : hoAv it can be otherwise re- garded we know not. It is not our intention to discuss the first cause of the molecular affinities which organize a living body, but mere- ly to give an idea of the phenomena that relate to excitation in man, considered in his perfect state of organization. We shall therefore proceed to the fundamental positions of the physiological doctrine by some deA'elopements on sensibility, and on the part taken by the nervous system in perception and motion. Thus Ave shall have treated the subject of vital properties, as much as is necessary to understand the phe- nomena of Irritation, the chief object of this first part of our work. Chapter IV.—On the functions of the Nervous Sys- tem IN THE PHENOMENA TERMED INSTINCTIVE AND INTELLECTUAL. In this chapter I shall examine in three successive sec- tions :—1st. The functions of the nervous apparatus in the adult. 2dly. Their gradual developement from the embryo, till the man arrives at his full and perfect growth. 3dly. The reasons of the qualities Avhich distinguish man from other animals. Sec. 1st.—Functions of the nervous apparatus in the adult. The duties of the nerves considered in this state of full developement, is to propagate stimulation in the animal economy, and to keep up all the functions by continuing them under the agents of excitation. This is proved by experi- ence, independently of any and every system and explanation, as to the mode of receiving and propagating these stimula- tions. We knoAv also, that the result perceptible to our senses is an augmentation of the phenomena of life, in those parts to which the stimulation is transmitted, as Avell as in those AA'here it first took place. After these preliminaries, Ave may proceed at once to discover the functions of the nervous system, Avhich avc shall divide into four stages or degrees. 1st. Setting out from the most simple functions of the L oo J nervous system, Ave observe that the stimulated nerves transmit those stimulations to a moderate distance. A thorn may be forced under the nail, Avifhout the person feeling it; nevertheless, the nervous matter Avhich it stimulates, pro- pagates the stimulation to parts in the neighborhood of the nerve, or to some nervous substance at a distance, until the fluids are insensibly attracted to the place, and a considera- ble congestion is formed at the time when it first becomes painful. The same circumstances take place in the viscera. Some foreign body, stopt at a place Avhere the sensibility is obtuse, attracts to that place the fluids in the neighboring vessels, proving that the stimulation has been propagated ; the vessels we knoAV are accompanied by nerves. Let the same stimulation be located at some part of the mucous membrane of the thin portion of the intestines, and there will be an increase of motion, not only in the capillaries of that membrane, but also in a portion of the corresponding muscular fibres. Here then, are examples of stimulation propagated by the nerves to very short distance. We shall noAv state the like to greater distances. 2d. The stimulation Avhich we placed in narroAV limits in the digestive canal, has increased ; it calls to that point the fluids in greater quantity ; it is propagated to the liver, or the pancreas, and bile is poured out Avith the pancreatic juice. The mucous secretion becomes altered at greater distances ; action is increased in the mesenteric glands. In a word, there is great disturbance in all the organic func- tions of the lower belly ; that is, organic sympathies occur more considerable than in the former case, but Avithout any sign of the stimulation being propagated beyond the vis- ceral cavity. 3rd. Worms, Avhich have a nervous apparatus Avithout any Avell defined encephalon, and only Avith a central nerve more active than the rest, offer an example of this kind. Stimulaiion travels on by means of the nerves, which are not more numerous than the vessels, along the course of the vessels; it arrives at the point where these are terminated by capillaries, or proceeds along that tissue toAvard the great nerve, and regulates the nutritive processes. The great sympathetic nerve serves the purpose of all the functions of relation, which are very few in an animal destined to creep onward in a very simple progress. It possesses a vitality not quite so dull as some animals avIio have a nervous svstem [ 61 j more developed; but Ave see clear enough that the nerve* of nutrition have more to do than those of relation. This degree will be a ladder to get at the succeeding. 4th. Figure to yourself in the abdomen, a shade of stimu- lation higher than that Avhich Ave stated just noAv : it will be propagated to the heart, to the lungs, to the skin, to the members, to the different secretory vessels charged with the duty of depuration ; it will extend even to the brain ; for such is the human organization, that stimulation originating at one point of the body, cannot be propagated to a great number of organs, if it be not considerable enough to reach the brain. Here begins sensibility in the examples taken from men ; for here perception first takes place from the painful sensations of different degrees, felt and referred to the stimulated viscera, or to the members, or to other re- gions of the neiAOUSapparatus, whether internal or external. Perception haAring discovered sensibility, we ought, if Ave Avould understand the phenomena, study the different kinds of nerves that meet at the encephalon to produce it; and above all, the different states of the brain itself. It is well known that, " to feel," can only be considered as a function of the brain ; but if this organ be healthy and perfectly developed, it will give us feelings or sensations, that differ according to the nerves that have transmitted to it the stimulation. Placed betAveen two classes of nerves, one of Avhich terminates in sensitive expansions at the sur- face, and the other plunges among the visceral tissu.es, the brain receives two kinds of stimulations very different from each other. If Ave next examine each of these two classes of nerves, Ave shall find secondary differences well worthy of attention ; and Avhich prove that the brain has something else to do than to answer the stimulations of the senses vul- garly admitted by physiologists and metaphysicians. Each of our external senses is connected with a particula&agent, Avhich, being impressed, gives rise to a sensitive stimula- tion ; and all of them are susceptible of another kind of stimulation, when some body, calculated to inflict a Avound, penetrates into the nervous matter of the organ of sense. (The impression of light on the retina, produces a sensitive stimulation : a body that lacerates the retina, produces a very different one.—Trans.) The internal nerves also present notable differences. We find among them the genital senses, half external, half L «* J internal, which are located either in the mucous surfaces, and communicating with several kinds of agents, or in the erectile tissues, which furnish a very distinct set of percep- tions. In every internal mucous surface, Ave may distinguish a different sense. That which belongs to respiration, and AA'hich extends from the larynx to the bronchise, and Avhich varies throughout its course, differs greatly from that Avhich receives the food, and of Avhich the internal coat of the sto- mach is the seat. The mucous membrane of the intestines, from the duodenum to the anus, possesses also a sense exhi- biting marked differences from the former. So do the senses of the urinary passages, considered in their shalloAv cavity and their entrance ; Avhile the sense of the urethra, excited sometimes by urine, and sometimes by the spermatic fluid in men, exhibits differences which multiply in proportion to the vitality of the internal membrane that lines the caATity.* Besides the numerous internal senses in their regular and normal state, Ave must admit those which morbid causes pro- duce ; for throughout the whole body, Avhere irritation takes place, the nervous matter present in the tissues acquires a neAV activity, and gives rise continually to new perceptions. Hence the principal secretory organs, the liver, the pan- creas, the testicles especially, the heart, the serous mem- branes that envelope and facilitate the movements of the principal viscera, the mucular tissue, the cellular, the liga- ments, aponeuroses, cartilages, and even the bones, become in some chronic maladies, real internal senses, which trans- mit to the brain stimulations that riA'al in distinctness and intensity those of the regular senses so called. In a great number of cases also, where a man cannot positively be said to be diseased, many of our regular internal senses, those of the digestive organs especially, are so much exalted by irritation, that their action on the brain is tenfold Avhat it is in a regular and normal state. *The five senses, as they are called, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, are distinguished because the sensations they originate are per- ceptibly different. The vulgar distinguish these, because the eye, the ear, the mouth, the nose, the fingers, are visible. But every source of a regular, permanent difference of sensation, is for like reason equally a sense. What can be more different than the wants that take their origin in the organs of respiration, and those of digestion, or generation ? Is the eye-sight more different from hearing, tjian hunger and thirst from the irritations of the excretory organs oppressed by ingesta ? Every tissue that in due and regular performance of its functions gives rise to sensations always different, is a different sense, physiologically.—Trans!. I {'^ J Vll the internal senses, moreover, of a normal and regu- lar character, have a distinction analagous to our external senses. In fact, the brain placed between these two classes of sense, the external and internal, is so organized, that in all the external perceptions that relate to the satisfaction of instinctive Avants, and which first deA'elope themselves, it cannot determine the action, but by means of other simulta- neous or consecutive perceptions Avhich proceed from the internal senses. We shall explain this very soon. Let us state, as a fundamental fact in this question, that the brain, or rather the Avhole encephalic mass, is so organ- ized as to reciprocate with these different sources of stimu- lation ; that it acquires its full perfection slowly and with difficulty ; that this degree of perfection corresponds Avith the like property of the various sources of stimulation ; and that it perishes more or less readily as these do. The fol- loAving observations Avill explain this. Sec. 2d.—Successive developement of the different func- tions of the nervous apparatus,from the embryo to the adult state. In the first moment of his existence, man is no more than a diminutive mass of animal matter. He possesses no dis- tinct organ. But the molecules of the mass arrange them- selves according to the laAvs of an affinity Avhich, Ave distin- guish at a distance, so as to form successively the various animal tissues. During all this effort of vital chemistry, (vital chrystaliza- tion.*—Trans.) the nerves and the encephalon have no occupation ; they become developed, and that is all. So soon as the tissues are formed, they act; each has its duty to perform ; and the nervous commences upon its func- tion, Avhich is, to put stimulation in motion, and thus to determine the movements of all the other forms of animal matter. All subserving the regular transmission of nutritive matter to its destination, there to be subjected to the affini- ties of vital chemistry; for it can do nothing more important than press forward the developement of a human creature. 'The nerves then, play the same part in the human em- bryo, that they perform in worms and other animals of a Ioav class Avherein Ave first observe them. In the embryo of a * Chrystalization is the arrangement of molecules into some determin- ate form and shape, according to certain laws of attractioa or affinity, equally unknown in the formation of rock chrystal or cubic pyrites, as in animal organization.—Trans L «-a J few Aveeks old, there are as yet no members ; the brain and nerves, therefore, cannot preside over a heart and vascular system. But the limbs, or members, begin to grow and push them- selves forward like little appendages ; the functions of the encephalon augment in proportion as the body is developed, and its mass acquires more volume and energy. The stimu- lations that travel along the nciA'es and are reflected by the brain, can noAv determine the motions in the members of the foetus. This is Avhat the mother can tell us about the third or fourth month of her pregnancy. Gestation adArances: During the rest of its period, the internal senses destined to respiration, nutrition, and ejec- tion of superfluous matter, are more elaborated than the rest, Avithout excepting the external senses. The infant is born ; the cries it utters on the first impression of the air on its lungs, announce to us that it is now sensible, and that it probably has been so for some time before its birth, and that the movement of its limbs, Avhile imprisoned, Avas the effect of some stimulation. The functions of the nervous system and of its encepha- lic centre, become much augmented from the moment of conception. But Ave must not take for granted that they are more considerable than the actual observation and reasona- ble induction will warrant. A child born Avithout a head, can neither perceive the Avant of respiration, or the contact of the atmosphere, although the sense of touch and the sense of respiration are developed and capable of receiving stim- ulations. The cries of an infant just born, arise then from a reaction in the encephalon, due to these first stimulations transmitted thither from the lungs. The skin and the bron- chial vessels are also stimulated in the acephalous child ; but they run along the nerves in vain, there is no brain to col- lect and send them back to the respiratory muscles ; there is no perception or sensation. The infant is now covered with clothing which preserves its temperature, and supplies as far as possible the medium from whence it emerged. The painful stimulation of Ihe atmosphere ceases, the cries cease, and the infant is quiet, obeying one natural sense only, that of respiration. But this state of rest is not destined to continue ; another inter- nal sense transmits its stimulations to the brain : this is di- gestion or the first assimilation (hunger.) So soon as fnf<- t 63 j has spoken, the infant recommences its pries. It is brought to the breast of the mother; immediately on contact it di- rects its face to her's, and all its motions to seize the breast and to work by suction and by swalloAving are executed Avith precision. This second want satisfied, the infant resumes his habitual calm, Avhich the act of exoneration does- not disturb, until the deposit of these matters on the linen, and irritation grad- ually produced by them on the skin, or some new demand on the stomach, or some extraordinary irritation again awa- kens him. Physiologists knoAV that the alvine and urinary ejections do not take place but in concurrence with some action of the respiratory muscles. It is at least necessary that these muscles should follow the organs that return upon them- selves for no vacuum could take place among viscera which touched each other. These respiratory muscles are under the control of the encephalon, Avhich acts therefore in this case, in consequence of stimulations of the internal sense, belonging to the organs of evacuation, as Avell as of respi- ration ; that is to say, Avithout feeling pleasure or pain ; but pain does accompany the internal gastric sense as well as too lively a stimulation of the skin. But if some obstacle should be felt either to respiration or defecation, the innervation of the bowels or of the urinary passages, or of the respiratory or- ' gans upon the brain, would increase and be felt Avith more or less vividness according as the encephalic development is more perfect. These first perceptions are instinctive, as are the motions resulting from them. In the new born infant instinct reigns alone, but it is very limited. We shall see it increase as a ears increase. But as it may be confounded with intellect, We must seize the present occasion for distinguishing them. With the physiologist, it depends on the stimulations of the in- ternal or external sensitive surfaces, propagated to the brain, and from thence reflected so as to produce muscular motion ; which takes place either with pleasant or unpleasant percep- tions, or Avithout any perception which the observer can dis- tinguish. From this time then, Ave may distinguish two kinds oi re- action in the brain, Avhich receives stimulations from the nerves : 1st, reaction unaccompanied with pain or pleasure : Mildly, reaction with one or other of these. All this, Avith- out anv manifestation of intellect, and all possible to occur 9 t M J in every animal possessed of a nervous apparatus. Taking care, therefore, not to suppose more than there actually is, let us pursue our historical developement of the nervous functions. The infant groAvs, his limbs are formed. Two external senses, which as yet do not appear to have furnished any perception, begin to modify the encephalon which is now in a condition to respond. The infant fixes his eyes on objects, he follows their motions, and if you turn his back, he turns round his head to keep his eyes in the direction of the lu- minoris rays Avhich have escaped him : it is an instinct more perfect that induces him to execute this motion. Moreover he is attentive to noise; that is, by a like instinct he moves farther off, or he approaches as well as he can, or keeps his body motionless to perceive the impression of the human voice, or the sound of instruments, &c. These are two neA\ senses brought into action, and the child that had before on- ly touch and taste, has noAv eye sight and hearing. That acquisition does not seem immediately to produce any new action : but now it is observed that Avhen his im- mediate wants are satisfied he no more falls into a sleep, he begins to observe himself, and aided by the signs of his nurse he marks the inconvenience of uncleanliness, and learns to get rid of it. His smiles of pleasure accompany the satisfaction of his wants, and the caresses of his nurse. He puts himself now in relation with the beings of his own kind. He seeks to handle the bodies which he sees, and tries to imitate the sounds he has heard. A newAvant has now arisen, curiosity. The desire of moving, necessarily accompanies this. The infant exerts his muscles of locomo- tion not only to bring objects within his reach, but to ap- proach them, although this is done very often ineffectually. He is determined to this by an internal impulse purely in- stinctive, even when he has no object in vieAv, no end to serve, he bestirs, he agitates himself, he is never at rest un- less Avhile sleeping, or Avhile some new object rivets his at- tention and gives it a new direction. But let us stop a little at this power of calling off the at- tention from a sensation. It did not exist before. Here then is a neAv faculty in the brain which has been developed Avith the senses of hearing and seeing. No doubt it is so ; and this neAv faculty is nothing more than a greater devel- opement of instinct, dependant on the augmentation of the L <* J encephalon, Avhich is not merely enlarged, but begins to be Avell marked out in regions Avhere it Avas heretofore but roughly sketched. These regions are the different points of the anterior portion which corresponds to the frontal bone. In proportion as this part of the brain becomes more dis- tinct, the expression of the physiognomy is heightened ; the eyes and even the motions of the muscles of the face, and the complexion, announce that the child has ideas analogous to some of our own. For expression is not a being—an en- tity taking its station in the face, but it is property belonging to this part of the body, of making knoAvn to an observer that the person observed possesses ideas. The most ex- pressive physiognomies, disclose nothing to persons of weak minds. Here then are the first lineaments of intelligence, which henceforward are marked. We should have looked for them in vain in the young child who furnished so many proofs of sensibility ; I beg the reader not to lose sight of" this, and he will see that sensibility, intelligence, and instinct, are very different things. In fact, the action of the nerves on the motions of the heart and vascular system, with which they are developed, constitutes the first degree of nervous action : the second is manifested Avhen the brain, stimulated either by the internal senses, or by the limbs when they are bent, pressing upon some of the viscera, and in some man- ner which we may suppose unfavourable to the regular pro- gress of the animal economy, produce motions in the loco- motive muscles of the child in the womb. The infant just born, gives evident proofs of sensibility, but only by the ex- pression of pain ; and executes also some instinctive actions: this is the third degree of nervous action. Lastly, the fourth to which Ave now come, seems to be prepared by the devel- opement of agreeable sensations, never perceived until now : this is the period Avhen intelligence shoAvs itself, by giving birth to attention, by acts of observation, and by the, faculty Avhich the infant henceforAvard possesses to put off* action solicited by instinct, and of the first necessity, to execute others enforced by external impressions. Still this intelligence is as yet, extremely limited; and it Avould be a great mistake to consider it as equal to that of the groAV up man. The infant as yet, has no ideas but of material bodies ; nothing proves that he is able to analyse and abstract their attributes. He seems much more advan- [ 6* j ced Avith respect to the perceptions that human beings like himself, furnish to him ; for long before he is able by his gestures to exhibit his intelligence upon colors, solidity, and the motion of inert bodies, he distinguishes very plainly kindness, bad temper, or anger, in the physiognomy of the persons who approach him. Frequently he cannot bear without painful feelings and tears, and turning aside his face, the sight of grown up persons unknown to him : especially if they have a physiognomy somewhat harsh ; while a good tempered, or insignificant face, or the sight of an infant like himself, produces no unpleasant feeling. The cause of this is evidently, that the developement of instinct goes on faster than that of intellect: an unpleasant physiognomy frightens him, as a result of the instinct of self preservation ; just as he would be frightened if one were to threaten to throw him down a precipice, or at the sight of a furious animal, ready to rush upon him. He feels sen- sations, such as those of hunger and thirst, the want of rest and motion, heat and cold, and he obeys them Avi-hout hes- itations but the inclination to observe, and curi uity always increasing, soon rend6r him educateable, and show that he may be accustomed to support without fear, the sight ofall those objects Avhich gave him at first so much uneasiness. In the mean time, the infant makes progress ; he imitates the accents of the human voice, and e\ en all the actions of his fellow creatures : he does more, he shows that he has not only ideas of the properties of bodies, but also of the circumstances under Avhich he observes them. When he lives with well educated people, he remembers the words, by which they express their opinions of the different scenes of social life, and he employs them so as to shoAv that he