KIDD'S OWN JOURNAI. 
167 

brain, for comparison, judgment, and will; he 
regards the combination of solid and liquid parts, 
the nervous plexuses and the ganglions of the 
chest and abdomen, as being the organs of the 
affections and passions. Now, if the objections 
which he makes to me had any foundation, would 
not these objections be common to his system 
with mine? Would it not follow, from his 
own confessions, that man ought without ceas- 
ing to compare and judge, to wish, without 
cessation, good and evil, truth and falsehood ; 
to be unceasingly a prey to all affections, and to 
all passions ; and that, when in sleep, in fainting, 
in apparent death, these organs cease to act, all 
should immediately disappear ? 
The idea which Ackermann conceives of an 
organ, is so contrary to good sense, that he has 
not been able to keep himself invariably to the 
same language. He says expressly, in parag. 
77: “The organ and the manifestation of the 
faculty belonging to it, are the same thing; 
without exercise, no organ can exist, or be pro- 
duced; the cessation of action of an organ in- 
volves its diminution, and finally its disap- 
pearance.” He also says, in parag. 78, that no 
organ can exist without manifesting its faculty ; 
that the man who has the organ of murder 
must be a murderer, as he who has never 
killed cannot have this organ. Now, what I 
am going to cite, is in direct contradiction with 
what precedes. Professor Ackermann says, in 
parag. 73: “The manifestation of the faculties 
depends solely, or in a great degree, on perfectly 
developed organs : when the manifestation of the 
faculties does not take place for a long time, the 
organs or the dispositions must successively dimi- 
nish, and in fine, disappear altogether.” He 
admits then here, that the birth of organs, their 
existence, and their perfection, are anterior to the 
manifestation of their faculties. He does not, 
then, regard the organ and the manifestation of 
the faculty as being the same thing. It is no 
longer on single organs that he makes the 
faculties to depend—he makes them thus depen- 
dent only in a great degree; and in order that 
the action may be effected, he admits likewise, 
other conditions. In fine, he confesses that the 
organs diminish gradually, only when they have 
been a long time inactive. 
Ackermann does not content himself with con- 
founding every moment, the total disappearance 
of organs with this diminution ; he also regards 
simple alterations and maladies of organs, such 
as hardening, and paralysis, as being the same 
thing with the complete annihilation of an organ, 
and takes the effect for the cause ; for in these 
cases the cessation of the functions is a conse- 
quence, and not the cause of the malady. 
In fine, all the statements given by Acker- 
mann are false. Without exercise, says he, no 
organ could exist or be produced; although 
just before, he had said, that they are produced 
and exist a long time without exercise. Are 
not all animals and all children born with 
several organs and senses, though they may not 
have been able to exercise them in the womb of 
the mother. At all periods of life, the organs 
are perfected before they can fulfil their functions 
or be exercised. They exist, then, very well, 
without any exercise, and without fulfilling any 
of the functions which are proper to them. The 
muscles of the external ear are found in almost 
all men; but since the creation, there have been 
but a small number of individuals in whom they 
have been exercised. It is commonly by chance, 
and after having lived thirty or forty years, 
without using this faculty, that one finds that he 
can move the muscles of the external ear, or the 
skin on the top of the head. ‘Thus, there is 
nothing but error and contradiction in all the 
objections of Professor Ackermann and his parti- 
sans, M. Moreau de la Sarthe, M. Tupper, &c. 
M. Kurt Sprengel, eminent for the services 
which he has rendered to science, has addressed 
some objections to us on the irresistibility of 
actions. I sincerely wish, for the honor of 
German literature, that so distinguished a 
scholar had not spoken of my doctrine, till after 
he had been led to understand its spirit and pur- 
port, otherwise than by rumors. That has natu- 
rally happened to M. Sprengel, which happens to 
every learned man, who wishes to attack a doc- 
trine before understanding it in its whole extent. 
Even while urging the consequences which he 
thinks must flow from this doctrine, he cannot re- 
frain from rendering homage to the truths which 
form its basis. 
M. Sprengel makes the faculties of the soul and 
mind depend in part on the brain, in part on the 
temperament. He extols the advantages of the 
mind, when it inhabits a healthy body. He ac- 
knowledges, as we all do, that health is necessary, 
in order that the functions of the mind may be duly 
performed. Too great irritability, he says, has for 
its consequences erroneous judgments, an ardent 
imagination, a faithful memory, a refining spirit, 
irresolution, inconstancy, profound sadness, and in- 
ordinate gaiety. The voluptuous character of the 
fair sex depends on the delicacy of their physical 
constitution : the soft temperament produces a 
feeble but sure memory, an indolent conception for 
love and hatred ; a dry temperament gives, on the 
contrary, many errors, a durable memory, attention 
to a single object, an imagination often overflow- 
ing, and very lively affections of the soul. 
This last and ancient error has maintained itself 
till now, among all the physiologists: all continue 
to speak of the different qualities of the mind and 
soul which must result from such or sucha tempera- 
ment. ‘The most recent physiologists have no 
scruples in advancing that the man endowed with 
a sanguine temperament may in vain wish to re- 
nounce the pleasures of the senses, to have fixed 
and durable tastes, to obtain by profound medita- 
tion the most abstract truths: controlled by his phy- 
sical propensities, he will incessantly be brought 
back tothe pleasures he avoids, and the inconstancy 
to which he is destined. 
These assertions are repeated from one age to 
another, without ever asking orexamining whether 
they are proved by constant experience. What is 
certain, is, that this doctrine establishes at once 
the innateness of the faculties of the soul and 
mind, and the dependence of their exercise on ma- 
terial conditions. Whether these conditions all 
reside in the brain, or whether they are dispersed 
through the whole body, in the viscera, in the 
nervous plexuses, in the blood, or in a nervous 
fluid —they are, nevertheless, material conditions, 
| which hold the manifestation of the moral qua- 
