movement, and not the voluntary, because the 

 brain is not yet in a state to think." 



Bichat likewise says, " We may conclude with 

 confidence, that in the fetus the animal life is 

 nothing; that all the acts attached to this age, 

 are dependent on the organisation. The fetus 

 has, so to speak, nothing in its phenomena of 

 what especially characterises an animal ; its ex- 

 istence is the same as that of vegetables. In the 

 cruel alternative of sacrificing the chihi, or of 

 exposing the mother to almost certain death, 

 the choice cannot be doubtful. The destruction 

 is that of a living, not of an animated being." 



Yes, doubtless, it is cruel to sacrifice an un- 

 fortunate mother to a feeble fetus, still menaced 

 with dangers without number, and on whose 

 life it is still so difficult to calculate. Nothing 

 but certain religious notions, or the reasons of 

 an ambitious policy, could ever recommend the 

 dire counsel of immolating the mother in the 

 most touching moment of her life, to the preca- 

 rious existence of the infant. Still, as the ex- 

 pressions of Bichat, " the act involves the de- 

 struction of a living being, and not of an animate 

 being," might lead to unlawful abuses, I consider 

 it my duty as a plrysiologist, to rectify the argu- 

 ments of Bichat and Prochaska. 



I have said that neither the organic, nor the 

 animal life developed itself fully at once, or 

 enjoyed simultaneously all its activity. If the 

 possession of organic life by the fetus were 

 contested, because several of the functions of the 

 viscera have not yet manifested themselves, the 

 conclusion would doubtless be severely criticised. 

 Is it, then, more reasonable to refuse to the fetus 

 or to the new-born infant, the possession of ani- 

 mal life, because his brain is not yet formed 

 for all its propensities, all its talents, and for the 

 faculty of thinking? If physiologists had sooner 

 known the plurality of the cerebral organs, and 

 of their functions; if they had distinguished 

 the different degrees of consciousness and sen- 

 sation, the desires and necessities, from thought 

 or reflection, they would have been cautious 

 about affirming that there exists no animal life 

 in the fetus or new-born child. The brain of 

 these beings is not, indeed, sufficiently developed 

 to possess ideas, to combine and compare them ; 

 but, if this degree of perfection were necessary 

 in order to allow them sensation and desires, it 

 would be very difficult to determine at what 

 period animal life does commence, and when the 

 destruction of an infant becomes an act com- 

 mitted on an animate being, and, conse- 

 quently, criminal. The infant has not yet the 

 faculties of reflection and imagination; he 

 feels as yet no affection for those of a different 

 sex; he is not yet ambitious, &c. ; but can we 

 refuse to him the faculty of perceiving, that of 

 memory, of inclinations, of aversions, of joy and 

 sorrow? If the noblest functions of the brain 

 require a certain development and a certain 

 consistence, who shall determine the degree of 

 development, and of consistence, necessary for 

 functions of an inferior order? The new-born 

 child manifests by the outline of his figure, by 

 his movements, and his cries, the states of hap- 

 piness and of suffering; he equally manifests, 

 too, the desire of nursing, and so of other 

 sensations. 



At all events, this work will become an in- 

 controvertible proof, that there exists within us 

 a far more fruitful source of sensations than 

 impressions made on the senses ; and conse- 

 quently that it is altogether false, to assert that 

 animal life commences only with the action of 

 the external senses. 



These considerations are sufficient to prove, 

 that the laws of animal organisation by no means 

 support the dangerous principle avowed by 

 certain physiologists. 



Of the Special Functions of the Brain, or those 



which belong to Animal Life in Man and 



Animals, 



In' the natural order of the gradation of 

 animals, the nervous system, which presides over 

 the voluntary movements, comes after the great 

 sympathetic nerve. It consists of the spinal 

 marrow enclosed in the vertebral column. And 

 from it, to the right and left, before and behind, 

 issue as many pairs of nerves as there are 

 vertebras of which the column is composed. In 

 caterpillars, &c, the ganglions and the pairs of 

 nerves proceeding from them, correspond in 

 number to the segments of which the animal 

 consists. 



All these pairs of nerves go to the muscles, and 

 give them the faculty of exercising, motion. But 

 all these nerves, at least in the more perfect 

 animals, must be considered rather as con- 

 ductors of the cerebral influence, than as inde- 

 pendent agents: their function ceases, as soon 

 as their free communication with the brain is in- 

 terrupted. As, in a healthy state, these functions 

 are exercised with consciousness, they are held 

 to make part of animal life. 



Of a higher order, but always dependent on 

 the brain, are the functions of the external 

 senses. I shall have occasion, presently, to 

 determine better than has yet been done, the 

 functions proper to each sense. 



I come, then, to the noblest nervous system, 

 the brain, and its peculiar functions. 



As to the structure of the brain, suffice it now 

 to say, that the whole cavity of the cranium or 

 head, beginning with the eyes and ending with 

 the neck, is filled with the cerebral mass. Like 

 the rest of the nervous system, it is composed of 

 gelatinous substance, and of an infinity of ner- 

 vous filaments, which thence derive their origin. 

 It is this same brain which governs both the vo- 

 luntas movements and the functions of the 

 senses. It is this same brain, of which, hitherto, 

 neither the structure nor the functions have been 

 understood, and which yet includes all the 

 organs of the forces, moral and intellectual, both 

 in men and in animals. 



In order to conduct my readers by a luminous 

 path, I shall first consider these moral and intel- 

 lectual forces as all philosophers and physiolo- 

 gists consider them. I shall then show how 

 they are defined and distinguished by the 

 vulgar, and by common sense, which certainly, 

 in this case, is good sense. The great propor- 

 tion of philosophers agree in recognising in the 

 soul only two faculties, the understanding and 

 the will; the understanding, or capacity of 

 receiving ideas; the will, or capacity of receiving 

 different inclinations: even when they speak of 