understands them. We should be tempted then to believe that his intelligence was perfect; but how far is it yet from its final developement ! to prove this, induce him if you can by meaps of the words which he understands so well, to en- ter intB some accurate process of reasoning ; and you will soon see that his attention becomes distracted from the train of ideas that you would impose upon him, and he fixes upon some other ideas, more simple, which his memory sub- stitutes, or on impressions which have been made upon his senses. This depends upon instinct making more progress than intellect: the brain of a child, not yet arrived at the age of puberty, is so organized, that he receives no lively [ M J pleasure, unless from the impressions of material objects ; these alone, agitate agreeably his nervous system. To eat and to drink, to take much exercise, to see neAv objects, and satisfy a Avandering curiosity; to put his limbs in action, which nature orders him to do ; to try his strength, and to compare it Avith that of others, not only for the purpose of exercising it, but to obey the want of that self satisfaction which shows itself but as yet only in outward actions, such are the customs imperiously demanded by instinct; and to Avhich, youth, not yet arrived at the age of puberty, ahvays returns, whatever pains you may take to turn him from them. The pleasures of reflection are as yet unknoAvn to him, excepting those Avhich he obtains by stratagem, which he substitutes to strength, whenever he wishes to act upon one stronger than himself. This kind of pleasure has more attraction for him than that of kind actions ; unless indeed, he finds in these, the means of exercising his predominant faculties ; this Avould be the case for example, in protecting a young person Aveaker than himself, whom he would plague the instant after. In general, he prefers mischief to doing good, because by this means he satisfies his vanity, and he finds in it more excitement, which is necessary to him, at whatever price. This is the reason that we see him so of- ten amuse himself by breaking to pieces inanimate objects : and he finds a double pleasure, founded on the desire of self satisfaction, to find resistance yield to him, and to excite the anger of reasonable persons ; this seems to him a Aricto- ry that he enjoys deliciously Avhenever he can escape by flight from merited punishment. On the same principle of action, he delights in torturing animals ; and he would en- joy the same pleasure in torturing individuals of his own species, if he were not restrained by fear ; for the desire of self preservation is very strongly marked in him. Com- passion does sometimes restrain him; but this is a feeling not much developed at this age in the male sex: we find it more frequently, and more distinctly marked in young girls. I know that all the acts of young people before the age of puberty, are not distinguished by this depravity : the char- acter of goodness which marks many persons afterward, be- gins to appear before the epoch of reason ; but the great majority are such as I have described ; and the more vigor- ous young boys are, and the more lively do they feel the Avant of expending their force by external motion, the L 'u J stronger is their tendency to do Avrong : there is scarcely a child that does not make a bad use of his strength upon oth- ers Avho are weaker than himself; this is his first movement; but the cries of his victim stop him, when he is not natu- rally ferocious, until a neAv instinctive impulse induces him to commit the same fault. To correct these propensities, Avhich reason, and experi- ence of the unhappy consequences attending them, would never correct, or correct too late, tAVO methods have been adopted. The instinct of self preservation is brought into play by the punishments which terrify the child, and turn against him the consequences of his bad actions : endeavors also are used to turn him aside from selfish gratification in these pernicious indulgences, to render him more suscep- tible of those pleasures which attend praises obtained by docility, kindness, goodness, attention to his duties, effects of study, memory, and intelligence. This last faculty is put in requisition by anticipation, in explaining the notion, of good and evil, justice and injustice, merit and demerit. These are most useful ideas, which are as yet confused in a child of that age, and applicable at Avill to his petty passions, but Avhich are rectified by being pre- sented accurately drawn out by the labors of philosophers and sages. We succeed in this task in proportion only to the developement of those parts of the brain that belong to intellect. While Ave exhaust our unproductive efforts to hasten the developement of intelligence in the child, and inspire him with a taste for serious objects, a new function establishes itself, and nature performs without effort, what art would have attempted in vain. The organs destined for the pro- duction of the species become developed, and the encepha- lon receiAesan impulse which is calculated to carry it to its last degree of growth and energy. The young man perceives a prodigious change in his manner of seeing things. So soon as he has received the influence of this new sense, a wan- dering kind of inquietude seizes him; the eyes of the other sex excite Avithin him instinctive movements that he feels Avith surprise. If we examine the state of his intellect, we shall find that he has discovered neAv ideas in words that he thought he Avell understood, but had never suspected before ; he sees relations, bearings and order, Avhere he before ob- served only differences, multiplicity, and confusion. Ideas [ 11 j of connection and casuality arise ; he loves now to draw inferences which are as easy as they were formerly difficult. and he becomes suddenly a maker of objections and a rea- soner. He begins to find pleasure in reflecting on himself, in observing Avhat he does and what he thinks: he is incli- ned to compare himself Avith others in respect of these neAv faculties Avhich he feels an interest in studying as they ap- pear in others ; and if he finds he has any advantage, he is much more flattered than by any superiority of strength or address, although he is still more flattered by the latter quality, than he will be by-and-bye. This is a wonderful revolution, Avhich Avould have been quite impossible to all the common places of Avisdom. The new facility Avhich the youth feels he possesses for all the operations of intellect, seldom fail to lead him astray, He seems to think he invents, he creates Avhat he discovers ; it seems to him that thought goes on quicker in him than in men in general; he sees with a kind of disdain the in- tellectual slowness and circumspection of riper age. He does not perceive that he is only working upon that multi- tude of ideas, Avhich, during his long childhood, Avere in- culcated with so much pains ; he has not yet had time to feel that opposition, and experience alone can give him ad- just notion of the inconvenience of hasty conclusions, and of that facility which seems calculated to overcome all obsta- cles. As muscular force and the feelings of life and health haA'e augmented as well as his intellectual faculties, the young man sees before him an immense prospect; and the generative poAver with which he feels himself abundantly supplied, adds to his arrogance by multiplying his intellectual enjoy- ments. Such is man in the spring-tide of life. The nervous sys- tem executes from henceforward all the functions which be- long to it: but the intellectual faculties do not acquire their full vigor till about the age of thirty ; an epoch when the increase in growth has developed the whole brain in every direction to which its fibres can extend. During the space of time aa hich separates' the appearance of the last of the intellectual faculties from the full developement of the Avhole intellect, the judgement goes on toAvard perfection. The man having been often deceived by hasty conclusions from first impressions, that is, having been repeatedly com- [ rz } pelled by the acquisition of new ideas, to correct his first opinions, becomes gradually sensible of this kind of humili- ation. The first time he commits these kind of errors, he hastens to correct them without feeling any thing but pleas- ure at having learnt some thing new ; but when he sees the necessity of correction multiply continually, his self-love becomes alarmed, he becomes angry, and employs cunning to maintain the authority of his first conclusions : but inter- nally and privately, he determines to endeavor to spare himself humiliation or anger, and becomes, as we say, cir- cumspect. It is now that his faculties, if they have been properly cultivated, are carried to their highest perfection. Man is so favored by nature, that he can enjoy them for a long time, and procure an amount of happiness, of Avhich other ani- mals seem to have no idea. Let us see noAV to Avhat is it owing that he enjoys all these advantages. Sec. 3. Reason of the prerogatives that distinguish man from all other animals. We have left the youth in connection with every material object, animate and inanimate, distinguishing of his own accord, all their external attributes, and able to discover the most difficult of their physical properties, even to the cir- cumstances that may modify them ; but it is only when he is called upon to observe them, that he remembers wonder- fully all the signs of his intellectual operations, and acquires in consequence, ideas of abstraction. But Ave have noticed that he exhibits great repugnance to make an application of these precious signs, to the investigation of those circumstan- ces which produce a variation in the state of bodies, and to the comparison of his OAvn intellect, with that of his equals: that is to say, he dislikes to abandon himself to reasoning and reflec- tion. In other words, Ave have seen that he learnt easily, not only words,but the formula of ratiocination—that he seemed to understand them, but exhibited no propensity to make others like them, although placed in favorable circumstances ; and that an insurmountable force brought back his attention to some order of ideas far less complicated. We have remark- ed, that at the same time Avhen he acquired the faculty of reflection and of reasoning, a neAv sense manifested itself, with a neAv instinctive want. So that there is aHvays the same laAv of the developement of man : if he acquires an in- L w 1 crease of intellectual power, and an increase at the same time of instinctive faculties. But nature seems to have as- sociated the perfection of intelligence with the generative faculty; so that the young man shall not become transformed into the father of a family, before he has acquired the strength and intelligence necessary to provide for all the wants of his offspring. The exceptions of this rule, though rare, sufficiently demonstrate its great importance. We see among male children instances of premature puberty at five or seven years, for instance, which are accompanied with the usual grade of intellect of that time of life ; a disgusting and deplorable spectacle. It is by investigating these kinds of subjects, that we can obtain a solution of the question that occupies us. Let them be Avell examined, and it will be found, as Dr. Gall has well remarked, that the cerebellum is more than usually developed, while the anterior part of the brain, the seat of intelligence, which is ahvays at its full size at the full period of regular puberty, is not larger than what belongs to a mere infant. Dr. Gall concludes that the cerebellum is the special presiding organ of generation; but if we consider, 1st. Thatthe heart, the sanguineous system, the respiratory muscles, those that depend on the will, take their last groAvth with the cerebellum, as well as the organs of generation; 2dly. That if the testicles are taken away before puberty, the developement of all those organs, as well as of the cerebellum, is deficient; 3dly. That castration, after the age of puberty, diminishes not merely the cerebel- lum, but all the muscular apparatus, and the sanguineous system—Ave .shall be compelled to allow, 1st. That the cerebellum is not alone appointed to the use of the instinct of propagation, but it is equally connected Aviththat increase of vital energy that produces the full developement of all the organs ; JBdly. That it is not the sole promoter of these changes ; 3dly. That the simultaneous developement of the cerebellum, the sanguineous system, and the external mus- cles, after that of the testicles or ovaries, is the only con- stant fact; but, that usually the brain receives, at the same time, its last impulse of gnnvrli on which the intellectual faculties depend, more especially those of reflection and in- duction. This suffices to ansAverthe question before proposed. Sec. 4. On what depend, the final developement of the intellectual and instinctive faculties, ivhich accompany the rrrif'ifinn ofpirberfif. 10 [ 74 ] It seems that the developement of the testicles and ova- ries, is brought on by the common process of nutrition, Avhich ahvays causes the most important organs of existence in the individual to precede those that are less so; that these organs begin to grow and secrete Avithout any prepara- tory shock ; and that they excite throughout the viscera, whether by the influence of the nerves distributed through the organs, or by the re-absorption of the liquor they elabo- rate, an excess of vitality which pushes on the whole body tow7ard its last degree of developement. This Avas nearly the common opinion, prior to the system of Dr. Gall, who referred all these charges to the cerebellum. But why should Ave impute to it those changes which the cerebellum alone cannot produce ? Why does it not grow ? Why not determine the forms of puberty among eunuchs, always ex- cepting that which relates to the generative act ? Why does it not preserve these forms among youths at puberty, whom we submit to castration ? How happens it that it is itself oppressed after this operation, in common with all the muscular system ? Will it be said that this cerebellum makes use of the genital organs as an instrument to react on the animal economy ? This Avill admit the influence so long acknowledged, of the testicles on the sanguiferous system, the muscles, and even on the brain. It is easier then to take the facts as they are, and acknowledge that since the cerebellum is incapable of producing changes in the form, in the voice, the color, the muscular force, the character, the inclinations that characterize puberty—these changes are results of the developement of that part of the genital appa- ratus, destined to furnish the first materials of the embryo ; that the cerebellum is thence affected like every other part of the encephalon, but that its developement is more parti- cularly connected with the internal functions which preside over nutrition, and produce the abundance and energy of the fibre.* We see that the intellectual, like the instinctive faculties, are developed along with the nervous system ; that they result from the insensible ampliation or growth that takes place in the encephalon and the distributed nervous system, during the period from the embryo to the adult state ; that they are in fact, to the physiological observer, nothing more *I doubt whether these considerations are quite sufficient to set aside Gall's facts.—Trans!. [ 15 ] than the transmission of nervous encephalic stimulation, considered under peculiar circumstances. The catenation of the facts Avhich we have unfolded, proves this ; but to add to this proof, Ave shall present the following considera- tions drawn from the same source, a rigorous observation of facts. 1. The quantity of innervation afforded by the instinctive and intellectual phenomena, being of a higher character, and connected also with that which causes muscular motion, is in its degree necessarily a disturber; it would soon termi- nate our existence, if it were not interrupted at the end of a certain time : hence the necessity of sleep, which substi- tutes another form of innervation for that of wakefulness. Sleep, Avhen perfect, suspends these two kinds of phenome- na, although it cannot prevent some of the stronger stimula- tions of the nerves from reaching the brain, and being from thence reflected on other nerves. What proves this, is, that the muscular surfaces of the hollow organs, and the respiratory muscles, Avhich cannot act regularly, but by means of the brain, continue their motions, while"no instinc- tive act is manifest, and no thought troubles the repose of sleep. Dreams do not take place but in imperfect sleep, or at the beginning and the end of usual sleep. But if you aAva- ken suddenly a profound sleeper someAvhat fatigued, in the midst of his first sleep, he will tell you he had no dream. Dreams and somnambulism come in aid of our assertion, for they present a feeble kind of rest wherein many stimulations reach the brain, and determine that series of thoughts and acts Avhich always show an incomplete and irregular state of encephalic innervation. Sometimes the regular instinct brings in subjection the intellect to which it was subordin- ate during wakefulness ; sometimes an irregular intellect provokes instinctive motions which would not otherwise have taken place, &c. but this innervation is ahvays less considerable than what takes place in a state of wakefulness. The foetus seems to pass through these different shades of innervation. During the first months its sleep is perfect; during the latter months it is often interrupted by percep- tions Avhich cannot bring into play any thing but instinct in its most limited phenomena relating to the preservation of the individual; nor do they shew themselves, except by momentarv motions produced by pain. These motions are [ ™ j in fact the first and most simple actions of that class of animals which are provided with a sensitive apparatus. So similar are they, that they differ only from those of the polypus, by their proceeding from a stimulation reflected by an encepha- lic apparatus. Is it not evident that the first motions of an embryo are those of zoophytes, and as the embryo grows, they put on the character of sleepy motions ? 2. Diseases augment, diminish, interrupt, deprave the en- cephalic innervation in all its relations, instinctive, intellect- ual, sensitiAre, and muscular. In many soporific states not profound, as in coma, lethargy, incomplete apoplexy, there is a perfect interruption of intellectual innervation, Avith contin- uance to a certain point of instinctiAre innervation, manifest- ed by the motions of co-ordinate muscles. The patient turns aside to avoid noise, light, palpitation, &c. In epilepsy and hysteria, instinct reacts also but irregularly and by convul- sions. In strong apoplexy, intellect and instinct are both banished ; but the motions of the heart, and those of the splanchnic muscular fibres exist co-ordinately (by means of the encephalon) with those of the respiratory muscles. In complete syncope, as well as in asphyxy, the innervation of the brain is diminished to such a degree, that the respiratory motions, and those of the heart, become insensible. Here then, the functions of the encephalon and the nerves, have been analysed by their diminution through all their stages of decrease ; and the adult appears retrograding as far back as the embryo. In insanity, on the contrary, we find these functions analysed by their exaltation, not only according to their degrees, but their differences, as we shall see in the second part of this work ; until excess of irrita- tion deprives man of his first and most simple motives of action, instinct, and Avill, and reduces him in point of inner- A^ation to the state of the embryo, whose limbs are not yet developed. This is what we are accustomed to observe in those kinds of insanity Avhich degenerate into complete fatuity : the man in this case, stript of all motive to external action, remains motionless ; exhibiting neither appetite nor desires ; feeling no want, he would permit himself to die of hunger, and remain motionless in his excretions, if his fel- low men did not take pity on his condition. Life remains however, so long as food is introduced into his stomach by the aid of strangers, while the gastric passages can assimilate M j it, and the interior innervations can distribute it through the animal economy, and offer to the several tissues the assimi- lated fluids proper for their nutrition. It is true then, that the business of the nervous system, is to transmit the stimulations of one part of the animal econ- omy to another ; and in performing this duty, five classes of phenomena appear in the early period of existence. 1st. The oscillatory movements of the heart and vascular system. 2nd. The contractile motions of the visceral, muscular fibres. 3rd. The motions of the respiratory muscles, ahvays co- ordinate with these last, and attesting the intervention of the encephalon. 4th. The motions of these muscles, and those of the A'oice,and of locomotion ; in an order, and for a purpose Avhich Ave may easily distinguish, but without any intellectual operation : a phenomenon purely instinctive, Avhich is itself no more than the expression of our first wants, arising from the stimulations of the nervous apparatus of the encephalon. 5th. And finally, the same motions un- der the directions of intelligence, Avhich sometimes make them co-ordinate with instinctive suggestions, and sometimes Avith desires that take their rise from curiosity. We see that this last Avant (curiosity, or the feeling of the Avant of observation) comes in as an addition to all the others: it shows itself at first, as an instrument to satisfy these other Avants by an instinctive impulse, in proportion as the mother ceases to provide for them; and it finishes Avhen the brain is perfected, by giving birth to all the intellectual operations Avhich supercede the mother and instinctive motions. These operations, derived from one source, (curiosity,) seem to multiply themselves in proportion as the man abandons him- self to the impulses of this same Avant. It is also evident, that the high degree of perfection of those acts which are suggested by the desire of observation, (curiosity,) is that, in which intelligence is reflected with most energy upon itself, exciting to the study of itself, and to cause itself to be studied by other men ; for it is incontestible, as some philo- sophers have truly said, that the more a man reflects for the pleasure of reflecting, the more desirous he is to communi- cate his ideas : very different in this respect from one who seeks to satisfy wants of a lowrer order; who, if he be prudent, is secret, and communicates' to others, those only of his ideas Avhich may aid in the execution of his purpose. Chapter V.—On the theories advanced concerning THE INTELLECTUAL PHENOMENA. Having followed man during his growth, and having laid down the inappreciable advantages he derives from the gra- dual advance to perfection of his encephalic apparatus, we are now led to consider the explanation he himself gives of these advantages. Here, men are divided into two classes: to Avit, those Avho speak of intellectual faculties Avithout being acquainted with their organs—and those who speak of them possessing that knowledge. The first class knoAV nothing of Irritation; they must be led to it: for indepen- dently of the first cause, and the profound respect due to it, Ave are compelled by the undeniable evidence of a thousand facts accurately observed, to refer all the instinctive and in- tellectual phenomena, to the action of the nervous appara- tus ; and to explain their lesions by the changes which take place in its excitation; changes where we see in the first rank, the phenomena of irritation. To arrive at the demon- stration of this truth, Ave shall examine in the seven sections following. 