VIEWS OF CABANIS, GALL, ETC. 319 



more or less languid or brilliant; and the affections more or less vivid 

 and benevolent, or the contrary; hence the expressions melancholy 1 and 

 hypochondriasis? assigned to the states of mind characterizing those 

 constitutions, which denote that the cause must be referred to the 

 abdominal organs. The origin of the alternations of inactivity and 

 energy in the intellect, of benevolent and irascible fits of humour, as 

 well as of insanity, is also referable, he says, to the abdominal viscera. 

 Hence M. Cabanis concludes it is evident, that the abdominal organs 

 are the source of fortuitous and abnormous impressions which excite 

 the brain to irregular acts ; and is it not, he asks, probable, that 

 what takes place in excess, in these morbid movements, may happen to 

 a less and more appropriate extent in health ; and that thus impressions 

 may emanate in a continuous manner from every organ of the body, 

 which may be indispensable to the production of the mental and moral 

 acts? M. Cabanis, therefore, considers that the axiom of Aristotle 

 should be extended; and that the statue of Condillac is incomplete, in 

 not having internal organs for the emanation of internal impressions, 

 which are the materials of the instincts. In this way he accounts for 

 the instincts, which, by some metaphysicians, have been looked upon as 

 judgments, executed in the ordinary manner, but so rapidly, that the 

 process has ceased from habit to be perceptible. Finally, he remarks, 

 there is a ratio between the duration and intensity of the intellectual 

 results and the kind of impressions, which have constituted their mate- 

 rials. All the mental and moral acts, for instance, that are derived from 

 impressions engendered in the very centre of the nervous system or in the 

 brain, such as those of the maniac, are the strongest and most dur- 

 able. After these come the instincts, of which the internal impressions 

 are the materials: they are powerful and constant; and lastly, the 

 intellectual acts, which are more transient, because they emanate from 

 external impressions, themselves fickle, and somewhat superficial. 



According to the views, then, of M. Cabanis and his followers, 

 amongst the organic conditions of the mental and moral manifestations 

 must be placed, not only those of the encephalon and external senses, 

 but of the different organs of the body, which furnish the various internal 

 impressions. The influence of the external senses on the intellectual 

 and moral developement has already been canvassed : we have seen, 

 that they are only secondary instruments for making us acquainted with 

 external bodies, and that they in nowise regulate the intellectual and 

 moral sphere. The notion of internal impressions is ingenious, and has 

 led to important improvements in the mode of investigating the different 

 mental and moral phenomena. It was suggested, as has been shown, 

 by M. Cabanis, in consequence of the external senses appearing to him 

 insufficient to explain all the phenomena. By MM. Gall, Adelon, 3 and 

 others, however, all these cases are considered explicable by the vary- 

 ing condition of the brain itself. In the foetus in utero ; in the new- 

 born animal, there are already parts of the brain, they say, sufficiently 

 developed ; and, accordingly, we witness the actions to which reference 



1 From ^ue\af, " black," and ^oxj, " bile." a Disease of the hypochondres. 



3 Physiologic de 1'Homme, 2de i&dit., i. 251. 



