KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



295 



PHRENOLOGY FOR THE MILLION. 



No. XLIIL— PHYSIOLOGY OF THE BRAIN, 



BY P. J, GALL, M.D. 



{Continued from Page 231.) 



To avoid all confusion or ideas, I shall treat 

 separately of Materialism, of Fatalism, of Moral 

 good and evil, and of Free-will. 



Of Materialism. 



By the term materialism, men designate things 

 entirely different. Sometimes, the materialist 

 pretends that there is no other existence than that 

 of matter, and that all the phenomena in the world 

 are simply the effects of matter. The ancient 

 church bestowed the name materialists on those 

 who taught that matter existed from all eternity, 

 and that, consequently, the Deity had not drawn 

 the world out of nothing. This sort of materialism 

 ordinarily leads to the denial of the existence of a 

 Supreme Intelligence, of a God ; and then it is con- 

 founded with atheism. It is not of such mate- 

 rialism that my doctrine is accused. If any one can 

 become an atheist, it is not the man who occupies 

 himself on a large scale with the study of nature ; 

 because, at every step, he meets phenomena which 

 he cannot explain by any of the known laws of 

 the material world. He perceives not only the 

 incomprehensible wonders of particular organisa- 

 tions, but also the wise connection of the whole. 

 Nothing in the universe is insulated. All worlds 

 have been placed in reciprocal relations ; inanimate 

 nature is so with living nature ; all living beings 

 are so with each other. Who, then, can mistake 

 a cause of all causes, a supreme law of all laws, 

 an intelligence of all intelligences, an ordainer of 

 all orders — in a word, a God ? 



Another species of materialism is professed by 

 those who maintain that man is not composed of 

 two substances essentially different ; that is, of a 

 body and a soul: that all the phenomena which 

 are ordinarily attributed to the soul, are only the 

 results of the combinations and of the forms of 

 matter ; or, that the soul is only a fluid of extreme 

 tenuity, diffused through the whole body, which 

 gives to each part its proper life. This second 

 species of materialism includes a doctrine not less 

 erroneous than the other, and thus destroys the 

 belief of the immortality of the souL Yet its par- 

 tisans would fain convince us that this consequence 

 is unfounded. "The principles of matter," say 

 they," are in their nature as eternal, as indestruc- 

 tible, as the spiritual substance ; these two sub- 

 stances can be annihilated only by an express 

 order of the Deity, and, consequently, there would 

 be nothing absurd or dangerous in thinking that 

 the immortal soul may be material. We ought, 

 on the contrary, still more to admire the Creator, 

 who has united so many qualities to matter, and 

 raised it to the faculty of thought and of will. 

 If," continue these philosophers, " we choose to 

 regard the soul and the body as two substances 

 totally different, we can no more explain the action 

 of one upon the other, than we can comprehend 

 how a material substance can possess thought ; so 

 that from the incomprehensibility of the last idea, 

 it does not follow that one doctrine is more true 



than the other. Hence," say they again, "men 

 for a long time have regarded thought as a property 

 of matter; and those, who teach the resurrection 

 of the body are equally convinced of the immor- 

 tality of matter. In fine," they add, " we can 

 gain only a very defective notion of matter, and a 

 purely negative notion of the soul, by represent- 

 ing to ourselves a substance deprived of all the 

 known properties of matter, and retaining the 

 faculties of thought and will ; while reason can no 

 more attain to the essence of matter than of mind, 

 and, consequently, we cannot reasonably main- 

 tain, that extension and other properties are incon- 

 sistent with the essence of the soul, nor that the 

 faculty of thinking is incompatible with the 

 essence of the body." 



My doctrine has nothing in common with this 

 hypothesis, nor, consequently, with this species of 

 materialism. I have always declared, that I make 

 no research into the nature of the soul and the 

 body, and that I do not wish to explain the essence 

 of any of these faculties. I confine myself to 

 phenomena. Now we see that in this world, no 

 faculty manifests itself without a material condi- 

 tion ; all the faculties, even those which we call 

 mental, act only by means of matter, and their ac- 

 tions can only be perceived by means of material 

 organs. If, then, I am to be called a materialist, 

 because I say that all the dispositions are innate, 

 and that their exercise depends on material organs, 

 it ought to be proved that in so saying I acknow- 

 ledge no other substance than that of matter, and 

 that I reject every other faculty. The observa- 

 tions which follow, will prove how unjust is this 

 inference. 



I call the material condition which renders the 

 exercise of a faculty possible, an organ. The 

 muscles and the bones are the material conditions 

 of motion, but are not the faculty which causes 

 motion ; the total organisation of the eye is the 

 material condition of sight, but is not the faculty 

 of seeing. I call a material condition, which ren- 

 ders the manifestation of a moral quality, or an 

 intellectual faculty possible, an organ oj the soul. 

 I say that man in this life, thinks and wills, by 

 means of the brain. But, if it be thence concluded 

 that the being, willing, and thinking, is the brain, 

 or that the brain is the being, willing, and think- 

 ing ; it is as if one should say, that the muscles 

 are the fsculty of motion ; that the organ of sight, 

 and the faculty of seeing, are the same thing. In 

 both cases the faculty is confounded with the 

 organ, and the organ with the faculty. 



This error is the more unpardonable, as it has 

 been committed and corrected very frequently. 

 St. Thomas answered in this manner, to those who 

 confounded the faculty and the instrument : 

 "Although the mind be not a corporeal faculty, the 

 functions of the mind, such as memory, thought, 

 imagination, cannot take place without the aid of 

 corporeal organs. Hence, when the oi'gans, from 

 any derangement, cannot exert their activity, the 

 functions of the mind are also deranged, and this 

 is what happens in phrensy, asphyxia, &c. Hence, 

 also, it happens, that a fortunate orgaiisation of 

 the human body has always, for its result, distin- 

 guished intellectual faculties." 



In the fourth century, St. Gregory of NysBus 

 compared the body of man to an instrument of 

 music. "It happens," says he, "to many skilful 