1. How man came to abstract himself from him- self, and the foundations of the psychological doctrines. 2. What idea they annex to consciousness, and whether other animals are endowed with it. 3. Whether it be possible to form a science of the phenomena of consciousness alone, as the psychologists pretend: and here Ave shall expose the sources of their errors in explaining internal perceptions. 4. How it is that consciousness and the senses aid each other in constructing a true science of man as a feeling and thinking being: with an essay on the personified principle Avhich the psychologists would impose on the nervous sys- tem. 5. Whether the explanation of the physiologists on the ascertainable cause of the intellectual phenomena, is an hy- pothesis like the principle of the psychologists; and we shall shew the connections which unite the internal func- tions, to those of the organs of external relation. 6. To Avhat it is that on the ultimate analysis, all the objections are reduced which are urged against the office of the nervous apparatus in the production of intellectual phenomena. 7. What we are to think of those philosophers who call them- selves rationalists, theologians, illuminated, mystic. Sec. 1. How man abstracts himself from himself: basis of the psychological doctrine. In seeking to satisfy his first wants, man enters into the field of obserA'ation : the remarks he makes sorve onlv for [ <9 ] that purpose. By and by the observations of bodies AA7hich he is compelled to examine, becomes of itself a pleasure,, which often leads him aside and makes him forget the ob- jects of his researches. At length this new pleasure takes such hold upon him, that he forgets his original object, and begins to think that he is placed in this world only to con- template nature and observe himself; and this becomes to him the most noble and most essential of his occupations. He goes further: he frames an hypothesis: he divides him- self into tAvo beings, of Avhich, one which he confesses he has in common Avith other animals is the object of his con- tempt, while the other, which has nothing in common Avith blood, flesh, or even the nervous system, rules over the first, and constitutes more especially, the being Man. Here follows the mode of proceeding he adopts to arrive at these ontological assertions. He takes all the phenomena of intellectual innervation, more or less mixed up with the instinctive, and applies to them a word ; Avhich Avoid becomes the mover of the phe- nomena themselves. He is manifestly led to this erroneous distinction, by his ignorance of the manner in which the phenomena are actually produced : this it imports us much to search to the bottom, partly for the purpose of determin- ing truly the functions of the nervous system, and partly to enable us to comprehend the theory of Insanity, which will engage our attention in the second part of this work. Judging of himself by bodies of a lower class, and by the circumstances in Avhich they are placed, man imagines that his intellectual phenomena are directed by an intelligent being placed Avithin his brain; like the tunes of an organ produced by some musician out of sight. He does not suf- ficiently reflect, that there can be no comparison between a human being playing on an instrument, and the cause of in- tellectual phenomena Avhich take place in that same human being. He persists nevertheless ; he converts the observa- tion of these phenomena into a science; and he calls it Metaphysics. The anatomist hoAvever, comes forAvard, armed with his scalpel; he dissects the dead man ; he make experiments on some living animal; he compares it with man in a healthy, and Avith man in a diseased state; he does this in spite of the metaphysician Avho thinks himself dishonoured by such 9. comparison. The anatomist now sheAvs. that the pretend [ au J ed organist Avhich the metaphycian had located in the pineal gland, or the pons varolii, is nothing else than the whole connected encephalic apparatus. Some reasoners seize upon this discovery, and endeavour to show to the meta- physician, the imposibility of forcing into contact, some- thing which has none of the properties acknowledged to belong to the body, Avith the nervous matter of the ence- phalon which is a part of the body. This difficulty does not stop the metaphysian : his imagination produces some inter- medial entity, some air, or gas, or subtle matter to bring about this singular connection of a being, that has no pro- perty in common with matter, and the material substance of the encephalon. It is urged, that let him do Avhat he will, his intermediary substance will always be material, and no reasonable person can bring himself to admit the existence of a substance, which is not cognizable by any sense he pos- sesses. The metaphysician remains unconvinced. He has never been at the trouble of examining the functions of the nervous system, so as to be capable of conviction: he hesitates how- ever. His uncertainty, his concealments, the Aveakness of his arguments, destroy his credit with men of science; and the opinion begins now to prevail, that as there can be no real science, except of facts that are certain, and of things which the senses can take cognizance of, it becomes neces- sary to bring back metaphysics to objects of sense; but this destroys metaphysics as a science, and reduces it to physio- logical facts, and conclusions of the same kind as those which we have already propounded. The science of Man was at this stage, when the metaphy- sicians Avho Avere expected to yield Avith a good grace to the class of observers who took their senses as guides to their researches, rallied, and now placed their ontologic philoso- phy on the basis of Avhatthey called facts of consciousness. It is on the inspiration of consciousness then, that modern metaphysicians, discarding that title as savouring too much of theology, hold the folloAving language as Psychologists. " No doubt the sciences ought to repose on facts capable of being observed; but it is not strictly true that these facts must be observable by the senses. Here are two kinds of observation independent of each other: one proper to na- turalists, the other to philosophers: the first admits the evi- dence of the senses alone : the other is founded on internal [ 81 ] evidence, and the facts thus discovered are facts of con* sciousness. They fall not under cognizance of the senses: nevertheless they are facts, and facts of the utmost cer- tainty. What can be more sure than to feel pleasure or pain, to feel ones own existence, to feel that Ave think or that we have thought of any thing ; that Ave will, or that we have Avilled any thing; that we believe one thing, or doubt about another, &c. But since these two classes of facts are equally certain to the human being, the history of man is two fold. It is in vain that the naturalists would base it on facts cognizable by the senses alone, and the philosophers on facts of consciousness; the two classes cannot be con- founded. Consciousness feels itself, but does not feel the sensations: the senses perceive nothing but external ob* jects and impressions, and can neither see, or hear, or touch Avhat is evident to consciousness. Senses and conscious- ness have nothing in common, except to be equally in con- nection Avith the intelligent principle, which is individual in its nature, and to which the others administer. If we have not yet succeeded in reducing philosophy to a science of certainty, it is because its truths have not been understood. Hitherto the two classes of facts have been confounded, as have the tAvo corresponding sciences. The naturalists have gone astray in treating the facts of consciousness as sensible facts : the philosopher has been equally mistaken in admit- ting this method, and affecting to refer to his consciousness, to decide on sensible facts. Neither of these sciences ought to borrow from, or concede any thing to the other: it is high time that each should know his proper boundaries: and if the physiologist or the naturalist will absolutely treat on the moral character of man, they must abandon all inves- tigations that depend on the senses, throAv away their scalp- els and microscopes, and like the philosophers, give them- selves up to meditation in the absence of all outAvard im- pressions, and become solely psychologists." Thus spake the metaphysicians of the new school: and the ideologists Avho were enrolled under the banners of Locke and Cordillac, by referring all our ideas to the im- pressions made upon our senses, noAV found themselves em- barrassed. They had not foreseen this important objec- tion; and so soon as the psychologists advanced under cover of consciousness, the existence of a mover indepen- dent of all animal substance—while thev protested that they 11 L ^ J felt the existence and operation of this mover—-that the> saAv it act freely and originally Avithout any other relation to the external senses than that of a master over his servants— the ideologists Avere afraid to contradict it openly. But AA'hen the psycologists came fonvard, and in the name of their Sybill pronunced anathemas against all those who doubted of these truths—Avhen they expressed a contempt for all those AA'hose intellects were so gross as to refuse their assent to the evidence of a principle superior in wisdom and elevation to bodily senses composed of matter, vile, and sub- ject even to putrefaction—the ideologists who had admitted this simple principle without doubting but they could amal- gamate it Avith their own theory, remained unable to reply; with one only exception.* We are now at this point; the Ideologists are silent, or advance no refutation; and the physicians who cultivated physiology reclaim for them- selves by halfway complaints, the science of intellect which has been ravished from them, and appropriated to them- selves by the psychologists, who had never condescended to study the organs or the functions of the bodily system. As it is solely on the evidence of consciousness that the psychologists rely, I proceed to examine what they under- stand by that word; and whether it be possible to erect a real science on this word alone as the basis of it. Sec. 2. Of the notions entertained by the psychologists of consciousnsss: are animals endowed with it ? By consciousness they understand that faculty which man possesses, of observing himself: not of observing external bodies which he cannot do but by means of the senses ; but of observing his thoughts ; that he thinks of this or that; that he -wills or that he does not will; or that he does or does not will this or that. This is what I have denomina- ted in my treatise on physiology by the expression to re- flect upon one's self. This has no termination ; for in obser- ving, I feel, I perceive, I am sensible that I observe; and so on. This kind of intercranial innervation, distinguishes us among animals, and places us at the head of them, by the perfection to which it can be carried in our species. We cannot admit its existence in any living being unless he can make us understand that he possesses it, either by his ac- tions or his discourse. As the foetus, the embryo, the new *I believe he alludes to Destut Tracy, the friend of Cabanis; the an thor of the Ideology.—Transl. L »*.] born infant, and all the animals of a lower class, exhibit no proof of possessing it—as they have no language, and there- fore cannot say to us, " 1 feel that I feel;" nor can they understand us Avhen Ave employ this formula—Ave therefore do not hesitate to decide that they do not possess the facul- ty Avhich it expresses. In observing the infant and the pro- gress of his growth, Ave seize upon that moment when he deliberates between several impressions; it is from that moment we may conclude that he feels that he feels, and that he has felt, that is to say, the phenomena of conscious- ness then manifest themselves in him. If on the other hand Ave apply our observation to many other animals, we observe the same phenomena. In truth, Ave see that animals do not confound themselves Avith any other body in nature : they receive many impressions : they hesitate before they act: and they act without any proof to us that they are determined, except by some one of their actual and present impressions. The case is the same when they obey the impulse of a simple recollection ; that is, they feel at present, that they have felt heretofore impressions different from what they feel at the present moment by means of their senses. For instance, a well-educated hunt- ing dog, who formerly deAroured the game, now brings it without hesitation to his master ; he seems even to applaud himself for not having given way to his appetite. Such is another dog, who although tempted by caresses, and by food set before him, refuses to stay with the person tempt- ing him, and returns to a great distance to rejoin his master Avhom he has not seen for some days, &c. Such are wolves, Avild dogs, and animals of prey, Avho though pressed by hunger, but foreseeing from the presence of the enemy that there is not time to satisfy their hunger Avith security, hide in some place the animal they have seized, after taking the precaution of killing it, and then run to the defence of themselves or their young. Such are also dogs and foxes which hunt in company, one of Avhich pursues the game, while the other waits for it at its form, to which it never fails to come back. A cat Aveary of always having her young carried aAvay, determined to put them down in a granary. When the young ones of this last deportation began to grow up, and her milk did not suffice for their nourishment, she thought of transporting them to the kitchen ; the door Avas shut; [ »1 J she cried out to get it opened. The door being opened, she regained the stairs leading to the granary for the purpose of finding her young, but they being wild had run away at the noise of opening the kitchen door. This door Avas shut against the cat, who called again, and had the door again opened. The want of success in this first trial served her for a lesson : she entered a few paces, carressed the cook, and put herself in a posture to go out again and regain the staircase, but turning round every noAV and then to excite the curiosity of the Avoman and induce her to folIoAV that she might understand the cat's proceedings. The cat succeed- ed. The cook surprised at this management, followed the uneasy mother, and found upon the stairs of the granary, the young ones Avho again took flight. The cook now com- prehending the Avishes of the old cat, left open the door of the kitchen, and seemed to pay no attention to what was going forward. The cat took advantage of the opportunity, and by calling her kittens to her, introduced them at length into the kitchen. All these actions and a thousand others, which we could add to them,* incontestably prove that animals whose or- ganization approaches ours to a certain point, have the fac- ulty of feeling that they feel or perceive, and that they haA'e • felt or perceived different impressions ; and also they have the faculty of induction, (or deducing conclusions from a comparison of ideas.) At length the infant gets hold of the instrument, lan- guage: he gets at it by the gradual progress of cerebial developement: he arrives at this point by leaving behind him the mere animal life, at Avhose level he Avas a short time ago : it is then he understands the meaning of Ifeel that I feely or that he pronounces it himself. It is thus that the consciousness belonging to man, developed with the slow and successive progress of the encephalon, finishes by pla- cing men far above all other animals. Having now settled the characters of this faculty, let us see hoAv the psychologists Avish to use it as the base of a particular science. Sec. 3. If it be possible to make a science out of the mere phenomena of consciousness ? Sources of error among the psychologists in relation to it. * The translator cpuld add fifty of his own knowledge, demonstrative of thought and reasoning in animals. Transl. I *•> ] 1 hey say Ave must listen to the language of conscious- ness ; and for that purpose, collect ourselves in silence and obscurity, that no sense may be employed : we must ab- stract ourselves from every body in nature, in short we must listen to ourselves alone, and think. They affirm se- riously that when Ave have been for a long time exercised in this kind of reverie, we discover an immense perspective, a new world, croAvded with facts of the most admirable kind, and connected by natural relations, of which the laAvs may be discovered ; facts moreover, that have nothing in common with those presented by the senses; facts whose assiduous contemplation, elevates the psychologist far above his felloAV men, Avithout excepting the naturalists and the physiologists, Avho are occupied about ideas furnished by the senses. Let us then examine Avhat they can find in their con- sciousness by proceeding in this mode of research. Inde- pendent of the faculty of feeling that Ave feel, they find two other sorts of things : but let us first speak of Avhat is ori- ginally established in consciousness, and is surely found there. The psychologists are sure to meet there, all the viscer- al sensations that are in correspondence Avith the brain ; not merely hunger, thirst, venereal desires, the sensations of cold, heat, positive pain and pleasure, referred to some part of the system, but they will have to remark a crowd of other sensations vague, indeterminate, sometimes producing sad- ness, sometimes joy, sometimes action, sometimes rest; hope at one time, at another despair even to dread of exist- ence. They will find all these sensations and emotions Avithout any doubt in their minds concerning the source from whence they proceed ; for the physiologists or rather the physicians who have paid most attention to the pheno- mena of visceral irritation, and the various degrees of insan- ity and whom they never consult, can alone give them infor- mation on this point. If they take all these internal sensa- tions for revelations of the divinity, whom they call con- sciousness, they may greatly increase their riches of this description, by folloAving the oriental custom of taking a dose of opium combined with aromatics. They will then find themselves like Mahomet, in connection Avith all that is most extraordinary in the empyreal heavens. But let us pass on to the second class of objects, Avhich the psycho- I. «« J lo"ist in his reverie cannot fail to discover in this conscious- ness of his. He will find the recollection of impressions made upon his senses; I do not say that he will see there, images, or impressions, or ideas considered as entities, but I will say, that while he is observing, he will perceive sensations* as- sociated in such manner with bodies that have already im- pressed the senses for the first time, that these sensations cannot be reneAved without compelling us to think of these same bodies. Consciousness then, is populated ; first, with materials produced internally, from the visceral nerves, and the nervous apparatus of the brain itself. Secondly, with materials produced by impressions made on the external senses. Moreover, these materials are associated together, mixed, confounded, identified in some manner or other; and they are so to such a degree as Ave have shown in out- physiology, that sensations proceeding from the visceral nerves, forcibly recal the attention to certain trains of ideas, the offspring of sensations furnished by the external senses; nor can these acquire some degree of intensity in conscious- ness, without giving birth in their turn to visceral sensa- tions. Without this combination, man Avould have no motive to action ; a circumstance which I shall be compelled to con- sider by-and-bye : and this combination is the proper func- tion of the encephalon considered in respect of innerva- tion, sensitive and intellectual. It is by means of the impressions made upon the external senses, that the in- ternal sensations are of any value to the individual. Hun- ger becomes a determinate sensation only by the pre- sence of the recollection of some material object proper to satisfy it: and this value is not the same when the stom- ach is full as when it is empty : in its normal and its abnor- mal state : it is reciprocally, by sensations perceived simul- taneously in the viscera, that those of the senses acquire a precise character : the sight of the other sex has not the same value to an infant or a sick person, as it has to the full grown man, in a state of health. One may say the same * The French seem not sufficiently aware of Hartley's exposition of the doctrine of association: including sensations with sensations, sensations with ideas, sensations with muscular motions, voluntary and automatic ; ideas with muscular motions; and all these with desires and emotions ; and the very important and most extensive application of this theory to the phenomena of intellect, instinct, health, and disease. Trans!. i. *7 j of1 all other sensations : for those Avhich do not relate to our principal Avants, as the sight of a triangle, may be connect- ed with instinctive curiosity. What proves this, is, that this sensation is of no value to a child, Avhose instinct of cu- riosity is not yet developed, and whose brain is as yet im- perfect ; just like a native idiot, whose brain has not grown in that portion of it which is assigned to intellectual pheno- mena : it signifies moreover, more or less to a grown man, Avell organized, according as he has exercised more or less, his faculty of observation, on that train of ideas which the triangle can recall to memory. But what value does it not acquire, in awakening that want of self satisfaction, which, as we have explained in our physiology cannot be excited to a certain degree of intensity, without developing sensa- tions referable to the most important viscera ; to the same viscera which are excited by hunger, by thirst, by the fear of death, and all the phenomena of instinct ? In a word, let us do Avhat Ave will, in abandoning ourselves to meditation, it is absolutely impossible not to aAvaken visceral sensations, and that instinct should not be put in action in concert Avith intelligence. Hence the psychologist, in his reverie, w ill find nothing in his conciousness but mixed facts : it is wrongfully, there- fore, that he pretends to build up with these facts, the edifice of a particular science, which shall be independent of facts observed by the senses: it Avill be impossible for him to assert, after this inspection of the interior, a single fact which Avill not require to be verified by the senses. This is what Ave must now undertake to prove, and for that purpose, we shall occtpy his own ground. He asserts, that his internal observation is something cer- tain ; for there is nothing in the world more certain to him than to feel that he does feel, and that he has felt. Very Avell; no doubt: Ave grant all that. It is certain that he enjoys when he does enjoy, and that he suffers when he does suffer; and that he has a perception of the pleasure and pain Avhich he experiences. Nobody ever dreamt of contesting with him this certainty, nor the reality upon which it is founded ; but because it is certain that a psycologist feels a body to be round and immovable, it does not follow that the body really is so : it may be square, and seem round Avhile it is in motion, and if the senses did not interfere to give the required certainty, the psycologist Avould remain l *» ] all his life in error relative to the form of this