470 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



Cabanis's 

 simile. 



idea of those operations from which thought arises, we 

 must consider the brain as a particular organ, destined 

 specially to produce it in the same way as the stomach 

 and the intestines are there to perform digestion, the 

 liver to filter the bile, the parotid, maxillary, and sub- 

 lingual glands to prepare the salivary juice." 



The argument which led Cabanis to draw this parallel 

 between the functions of the brain and those of other 

 organs of the human body was based upon the philo- 

 sophy of Locke, which had been domiciled in France by 

 Condillac and Helvetius. This philosophy, in its popular 

 version, taught that all our thoughts and ideas were 

 ultimately made up of sensations.-^ On the other side. 



activity could be " explained 

 through the structure of the brain, 

 as secretion can be explained from 

 the structure of a gland " ( ' Reden,' 

 vol. i. p. 129). 



^ Cabanis (1757-1808), in the pre- 

 face to the 'Rapports,' &c., p. 11, 

 gives a list of contemporary French 

 writers who, following in the line 

 of Locke, to whom " philosophy is 

 indebted for the greatest and the 

 most useful impulse," have taken 

 up different sides of the doctrine. 

 Of their writings a very clear and 

 exhaustive analysis will be found 

 in M. Picavet's ' Les Ideologues, 

 Essai sur I'histoire des iddes et 

 des theories scieutifiques, philoso- 

 phiques, religieuses, kc, en France 

 depuis 1789' (Paris, 1891). Ca- 

 banis's own position is very clearly 

 defined (p. 16) when he says that 

 " Les operations de I'intelligence et 

 de la volonte se trouveraient cou- 

 fondues h, leur origine avec les 

 autres mouvements vitaux : le prin- 

 cipe des sciences morales, et par 

 consequence ces sciences elles- 

 memes rentreraient dans le domaine 

 de la physique ; elles ne seraient 



plus qu'une branche de I'histoire 

 naturelle de I'homme : I'art d'y 

 verifier les observations, d'y tenter 

 les experiences, et d'en tirer tous les 

 resultats certains qu'elles peuvent 

 fournir, ne dillereraient en rien 

 des moyens qui sont journelle- 

 ment employes avec la plus entiere 

 et la plus juste confiance dans les 

 sciences pratiques dont la certitude 

 est le moins contestee." This was 

 written in 1802. M. Picavet says 

 of Cabanis with much truth : 

 " Le continuateur d'Hippocrate, de 

 Descartes et des philosophes du 

 XVIII™*' siecle, a ^t^ un precurseur 

 de Lewes et de Preyer, de Schopen- 

 hauer et de Hartmaiin, comme de 

 Lamarck, de Darwin et de bien 

 d'autres peuseurs qui appartien- 

 nent aux ecoles les plus diflerentes, 

 et ne soupwnnent quelquefois 

 meme pas que les idees dont ils 

 sont partis leurs sont venues in- 

 directement, mais par des inter- 

 mediaires authentiques, de I'auteur 

 des ' Rapports du physique et du 

 moral'" ('Les Ideologues,' p. 264). 

 M. Picavet also gives valuable ex- 

 planations how it came about that 



