BUFF ON FULLER QUOTATIONS. 133 



sufficiently apparent. For how can a part which cannot 

 feel a soft inactive substance like the brain be the 

 very organ of perception and movement ? How can 

 this soft and perceptionless part not only receive im- 

 pressions, but preserve them for a length of time, and 

 transmit their undulatory movements (en propage les 

 ebranlements) throughout all the solid and feeling parts 

 of the body ? It may perhaps be maintained with 

 Descartes and M. de Peyronie that the principle of 

 sensation does not reside in the brain, but in the pineal 

 gland or in the corpus callosum ; but a glance at the 

 conformation of the brain itself will suffice to show that 

 these parts do not join on to the nerves, but that they 

 are entirely surrounded by those parts of the brain 

 which do not feel, and are so separated from the nerves 

 that they cannot receive any movement from them ; 

 whence it follows that this second supposition is as 

 groundless as the first." " 



What, then, asks Buffon, is the use of the brain ? 

 Man, the quadrupeds, and birds all have larger brains, 

 and at the same time more extended perceptions, than 

 fishes, insects, and those other living beings whose 

 brains are smaller in proportion. "When the brain 

 is compressed, there is suspension of all power of move- 

 ment. If this part is not the source of our powers 

 of motion, why is it so necessary and so essential? 

 Why, again, does it seem so proportionate in each 

 animal to the amount of perceiving power which that 

 animal possesses ? 



" I think I can answer this question in a satisfactory 

 * Tom. vii. p. 15, 1758. 