bo^y, and to another circumstance very important respecting it. This example may serve for all the cases of the same nature. The pretended certainty of high and Ioav, of the immobility of the earth, and of a diurnal circle drawn around it by the sun, were formerly facts of consciousness ; every body believed that he felt Avithin himself the certainty of these pretended facts, and it has been by the aid of the senses that their falsehood has been definitively demonstrated. But the psycologist will say, " you speak of physical facts of Avhich the first motion came through the senses, but we have excluded these from the domain of consciousness. The questions about Avhich Ave are occupied are those that relate to the nature of the intelligent principle, the faculties it possesses, and the morality of its actions. Upon all this, our consciousness alone can throAv light, and cannot deceive us, while our senses teach us absolutely nothing." To assure ourselves of this, Ave ask of the psycologists Avhat their consciousness reveals to them of every thing ? Let us begin with the question of the intelligent principle. We have already said that the ancient metaphysians attribu- ted it to something independent of the nervous apparatus. Consciousness has taught our modern psycologists nothing more. The replies we haAre made to their predecessors Ave may therefore make to them. I shall therefore not repeat them. But I Avould ask of these gentlemen, so devoted to the Avorship of consciousness, if they really believe that this faculty is competent of itself and alone, to judge of the nature of the intelligent principle Avithout the aid of the senses ? At the first blush, it is manifest that we cannot Avithout absurdity suppose a man well organized, arrived at that point Avhen he is able to reflect upon himself without having arrived there through the aid of the senses. What proves that we cannot make this supposition, is, that those unfortu- nate persons who are born Avithout sight and hearing, arc necessarily ideots. In the second place, all men Avho have offered opinions on the principle of intelligence, are philo- sophers Avho, for a long time before-hand, ha\Te exercised their senses by observation of external objects, and have been long familiarized Avith the instruments of language. It is not, therefore, consciousness alone Avhich speaks through thesemen. Nor is it consciousness alone that speaks through L *9 ] the psycologists of our day. Their intelligence Avorks upon a mass of ideas acquired by the senses. Could any one doubt this, it would be sufficient to recur to the comparison Avhich they make of a man directing the operations of some machine. They never Avould have had this idea, if their senses had not shewn them a man actually at work with a machine ; nor Avould they have had the means of proposing this comparison, if they did not possess the signs of language acquired only through the senses. They pretend that they do not mean to suppose a man liv- ing in the human brain, but something that acts on the human organs, as a man acts on a machine. To this we answer for the thousandth time, that their notion of this something, is not derived from their abstracted meditation on conscious- ness, but suggested by the scenes of nature that have im- pressed their senses; and we defy them to find a single idea in their psycology which is not copied from some object or scene in nature. So true is this, that they have not a single expression Avhich they can apply to their subject which is not metaphorical, which does not mark all their conceptions of their Science by words that have been inven- ted to designate natural bodies and their properties, or the circumstances under Avhich they have been offered to human observation. They explain themselves on their principle, by Saying that they mean to designate the unknown cause of intelli- gence. If they mean only to designate it as unknown, why do they use for this purpose, words and expressions appropria- ted to things knoAvn ? If they do not knoAV hoAV it differs from the nervous system, what right have they to assert that it cannot be the nervous system ? If they can venture to say of it, that it is not nervous matter—that it is not any species of composition—that it is something simple—surely they must have some idea of it. They ascribe to it positive qualities and negative qualities, and they say they do not understand it; or if they choose to describe it, they use for that purpose an expression drawn from the exercise of the senses. This expression is deduced from the idea of a man, and is in truth the greatest honor they can do their principle, and the least bad of the arguments they advance in its favor: for Ave have in fact ideas of a man directing a machine. But when they compare it to an ether, Ave do not see hoAV a gas, which is a mere inert body, never exhibiting any signs of 12 t 90 j intelligence, can perform intellectual operations, or Avithout performing them itself, can make the nervous system per- form them. When they insist that their principle is some- thing necessarily simple, they think they have advanced an unanswerable argument. Where have they obtained the notion of a simple thing, compared with something of many parts, if not by observing natural bodies ? But what idea can we have of something simple which is not a body, which nevertheless is so connected with the molecules of nervous substance, as to produce the phenomena of intelligence ? If the psycologists had that idea, they ought also to have some Avord, some form of expression to transmit it intelligibly to others. What have they beyond their words or signs of some material body, to designate that which is not a body ? What they really have of internal sensation, when they think strongly upon it, is some desire, some regret, a kind of anger because they cannot express themselves without using signs appropriated to bodies, and cannot avoid employ- ing them, notwithstanding the strangeness of their style. It is the confused perceptions of all these sensations that they take as a proof of the existence of their incorporeal intelligent principle, made knoAvn by some a priori revela- tion. These men live in a constant effort of expression which, in their discourses, does but substitute one metaphor to another, and depraves their language, if it have no Avorse effect upon their intellect. In truth, their sensations on this subject are but irritations on the viscera, analogous to those which govern our instincts. The brain excites them ; the other viscera return them, and again receive them from the brain ; and the health of the splanchnic apparatus is not the better for all this. It is now our business to ascertain if similar perceptions Avhich have desire for their basis, prove any thing in the present question. I lay it down as a principle, that one desire can prove no more than another in its kind. If any one possesses the means of disproving this assertion, let him do so. In mean time, I shall argue on this assumption. Almost every body desires riches and power: wise men require a tranquil, independent life. No one can deduce from these desires, that those Avho experience them ought some day or other to have them gratified. All Ave know is, that the thing is possible, because our senses have sheAvn it ; but Ave do not L 91 J knoAV this much of other desires Avhose gratification have never been an object of our senses. Many persons, for instance, Avould desire to preserve eternally their youth and vigor; the naturalist,the philosopher, the astronomer, would desire to know the first mover of all the phenomena Avhich they study ; almost all men Avould be glad to knoAV the be- ginning and the end of bodies, of extension, of space, &c. Man lives continually in the midst of desires ; but does it follow that he has the right to have all this knoAvledge im- parted to him ? Alas ! an impenetrable veil hides forever all these mysteries from our eyes, and we have no good rea- son for pretending to explain one more than another. What right then has the psycologist to conclude from his desire of knowing the first cause of the intellectual faculties, that in fact he ought to know them ? or from his desire of preserv- ing these faculties when his brain shall be decomposed, that he has a right to preserve them ? A Avise man, reflecting on the manner of his acquiring his knowledge, soon finds out that his organization does not permit him to become acquainted with the cause of his organization. He places this knowledge among first causes inaccessible to human enquiry, or if you will, in the sole and general first cause. He sub- mits, therefore—he represses the desire he entertained at first, and applies his faculties _to the acquisition of useful, applicable knoAvledge. From that moment he becomes exempt from the internal sensations that pester the psycolo- gist, who complains, no doubt very sincerely, that he ex- hausts his superfluous efforts to create a language which may give some notion of his insatiable desires. Certainly the psycologist affords great room for censure in placing in the same rank consciousness and the senses ; and in making them to be presided over by an intelligent principle, presumed to be simple, from I knoAV not Avhat comparison with material objects. The only thing certain, as to internal perceptions, is, that he who experiences them, experiences them effectually. I have just proved, that when the consciousness of the psycologist wishes to judge of itself, it models itself on the bodies which the senses have introduced to its acquaintance, nor can it abstract its first cause unless by a similar process. We have now, there- fore, every reason to believe that it is not capable of judg- ing of itself from its own resources alone. If it be true, that in this operation it has stood in need of the senses, it cannot [ i>* I be independent of the senses; but above all, it does not alone furnish to the principle of intelligence ; (which, out of compliment to the psycologists, I shall personify for a mo- ment,) it cannot alone furnish, I repeat, facts equally certain with those furnished by the senses. The senses may un- doubtedly mislead us as well as consciousness; still they alone are able to furnish just ideas of bodies ; but conscious- ness cannot furnish any other incontestable fact—any fact, whatever, not resting on the evidence of the senses, except- ing internal sensation. In other terms, I can affirm that I feel, that I feel myself feeling and wishing—that I have felt myself feeling and wishing ; but I can conclude nothing from thence, on the reality of those things which have been the objects of my feeling and wishing, unless I have recourse to the senses; because it is very possible that I may have been deceived on the existence or the nature of these objects. I have fur- nished the proof of this already, by marking and specifying the mistakes of the ancient physicians. These proofs are also so abundant in every other branch of knowledge, that any one can find them without trouble. Sec. 4. Of the necessity of the senses and consciousness concurring to perfect the science of the sentient, thinking man. The testimony of consciousness then, is not of equal val- ue with that of the senses. The science drawn from con- sciousness consists in the following assertion : / am endow- ed with the faculty of feeling that I feel. Here it ends. If you would erect a science on such a basis, you must go fur- ther and interrogate incessantly the senses for facts to be added to this assertion. If the psychologists presume they can succeed in any other way, they deceive themselves ; if they neglect this method they will equally go astray. I shall furnish them with another proof which may enable them to understand how dangerous it is to refer always and solely to internal feeling, or to believe that because any thing is desired, to be of a certain kind or description, no pains need be taken to ascertain whether it might not be something different. "Man," say the psychologists "feels within himself something different from his limbs, his flesh, his senses : it is an internal sentiment that raises him far above all other animals : man alone submits the whole universe to his ex- amination : he alone studies and classes bodies and their L ^ J properties : he alone proceeds by induction from effects h> causes: he alone raises himself to the contemplation of a supreme being. But, say they, it is not possible that the principle which gives these faculties, can be the same Avith that Avhich presides over animals. This principle has some- thing which partakes of the nature of the first cause. As it rules over the body, it cannot be confounded with the body ; it must be therefore of a nature superior to the bodi- ly nervous system ; nor can we conceive it to be decompo- sed and destroyed, together with that system. All that Ave now say, (they add,) Ave haAre not learned from the exter- nal senses. It is our internal sense that inspires us Avith these ideas ; nor can Ave help considering them as reali- ties." They can be thus answered. " That you have these ideas, that you consider them as expressing real things, is Avhat Ave cannot pretend to controvert, because this is the reality of your psychology : but that we ought to have the same ideas, is what you -will never be able to demonstrate ; and still less, that they represent something real; and this it is, that prevents our agreeing Avith you. You say that man feels internally all that you have stated. We ansAver, yes. The adult man, awake, healthy, having long exerci- sed his senses, may feel all that: but the embryo, the foe- tus, the infant, the human being, who is at once blind and deaf, does not: nor does a man, born an idiot, through de- fect of developement of the anterior part of the brain, feel any thing of the kind. Prove to us, that these two last ex- amples of humanity do not form part of the human species : if you cannot do this, if you cannot show us, that the hu- man nature of an embryo, of a blind and deaf man, of an idiot from birth, is not the same as that of a man of thirty years of age, Avell formed and healthy, if you cannot find betAveen these, any difference but in the developement of their or- gans, we shall conclude, according to the evidence of our senses, that the principle of these ideas which you have stated, does not exist ahvays and among all men, but only among men placed in certain circumstances. We may go farther : Ave will take any of your human beings who pos- sess these ideas; and by consequence, the principle that produces them ; Ave will follow him in his first sleep ; in apoplexy ; in asphyxy ; if he should have the misfortune of falling into it ; and after having interrogated him in these L !■»"» I different circumstances, our conclusion will be, that some- times he has, and sometimes he has not this principle." " Oh ! but you say, he has it ahvays, but it is not always in « action ; Ave shall reply to this by-and-bye ; in the mean time, come Avith us to the lunatic hospital; and there you may see twenty patients in a state of idiocy, Avho have had your principle, and Avill never have it again. Tell us then, if you please, if it be still there, in AA'hat corner is it hidden, or how can its activity rest Avithout occupation ?" Here then is the proof that the psychologists cannot de- monstrate the continued existence of a principle different from nervous matter. They are compelled in order to es- cape this difficulty, to allege that their principle standing in need of the organs of the body, cannot appear unless Avhen these organs are in a situation to obey it; an asser- tion perfectly gratuitous, and equally absurd; because it contains a manifest contradiction : you make use of the ac- tual existence of the intellectual phenomena, to prove that the principle, which is not nervous matter, is present to produce them ; and you make use of the non-existence of these same phenomena, to prove that it is still there, in the same place : from its having appeared you conclude it can- not disappear ; your reason for this is, that you have admit- ted its presence; and although we hear you declare that you do not understand the intimate nature of this principle, you assume that it is such that it cannot ever quit the brain while this lives ; even Avhen years may pass without any marks of its presence (as in the insanity of ideocy) and death may ensue Avithout the patient having recovered his reason. You venture still further ; for after deducing your principle from the intellectual functions of the highest order, you boldly confer it on the embryo, who does not yet pos- sess these functions, who has as yet no brain, who consists of nothing but a mass of vessels and fluids in which the or- gans are not marked. Have you Avell reflected on this mass of hypotheses, each more singular, more chimerical than the other ? How comes it that you have thus lost yourself in this laby- rinth of suppositions ? It is because you have given credit to this internal sentiment, which says, (if we can trust your representations) that it is simple, that it is independent of your organs, that it is not of the same nature Avith that AA'hich presides over animals, that it has ahvays existed, and I. 95 J Avill always exist. What right has this principle to affirm to you all these things, while alone and a\ ithout the aid of the senses, it cannot give you one idea, of the beginning, or the end, or the interruption of action of the organ by Avhich it makes itself manifest ? Does your internal sentiment teach you that you were once an embryo, an infant, and that some day or other you will die ? If you believed nobody but this principle, Avould you not believe that your organs Avere im- mortal ? Whence have you taken the notion of this per- manence without organs of which it speaks as you tell us, if it be not in the successive impressions of the bodies Avhich act upon the senses ? Who told you there Avere animals ex- isting with some analogies to yourselves, but the senses ? Whence comes it then that to satisfy your desire of being of some other nature than the rest of the universe, you believe your senses, when they tell you that every living body dies, Avithout the possibility of recovering the phenomena of their nervous functions, Avhile you refuse credit to the testimony of the same senses, when they shew you clear as the day, that your intellectual phenomena, are also the results of the action of perishable nervous matter ? Hoav comes it that to affirm the contrary, to maintain that you can think without nerves and without brain, you refer to an internal sentiment, incompetent to judge of space, of time, of matter, or of any of the substances formed of it ? Above all, hoAV happens it that the most strange conclusion is every moment advanced, that although sight proceeds from the eye, hearing from the ear, and touch from the nervous extremities of the skin, yet thought proceeds not from the brain ? Is not the evi- dence the same ? You admit the office of the senses in the production of ideas which represent the bodies, because you say you feel the senses act; yet you deny that reflection is an operation of the brain, because you cannot see your brain in action ! Be uniform in your conclusions. Since it is by your senses that you verify the evidence of your conscious- ness which tells you that the idea of colour proceeds from the sense of sight, verify in like manner the pretended evi- dence of the same faculty, Avhen it seems to tell you that it is not your brain that thinks or reflects. You do not refer yourself to your body for the functions of the eye. You have ascertained them in other persons as Avell as yourself by proofs negative, and positive. You have thus convinced A-ourself that those Avho have lost their eyes become blind [ 06 J and lose the sense of colours ; observe other persons there- fore on the question of thinking, and you will soon become convinced that thought is developed, is altered, impaired, and destroyed, in proportion as the brain is ; that he who loses his head, loses the poAver of thinking, as he who loses his eye loses the perception of colours. Were it true, as you repeat incessantly, that you confine yourselves to the evidence of consciousness in judging of your sensitive and active faculties, you may object to us, that Ave wander from the question: but we have proved to you that you do not so confine yourselves; that you never cease to work upon the impressions proceeding from the senses; even Avhen the question is concerning the nature and duration of the principle of your intellectual phenome- na. Upon Avhat then is founded your psychology ? upon a false operation of your understanding, upon Avhose mechan- ism you have not reflected. You generalise the fact of thought and of reflection, Avhich you have observed in its highest degree of perfection in some groAvn up man, heal- thy, possessing all his senses, having exercised them con- jointly with his understanding during forty or fifty years, and master also of a perfect language; you make this fact an attribute of every man, and you make it also something independent of the nervous system. Not being able to dis- cover this attribute in the innumeiable cases of exception Avhich we have so often cited ; you are reduced to supposi- tions, to sustain its existence in a substance with which it is agreed it can have no contact; and to explain the frequent absence of its actual manifestation. Recurring to your sen- ses, Avhich you unfairly call in as witnesses, to furnish you Avith comparisons relating to an object, to which according to yourselves they cannot be applied, you affirm without hesitation, that Avhen this attribute does not appear, it is like a star obscured by a cloud; or like a musician placed in an organ dismounted, and which he can no longer put in opera- tion ; or like a master whose servants refuse to obey him ; or like a skilful and active workman, Avho remains for years together with his arms folded, in the midst of rough mate- rials, waiting until they have been prepared for him; then Avorking with them for some time, and again resting for a much longer time ; waiting idly in the midst of an animated machine, till its destruction shall be complete. If you are resolved to sustain the existence of your prin [ 97 J cipie, say at once that you feel it: assert it on your own authority. Those who feel it as you do, will repeat your assertions ; do not undertake to prove its existence to those Avho do not feel it; for you cannot get on Avith them without reasoning to the phenomena of the senses, and exposing yourselves to refutation. For the same reason, do not pre- tend to make a regular science of the facts of consciousness ; they are neither numerous enough, nor sufficiently connected Avith social life, to enable you to succeed. Keep your hypoth- esis then of an intelligent principle that has nothing to do with nervous matter, as the secret mover of your own actions. Such an hypothesis may be useful to certain kinds of intellect. The psychologists hold in great estimation the faculty of induction (drawing conclusions from a comparison of facts) in favour of a principle (not partaking of a nervous nature) Avhich holds the government of the brain; but they never introduce it except to explain intellectual action. If we believe them, to deduce from sensible phenomenon the conclusion that it must have a cause ; that it exists for some purpose; that some principle of intelligence directs it; and that it implies some change taken place in the body wherein it is manifested ; is to have ideas a priori, of some cause not nervous Avhich moves the nerves, some Cause in connection Avith the first cause ; Avhile our senses can give no information either of the cause, the intent, the promotor of the