KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



39 



their understanding, their will, their attention, 

 reasoning, desire, preference, liberty? Is it right, 

 that, in examining the nature and the origin of 

 the moral and intellectual faculties in man, we 

 should tnke no account of the same faculties in 

 animals? Can man, so long as he is an animal, 

 stand insulated from the rest of living nature? 

 Can he be governed by organic laws, opposed to 

 those which preside over the qualities and facul- 

 ties of the horse, the dog, the monkey? Do 

 animals see, hear, perceive odors, tastes, sounds, 

 objects, otherwise than we do? Do they propa- 

 gate, do they love their young, are they cou- 

 rageous, mild, vindictive, cunning, otherwise than 

 man? 



Is it allowable that philosophers, while boasting 

 to penetrate into the essence of the soul, should 

 treat of man by piecemeal, and confine them- 

 selves to making long treatises on the soul, as an 

 insulated being ? exercising its functions by 

 itself, making use of the body, at most, as a 

 means of communication between itself and the 

 world; when, from the moment of conception to 

 the last sigh, everything indicates that in this 

 world, the soul is in dependence on the material 

 organs ? 



With these pretended general faculties of the 

 soul, would not the moral and intellectual cha- 

 racter of men and animals be the ever-varied 

 sport of chance? How, from such indeterminate 

 operations of the soul, could there constantly 

 result in individuals of the same species the 

 same instincts, the same inclinations, the same 

 total of determinate intellectual faculties and 

 moral qualities? 



" But you will not persuade us," say my 

 readers, " that the faculties recognised by philo- 

 sophers as faculties of the soul, are chimeras. 

 W ho can contest the principle that under- 

 standing and will, sensation, attention, compa- 

 rison, judgment, memory, imagination, desire, 

 liberty, are real operations of the soul; or, if 

 you will, of the brain?" 



Yes, without doubt, these faculties are real; 

 but, in my opinion, they are only abstractions 

 and generalities; they are not applicable to the 

 detailed study of a species, or an individual. 

 Every man, except an idiot, enjoys all these fa- 

 culties. Yet all men have not the same intel- 

 lectual or moral character. We need faculties, 

 the different distribution of which shall deter- 

 mine the different species of animals, and their 

 different proportions of which explain the dif- 

 ference in individuals. All bodies have weight, 

 all have extension, all are impenetrable in a 

 philosophical sense ; but all bodies are not gold or 

 copper, such a plant, or such an animal. Of what 

 use to a naturalist are the abstract and general 

 notions of weight, extent, impenetrability ? By 

 confining ourselves to these abstractions, we 

 should always remain in ignorance of all branches 

 of physics, and natural history. 



This is precisely what has happened to the phi- 

 losophers with their generalities. From most 

 ancient to the most modern, they have not made 

 a step further, one than another, in the exact 

 knowledge of the true nature of man, of his in- 

 clinations and talents, of the source and motive 

 of his determinations. Hence, there are as many 

 philosophers as pretended philosophers ; hence, 



that vacillation, that uncertainty in our insti- 

 tutions, especially in education and criminal 

 legislation. 



I will not, then, busy myself with the facul- 

 ties of the soul, as philosophers profess them. 

 We shall see, when the time comes to exhibit my 

 philosophy of man, that these faculties arc only 

 attributes common to all propensities and all 

 talents. The different instincts, mechanical apti- 

 tudes, inclinations, sentiments, and talents of 

 man and animals, will, form the subject of my 

 researches and meditations. The instinct of pro- 

 pagation, that of the love which both man and 

 animals bear to their young, the instinct of 

 attachment and friendship, of self-defence, and 

 courage, the carnivorous instinct, and the pro- 

 pensity to destruction, the sentiment of property, 

 and the inclination to theft, cunning and 

 prudence, pride and boldness, vanity and am- 

 bition, circumspection and foresight, educability,* 

 the sense of localities, or relations of space, the 

 memory of words and of persons, the sense 

 of spoken language, or the talent for philology, 

 the sense of the relation of colors, or the talent 

 for painting, the sense of the relations for sounds, 

 or the talent for music; the sense of the relations of 

 numbers, or the ta'ent for arithmetic and mathe- 

 matics, the sense of mechanics, of drawing, of 

 sculpture, of architecture, comparative sagacity, 

 the metaphysical spirit or tendency, the caustic 

 spirit or that of repartee, the talent of induction, 

 the poetical talent, the moral sense and bene- 

 volence, or mildness, the talent of imitation, of 

 mimicry or acting; the sentiment of religion and 

 of God, firmness of character ;— these are the 

 qualities and the faculties which I call moral and 

 intellectual dispositions. It is these dispo- 

 sitions, these qualities, and these faculties, which 

 form the total of the fundamental forces of the 

 soul, the special functions of the brain; it is 

 these forces which I hold to be innate in man, 

 and, in part, in animals, and the manifestation of 

 which is subordinate to organisation; it is these 

 qualities, and these faculties, the history of 

 whose discovery I shall exhibit, together with 

 their natural history, their modifications in a 

 sound state, and in the state of alienation, the 

 seat of their organ in the brain, and its external 

 appearance on the head or skull, &c. All these 

 treatises will be accompanied with an application 

 to human institutions, to education, morals, legis- 

 lation, medicine, &c. 



The work will be terminated by considera- 

 tions on the characteristic forms of the head in 

 each nation, on physiognomy, pathognomony, 

 and pantomime, on the internal sources of imi- 

 tation in general, and of the imitation of each 

 affection, each sentiment, each passion, in par- 

 ticular; on universal language, the philosophy of 



* According 1 to Spurzheim, this is " eventuality," a 

 much more proper name. 



" In comparing animals with men," says Spurzheim, 

 " and one kind of animal with another, Gall found that 

 tame animals have fuller foreheads than wild ones, and 

 that animals are generally tameable, as the forehead is 

 more largely developed ; he therefore called it the organ 

 of educahility. But I conceive that Gall here attributes 

 to a single faculty, manifestations which depend on intel- 

 lect generally. The title educability, is evidently bad, 

 seeing that every faculty is susceptible of cultivation ; in 

 other words, capable of exercise and direction." 



