552 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ture of our warrant for asserting it. Beyond pointing out here a 

 cracked brick, and there a coin set askew, he merely makes a futile 

 attempt to show that the foundation is not natural rock, but concrete. 

 From his objections I may, indeed, derive much satisfaction. That 

 a competent critic, obviously anxious to do all the mischief he can, 

 and not over-scrupulous about the means he uses, has done so little, 

 may be taken as evidence that the fabric of conclusions attacked will 

 not be readily overthrown. 



■♦♦ ♦■ 



PHYSIOLOGY OF THE PASSIONS. 



By FEENAND PAPILLON. 



TRANSLATED FEOM THE FEENCH, BY J. FITZGEEALD, A. M. 



IF there is to-day a fact demonstrated by reason reflexly contem- 

 plating itself no less than by attentive observation of the entire 

 development of human knowledge, it is the close interdependence of 

 all natural forces and operations — a solidarity so firmly knit that it is 

 impossible to study any one point of detail without reference to the 

 sum total of the phenomena. The sciences, long kept apart from one 

 another, now all tend to come together, to fuse into one another, for 

 the explication of facts. It is the exigencies of the science of man 

 that, above all, have determined this irresistible attraction, this sys- 

 tematic confluence of branches of knowledge the most diverse toward 

 one centre, where they attain their full value and their full signifi- 

 cance. Man brings together within himself, as Buffon says, all the 

 powers of Nature : he is the centre to which all things are referred — 

 a world in miniature ; no amount of analysis can come amiss, if we 

 are to resolve the endless complexity of this so multiple being ; and 

 we need all the light we can get, in order to illumine the darkness 

 that surrounds this mysterious creature. If, as Leibnitz thinks, one 

 single monad — an imperceptible atom — is a mirror of the total beauty 

 of the universe, how much more truly may this be said of that singu- 

 lar and diversified assemblage of monads, man ! Surely it would ill 

 become us to disparage the psychologist, whose study has been to get 

 at a knowledge of man solely by observation of the phenomena of 

 consciousness ; or the physiologist, who has attempted to find an ex- 

 plication solely in organic phenomena. Both of these have, with 

 much toil, broken the ground and prepared a field where investigation 

 may henceforth bear fruit; but, precisely because the soil is now 

 ready, it is to be hoped that the controversies and antagonisms of the 

 past will give way to a good understanding, more conducive to a true 

 knowledge of man's nature ; and that inquiry, instead of diverging 



