Part 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elementa Physiologiæ, t. iv. p. 384.

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

T. iv. p. 9.

T. iv. p. 9.

T. ii. p. 234.

The brain, properly so called.

I see with my eyes.—M.

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

Ibid.

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

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

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

T. iii. p. 2.

T. iii. p. 4.

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

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

T. ii. p. 163.

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

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

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

With very few exceptions.

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