phenomena, nor the change which constitutes them. It is thus, say they, that from one of the phenomena of a function we deduce all the rest; and although we cannot establish them by means of the senses, Ave are persuaded they exist, and Ave make experiments to discover them* When I read these psychological arguments, I know not Avhere I am: I seem to be among men differently organized from myself; for if I enter into my own feelings and inter- rogate my consciousness as to the value of this deduction, I find I can employ it indeed, but as one of the strongest proofs that our ideas come from our senses only. In fact all in- ductions are only comparisons. It is because from his most early years, man is accustomed to see causes produce ef- fects; it is because he himself becomes in various instances a cause of effects; because he is continually led to become so ; because he feels pleasure in seeing himself obeyed ; in seeing inanimate objects yield to his efforts as Avell as those that are animated ; it is because he alwavs has some inten- 13 [ 9» ] lion, some proposed end in vieAV, Avhen he performs these acts, of Avhich his fellow men give him perpetually exam- ples ; it is because he sees that he produces changes in the bodies submitted to his action; in a word, because the in- tentional modification of every thing that surrounds him, is almost the Avhole of his education during life, and he carries of necessity this modification into all the phenomena of na- ture—it is from these known circumstances that the induc- tion is draAvn. He is convinced (they tell us) although he has not seen the causes, nor received the confidence of au- thors, nor explained the secrets of these transformations. No doubt: the more ignorant a man is, the more credu- lous he is; and having received an education embracing causality and intention, he is necessarily carried on to judge of what he does not know, by what he does know : he no longer loves to doubt; rather than stop there, he seizes the first glimpse of probability that strikes him, and becomes as thoroughly convinced, as if he had verified his belief by the aid of all his senses. This is his method of proceeding ; it answers his purpose in intellectual operations on common things. He does not like therefore to abandon it; and a long and laborious education becomes necessary before he can acquire the courage to doubt, although his credulity has a thousand times over led him estray. One might com- pose volumes consisting of the simple enumeration of av$11 knoAvn errors in the sciences depending on facts, which haAre been owing to hasty conclusions, and which subse- quent discoveries have rectified. But without going to ages past, it suffices to look around us, to collect by thou- sands, examples of prejudices more or less absurd, in reli- gion, in politics, in medicine, &c. brought forth by the ope- ration of induction, or deducing conclusions ; that ever ac- thTe unrestrainable propensity which carries man to judge of what he does not know, by what he thinks he knoAvs. This is the chief source of his mistakes. As he can guess at nothing to any good purpose, he must depend on chance setting before him facts, before he can escape from errors of false analogies. Hence his education really depends on his senses. Of this, our psychologists furnish an example worth all the rest. They are so much in the habit of trans- ferring the knoAvn to the unknown, that in place of frankly acknoAvledging their ignorance of the nature of intellectual phenomena, they place a machinist (not nervous) in the L 99 j brain of the human species only, at the risk of being com- pelled to argue rashly, inconsequently, and ignorantly upon the object of their investigations, 1st in comparing the living and active nerves to a machine passive a nd inert; 2dly in being able to give no description of this machinist who in- habits the brain, but what their senses have furnished them Avithfrom the man himself; 3dly in attributing to the nervous system of animals, exactly the same phenomena that they attribute in man to some incorporeal intelligence ; as sensa- tion, memory, volition. These are, I should presume, in- stances sufficient of those precipitate judgements Avhich the habitude we have spoken of betray men into. A great deal more is Avanting than some a priori notions, to indicate beforehand to the physiologists, the end they ought to pursue, and the experiments they ought to set on foot to arrive at the full discovery of a function, which is not yet known but by some of its phenomena. Every physio- logist is an anatomist; he examines the organs of the body ; he sees them act; having learnt by the exercise of his senses the action of the first that he examines, he discovers the mode of action in others; Avhere he does not clearly distin- . guish their uses, he conjectures by analogy enough to lead him to those experiments of putting them in action, which may teach what functions they really perform. Have they not from infancy, data furnished by their senses as to the use of all the external parts of the body ? How then when they come to the internal, can they avoid applying the same rules of judging as to the organs that are concealed ? If they have not this analogy, they have others: Harvey was led to suspect the circulation of the blood from remarking the direction of the valves in the veins. Others had already draAvn the same conclusion from the same fact. But what does this signify ? The first who made this deduction found the elements of his theory in nature; in the shrubs and branches of trees, in hydraulic machines, &c. There was no need of any a priori inspiration to conclude that the valves were destined to prevent the blood from flowing back, and that as it had clearly passed through these valves and was again found behind them, it could not arrive there but by a circular course. This conclusion and the facts and experiments that suggested it, are not extraordinary, but the lateness of the period at Avhich observers arrived at them, is truly so. [ ioo ] Let the psychologists sheAV us one man deprived of* his senses from the moment of birth, or possessed of his senses but Avith a very diminutive forehead, and Avho Avas able to deduce these truths: this would be an experiment directly in point to which we could not avoid giving credit. But so long as Ave are able to find in the phenomena observed by the senses, the models of the phenomena discovered by in- duction, Ave shall never be able to find any good reason for attributing this discovery to consciousness. Sec. 5. Comparison of the hypothesis of the psychologists, with the opinion of the physiologists on the appreciable cause of intellectual phenomena. Chagrined at being unable to support their non-nervous principle, otherwise than by hypothesis, some psychologists have tried to console themselves by maintaining that the opposite opinion which refers the phenomena of intelligence (o the nervous apparatus, is itself no more than an hypothe- sis. To maintain this position, they reason as follows : They distinguish in the phenomena of life, 1st The facts Avhich are independent of the intelligent and voluntary principle, and of sensibility. 2dly The facts Avherein this prin- ciple intervenes. - « The facts that take place independent of this principle, are the two great internal classes of nutrition and reproduc- tion. The facts that depend on this principle, constitute the third great function of life, that of relation (forming our relation to and connection with external objects). According to them, it is one and the same principle Avhich feels in the phenomena of sensation; which knows in the phenomena of perception of external objects; and which wills in all cases of voluntary action. Sensation, idea, vo- lition, are then the integrant elements of all the phenome- na of relation. These are facts of consciousness which fall not within the jurisdiction of the senses, are not the objects of sensible observation, and consequently cannot be learnt, but must reveal themselves anteriorily to all investigation, to which indeed they are the only motive. I consider this as the strongest argument which the psy- chologists have employed to deprive the nervous system of the phenomena of relation, and to place them under the gui- dance of a principle, AA'hereof they agree that we can form no idea : that is to say, to demolish without hope of recon- structing. I attack this argument Avith the aids furnished by common sense. I. lol J Nutrition is never independent of the phenomena ol rela- tion except in the foetus. It is so in that instance, because nutrition is a consequence of the small portion of the liquid fecundated. The first nutrition is nothing but the play of molecular affinities. To this is added, the mechanical im- pulse given to the blood by the vitality of the heart of the foetus, and that of the placenta and umbilical vessels. The means of relation to the external objects commences at birth, Avhen the brain by means of the external senses per- ceives the impression of the air, and the breast of the mo- ther ; but this relation unaccompanied by intelligence, is but instinctive. By and by, the brain being groAvn and de- veloped in company with the organs of sense and the mus- cles, that is to say, with the instruments of the neAv func- tions which it is called upon to perform, the interior phe- nomena of intelligence, and the acts that mark it, become the first instruments of nutrition : this is demonstrated, in- asmuch as the human being existing in a state of complete imbecility would die of hunger, if the intelligence of some other human being did not provide for his nutrition. Let now the psychologists tell us if they can, Avhether betAveen the embryo or the infant of a day old, and the man of thirty years, any other differences can be pointed out in respect of nutrition, than those which I have stated: and if they are determined to introduce their non-nervous principle, let them tell us at Avhat precise epoch it makes its first appear- ance. The phenomena of relation, moreover, (connection Avith external objects,) are still more essential to the reproduc- tive function ; for the senses (which I presume are the prin- ciple means of relation) are the only means of discovering the difference of sex, and the only means which can furnish to the male and female the requisite inclination to inter- course. If the psycologists separate from nutrition and reproduc- tion, every thing that intelligence has to do Avith these func- tions, they would not be the functions of vertebrous animals, but of zoophytes, Avhere nutrition is no more than molecular affinity, and reproduction an accidental section or separation of a part. If they pretend to understand by the words nu- trition and reproduction, nothing but the phenomena of con- tractility, circulation, absorption, affinities, and changes of form of animal matter, they will not include instinctive phe- i 102 | noiiioiiu. If the.) are determined to introduce them, 1 shall prove to them by referring to what I have said on the educa- tion of 'Jhe infant, that intelligence is nothing but instinct brought to its perfection under certain relations, by the de- velopement of the encephalon in certain directions easy to be designated. Having thus marked the duty of the principle Avhich feels and AA'hich wills in the internal functions, let us examine the same principle in its external, or functions of relation. Sen- sation, idea, volition, are, say they, facts of consciousness which the senses cannot take cognizance of. Let us distin- guish. Is the question concerning ourselves, or concerning otters ? If the latter, assuredly Ave have no method of dis- covering these faculties, but by our senses. Does it relate to ourselves ? Undoubtedly when we feel, or think, or will, we do not see ourselves do this. But without the senses, Avhat can Ave make of this fact ? What can a man say— what can he do with this internal sensation of his OAvn,if he does not compare it with that of other men, of whom he can have no idea but by means of his senses ? Still more: With these internal perceptions alone, would he possess any ideas of any things ? Would he have volition ? Let the deaf and blind by birth, answer this. Man possesses no intellectual faculties, but because his internal sensations connect them- selves with some external object, or some part of his own body perceptible to his senses, as their determining causes; to speak of their combined faculties of feeling, of possessing ideas, and of willing, as of a simple fact, purely internal, is to speak of what does not exist. Independent of the percep- tions that have their source in the senses, nothing remains but a confused feeling of existence. What do I say ? No : not even that; for the blind and deaf, are observed to have a feeling in the skin, Avhich is to them an external one. They can at least compare the sensations thence arising Avith those which the food they take furnishes, and perhaps the genital sense ; and certainly with that Avhich is furnished them by the movement of their limbs.* * Nobody can draw any acknowledgment from these unhappy sub- jects, of what they feel internally. They are to us like the embryo, or the moUuscar animals. Such is the consequence of the imperfection of the senses. The imperfection of the anterior part of the brain is nearly the same. A short time ago, a young girl of twenty years of age was presented'to [different scientific bodies at Paris, who possessed scarcely fmv forehead, and no more intellect than a child of six months old, altho' L 103 J To affirm, therefore, that the internal sensation of exist- ence, the idea of external objects, the volition to approach them, or take hold of them, are in man, phenomena anterior to all perception arising from the senses, is to affirm what is not true. For the fact is, that Ave cannot observe our- selves Avithout observing at the same time bodies that are not ourselves: it is astonishing, that in the 19th century it is necessary to assert over again a truth so ancient. It folloAvs then, that the notion of an internal perception, of an idea, of volition, are the results of observation made by the senses in those who possess senses, and cannot be acquired by those who have not yet acquired them, Avithout the aid of sensible observation ; an assertion directly contrary to that of the psychologists. We may say then, in contradiction to these authors, that the faculties in question are formed, and take up their abode in man by the simultaneous exercise of the brain and the senses : they do not exist, therefore, anteriorly to sensible observation, are not self-existent, and have no existence a priori. Sec. 6. What the objections of the psychologists really amount to on final analysis. Solution of the foregoing question. Although Ave have proved to the psychologists that the idea of consciousness itself is derived from the senses, and therefore Ave cannot consent to alloAv it the privilege of placing itself precedently to all perception, many of them may yet remain unconvinced. Personal identity, le moi, myself, takes precedence of all, say they ; for it is the sole motive of the researches Ave make to come at the knowledge of it; for to speak definitively, if we have never had percep- tion, we should never have thought of investigating hoiv j>erception arises. Recollect, gentlemen, the replies already made. I have proved, I trust, that ideas and volition ahvays imply sensi tive perceptions ;* I have sheAvn that mere internal percep- tion, of itself, and Avithout sensitive perception, amounts to a mere fact of sensation Avhich you can do nothing Avith, and which renders no service to your system. Why then do you persist in deducing from the observation made by myself, she had her external senses well de\Teloped. It is not enough, therefore, to have senses ; there must be a brain proper to make use of the per- ceptions furnished by the senses. * Perceptions originating by impressions on the senses.—Trans!. [ 104 j en myself, the existence of this same myself anterior to all sensitive observation ? There is a play of words in this case that deceiAres you; some ontological enigma Avhich it may be Avorth Avhile to unriddle. Does not your obstinacy depend on your personification of le moi, myself? I think I have hit the mark. You say to yourselves, " no man ob • serves unless he be furnished Avith all the means and appa- ratus of observation : le moi, the myself Avhich is within a man, ought to be presumed in that situation." Stop, gentle- men, take care that your moi (myself) does not come forth suddenly, a Minerva armed cap a pie : remember what has just been proved, that the word moi, myself, cannot desig- nate any thing but a phenomenon Avhich shews itself under certain given conditions, consisting in—1st, The existence of a perfect brain, Avell grown, and of adult age. 2dly In the fact of certain stimulations, at first internal, subsequently external, transmitted to the brain. It is only under these conditions that le moi, myself, exists at all; nor can any myself be compared but Avith itself. Cease then to judge of it by false comparisons, and adopt a different idea con- cerning it. Your obstinacy may have another source. Teased on the one hand by the testimony of your senses, which teaches you that myself disappears so soon as the head is severed from the body, and compels you to acknowledge that this myself depends upon the brain ; wearied on the other hand by useless endeavors to explain hoAV the brain can be the seat of this myself, without the latter resolving itself into a phenomenon of cerebral action—you become resolved to apply to consciousness for some information respecting the nature of this myself, that is to say of consciousness; for hoAV differs consciousness from le moi, myself? Consciousness, Avhich has no idea whatever of duration, destruction, repro- duction, talks to you in its oAvn language. It is nothing but a sensation inseparable from existence. It answers you, that myself is an existence independent of all accident. But this is a contradiction to your senses, and you find yourselves unable to explain this moi, myself. The doctrine of sensa- tions is old. Some philosophers of the north, who never understood it, have discredited it in your eyes, to establish consciousness on its ruins. This consciousness is of late date in the history of philosophy ; but it is in fashion : it inspires you Avith a sentiment of pride Avhich is dear to you, [100 ] and which the senses Avould deprive you of, by destroying the illusions of your internal sensation. All this induces you to decide, and you determine to say, " since our con- science refuses to believe that she depends on the brain"— since the senses, which seem to affirm the contrary, cannot explain it, we conclude " thatitcannot be so, and that it pre- cedes the brain." So then you choose to deny a fact because you cannot explain it ! Think a little where this will carry you. 1 do not wish to dwell on the consequences that would result. I use another argument. Having proved that we observe by means of a brain connected with the senses, and that the only difficulty is how this is possible, 1 reduce your objec- tion to this possibility ; and I say, " if Ave had not the power of observing ourselves, if to do so were impossible, we should never seek to do so." This expresses a common truth, equally applicable to the observation we make by means of the senses. Thus, " if the faculty of observing others and ourselves was not formed in us by the developement of our brain and the exercise of our senses, Ave should not seek to observe either ourselves, or any other object in nature." That is to say, " we observe because Ave are able to ob- serve," You see your objection is not single : but as the difficul- ty consists in the impossibility of explaining how and why the faculty of observation is placed in the nervous substance of the encephalon, it is no concession made by the natural- ists, physiologists, and anatomists to your doctrine, that they acknowledge the existence of facts that the senses cannot explain, or that they knoAV no more than I do, how and Avhy man possesses feelings, ideas, and volitions. You are land enough to pity this ignorance, and you add " Ave will teach you all this. The reason is, that for the production of these phenomena, and the execution of these functions, man pos- seses something A\rithin, that differs from his OAvn nervous substance and from that of all other animals, and from every thing Avhich is the object of sense in the universe. Some- thing in fact, of which no one can form any other idea, than that it does not resemble any thing whatever of.which avc are able to form an idea." We have then at length reached the final question after so many impediments. The psychologists say, that they have perceptions, ideas, and volitions, precisely because M t io" J they possess for that purpose something that no other ani- mal possesses, Avho like man, has also perceptions, ideas, and volitions. Then their perceptions, ideas, and volitions, must be of a different nature from those of other animals We have noticed already the recollection and the volition of the dog, the Wolf, the fox, the cat; we have seen that they are exhibited in opposition to sensitive impressions, this implies something Avithin, some internal perception, consciousness. On the other hand, We have exhibited man, of imperfect age, and imperfect organization, possessing nei- ther perception, or volition, and of course ideas neither so distinct or complete, as Ave see them in animals. If this does not depend on the perfection or nonperfection of the nervous apparatus of these living animals, Avill these gentle- men be good enough to inform us on what it does depend ? Is there not contradiction in ascribing the very same phe- nomena to nervous substance in animals, and to something very different in men ? In pretending that the chief source of motion in animals is the nervous apparatus, Avhich in man is only an inferior and secondary instrument ? Let us act honestly. Is there any good reason for assigning to man a principle which animals do not possess ? There can be no reason for it, unless man possess intellectual faculties which other animals do not: for it is not to be denied that the or- gans Avhich put these faculties in operation, are the same in men and in other animals, excepting that the organs of man being more complicated and more perfect, are able to exe- cute intellectual operations, Avhich those of other animals cannot. This may be Avonderful. But Avhen the animal ex- ecutes intellectual operations Avhich the human being is not equal to—as Avhen Ave compare a full groAvn Avell educated dog to a new born infant, where is the proof of any princi- ple existing except nervous matter ? Let the psychologists choose their side. They must place this principle some- where ; they cannot put it on the road, travelling toAvard its destination, nor can they conceal it in the brain and leave it there in perfect idleness, as they used to do formerly be- fore they fabricated hypotheses. On the other hand, the physiologists advance no hypoth- esis, when setting out from certain knoAvn, and acknoAV- ledged facts, namely, that sensation, thought, A'olition, are developed Avith and in proportion as the cerebral substance is dcA-eloped : diminished and augmented as that substance t 107 ] is so; disappearing forever when the brain disappears = and shewing themselves connected Avith the brain as an ef- fect is Avith its cause, in every possible case Avhere an animal possessing a nervous apparatus can be observed—they ad- vance I say, nothing like hypothesis or supposition, when they conclude that these faculties are nothing else than the results of the operations and functions of the brain and ner- vous system. It is true, the physiologists have taken the facts from which they reason from the eAridence of their senses, but they have deduced from these facts no forced, no contradic- tory conclusions ; Avhile the psychologists Avho have also pushed their opposite arguments into the perceptions of sense, as I have superabundantly shewn, have draAvn con- clusions which no rules of sound logic can justify. This it will be well to shew them definitely. For this purpose, I shall concentrate their arguments, which are exactly such as they employ to prove, that to attribute thought to a ner- vous apparatus, is an hypothesis far less probable than that Avhich attributes it to a principle in man, that is not bestOAV- ed upon other animals. 