318 MENTAL FACULTIES. 



quoted from Galen, of the young kid, scarcely extruded from the ma- 

 ternal womb, and yet able to select a branch of the cytisus from other 

 vegetables presented to it? Man and animals, continues M. Cabanis, 

 during the course of their existence, experience mental changes as 

 remarkable as they are frequent; yet nothing in the condition of the 

 senses can account for such difference. For example, at the period of 

 puberty, a new appetite is added ; and this, even, when the being is kept 

 in a complete state of isolation. This, he argues, it is impossible to 

 refer to any change in the external senses ; which, if they furnished the 

 materials at all, must have been doing so from early infancy ; and he 

 concludes, that the difference observable in the mental manifestations, 

 according to sex, temperament, climate, state of health or disease, re- 

 gimen, &c., cannot be referable to the senses, as they remain the same; 

 and, consequently, we must look elsewhere for the causes of such differ- 

 ence. These M. Cabanis conceives to be the movements by which the 

 organs of internal life execute their functions. Such movements, he 

 says, although deep-seated and imperceptible, are transmitted to the 

 brain, and furnish that organ with a fresh set of materials. At puberty, 

 when the testicles become developed, and their function is established 

 by the secretion of sperm, the organic movements during the secretion 

 are the materials of the new desires, which appear at that age. These 

 impressions he calls internal, in contradistinction to the external, or 

 those furnished by the five senses ; and he considers, that whilst the 

 external senses serve as the basis for all that we include under the term 

 intellect, the internal impressions are the materials of what are called 

 instincts; and, as the organs of internal life, whence the internal im- 

 pressions proceed, vary more than the senses, according to age, sex, 

 temperament, climate, regimen, &c., it is more easy to find in them 

 organic modifications, which coincide with those exhibited by the mind 

 under those various circumstances. 



In proof of these opinions, he adduces, besides others, the following 

 specious affirmations. First. As the venereal appetite appears in man 

 and animals synchronously with the developement of the testicles, and 

 is never exhibited when they are removed in infancy, we have reason 

 to believe, that the impressions, which constitute the materials for this 

 new catenation of ideas, must proceed from the testicles. Secondly. 

 Numerous facts demonstrate, that the condition of the uterus has much 

 influence on the mental and moral manifestations of the female. The 

 period of the developement of that organ, for example, is the one at 

 which new feelings arise, and all those manifestations 'assume more 

 activity; and there is generally a ratio between their activity and that 

 of the uterus. If the state of the uterus be modified, as it is at the 

 menstrual period, or during pregnancy, or after delivery, the mind is so 

 likewise. All these facts ought to induce a belief, he thinks, that im- 

 pressions are continually emanating from that organ, which, by their 

 variety, occasion the diversity in the state of mental and moral facul- 

 ties observed in those different cases. Thirdly. It is impossible in the 

 hypochondriac and melancholic constitutions, to mistake the influence 

 exerted upon the mind by the abdominal organs. According as they 

 execute their functions more or less perfectly, the thinking faculty is 



