ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 47 1 



the physiologists of the eighteenth century, notably 

 Haller, had demonstrated that the properties of the Prc a ^ ed b 

 physical organism culminated in those of the nervous H 

 system irritability and sensibility. The phenomenon 

 of sensibility, of producing and combining as it were 

 digesting sensations, was thus the function of the brain, 

 or the central organ of the nervous system, as other pro- 

 cesses were the functions of other organs or physiological 

 apparatus. Cabanis was led on from medical l studies, 

 as Locke had been before him, to the study of mental 

 and moral subjects, and he formed the conception of a 

 science of Man, or Anthropology, 2 divided into Physio- 

 logy, the Analysis of Ideas, and Morals, which would 

 ultimately be of as much use for the practical purposes 

 of education and government as the exact study of other 

 natural phenomena then cultivated in France for the 

 purposes of medicine, industry, and material civilisation. 

 Although it may be admitted that Cabanis created 3 

 physiological psychology, and that he cast far-reaching 

 glances into the neighbouring departments of animal, 



the line of philosophical thought 

 so clearly indicated by Cabanis 

 was not more systematically de- 

 veloped in France at the time, 

 and, like many other lines of re- 

 search which originated in that 

 country, had to be re-discovered 

 fifty years later in other countries. 

 The question is important, and 

 may occupy us later on. See, 

 however, regarding the disfavour 

 into which the " moral " sciences 

 fell owing to political reasons, vol. 

 i. p. 149 of this work. 



1 Cabanis blames in Condillac and 

 Helvetius that they knew noth- 

 ing of physiology. " S'ils eussent 



mieux connu I'&onomie animale, 

 le premier aurait-il pu soutenir le 

 systeme de I'e'galite' des esprits ? le 

 second n'aurait-il pas senti que 

 1'ame, telle qu'il 1'envisage, est une 

 faculte", mais non pas un etre; et 

 que, gi c'est un etre, a ce titre elle 

 ne saurait avoir plusieurs des 

 quality's qu'il lui attribue " (ibid., 

 p. 66). 



2 " C'est ce que les Allemands 

 appellent 1'anthropologie ; et sous 

 ce titre ils comprennent en effet 

 les trois objets principaux dont 

 nous parlous" (Cabanis, ' CEuvres,' 

 vol. iii. p. 40). 



3 Picavet, loc. cit., p. 292. 