1st objection of the psychologists. To attribute to an organized apparatus the faculty of producing thought, &c. is to attribute to it Avhat we can never discover in it. We acknowledge dependence of the phenomena on the appara- tus ; but as the results of the action of this apparatus, Avould be exactly the same if it were no other than a mere instru- ment, there is no reason why we should not so consider it, or why we should prefer the hypothesis of our adversa- ries to our OAvn, Reply. We discover perfectly in this apparatus the fac- ulty of producing thought, &c. What we do not pretend to discover, is the manner how this is produced. This propo- sition has been already demonstrated. The dependence of the phenomena on the apparatus, can- not be explained by means of a separate intelligent cause having no relation to nervous matter ; this is an hypothesis merely ; the type or model of this cause no where exists. We cannot admit that what is in no sense matter or body, can act upon matter or body. A mere negation cannot act upon that which is positive. 2nd Objection. Observation can shew us nothing but material particles arranged in a certain manner. As no [ io» J molecule of the mass can produce these phenomena, the physiologists themselves cannot comprehend how the mass, or arranged assemblage of molecules, can produce them ; they must therefore recur to supposition and hypothesis. Organization, therefore, proves no more than any other Avord of any other sound. Reply. It has been proved that the nervous apparatus in a certain state, does produce by its action, intellectual phenomena in animals as well as in man. This then is the question before us, the fact itself, and not the how and the why. Hypothesis begins so soon as we go beyond the matter of fact and offer to comment on it. The physiolo- gists make no comments; the psychologists alone keep their imagination alive. 3d Objection. In machines we have examples of organ- ized matter put into action by separate intelligent beings. We have nothing like, nothing equivalent to this in the sup- posed organization Avhich gives rise to intellectual faculties. Hypothesis is, therefore, against hypothesis, that of the psy- chologists is preferable. Reply. There is no room for comparison between an in- animate machine, and the living, organized, cerebral appa- ratus. Moreover, the intelligence which the psychologists shew us in their machine, is nothing else than the cerebral apparatus of the man himself who moves and directs it: but to suppose one cerebral organ Avithin another, would be an absurdity explaining nothing. 4th Objection. The nerves, the senses, the muscles, be- ing indispensible to sensation and action, and being no more than instruments of the brain, without which they can do nothing, we can have no difficulty in supposing how a brain also may itself be in the same inactive situation as the senses and muscles, in respect of that presiding principle of which it is but the instrument. Reply. There is no parity in the things compared. Our senses shew us that nerves and muscles are capable of ac- tion independently of the brain ; that action, however, can- not be regulated but by means of the brain ; so as that the result of these motions afford us an idea of an inciting intel- ligence. But no sense has ever demonstrated to the psy- chologists, that the brain Avas the instrument of any other agent, than the whole nervous system with which it is con- nected. The brain and the nen'es are successively, and in 109 j turns agents and patients ; in this circle there is no point to designate a beginning or an end. As to the muscles, they can only serve as instruments of the brain and nerves, for the execution of certain acts Avhich the nervous apparatus was not designed to execute ; although the muscular tissue is sometimes subject to other influences. 5th Objection. By destroying certain parts of the brain, in experimenting on lhing animals, certain actions are de- stroyed also. Diseases also analyse the human faculties, abolishing one after another: but no disease has yet de- stroyed the will. This happens, according to certain psy- chologists, from the principle of voluntarity being distinct from the brain. For if the brain itself were the principle of voluntarity, when you altered the brain you Avould alter also the voluntary principle : but no operation, no disease has produced this effect. Reply. Let us attend to facts. It is not true that expe- riments have not destroyed volition. You may suspend and you may renew it by merely compressing the brain. Nor is it true that no disease has yet destroyed volition : all the violent congestions of the brain suppress it; all vio- lent inflammations of that organ put an end to volition Avhile they continue, and by their long duration ; and life may re- main a long time even after this loss. Moreover, the em- bryo has no voluntarity, and the embryo Ave presume par- takes of the nature of man. And noAv what becomes of the railleries of the psycholo- gists on the supposed hypothesis of the physiologists ? Seeing that it is demonstrated by reasonings founded on the known evidence of a man's senses, Avithout which there can be no knowledge, that the nervous apparatus, consisting of the encephalon and the nerves distributed to all parts of the body, is the source of all the phenomena of instinct, of sensibility, of perception, of volition, in one word, of intel- ligence—seeing that you cannot impose upon that apparatus a separate, stronger principle, without introducing by means of thought, within the brain itself all the scenes of the ma- terial Avorld, of Avhich the senses alone can furnish any ideas —the pretensions of the psychologists fall of themselves. The how, or the first cause, remains equally unknown to the one disputant and the other. But this circumstance of being unknoAvn as to the first cause, is no obstacle to re- searches AArhose object extends no farther than the pheno- L 1^ i menu, the facts of the sensible AArorld. That this first cause should remain unknoAvn, is of no consequence to physiolo- gists, moralists, publicists, and legislators. As to metaphy- sicians and psychologists, it is a very different thing. They cannot, unfortunately, erect a science on the basis of con- sciousness alone, independent of the influence of the senses, because all the phenomena of this, their consciousness are reduced to this single expression, / feel that I feel. Be- yond this they cannot go, without calling in the aid of the senses. If they would confine their pretensions to the study of those relations, Avhich bind man to man, they would en- list among the moralists and publicists : if they will pretend to discuss the actual origin of the intellectual faeulties, let them study physiology, anatomy and even pathology, not in books, but at the bedside of the sick. This last occupation will teach them far more than all the treatises on ideology. All the efforts they make to emancipate themsehes from the influence of these branches of knoAvledge will prove useless, because Avithout them no one can be acquainted Avith the facts necessary to treat the question properly. Consciousness was their last refuge ; hereafter it will serve them in no stead ; they cannot Avith any success oppose so* phisms and declamations to the facts which Ave have exhib- ited. But I shall ghe them credit for more judgement and coolness than to choose such weapons. Sec. 7. Of the rationalists and modern theologians. Hitherto I have spoken only of psycologists who take into consideration the evidence of their senses, and who pride themselves on the strictness of their reasoning. But there are some who pay no attention to Avhat their organs of sense report to them. They set out at once from consciousness as a starting point to arrive at reason : this being once discov- ered, becomes the oracle of all their philosophy. In the name of reason, they employ arguments to despoil the ner- vous apparatus of all its functions. I do not aspire to the honor of convincing them by reasoning, although they tell us they are the interpreters of reason. For what can I say to men who profess the following doctrine. " Reason is that Avhich places a man in connection with the Deity. It is an emanation from the Deity. The identical, individual being, le moi, (myself,) is susceptible of feeling, of willing, of per- ceiving: he rests upon his A'olition, and he is connected Avith L 1" j the visible phenomenal Avorld by his senses; with theinvisij ble, substantial, rational Avorld, by his reason."* They admit, like the psychologists already noticed, the nonsensible nature of le moi, (the being or principle that constitutes myself,) and the characteristic of consciousness " Ifeel that I feel ;" but their principal argument for forcing upon the nervous system a presiding principle, is drawn from Avhat they advance founded on authority and Avithout any proof, concerning reason. "Reason, say they, gives us AA'nat experience cannot furnish, to Avit, principle, the laAvs of man, the laAvs of nature, and the supreme law. In fact, laAvs being necessary and universal, cannot be deduced from Avhat is contingent and personal. Reason Avhich teaches these laAvs cannot be contingent or personal. These laws are absolute : reason, therefore, is so also. Nor does she belong to space or time. She appears to the individual man, as the preserver of his impersonality. The Deity is the ab- solute, substantial laAv. Man raises himself to the Deity by his reason; but he knows that great Being imperfectly, because man is limited to space and time." I have argued with the psychologists, properly so called, because they profess to reason rigidly. But how shall I argue with rationalists, Avho pretend to no strictness in their deductions, and Avho scruple not to advance as truths, asser- tions mysterious and unintelligible, such as that reason, altho' an impersonal being, belongs to the individual man ? They speak of man, as if he Avere of a nature superior to man. I do not ask them to define the Avoids they use ; they will not descend so Ioav as to definition and the grammar. They fly off into some ideal world, from whence they look doAvn Avith pity on what passes in this. Without addressing them, I shall make some remarks on the language they employ. uReasonis an emanation from the Deity."" A metaphor in Avhich God is likened to some planet, or some spring; and reason to the rays of light or the streams of water, or some other emanation still more *I am not satisfied that I understand this passage. "Laraisonest ce que met l'homme en rapport avec 1'absolu: cest une emanation de Dieu; qui n'est autre chose que cet absolu, ou de cet absolu qui est Dieu. Le moi cat susceptible de sentir, de vouloir, et de concevoir; il se pose par sa volonte, et il est en rapport a\'cc le mondc visible, phenomenal, par ses sens; et par la raison, avec le monde invisible, rationel, substantiel." I am persuaded I have given the sense of the pji??ns-e, but I cannot rende" 1'absolu.—Trans!. [ 113 ] subtile, which flows from it. Before I can admit that reason is any thing of this kind, I Avant to knoAV hoAV they arrive, at the knowledge that reason is really such. They tell me they acquire this knowledge by their consciousness ; that Janus which by one of its faces looks at and comprehends reason speaking in the name of the Deity, and by the other, puts himself through his senses in relation with a world of facts and of material things. I ask myself, is not this de- grading the Deity, to convert him into a body capable of emitting material emanations ? If, on the other hand, rea- son is to be regarded like a fluid that flows, Avhich hears Avithout ears, and speaks without a mouth to consciousness Avho has no organs of hearing—is not this mere fancy ? Let us, however, admit that consciousness, who has no auditory organs, has heard all that reason has uttered, whom no one has ever seen; to whom did consciousness relate this before the rationalist spake of it ? To herself doubtless, unless some other being was present, endowed Avith the faculty of hearing. Be all this as it may, the internal being Avho has learnt all these wonders, must have some organs of speech to enable all this to come to the ears of the pro- fane, so that these latter may give themselves up to their respective consciousnesses. I say to their consciousnesses, for each of them has one of his OAvn. Consciousness is not one universal being, serving the turn of all mankind ; and this throws us into the difficulties before noticed. Why has not the foetus a consciousness ? If it have, why does not con- sciousness understand it ? Why does not consciousness speak to it ? If absent, Avhere is she ? If there be an enti- ty called consciousness, common to all men, Avhy does she not speak to the embryo, or to persons apoplectic, or afflicted with asphyxy ? Let us add, but for ourselves only and without addressing the rationalists, the following question. Why is it that consciousness, for the purpose of teaching these mysteries, is constrained to use language appertain- ing to the properties of material bodies ? I must suppose that it is, because like ourselves, these rationalists are com- pelled to have recourse to objects, which their senses have made known to them, to enable other men to understand their thoughts; and this brings to my mind that we cannot discourse at all of abstract entities, but by means of attri- butes belonging to material bodies. Is not reason reduced L 113 ] to the same necessity ? do we not say a good, a bad, a just, a fine, a forcible reason ? Is not time itself qualified by ex- pressions drawn from the dimensions of bodies; and can Ave figure to ourselves a day, an hour, &c. Avithout including some material idea of space ? How is it possible that ever since men spake at all, they have never been able to invent, for the purpose of conveying an idea of abstract substan- tives, a single adjective but what represents one of those qualities or properties which belong to material substances. Let us ask, (ourselves however) what is the meaning of all this ? It means that in good truth we are so much the slaves of our senses, that Ave are compelled to compare ab- stract beings to the bodies which our senses have made us acquainted with. This necessity arises, because these pre- tended (abstract) substances, are themselves nothing else than words and signs, by which, during perception, we recall the manner in which Ave have been modified (acted on) by the given circumstances. But as our senses are modified (acted upon) by bodies alone, and in consequence our brain is so too, we cannot qualify these modifications, unless by Avords or signs that recall to our memories either the bodies themselves or the impressions they have made upon us; even these impressions are designated by the qualifiers of material bodies. Thus, Ave say a lively joy, a great surprise, &c. A man pronounces the Avord virtue : the idea does not instantly occur to us that he considers virtue as some body; but ask him to join to that substantive Avord some adjective, and he will no Avhere find one, unless among the properties of bodies, or the modifications of his own body : and virtue always must be great or small, or SAveet or austere, or sa- vage or gentle, and so on. There is no adjective but di- vine that does not recall some material body: but if man Avould apply any qualification to the Deity, he must patch it; he cannot avoid using some adjective drawn from a ma- terial substance ; and those epithets Avhich are most worthy of the occasion are those which apply to man ; employed by- multiplying supposedly and indefinitely Avhatever he is or Avhatever he does of a more distinguislied character; as by calling him infinitely great, good, wise, foreseeing, &c. God may be spoken of also by the qualifications eternal, universal, immutable, immense, &c. this is the same thing: eternity is a continuance of sensible duration and immensity o£ sensible space. Meditate as stronglv and as long as vou 15 [ 1U ] please on these tAVO ideas joined to the negation Avhich seems to characterise them, and which is nothing but a supposi- tion like those Avhich we make on so many other questions, and you will never get beyond some material corporeal idea. But in thinking much on all the abstract ideas which tend to determine the first cause, we shall experience a singular uneasiness: Ave wish to express this sensation, but we can no more explain or express it than Ave can some undescriba- ble morbid states of the body. It is this sensation that tempts a man to believe he has an idea of somethirfg be- yond sensible objects. It is while he reflects, while he feels that he feels, that he perceives this sensation : hence it is, that he confounds it with his consciousness, and makes them inseparable. But once more, this sensation, in other respects so diversified, according to the individual, proves nothing, any more than the sensations of a hypochondriac. It may seem to some, an inspiration, and determine their be- lief; but to those who have studied physiology and patholo- gy it Avill be an irritation of the nervous system. This sen- sation does not occur to every body; and although very well marked in many people, it may be dispersed by study and the observation of nature, whenever it is not brought on by disease: but it is entitled to our respect, since it is often a motive to belief and to faith: And now, let us be- gin again to reason, in tracing the consequences of the fig- urative language of which I have just given examples. As the Rationalists make reason act like a body, let us so consider it; but in assuming this position, we have a right to express our astonishment, that they compel it to do things which no body in whose properties they clothe it, is ac- customed to do ; or, they give it in succession, capriciously, the attributes of other bodies, to which they had not assim- ilated it: or, finally, after having treated it like a body, they close by telling us it is no such thing, and has nothing in common-wifh a body. We cannot then conceive, that the principle which con- stitutes myself (moi) is of a nature insensible, and yet able to feel, and to take Its station ; which implies nerves, and an apparatus for motion; a reason which imposes laws upon things and upon men; an idea taken from a legislator, and Avhich does not derive them from experience, as legislators do; a moi, Avhich places itself as it pleases, and that insinu- ates, that it might please, not to place itself at all. for if it L n5 J had not the liberty of doing either the one or the other, it Avould have no volition; a will, a thing of Avhich no one can have an idea, but by acting, or seeing another man act, con- verted into something which is not a man, and which is not even a part of a man, since it is no part of the nervous sys- tem, and which, nevertheless, has the character of man ; a reason which is neither contingent nor personal, although it belongs to each human person, excepting always those who have never had the sense of vision, &c. &c. In reading all this, I cannot take it literally, without supposing it the lan- guage of idiots; if I did not know it was not so. Here then, I am convinced that these writers are well persuaded that the things they speak of, have not the material attri-, butes which they ascribe to them. I feel myself, therefore, in an unpleasant situation, if called upon to explain how men, apparently well organised, reasoning correctly upon every thing unconnected with their doctrine, can adopt, in respect of that alone, a language of which all the expressions are false, and of a falsity infinitely diversified, and incapable of any termination. Without doubt, I could not escape from this embarrassment, any more than so many Avise men who have preceded me, and who have listened with a kind of stupefaction to the unintelligible discourses of these fol- lowers of pure reason, if physiological observation had not come to my aid. I interrogate physiology then ; which re- lieves me from an immense load, by showing that the things that these rationalists Avould give an account of, and which they are unable to express, are nothing more than internal sensations. From henceforward, all is explained; and I see clearly hoAV it is, that when I converse with them, they imagine I have not well understood them. It is evident the cause is, that not having the same internal sensation, I can- not give the same meaning to words which they do. I un- derstand these Avoids literally; because my consciousness applies to them that meaning which is conventional among men. The rationalists give them another meaning, by ma- king them the representatives of internal sensations which they may feel, but I do not. While we find ourselves in a situation so different, it is not likely we shall harmonize. As to the rest, what is there strange in this, seeing these o-entlemen cannot agree among themselves? And hoAV should they agree, when by a tacit convention, each Avith himself, it is settled that the expressions they employ shall L H6 J not designate Avhat they wish to represent ? When they go so far as to shrug up their shoulders in pity toward those who affix to their words the usual literal meaning ? How- ever, slightly the internal sensations of adepts differ from those of the eloquent rationalist who has raised them into doctrines, there will still be differences of internal sensa- tion that must engender sects, and sub-sects indefinitely; for every one will finally perceive during the discussions, that his interlocutor has not exactly delivered what he himself endeavors to deliver. Such are the inconveniences of words employed to de- signate things which neither have, or can have, any precise appropriate expression in any language. Hence, I avoid all discussion with men who have words in their mouth void of the meaning that usually and properly belongs to them, and that do not designate the things Avhich they were invented to express. I know that by a rhetorical figure, we make words assume a meaning different from their original accept- ation, and often very successfully; but, in my opinion, we ought to distinguish two kinds of metaphor. The first, found- ed on those resemblances which every one acknowledges; the allusion is easily comprehended, and admired in propor- tion as it relates to important interests. The other class of metaphors, rest upon analogies, vague, arbitrary, and percept- ible, by those only Avho are in the habit of perverting the natural meaning of Avords. These last kinds of metaphor, in use among the rationalists, produce no impression but on adepts; and they are so diversified, that the eloquence of one professor is not that of another ; and they are all equally unimpressive on men accustomed to severe study and strict argument. Let us conclude : Since all the theory of the rationalists is founded on the revelations of consciousness, we may judge of them by «the facts already stated, and the conclusions already deduced, in treating of the consciousness of the psychologists. We shall not say thus much of the Theologians, illumi- nated or mystic, who see every thing in God, to whom, in imagination, they are raised, by separating themselves from every thing connected with self, and with reasoning. No- thing of this kind is satisfactory to them, for it is not God. For them, the supreme good, is out of and beyond this life, |n the bosom of the Deity. Such men do not condescend to I 11' J prove their belief; they recommend a patient abiding tor that grace Avhich is ahvays imparted when perseveringly desired. They are opposed to any use of reason in explain- ing what they receive by faith, without troubling themselves Avhether reason approves or disapproves ; because the prin- ciple that inspires this belief, is of a far higher nature than human reason, Avhich is of this world, and participates of the imperfections of the Avorld in Avhich it takes its rise. I have given the substance of their doctrine, to shew that although it may touch, in some points, on that of the ration- alist, it has not the slightest resemblance to ours. No an- swer can be given to men Avho explain nothing, and prove nothing. I address myself, therefore, to those only who pretend to use certain explanations against the functions of the nervous system. But this last doctrine is a religion ; and all religions are entitled to respect, as are their funda- mental doctrines of the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul. Let any one Avho thinks it right, embrace those doctrines, Avhether in consequence of an external revelation or an internal inspiration, without pretending to found them on any demonstration which brings the nervous system upon the carpet. Physiology has nothing to do with this ; for it does not pretend to prove any thing against that inter- nal sensation, the parent of all faith, and on which all belief is founded, that is not susceptible of proof from material objects. The physiologist enumerates these sensations to distinguish them from others ; and when the religionists erect themselves into ideologists, he ought, in replying to them, to put faith aside, and answer only the arguments that bear upon the subject. The arguments against the abstractions which tend to make the functions of the ner- vous system misunderstood, do not imply any thing like contempt for, or even doubt of religious convictions, which, in some persons, are compatible Avith the interior sentiment producing them ; and provided he treats belief with respect, he ought to be permitted the use of all such arguments as are calculated to serve his own cause. Chapter VII.