Part 4

In fine, as soon as one sensation is lost, all sensation is lost; when one faculty disappears, all the faculties disappear. There are not, therefore, different seats for the different faculties, nor for the different sensations. The faculty of feeling, of judging, of willing any thing, resides in the same place as the faculty of feeling, judging, or willing any other thing, and consequently this faculty, essentially a unit, resides essentially in a single organ.

The understanding is, therefore, a unit.

According to Gall, there are as many particular kinds of intellect as there are distinct faculties of the mind. According to him, each faculty has its perception, its memory, its judgment, will, &c., that is to say, all the attributes of the understanding, properly so called.

“All the intellectual faculties,” says he, “are endowed with the perceptive faculty, with attention, recollection, memory, judgment, and imagination.”

Thus each faculty perceives, remembers, judges, imagines, compares, creates; but these are trifles—for each faculty reasons. “Whenever,” says Gall, “a faculty compares and judges of the relations of analogous or different ideas, there is an act of comparison, there is an act of judgment: a sequence of comparisons and judgments constitutes reasoning,” &c.

Therefore, each and every faculty is an understanding by itself, and Gall says so expressly. “There are,” says he, “as many different kinds of intellect or understanding as there are distinct faculties.” “Each distinct faculty,” says he, further, “is intellect or understanding—each individual intelligence (the words are precise) has its proper organ.”

But, admitting all these kinds of intellects, all these individual understandings, where are we to seek for the General Intelligence, the understanding, properly so called? It must, as you may please, be either an attribute of each faculty, or the collective expression of all the faculties, or even the mere simple result of their common and simultaneous action; in one word, it cannot be that positive and single faculty which we understand, conceive of, and feel in ourselves, when we pronounce the word soul or understanding.

Now here is the sum and the substance of Gall’s psycology. For the understanding, essentially a unit faculty, he substitutes a multitude of little understandings or faculties, distinct and isolate. And, as these faculties, which perform just as he wills them to do—which he multiplies according to his pleasure, seem in his eyes to explain certain phenomena which are not well explained by the lights of ordinary philosophy, he triumphs!

He does not perceive that an explanation, which is words merely, adapts itself to any and to every thing. In the time of Malebranche, every thing was explained by animal spirits; Barthez explained every thing by his vital principle, &c.

“This,” says Gall, “explains how the same man may possess a judgment that is ready and sure as to certain objects, while it is imbecile as to certain others; how he may have the liveliest and most fruitful imagination upon some subjects, while it is cold and sterile upon others.”

“Grant,” says he, further, “to the animals certain fundamental faculties, and you have the dog that follows the chase with passion; the weasel that strangles the poultry with rage; the nightingale that sings with fervour beside his mate,” &c.

No doubt of it. But what sort of philosophy is that, that thinks to explain a fact by a word? You observe such or such a penchant in an animal, such or such a taste or talent in a man; presto, a particular faculty is produced for each one of these peculiarities, and you suppose the whole matter to be settled. You deceive yourself; your faculty is only a word,—it is the name of the fact,—and all the difficulty remains just where it was before.

Besides, you speak only of the facts that you suppose yourself able to explain; you say nothing of those that you render by your system wholly inexplicable. You say not one word as to the unity of the understanding, the unity of the me, or you deny it. But the unity of the understanding, the unity of the me, is a fact of the conscious sense, and the conscious sense is more powerful than all the philosophies together.

Gall is always talking about observation, and he was indeed, as an observer, full of ingenuity. But, in order to follow out an observation, it must be traced to the very end, and we must accept all that it yields to our research; and observation every where gives, and shows every where, and above all things else, the unity of the understanding, the unity of the me.

Gall’s philosophy consists only in transmuting into a particular understanding each separate mode of the understanding, properly so called.

Descartes had already said, “There are in us as many faculties as there are truths to be known.... But I do not think that any useful application can be made of this way of thinking; and it seems to me rather more likely to be mischievous, by giving to the ignorant occasion for imagining an equal number of little entities in the soul.”

It may well be supposed that Gall, who in the word understanding sees nothing but an abstract word, expressive of the sum of our intellectual faculties, would also, in the word will, perceive nothing more than an abstract word, expressing the sum of our moral faculties.

He had given a definition of reason: “The result of the simultaneous action of all the intellectual faculties.” In the same way he defined will to be “the result of the simultaneous action of the superior intellectual faculties.” But Gall always deceives himself; for reason and will are not results—they are powers, and primary powers of thought.

Gall, in a manner equally singular, defines moral liberty or free will.

“Moral liberty,” says he, “is nothing more than the faculty of being determined, and of determining under motive.” Not so: liberty is precisely the power to determine against all motive. Locke well defined liberty as power: to be determined, is to allow one’s self to be determined—that is, to obey.

Gall says again, “Unlimited liberty supposes not only that man governs himself independently of all law, but that he is the creator of his own nature.” Not at all; it supposes that he may have choice—and in fact he does choose.

Lastly, Gall says, “A phenomenon such as that of absolute liberty, would be a phenomenon occurring without any cause whatever.” Why without cause? The cause is in the power of choosing—and this power is a fact.

Gall’s whole doctrine is one series of errors, which press upon each other cumulatively. He resolves that the part of the brain in which the understanding resides shall be divided into many small organs, distinct from each other; a physiological error. He decries the unity of the understanding, and looks upon the will and the reason as mere results—psycological errors. In the free will he perceives merely a compulsory determination, and consequently a mere result—this is a moral error.

Man’s liberty is a positive faculty, and not the simple passive result of the preponderance of one motive over another motive, of one organ over another organ.

Reason, will, liberty, are therefore, not as in Gall’s doctrine, positive faculties, active powers; or rather, they are the understanding itself. Reason, will, liberty, are in fact the understanding, as conceiving, willing, choosing, or deliberating.

The consciousness which feels itself to be one, feels itself free. And you will remark, that these two great facts given out by the inward sense, the consciousness, to wit, the unity of the understanding and the positive power of the free will, are precisely the two first facts denied by the philosophy of Gall.

And take good care to observe further, that if there be in us any thing that belongs to the consciousness, it is evidently and par excellence the sense of our personal unity; or what is more, the consciousness of our moral liberty.

Man is a moral force, only inasmuch as he is a free force. Any philosophy that attempts the liberty of man, attempts, without knowing it, morals itself. Man then is free, and as he is a moral agent only in proportion as he is free, it would seem that his liberty is the only attribute of his soul from which Providence has designed to remove all the boundaries.