Part 7

Under the title of fundamental faculties, Gall confounds all things together—the passions, the instinct, the intellectual faculties. These faculties, which are at the basis of his whole philosophy, he knows not even how to denominate them. He calls them instincts, inclinations, senses, memories, &c. There is a memory or sense of things, a memory or sense of persons, &c. He confounds the instinct that leads certain animals to live in elevated regions with pride, which is a moral sentiment in man; the carnivorous instinct with courage; he believes that conscience, (which is the soul judging itself,) is nothing but a modification of a particular sense, the sense of benevolence, &c.

The hesitation of his mind is visible every where.

“I leave it to the reader,” says he, “to decide whether the fundamental faculty to which this penchant relates, should be denominated sense of elevation, self-esteem,” &c.

“To speak correctly,” continues he, “firmness is neither a penchant nor a faculty; it is a mode-of-being, which gives to a man a distinctive quality, which is called character.”

Finally, he writes the following paragraph, perhaps the most singular one that he ever wrote, for it shows in the clearest manner how little confidence he had in his own psycology.

“If we are materialists because we do not admit the existence of a unit-faculty of the soul, but recognise several primitive faculties, we ask whether the ordinary division of the faculties of the soul into understanding, will, attention, memory, judgment, imagination, and affections and passions, expresses nothing more than a primitive unit-faculty? If it be asserted that all these faculties are merely modifications of a sole and same faculty, what can hinder us from making the same assertion as to the faculties whose existence we do admit.”

To be sure, nothing prevents you. Or rather every thing constrains you to do so. There is therefore one sole faculty, of which all the other faculties are but moods. You return then to the common philosophy, and consequently you no longer possess a peculiar philosophy.

The problem proposed by Gall is at the same time physiological, psycological, and anatomical.

In our first article an account has been given of Gall’s physiology, and it has been shown to be generally disproved by direct experiment. In the present one his psycology has been examined, and it is confuted by the consciousness (le sens intime). It only remains for us now to examine his anatomy.

III.

OF GALL.

THE ORGANS.

Of all Gall’s writings, his anatomy is that which has been most talked of, and yet it is the part least known.

In the year 1808, Gall read to the first class of the Institute a memoir on the anatomy of the brain; and M. Cuvier made a report upon that memoir. But neither in that memoir nor in the report do we find one word of special anatomy, of secret anatomy, of what might be called anatomy of the Doctrine; or, in other terms, and as it would be expressed at the present day, of phrenological anatomy.

The anatomy of Gall’s memoir is nothing but a very ordinary anatomy. He insists that the cerebral nerves, all of them without exception, rise upwards from the medulla oblongata towards the encephalon; that the cineritious matter produces the white matter: he divides the fibres of the brain into divergent and convergent; he supposes that each convolution of this organ, instead of being a full and solid mass, as is generally thought, is merely a fold of nervous or medullary fibres, &c. &c.

Such are the questions discussed by Gall; and it is sufficiently clear that, whatever side we take upon these questions, his doctrine assuredly would neither gain nor lose any thing.

Whether such or such a nerve ascends or descends; whether the white matter is produced by the gray; or whether, which is, to say the least, quite as probable, this be nonsense; whether this or that fibre goes out or comes in, diverges or converges, &c. &c. the doctrine of the plurality of brains, the doctrine of individual intelligences, will be neither more nor less true, more nor less doubtful.

M. Cuvier, in his report, observed: “It is essential to repeat, were it merely for the information of the public, that the anatomical questions we have been considering, have no immediate and necessary connexion with the physiological doctrines taught by M. Gall, as to the functions and relative volume of different parts of the brain; and that all that we have inquired into as to the structure of the brain, might be either true or false, without affording the least conclusion in favour of or against the doctrine.”

It is necessary not to make any mistake as to the real point of the question. Gall’s doctrine goes to establish one and only one thing, to wit, the plurality of intelligences and the plurality of brains. That is what constitutes the special and peculiar doctrine; that is to say, different from the common doctrine, which admits but one understanding and a single brain. Whatever goes to prove the plurality of understandings and brains belongs to Gall’s doctrine; and whatever does not tend to prove the plurality of understandings and brains is in opposition to that doctrine.

Gall’s works then really contain two very distinct anatomies: one is a general anatomy, which has nothing in particular to do with his doctrine; the other is a special anatomy, which, supposing it to be true, would constitute the basis of his doctrine.

Now, a great deal has been said about Gall’s general anatomy; but as to his special anatomy, I know of no one who has spoken of it. Gall himself says as little as possible about it. In other matters he tells his opinions both very clearly and very positively: in this particular we are obliged to guess at them.

When Gall, in his psycology, substitutes the faculties for the understanding, he defines those faculties. He defines them, as we have already seen, to be individual intelligences. How happens it, then, that in his anatomy, when he substitutes the organs of the brain for the brain itself, he does not define these organs? How strange! Gall’s whole doctrine, all phrenology, rests upon the organs of the brain; for, without distinct cerebral organs, there can be no independent faculties; and without independent faculties there can be no phrenology: and Gall does not say, nor has any phrenologist said for him, what is the thing called a cerebral organ.

The truth is: Gall never had any settled opinion upon what he called the organs of the brain; he never saw those organs, and he imagined them for the use of his faculties. He did what so many others have done. He commenced with imagining a hypothesis, and then he imagined an anatomy to suit his hypothesis.

When the doctrine of animal spirits was believed, the brain was composed of pipes and tubes to convey these spirits.

“The cortical substance which is found in the hemispheres of the brain,” says Pourfour du Petit, “furnishes the whole of the medullary portion, which is a mere collection of an infinite number of pipes.”

“The small arteries of the cortical part of the brain,” says Haller, “transmit a spirituous liquor into the medullary and nervous tubes.”

It is evident that the organs of Gall have no more real existence than the pipes of Pourfour du Petit, or the tubes of Haller. They are two structures that have been imagined, as suitable for two hypotheses.

In searching for the primary idea, the secret notion that led Gall to his doctrine of the plurality of the intelligences, I detect it in the analogy that he supposed to exist between the functions of the senses and the faculties of the soul.