—Exposition of the relations which EXIST BETWEEN THE NERVOUS APPARATUS, AND THE PHE- NOMENA OF INSTINCT AND INTELLECT. We may, without difficulty, and assuredly without hypo- thesis, reduce all abstract substances, or entities, to func* L us J tional phenomena, by shewing that they are no more than the representative signs of the modifications or varieties in perception, Avhich every observer remarks in himself. Mo- difications which sometimes associate with emotions of pleasure, or of grief, that is with the phenomena of sensi- bility, and which cannot be considered by our senses any thing else than modifications of the nervous system. Of these, we should know nothing, but by means of our senses for we have no abstract idea of our consciousness, as we have proved already. But we cannot undertake to treat this question here, in all its extent. We shall only, there- fore, explain in this Avork the means of arriving at that solution of which we believe it capable : We mean a faithful exposition of the phenomena of innervation, which consti- tute the very basis of all our intellectual operations. Our readers will then be able to judge how near Ave approach to Locke, and hoAV far Ave differ, as well as from Cabanis, and his illustrious scholar, Destutt de Tracey, whom every one ought to read and re-read before he ventures to write on the intellectual faculties. This learned man has not per- mitted himself to be seduced by the psycological school; but it is to be regretted, that he could not observe the animal man, in the various anomalies of pathology, and study in the anatomical and physiological ampitheatres, the connection of organized tissues Avith the phenomena of instinct and intelligence. To treat of these questions in their order, we shall examine in this chapter—1st How it is that cerebral perception furnishes the materials of all the instinctive and intellectual operations. 2dly How the sensible emotions become motives to our actions of all kinds. 3dly In Avhat manner observation arising from cerebral perception devel- opes our intellectual faculties, and what they are. 4thly, How volition and liberty connect themselves Avith the same perception. 5thly How intellectual perceptions associate themselves with instinctive emotions, and what constitutes the passions. 6thly What is the cause of error among the psychologists respecting the principles of action in man. Seel. In what manner cerebral perception furnishes the materials of all our instinctive and intellectual operations. The encephalon considered in a full grown man, enjoying perfectly all his faculties, is placed between two currents of stimulation: Those which proceed from the external, and those which proceed from the internal nerves. Cabanis [ 119 ] first applied tiiese to ideology, under the appellation of im- pressions proceeding from the organs. The stimulations Avhich the encephalon receives from these two sources, either are accompanied, or are not so, by consciousness. We have alreacry*demonstrated, that the last mode was the first in the regular order of individual developement. We have also pro- ved that the phenomena of consciousness, after having been developed, must necessarily experience interruptions, lest the organs upon which they depend should be over excited. At present, I have nothing to do but with cerebral stimula- tions accompanied by consciousness. Cerebral stimulation, Avith consciousness, implies, as I have already said, the perception of some object which strikes some external sense ; and the perception also, of one's-self, as perceiving this object. This may be, as eve- ry one knoAvs, some part of our body capable of affecting some one of our external senses, as our limbs. These perceptions have been referred to sensibility; Avhich is the source of pleasure or of pain ; emotions that do not always accompany these phenomena, and therefore may give rise to objections. But these objections are no- thing in themselves, for the epithet sensible, is applicable to every phenomenon of innervation, which is accompanied by consciousness. But to avoid every thing equivocal, I shall distinguish as before, 1st, phenomena of innervation Avithout consciousness. 2dly, phenomena of innervation Avith consciousness. These last Avill divide themselves naturally into simple perception, instinctive or intellectual —and perception accompanied by an agreeable or disagree- able emotion : and I shall refer these different perceptions, not to particular and distinct properties, appertaining to the nervous fibre, but as different modes of excitation in the en- cephalon. These phenomena will be a continuation of the first mode of this excitement, Avherein no one can observe either perception of self, or'of any other object, or of pleas- ure, or of pain. Such is nervous action, in the new-formed embryo, and in asphyxy. Perception, with consciousness, Avhich necessarily has al- Avays a double object, is either unattended by pleasure or pain, or complicated with the one or the other of them. We shall soon see the result; but before Ave go any further, let us forestal an objection, which an imperfect comprehen- sion of Avhat Ave have already said, may give rise to : Be- [ 120 | cause perception has ahvays a double object, the necessity of some single, active principle has been inferred, to per-; ceive the one and the other of these objects ; and it is this same principle Avhich has been distinguished from nervous matter, and declared to be of necessity, something "'in itself single and simple. I repeat, that this principle is nothing but a supposition ; a mere word ; the result of an induction employed to explain the quomodo, or manner of perception. We have only to renounce any inquiry into this quomodo, of which we know nothing, and Avhich moreover can never be the same in all creatures possessing a brain—and leave it among the things unknown, in company with all other first causes—and this objection will be of no value : indeed we shall be compelled to this ; for Ave cannot avoid suppos- ing, for the purpose of this explanation, ideas derived from those material objects which our senses have made knoAA-n to us. It is, therefore, indispensible to confine ourselves to the recital of those phenomena which manifest perception, Avithout introducing a perceptive principle ; and I propose, immediately, to give an example of this. I return to my object. The perception of ones self, or the phenomena of le moi, is always the same ; although this moi may perceive itself in joy, or in suffering. It is not the same Avith that of the ob- ject which the external sense makes knoAvn : this percep- tion becomes diversified, according as the attention remains longer fixed upon the object itself. Objects are perceived by what is called the understand- ing (P Intelligence). I mean to say, that when Ave per- ceive them in that state which you call understanding, they are perceived, 1st, according to the properties of vision, Avhich presents ideas of colours, forms, dimensions, distance, motion, or rest, &c. 2dly, according to the properties of hearing, Avhich furnish ideas more or less similar to the fore- going, for colours alone are peculiar to vision. 3dly, ac- cording to the properties of touch, Avhich alone informs us of the consistence and temperature of bodies ; but Avhich, as to dimensions, forms, motion, can only give us impressions more or less similar to those of the tAvo former senses. 4thly and 5thly, according to the properties of smell and taste. Such are the perceptions furnished by external objects which enter as elements among the phenomena of un~ t >21 J del-standing : but we should be wrong to believe that the understanding is only composed of these perceptions, and of some active principle, which sees, judges, and combines them diversely : this manner of considering the subject, constitutes an hypothesis : it is ontology, founded like the systems we have already refuted, upon the supposition of a principle, of Avhich man, observed by the senses, has furnished the model. But let us continue the exposition of facts. Sec. 2. How the emotions of sensibility become motives of all our actions. We have said, that perceptions Avere either unattended, or attended, Avith pleasure and pain: let us examine the first case. In observing external objects, if the man has no feeling in himself, he is inactive ; he has no motive to react. This situation is uncommon ; but Ave must admit its existence, because every one feels that he has sometimes been in that situation. For the most part then, perception is attended by pleasant or unpleasant emotions ; sometimes they are so Aveak, as hardly to be distinguished from the perception it- self : sometimes he is immediately struck with their differ- ence : but almost ahvays he attaches them under the rela- tions of causality, to the different objects which have affect- ed hissenses. Remember, that I have noticed these phenomena Avithout supposing them executed by any entity called the principle. I wish to be understood, in advance, that if ever I make use of that Avord, I shall employ it only as an abreviated formu- la in the discussion. The pleasant or unpleasant emotions Avhich accompany our perceptions, proceed ahvays from a stimulation of the nervous apparatus of the person perceiv- ing ; and it will be wrong to distinguish them literally, into physical, and non-physical: their modes are diversified al- most infinitely ; and many of these modes have been con- sidered as particular principles, not of a nervous character, and called principles of action, or active faculties. But if you consider the facts alone, these emotions are no other than the effects of perception, excited by causes internal or external, and executed in the encephalon : and thus it is, they are capable of becoming motives to human actions. They follow also, in regular train, instinctive excitations; \oid of the phenomena of intelligence; such as those Avhich 10 [ 122 j induce motion, in the unborn infant, and excite the action of sucking even before the child has experienced the breast, and force it to demand by cries, those things that are ne- cessary to satisfy its first wants. In other words, the mo- tives of action, or if you please the locomotive motions of the foetus, of the neAvborn infant, of a person in profound sleep, &c. are stimulations of the encephalon, proceeding from the tAAO sources already mentioned, but without any distinct perception or consciousness: the motives of the adult man, healthy and awake, are the same stimulations, sometimes with distinct perception or consciousness, and sometimes without. The difference arises from the nature of the acts, from habit, from distraction, &c. This will fol- low from the explanations into Avhich I am about to enter. When the man feels distinctly an internal want, in conse- quence of the stimulations transmitted to the brain by the nerves of the viscera, he observes all external objects in connection with this Avant, because the first duty of the brain is to attend to the wants of instinct. All the objects Avhich may serve to satisfy the predominant want, cause profound emotions in the viscera Avhere that want origin- ates; and these emotions determine the man to execute those actions that are necessary to satisfy the want. This proves, very positively, that the brain stimulates the viscera in a state of want, by means of the perception of those ex- ternal objects which are calculated to satisfy that want: the viscera rendered more irritable by this accession of stimu- lation re-acts more strongly on the brain. No doubt the perception of all these external objects fit to satisfy the pre- vailing want, excite the viscera, which respond to the stim- ulation. But it is quite certain that the viscus, Avhich the existing want renders most irritable, acts most strongly on the briin, after the perception of those objects Avhich are capable of allaying the Avant. The proof of all this may be seen in detail in our physiology. Man always obeys the emotion which is produced by a body called for by a visceral want, unless there be some moral motive to prevent him. In early infancy he always obeys this emotion ; for at that period, the want of observa- tion, curiosity, is not yet developed. But in proportion as he becomes older, and a careful education has developed this want of observation, (curiosity) he becomes less a slave to his early wants, as we shall see in treating of volition and L 123 j of libeny. For the present, let us trace the rise and forma- tion of the faculty of obserA'ation. Sec. 3. In what manner observation, offspring of cerebral perception, developes our intellectual faculties; and what are those faculties. When the encephalon becomes no longer tormented by Avants merely instinctive, that is, when man has satisfied his Avants, he applies himself to the observation of external bo- dies, by an emotion of a different kind from that Avhich those Avants excited. It is not easy to trace the line of original distinction between these two kinds of emotion, but the ex- tremes are not difficult to seize. The instinctive emotions relate to individual preserva- tion, respiration, hunger, thirst, want of exercise, rest and sleep, Avant of exoneration, of generation, and the preserva- tion of offspring. A lively pleasure attends the satisfac- tion of these Avants; chagrin and ill temper attends the obstacles Avhich stand in the Avay of satisfying them. All these emotions are excitations of the brain and nerves, with a perception of sensations more or less vivid in the principal viscera, the stomach, the heart, the lungs, the sexual or- gans, and vaguely in the sub-diaphragmatic nervous plexus. (see my physiology.) The emotions which have least connection with the in- stinct of self preservation and reproduction, are those which are produced by external objects not calculated to satisfy these wants; and of which the phenomena are fully declared in the work already cited.* The man then, when his first and urgent wants of an instinctive character are satisfied, has another Avant that requires to be satisfied, viz. the want of observation, (curiosity.) This incites him to observe, to analyse his perceptions, to compare them, and to remark that he perceives himself in the act of perceiving: an act essen- tially inexplicable to us, and which itself constitutes the Avhole of his intellectual faculties.f It is in the exercise of this kind of observation, that what are called abstract ideas arise, and which constitute the signs by means of which Ave represent objects under every kind of relation. Among these signs, some of them conve- niently serve to recall one or other of the attributes or pro- * We have an American translation of this valuable work.—Transl. f This follows also from Hartley's theory of the association of Ideas. A book which Cabanis and Broussais would have been the wiser for stu- dying.—Transl. L I--4 J perties of bodies corresponding to the external senses, such as colours, consistence, &c.—that is to say, they serve to place us nearly in the same state of stimulation, as the sensi- ble appearance of the objects themselves produced. The others retrace the circumstances in which we have seen or obsei*Ared the objects; as whether they Avere at rest or in motion ; Avhether they affected the senses or the viscera agreeably or disagreeably ; if they satisfied our Avants: if they cured a disease : if they Avere dangerous to health or life, &c. so that there are a great many of those signs, that are equivalent to many phrases, or even to a long dissertation, and save much circumlocution: such are the words restora- tion, fortification, good manners; and in medicine febrifuge, antispasmodic, and others of like kind, which designate com- plicated scenes of social life, or Avhich reinstate us momen- tarily in nearly the same emotion, as when we felt the vis- ceral stimulations of pain, of pleasure, of joy, of anger, of hope, &c. It is by feeling, and by attention to his feelings and per- ceptions, that man judges. When the judgement he forms, is as rapid as the perception itself, it is instinctive, or a judge- ment at first vieAV. If he does not form his judgement until by aid of memory he has recalled many intuitive judgements, which are comprised in the formula or representative signs of other judgements, they are called judgements by de- duction, or Avhat is vulgarly called reasoning. But the names are nothing : on final analysis we shall never see any thing else than the perception of oneys-self perceiving. If man had not the faculty of recalling perceptions passed, by means of perceptions present, (association) he Avould be incapable of executing all his intellectual operations: he Avould resemble an idiot. He could never fix his attention on any thing, if his actual perception Avere not thus prolong- ed. This faculty is founded on what has been called The Association of Ideas; for actual perception could not recall passed perceptions, Avhose cause has gone by, nor that of a third, if something did not connect the perceptions with each another. In short, Imagination, is but a memory which reproduces perceptions vividly and abundantly, in such a manner as to form neAv combination. But, let us explain ourselves so as to reduce the figurative expressions of the ideologists, to the physiology of the nervous system. I have explained hoAv the different judgements resolve I Ho j themselves into the perception of the perception. Very well- Memory, then, to whatever extent it proceeds, Avhether it has for its object, bodies, or their properties, or their circum- stances, or emotions, is nothing more than the actual per- ception of past perceptions, recalled and reproduced. There is, therefore, but one phenomenon of the understanding ; that is, perception. What we knoAV positively concerning it, is—1st, That it takes place in the brain. 2dly, That it is an excitation of the substance of the brain. I refuse to say that it is an effect or result of the excitation of the sub- stance of the brain. I say, that it is the excitation itself, of the substance of the brain, in one of its various modes of being excited. I add, also, that an idea* can be nothing else. Diseases of the encephalon, prove this in a manner incontestible ; they furnish direct and positive experience that the Avords sensations, perceptions, ideas, cannot repre- sent to the physiologist any thing but neiArous matter, under some of its modes of excitation. They put these phenomena on the same line with volition or the will, about which I shall have something to say. Sec. 4. How the will, and the freedom of the will, connect themselves with perception. If sensations, perceptions, ideas, and volitions, change Avith the varieties in the mode of excitation of the nervous matter of the encephalon, it follows that they must depend upon it; for you cannot make them depend upon any other principle without introducing some hypothesis, founded up- on an inadmissible comparison: the quomodo, the manner alone of this causality, how it takes place, is, and must remain, unknown. The will, moreover, is one of those phenomena which have been most insisted upon, to render the brain subordin- * That a sensation, or impression, on some of the nerves of sense, ex- ternal or internal, transmitted to the brain ; and its counterpart, an idea, that is a recollected sensation, are no other than similar motions excited in the brain, and there felt or perceived, may be considered as the opin- ions of the most eminent physiologists. See Haller's Primce Lineae, § 556, Edinb. 1767. Bichat. Phys. Res. Dr. Watkins' edit. Philad. 1800, p. 105, prope finem. Richerand's Phys. Dr. Chapman's edit. 1813, Philad. p. 390,392 and 400. Blumenbach's Phys. Dr. Caldwell's edit. Philad. 1795, vol. l,p. 195. Majendie's Phys. Dr. Revere's edit. Baltimore, 1822, p. 102,103. Nil unquam fuit in intellectu quod non prius erat in sensu, is an axiom true at this day, as well as in the days of Aristotle, taking the word sensu to designate as it ought, the internal as Avell as external senses.