Part 11

Guided by facts which he seized upon with a rare sagacity, Broussais begins by bringing back certain affections to their real seats; but soon, by an immoderate generalization of this fine result, he perceives all affections in the same affection, all diseases in the same malady; he imagines one abstract affection, by means of which he explains all other affections: fevers are nothing but irritations of the digestive apparatus; insanity is nothing but an irritation of the brain; and he who is so intolerant of the personifications proposed by others, makes one personification more; in fine, his exclusive and headstrong genius carries him beyond himself, and, as if merely to amuse him after the fatigue of forming his systems, plunges him into the question of phrenology, where he enjoys himself so much the more, because he finds in it his own accustomed method, his own ideas, and his own language: there are plenty of faculties to bring back to their organs, plenty of localizations to establish.

Broussais ought not to be judged of by his “Cours de Phrénologie.” The five or six first lessons, or, as he calls them, generalities, are merely a confused mixture of ideas: the notions of Condillac rejected by Cabanis, and the ideas of the phrenologists.

He says that sensibility is the common origin of the faculties; he calls perception a primary faculty, &c. &c.; and Condillac would not speak differently.

But, on the other hand, he says that there are as many memories as there are organs; that the instincts and the sentiments possess a memory, as the external perceptions have theirs; that the mind is the sum of the faculties, &c.; and Gall could not say it more clearly.

Broussais is particularly opposed to the moi of Descartes. “Seduced,” says he, “by the moi of Descartes, philosophers have been led to reason according to the testimony of their consciousness....” And according to what testimony does Broussais think they ought to reason?

He thinks it very funny to call the moi an intra-cranial entity, intra-cranial central being, person par excellence, &c.

He laughs at the moi of Descartes; he forgets that the moi of Gall is either nothing else than the sum (ensemble) of the intellectual faculties, or nothing else than a word; and he makes for himself a peculiar moi, which he locates in the organ of comparison. “We owe,” says he, “to the organ of general comparison the distinction of one person expressed by the sign me.”

Broussais was never designed for compliance with the ideas of others; a yoke oppresses him; he is never truly Broussais, except in the midst of conflict. In 1816 he publishes a volume, and the medical doctrines are shook for half a century: we ought to read that volume over again, and forget the “Cours de Phrénologie.”

VI.

BROUSSAIS’S PSYCOLOGY.

The fact is, Broussais is busier with his own opinions than with what Gall thought; and here is a specimen of his way of thinking: “The understanding and its different manifestations are,” says he, “the phenomena of the nervous actions.” “The faculties,” says he further, “are the actions of the material organs,” &c.

Broussais’s whole psycology is contained in these words. The organ, and the phenomenon produced by the organ. To speak more clearly, the organ and the action of the organ. To speak like Cabanis, the organ and the secretion of the organ, or thought. That’s all!

The understanding, therefore, is merely a phenomenon, a product, an act. But if this be the case, how can there be a continuity of the moi? Now, the consciousness which gives me the unity of the moi, gives me not less assuredly the continuity of the moi. Descartes’ admirable words are: “I find that there is in us an intellectual memory.”

The consciousness tells me that I am one, and Gall insists that I am multiple; the consciousness tells me I am free, and Gall avers that there is no moral liberty; the consciousness endows me with the continuity of my understanding, but Cabanis and Broussais tell me that my understanding is nothing but an act.

Philosophers will talk.

VII.

BROUSSAIS’S PHYSIOLOGY.

The whole of Broussais’s physiology is founded upon irritation. He says, “Irritation constitutes the basis of the physiological doctrine.” But what is irritation? Broussais replies: “It is the exaggeration of contractility.” But then, what is contractility?

In Haller, the term irritability (for that is his term for contractility) possesses a precise meaning and import. Irritability is a property of muscular fibre, by which it shortens or contracts itself when touched.

Haller demonstrated, and it is his glory, that the muscle alone moves when it is touched. What is that to Broussais? He goes back again to the vague irritability of Glisson and de Gorter: like those authors, he assigns it to every tissue, and, like them, he explains every thing by means of it.

Broussais’s irritation is merely Haller’s irritability exaggerated and deformed.

The genius of Broussais was too impatient to allow him to proceed step by step up to the idea—too impassioned to hinder him from being satisfied with the name—and for that very reason he appears to have been by nature fitted for success in a school where the name is every thing.

But here is the great difference. Gall and Broussais laboured for the School: Descartes toiled for the human mind.

VIII.

I return to Gall.

Those who wish to learn Gall’s doctrine, will always go up to Gall himself. Spurzheim already alters the spirit of that doctrine, and Gall complains of it. “M. Spurzheim,” says he, “knows my discoveries better than any body else, but he tries to introduce among them a spirit quite foreign to that in which they were begun, continued and perfected.”

Gall, moreover, was a great anatomist. His idea of tracing the fibres of the brain is, as to the anatomy of that organ, the fundamental idea. The idea is not his own: two French anatomists, Vieussens and Pourfour du Petit, had admirably understood it long before his time; but at the period of his appearance it had been long forgotten. The brain was not then dissected by any one: it was cut in slices.

It was a great merit in Gall to have recalled the true method of dissecting the brain; and there was still greater address on his part, in connecting with his labours in positive anatomy, his doctrine of independent faculties and multiple brain.