PHEE^OLOGY FOE THE MILLION. 



No, XXXVI. 



PHYSIOLOGY OF THE 

 BRAIN. 



BY F. J. GALL, M.D. 



{Continued from page 294.) 



Philosophers have recourse to small sub- 

 terfuges, to prove that our propensities and our 

 talents are the result of chance. It is, they say, 

 by insignificant impressions on the infant at the 

 breast, by peculiar examples and events, 

 that sometimes one faculty is determined 

 and sometimes another. If Demosthenes be- 

 came eloquent, it is because he was attracted by 

 the eloquence of Callisthenes. If Vaucanson be- 

 came celebrated in mechanics, it was because he 

 had seen, while a child, a clock in the ante- 

 chamber of his mother's confessor; he examined 

 its wheels, made a similar machine with a bad 

 knife, and, his taste developing itself, he soon 

 constructed an automaton flute-player, and the 

 most astonishing machines. Milton would not 

 have written his poem, had he not lost his place 

 of secretary to Cromwell. Shakspeare made 

 tragedies inconsequence of being an actor; in 

 place of being an actor, he would have remained 

 a wool-dealer, like his father, had not some 

 youthful follies compelled him to quit the place 

 of his birth. Corneille falls in love, and writes 

 verses to the object of his affection ; it is to this 

 circumstance that we owe this great dramatic 

 poet. Newton sees an apple fall; what more was 

 wanting to enable him to divine the laws of 

 gravitation? 



I admit these facts. All that can be concluded 

 from them is, that our propensities and our ta- 

 lents do not always put themselves in activity. 

 It is often necessary, that the impulse be given 

 them by an external impression, or that the 

 material object, on which they are to exercise 

 themselves, be offered them. The cock will not 

 fight, unless he finds a rival to thwart him in his 

 love ; the beaver does not build, if he has no 

 branches of trees; no animal can generate with- 

 out a female ; without obstacle, there can be no 

 firmness ; without an enemy, no generous pardon. 

 In all ages, great events have given rise to great 

 men; not that the circumstances produce their 

 intellectual faculties, but because they furnish an 

 ample field for the free exercise of their faculties. 

 Many men, without doubt, acquire only by this 

 means, a knowledge of their own genius ; but if, 

 sometimes, certain qualities remain at first inac- 

 tive, for want of circumstances, the force and 

 solidity which these faculties afterwards display, 

 fully satisfy us that their existence had preceded 

 their action. Is it not evident, that, in the very 

 examples opposed to me, the objects offered by 

 chance would not, without the peculiar disposi- 

 tion in question, have been seized as they were, 

 nor with the same energy? How many are the 

 children on whom works of art make little im- 

 pression, or whom the view of these works does 

 not render artists? 



Vaucanson directs a fixed attention to the 

 arrangement of the clock ; he examines it with 

 much care. The first trials he makes to imitate 

 it, with bad tools, prove successful. Now, this 

 attention and this rapid success prove that there 



existed a relation between his faculties and the 

 mechanical arts. Thucydides shed tears of envy 

 at the reading which Herodotus gave of his his- 

 tory to the Greeks. It certainly was not this 

 perusal which created in him a concise, close, 

 lively style, strong and rich in thoughts. Neither 

 was it the reading of the poem on the Death of 

 Henry IV. which inspired Fontaine with his 

 peculiar talent for poetry. How many secretaries 

 lose their places without becoming Miltons! 

 How many are in love, and write verses, like 

 Corneille and Racine ! Yet these poets have found 

 no equals among their successors. 



If the most frivolous accessary circumstances 

 produce striking differences in propensities and 

 talents, why does not education, which can pro- 

 duce circumstances at will, seize this new means 

 of forming great men? And why have we, and 

 why shall we always have reason to complain that, 

 notwithstanding so many establishments for edu- 

 cation, great men are so rare a phenomenon? 



I certainly do not deny, that good models are 

 of great utility, and that the study of these 

 models ought to constitute an essential part of 

 education; but, if it be necessary, or sufficient, 

 to have excellent subjects of imitation, whence 

 have Homer, Petrarch, Dante, drawn their divine 

 art? Why do not the talents of Tacitus, Cicero, 

 and Livy, find their inheritors, though so 

 many scholars know these authors by heart? 

 The Raphaels, Mozarts, Playdns, why do they 

 produce so few disciples ? And why do we al- 

 ways need to wait a lapse of several ages, before 

 we can see any great men shine in the annals of 

 history ? 



Again, an objection is drawn from the uniform- 

 ity which is found among men, on a hasty sur- 

 vey of all the individuals of a nation ; and from 

 this, it is concluded that the faculties of man- 

 kind are only a result of social institutions. 



But this uniformity proves precisely the re- 

 verse; for, we find it in essential things, not 

 only in a single nation, but in all people, in all 

 ages, however different may be the external in- 

 fluences of climate, of nourishment, laws, cus- 

 toms, religion, and education. It even preserves 

 itself in all the individuals of the same species of 

 animals, under whatever climate, and whatever 

 external influence. This uniformity is, conse- 

 quently, the strongest proof that nothing can de- 

 range the plan which nature has prescribed by 

 means of organisation. For the rest, these 

 panegyrists of the creative power of education, 

 are in direct contradiction with themselves. At 

 one time, the uniformity observed among men 

 serves to prove that education does every thing ; 

 at another, in order to explain the difference in 

 characters, they allege the impossibility of the 

 greater part of individuals receiving a uniform 

 education. 



In fine, let us consult persons who devote 

 their whole life to the education of men ; such 

 as Campe, Niemeyer, Pestalozzi, Salzmann, 

 Gedike, May, Eschke\ Phingstcn, the Abbe" Si- 

 card, &c. Every day furnishes them occasion to 

 remark, that in each individual, dispositions 

 differ from birth ; and that education can have no 

 effect, except in proportion to the innate quali- 

 ties. If it were otherwise, how could these 

 benevolent men be pardoned, and how pardon 



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