—Transl'. i l~'" I ate to some piinciple, or entity,* not nervous. But let u& quit for an instant the personification of this phenomenon, to study it, not metaphysically, but physiologically. In the embryo, and in many diseases, it shares the lot ol all the other phenomena of intelligence ; it does not exist at all: this is the first proof, that it emanates from the brain. It augments and it diminishes in conformity with the excita- tion of the encephalic substance : this is the second proof, that it resolves itself into a mode of action of that substance. The will, as well as perceptions and ideas, is shackled, for- ced, conquered, obscured, denaturalized, in the strangest manner, by the stimulations by Avhich the viscera, particu- larly the digestive and reproductive, under certain states of excitement, affect the encephalon. This is the third con- firmation of the two precedent ones. I refer to my treatise on physiology on this subject. The quomodo, the manner how, rests at present among the things unknown. The question of the freedom of the will, is connected Avith the will itself. It is asked, are Ave free, or are Ave forced on by something that governs us ? It is necessary to determine what extension is intended to be given to this expression, freedom of the will; for there are certain kinds of freedom or liberty, which belong to us, only upon certain conditions. Such are those that relate to the actions we perform with our respiratory muscles. The psychologist believes himself at liberty to speak : he is so, so long only as the Avant of respiration permits him—if a fit of the asthma should come upon him, or a violent nausea, the muscles of the voice are no longer at his disposal. A pregnant woman believes herself at liberty to walk during nine months; but when labor approaches, the muscles of progression must be otherAvise employed in aiding the con- tractions of the uterus. A man seized upon by the desire of sleep, has neither the power of Avalking nor of thinking at his disposal; his limbs feel heavy, and his eye-lids close, in spite of himself; he can no longer keep his thoughts fixed upon one object; it escapes from him; his ideas become deranged, and the labor of resistance on the part of his will, gives rise to a crowd of phantoms, in the midst of Avhich, he goes to sleep profoundly; that is, he loses entirely, every intellectual operation ; so, whenever some excitation be- *The soul of the metaphysicians, or psychologists; of Stahl; the Ar- cboeus of Parcelsus and Van Helmont.—Trans!. A** ] A ond what is usual and regular, becomes developed in the tissues of our viscera, we begin to lose something of this freedom : first we are deprived of some of our powers of action, and then of some of our poAvers of thinking ; we see this, not only in violent fevers, but also in the chronic phleg- masiae of those organs which are abundantly supplied with nerves, and Avhich exert a lively stimulation on the brain. The same thing is also observed in the idiopathic irritation of that organ. It cannot do every thing at once. When the viscera torment it, it loses its aptitude for thought; or else the irritation Avhich it receives, forces its ideas in a particular direction, so dependent upon the disease, that this forced direction of thought increases, diminishes, and re- turns with the disease. 1 shall be ansAvered, " Since these are diseases, they form exceptions." There are no excep- tion. The diseases, in this case, are no other than modifi- cations of the organs of thought; and our Avoid, " freedom," is only applicable to certain states of the organ. But what idea can we have of this freedom of the will, Avhen the encephalon is not over excited, either sympa- thetically or idiopathically ? This is a delicate question : Ave undoubtedly have the consciousness that we are free. This consciousness, however, proves nothing, for an ideot has it also, although he is governed by a morbid iiritation. The fact is, that Ave always have a motive for action, and the instincthre Avantsof self-conservation and re-production, frequently concur Avith the internal motive of curiosity which leads us to remark and observation, in directing our thoughts and our actions. The Aveakness of the brain, its imperfect developement in the part Avhich executes intel- lectual operations, the habit early contracted of obeying vis- ceral impressions and impulsions, or in resisting them for the purpose of acting as our understanding dictates, decide with- out our knoAvledge on all our actions, even Avhen Ave suppose ourselves most free. Our habits of thinking, which depend either on the organization of our brain, or on some pre- dominance of action Avhich chance forces us to give to this or that region of the cerebral organ, or if you please to this or that mode of excitation in its fibres, are causes Avhich de- termine our actions, and therefore our thoughts; and compel us to execute what habit dictates Avhile Ave fancy ourselves at perfect freedom.* Now and then, man aAvakes from this *Our sensations and their reminiscences, ideas ; all our thoughts, are L l28 J lethargy ; he sees the tyrants that deprive him of liberty ; he revolts, and determines to make resistance in the most pressing emergency. In so doing, he obeys sometimes a religious, sometimes a selfish motive. For instance, for the sake of saying " I am free," he obeys the wish to enjoy his own esteem and that of his felloAV-men; a Avish not less imperious than any other Avhatever, but Avhich cannot take place, or influence his conduct, if the encephalon be not de- A-eloped, and exercised in a certain manner. Often we resist one instinctive want by another. Thus, hunger will yield to love, or to parental affection ; the fear of death often yields to this instinct, or even to self-love ; and this last gives Avay to some other passion, &c. In all these cases the struggle takes place in the encephalon ; and physiologically it is nothing else than some of the varieties of excitation. Such is the real account of freedom of the will (liberum arbitrium) ; it is a form of expression and nothing more, designating a certain kind of excitement that takes place in the brain, inciting to action in the voluntary muscles. In considering this subject, Ave must banish the personified, ab- stract entity, and consider only the facts ; for if this entity be placed in our consciousness, and we do not submit it to the verification of our senses, Ave shall be compelled to admit on equal footing, the mental freedom of the sick, and of the ideot, Avith that of the healthy man of perfect faculties ; for the ideot also says, "my Avill is free." This must be the case unless you admit tAvo kinds of free will, one for the healthy and one for the insane ; and such a supposition will conduct us to two kinds of souls, unless Ave refuse to assign this incorporeal director to the insane, or suppose it inactive, a stranger to the phenomena over Avhich it presided yester- day, and may be called on to preside to-morroAV. Sec. 5. How intellectual perceptions associate themselves with instinctive emotions ; and what constitutes the passions. In all cases where the perceptions termed moral, that is to say, those that are not connected Avith our first wants, but stimulations that take place in the brain, according to fixed laws of the animal economy and the established properties of that organ. The things and circumstances that give rise to sensations, ideas and thoughts, are out of our power. The laws that regulate their occurrence and their effects upon our brain, are out of our power. The laws that regulate the results ot their action upon us, our consequent actions, are out of our power.— J. ran.il. l [ 129 J with curiosity only, do not excite lively emotions, the man acts but feebly : if he had no other motive he would remain inactive ; but nature has provided for this. As we proceed in the career of life, these perceptions become connected (associated) by recollections with our first wants which ori- ginally did not affect them; in course of time there is hardly an object completely estranged from them. The sight of a table recalls hunger ; the sight of a cup, thirst. An agree- able shade recalls a country passed over; and the recollec- tion of it, awakens the rural appetite ; the sight of a flower, or some article proper to make ornamental dress, recalls the pleasures we have enjoyed with a beloved object. A pre- cipice recalls the danger we may have run ; weapons, the combat we may have sustained ; the victory or the defeat that followed, with all their emotions, &c* These relations take platfe by means of the association of ideas ; and Avhen their effects do not excite hunger or thirst, or any thing relating to individual conservation or repro- duction, they at least awaken certain other thoughts founded on feelings, or emotions ; or they excite us to the contem- plation of ourselves, attended with a sentiment of approba- tion or satisfied self-love. Hence it is, that among the poor, these associations almost ahvays relate to emotions respect- ing the satisfying of primary wants, or to their children, and leave always something to be wished for ; Avhile among the rich, the learned, the poet, the artist, they close in some object of self-lov-e ; an insatiable passion which disguises itself in a vast number of shapes, each of an insidious char- acter, but Avhich we cannot stop to explain in this work. Among benevolent persons, and among ascetics, the series of thoughts, excited into action by an object apparently the most insignificant, are connected Avith emotions of compas- sion, or the enjoyment of a heavenly life, or the torments .of a state of punishment. The philanthropist is conducted by the same path to that kind of emotion which is peculiar to him ; and among them all, the idea of resistance or ob- struction calls up painful emotions connected Avith fear or Avith anger. These arc facts Avhich no person is ignorant of, and I do not state them for the purpose of giving information to any body, but to Avarn those Avho are strangers to physiology * All these are clear cases of the association of ideas ?o admirably ex plained bv UortW.— Transl. 17 E i3o ] and pathology, that all these emotions take place in the same organs, and that none of them are disconnected with the nervous tissue. The brain, in all these cases, excites internal nerves; and the nerves which are distributed through the same viscera from whence proceed the sensa- tions of hunger, of thirst, the want of respiration, or exon- eration, are excited together with those viscera ; and some- times they are excited even more vividly than in the highest degree of these Avants, by the feelings of self-love irritated or satisfied, by pride, haughtiness, or violence humiliated, compassion, sorrow, despair, anger, fanaticism, cruelty, indignation against crime, admiration for virtue, religious anger, compunction, religious ecstacy, enthusiasm of any kind ; in a Avord, by all those emotions which are ranked as moral, moral sentiments, and principles of action purely intel- lectual, &c. &c. We may then affirm, after observation made by means of our senses, on our own bodies and those of others, that all these associated emotions excited by exter- nal objects, are, and can be, none other than organic ;* and that it is not possible to insulate them from the nerves of Avhich they are modifications, any more than it is possible to insulate the contraction of a muscle from the fibrine of Avhich it is a modification. It is in this character, that the emotions in question are completely within the jurisdiction of physiology in respect of their nature, though they may be connected Avith patho- logy as to their cause, or with hygienne Avith respect to sanitary precautions. They belong also to the moralist, the publicist, or the legislator from the influence they exert on social happiness; but to the psychologist they are strangers; nor can he usurp any cognizance of them, but through the hypothetic comparison whose artifice I have already explain- ed, and which hereafter Avill serve him in no stead. All these emotions which resolve themselves into pleas-- ure and pain, constitute the basis of the passions, which are those durable desires or aversions by which we regulate our conduct. The term and state called passion, implies two things : 1st, a series of ideas which occupy us principally, and by which we regulate all the others : 2dly, emotions Avhich connect themselves with these ideas, and which are recalled by, or recall them unceasingly : all to satisfy some or other of our instinctive wants, or our curiosity, that is, * This is demonstrated by Hartley.—Transl. i. 1*1 J the Avants created by the feeling of the desire of observation. Without visceral emotions someAvhat vivid, man has nothing but tastes, tendencies, inclinations; but with vivid emotions he has passions. Two causes destroy or greatly enfeeble the passions : 1st, one or more series of ideas different from those which sustain them: that is to say, another system of conduct dictated by observation and reflection, or impo- sed by chance or by force. 2dly, The diminution or ces- sation of those emotions which give rise to the passions in us ; for example, that of love by a change in the organ Avhere these emotions are perceived. The passions of instinctive origin are more difficult to eradicate in certain conditions of man than the intellectual; but it is not so in other conditions. Men whose brains are well developed, correct or conceal their dominant appetites, and vice versa. Very often the passions founded on in- stinct, change their object in consequence of being modified by the intellect, without ceasing however to be based on instinct. It is thus that the desire for some one woman may be converted into a passion for all, or libertinage ; the passion for certain articles of food or drink, into gluttony or drunkenness ; or the one and the other of these may put on the form of epicurism. I will not stop at details : each se- ries of ideas is accompanied with sensations which become habits, when we are compelled to act upon them for a long time; and we thus contract factitious tastes which among men of lively emotions are apt to degenerate into passions. It is upon this fact, so well known but so seldom reflected on, that a good education ought in great part to be founded; but it is not my object to discuss this question : I shall be content to state it, because it is connected with medicine and the laws of health; which ought to be well acquainted with the nature of man, that they may point out the kind of intel- lectual and muscular exercise which are fitted for certain diseased states of the nervous system. Sec. 7. Cause of the error of the psychologists upon the principle of action in man. One may judge on these data, how great is the error of the psychologists, when they assume as principles of action independent of the nervous apparatus, any of those emotions which have their rise in the brain, acting during thought up- on the nervous system of the viscera. But they notice a «mall number only (on Avhich they have not had the pre- L 1^ J caution to agree) Avhile these assumed principles of action are really innumerable. They multiply with civilization, with the progress of the arts, with ornamental literature : but the real sciences, tend rather to confine their number than create new varieties. Hence it is, that psychology which is no science, but a play of the imagination somewhat like poetry, ceases not and never will cease to multiply them. Psychologists may take their course: the observation of Avhat passes in nature will bring all things to rights. The kind of stupor which some high-sounding words, pronounced with emphasis, have produced among the naturalists, who are employed in the examination of facts—words such as grandeur of conception, sublimity of view, large, profound, extended, in opposition to narrow considerations, littleness of conception, absurdity and what is worse, ridiculous, may for some time prevent the observers of man from comparing and concluding. The fear of passing for a man of mean spirit, is very powerful with some : fears from a very differ- ent cause have acted upon others ; but all have silently ob- served and collected the facts which are unknown to the psychologists ; and some have not been restrained by diffi- dence or timidity, from the intention of publishing them. Metaphorical expressions borrowed from material objects, of which the senses only can give us any idea, are not cal- culated to serve the purpose of the psychologists in painting their ontological conceptions. HoAvever lofty the eminence on which these geniuses place themselves to domineer over the human race—whatever extent they may give to the ho- rizon Avhich their view can take in from that sublime point —however profound the abyss placed beneath them— however long or wide the road traced through the plain which their sight Avould pass over—still all this is matter; and matter much inferior to that which constitutes the brain of a man. These figures of speech are not calculated to raise our nature, to aggrandize our conceptions, or to ena- ble us to discover objects further than our sight really em- powers us. The great or the little emotion which the po- etic psychologist feels in dealing out these pompous images, proves nothing but the excitation of his own nervous sys- tem. His consciousness tells him that he experiences em- otions, and no one has a right to contradict him: but the proof amounts to nothing but this, and this changes nothing i 1^3 J ui the real nature of the facts. Man is a more noble being than any other sensible object to which you can compare him. Employ a metaphor if you please, but you must offer it for Avhat it is, and you must without anger permit us to reduce it to what it actually represents, and to what the senses attest. The fundamental point is to characterise these facts truly, for after all, we must come to the bottom of the question. Every expression which when fairly exa- mined resolves itself into the man himself, under some of the modifications to which the human system is liable, ought not to be regarded as relating to a distinct entity, or being separate from man. Chapter VII.—Hoavthe instinctive and intellectual PHENOMENA ARE CONNECTED AVITH IRRITATION. To treat this question accurately, Ave must take the in- stinctive and intellectual faculties, as they are noAV reduced or converted from sepaiate and distinct entities existing in and by themselves, into phenomena observable by conscious- ness acting in concert with the senses ; and sheAV that these phenomena, are in fact no more than a healthy, normal, and regular stimulation of the nervose-encephalic apparatus. When they are thus reduced, or converted, Ave shall see clearly how these same phenomena are attached to nervous irritation; for this is nothing more than unusual, abnormal increase of stimulation in the nervous system; a state, of Avhich the opposite is abexcitation or defect of stimulation. This reduction or conversion, can be made without recur- ring to any hypothesis : and here is the general fact Avhich we lay doAvn as the foundation whereon to erect our theory of instinctive and intellectual phenomena, of which Ave have already explained the nature. What we call attention, perception of external objects, perception of our own thought or consciousness, idea, judge- ment, reasoning, memory, are not specific faculties, separate entities inhabiting the brain, put into action by the impres- sions that proceed from the senses, or by some pretended internal force independent of them, as has been asserted of le moi, or of consciousness, and of the memory—they are no other than varieties of cerebral perception, Avhich avo may observe as facts or phenomena, but which we cannot venture to explain. Still less are Ave permitted to adopt the poetry of metaphysics, and to personify these varieties i 134 in modifications, lor the purpose of explaining the buperiuri- ty of one over the rest, or the influence they exercise one over another, as active principles ; for Ave cannot do this Avith- out treating these phenomena as if they were bodies cogni- zable by the senses, Avith Avhich in fact they have nothing to do, for they can resemble nothing but themselves. All this we have already proved : let us now connect these pheno- mena still more closely to the nervous system. The phenomena of perception are double: as to their origin, they are, 1st, effects of excitation that takes place in the external senses; 2dly, effects of excitation that has taken place in the internal senses, or within the interior of the tissues. Results of the excitation of the nerves, they are themselves excitations of the encephalon, reacting on the same nerves in some manner or other ; and their existence is of itself full proof of encephalic excitation. The one makes us acquainted with external objects, the other with the internal state and affections of the human body: but for perception, or consciousness to take place, the encepha- lic apparatus is indispensable in both cases. It is impossible to conceive (at least in respect to their origin) that perceptions can be independent of these tAvo classes of nerves: no facts exist to prove it: Avhereas their reproduction by the mere excitation of the encephalon, is a fact undeniable. Every mode of encephalic excitation that has existed, may be renewed in the absence of the cause that first and originally produced it; and one mode may call up another; this is memory and the connection (association) of perceptions: the one and the other may take place un- der all modes of perception. Perceptions produced by the excitation of the nerves of external senses, are more or less clear, and are tied to the object which determines them. In this point of vieAv they are called ideas. An idea then, is an excitation in the brain associated in its origin with a stimulation of some external sense. Such is the fact: how, this comes to pass, is beyond human comprehension : still the fact is the same ; and it is true also, that this excitation in the brain, being there repro- duced by any cause whatever, different from the original ob- ject, the idea of this object never fails to arise, and we seem to see or hear it; while the mere stimulation of the sensi- tive organ Avithout the brain to react upon it produces no- thing. Hypochondria and insanity furnish proofs enough of L 13* ] the first assertion, and the profound sleep of apoplexy of the second. Although the idea cannot be personified, that is, consid- ered insulated by and in itself, either as an impression made on the brain, or as an image painted on its substance, or as an entity of any kind resulting from this personification, yet it is always characterised to the person perceiving it, as some material object or as some property of such an object, or as the mark and sign conventionally substituted for such object or its properties. This mark or sign, is sometimes in like- ness of a figure, sometimes of a sound, or less distinctly with the three other senses: in short, Avhen the objects are ab- sent, Ave experience a sort of illusion like the internal repre- sentation of some simple object, or some scenes Avhich we have witnessed. This is precisely the proof that the idea* is nothing more than a stimulation of the brain ; which may be replaced by the mere excitation of its tissue, in the same state of stimulation or excitation, which was before occasion- ed by the object, acting on the senses and by them produced in the brain. No idea (of any external object) can exist, but by means of a stimulation made on some external sense. There is then, in the interior of the brain, a sense corres- ponding to these kinds of stimulation only ; as there is ex- ternally a sense corresponding exclusively to certain agents, essentially and by their nature stimulating, and it is always according to one and the same law that this is effected. Hence the impossibility of giving ideas to those in Avhom this internal sense is not yet developed ; and hence the difficul- ty or facility, the clearness or the confusion of ideas, &c. corresponding to the perfect or imperfect developement of this internal sense. The perceived impressions produced on the brain by the stimulated viscera, exciting reaction, are at first confused : but after some time and in proportion as life advances, they associate themselves with those per- ceptions that arise from the senses; and if they do not pro- duce ideas peculiar to themselves, they recall by association those ideas which the senses originate, and which properly speaking are the only ideas that can arise. Does this dif- ference proceed from the nerves of the interior, not commu- nicating directly Avith the internal sense of ideas, or that the stimulation they transmit to the encephalon, has no connec- tion Avith internal sense ? ____________ * By Idea here he means what Hartley rails a sensation: vi/. the ™-i filial impression.—Trans'. [ 13