INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL FACULTIES. 321 



PHYSIOLOGY OF THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL FACULTIES. 



When the organ of the intellect is exposed by accident, and we regard 

 it during the reception of a sensation, the exercise of volition, or during 

 any intellectual or moral operation, the action is found to be too mole- 

 cular to admit of detection. At times, during violent mental conten- 

 tion, a redness of the surface of the brain has been apparent, as if the 

 blood had been forced more violently into the vessels; but no light has 

 been thrown by such examination on the wonderful actions that consti- 

 tute thought. We ought not, however, to be surprised at this, when 

 we reflect, that the most careful examination of a nerve does not convey 

 to us the slightest notion how an impression is received by it from an 

 external body; and how such impression is conveyed to the brain. All 

 that we witness in these cases is the result; and we are, therefore, com- 

 pelled to study the intellectual and moral acts by themselves, without 

 considering the cerebral movements concerned in their production. 

 Such study is the basis of a particular science metaphysics, ideology, 

 or philosophy. Apart from organization, this subject 'does not belong 

 to physiology; but as some of the points of classification, &c., are con- 

 cerned in questions that will properly fall under consideration, it may 

 be well to give a short sketch of the chief objects of metaphysical 

 inquiry; which are, indeed, intimately connected in many of their bear- 

 ings, as commonly treated by the metaphysician, with physiology. 

 M. Broussais has considered, that metaphysics and physiology should 

 be kept distinct; and that all the investigations of the metaphysician 

 should be confined to the ideal. " I wish metaphysicians, since they so 

 style themselves," he remarks, somewhat splenetically, "would never 

 treat of physiology ; that they would only occupy themselves with ideas 

 as ideas, and not as modifications of our organs; that they would never 

 speak either of the brain, the nerves, the temperaments, or of the influ- 

 ence of climates, of localities, or of regimen; that they would never 

 inquire whether there are innate ideas, or whether they come through 

 the medium of the senses; that they would not undertake to follow their 

 developements according to age or state of health ; for I am convinced 

 that they cannot reason justly on these points. Such questions belong 

 to physiologists, who can unite a knowledge of the moral nature with 

 that of the structure of the human body." "It is possible," he adds, 

 "that particular ci*umstances may oblige them to introduce physiolo- 

 gical considerations into their calculations; as when it is necessary to 

 estimate the influence of certain laws or customs in relation to temper- 

 ature, to the nature of the soil, the prevailing diseases, &c., but then, 

 they should avail themselves of the experience of physiologists and 

 physicians." 1 A more appropriate recommendation would be that the 

 metaphysician should make a point of becoming acquainted with physio- 

 logical facts and reasoning; and, conversely, that metaphysics should 

 form a part of the study of every physiologist. 



The cerebral manifestations comprise two very different kinds of 

 acts; the intellectual and the moral; the former being the source of 



1 De 1'Irritation et de la Folie, Paris, 1828: or Dr. Cooper's translation, Columbia, S. C., 

 1831. 



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