286 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



existence or their seat." {Rapport it I'lnstitut sur un Memoire de 

 MM. Gall et Spurzheim, p. 5.) 



It is, I think, a httle rash to fix Hmits to the conceptions which the 

 human intellect may reach, or to specify the boundaries and the powers 

 of that intellect. How indeed can we know that man will never 

 obtain such knowledge, nor penetrate these secrets of nature ? Do 

 we not know that he has already discovered many important truths, 

 some of which seemed to be entirely beyond him 1 



It is more rash, I repeat, to try to determine positively what man 

 may know and what he never can know, than to study the facts, 

 examine the relations existing between various physical bodies, draw 

 all possible inferences, and then make continuous efforts to discover 

 the causes of natural phenomena ; even when the coarseness of our 

 senses does not allow us to reach anything more than moral certainties. 



If we were concerned with objects outside nature, with phenomena 

 that are neither physical nor the result of physical causes, the subject 

 would doubtless be beyond the human intellect ; for it can never 

 obtain a grasp of anything external to nature. 



Now, since in this work we are dealing mainly with animals, and since 

 observation teaches us that there are among them some which possess 

 the faculty of feeling, which form ideas and judgments and carry out 

 intelligent acts, which, in short, have memory, I wish to ask what is 

 the pecuUar entity called mind in the passage cited above ; a remark- 

 able entity which is alleged to be in relation with the acts of the brain, 

 so that the functions of this organ are of a different order from those 

 of the other organs of the individual. 



In this factitious entity, which is not Uke anything else in nature, I 

 see a mere invention for the purpose of resolving the difficulties that 

 follow from inadequate knowledge of the laws of nature : it is much 

 the same thing as those universal catastrophes, to which recourse is 

 had for giving answers to certain geological questions. These questions 

 puzzle us because the procedure of nature, and the different kinds of 

 transformations that she is always producing, are not yet ascertained. 



With regard to the traces impressed on the brain by ideas and 

 thoughts, what matters it that these traces cannot be perceived by 

 our senses, if, as is agreed, observations exist which leave us in no 

 doubt as to their presence and their seat : do we see any more clearly 

 the way in which other organs perform their functions, and, to take 

 a single example, do we see any more clearly how the nerves set the 

 muscles in action ? Yet we cannot doubt that nervous influence is 

 indispensable for the performance of muscular movements. 



In the sphere of nature, knowledge is extremely important for us 

 and yet very difficult to obtain in any better form than moral 



