372 



ON ANCIENT AND MODERN SKEPTICS. 



of remodelling-, which is that of M. Magendie, we have certainly an im- 

 provement, though the machinery is quite as complex. Instead of two dis- 

 tinct lives M. Magendie presents us with two distinct sets or systems of 

 action or relation, each of which has its separate and peculiar functions, a 

 system of nutritive action or relation, and a system of vital. To which is 

 added, by way of appendix, another system, comprising the functions of 

 generation.* Here, however, the brain is not only the seat but the organized 

 substance of the mental powers : so that, we are expressly told, a man must 

 be as he is made in his brain, and that education, and even logic itself, is of no 

 use to him. "There are," says M. Magendie, "justly celebrated persons 

 who have thought differently ; but the)'' have hereby fallen into grave errors." 

 A Deity, however, is allowed to exist, because, adds the writer, it is comfort- 

 able to think that he exists, and on this account the physiologist cannot doubt 

 of his being. " L'intelligenee de I'homme," says he, " se compose de pheno- 

 menes tellement differens de tout ce que presente d'ailleurs la nature, qu'on les 

 rapporte a un etre particuliere qu'on regarde corame une emanation de la 

 Divinite. II est trop consolant de croire d cet etre, pour que le physiologiste 

 mette en doute son existence ; mais la severite de langage ou de logique 

 que comporte maintenant la physiologic exige que Ton traite de l'intelligenee 

 humaine comme si elle etait le resultat de Taction d'un organe. En s'^cartant 

 de cette marche, des hommes justement celebres sont tombes dans des ^ra^ues 

 erreurs ; en la suivant, on a, d'ailleurs, le grand avantage de conserver la 

 meme methode d'etude, et de rendre tres faciles des choses qui sont envisa- 

 gees generaleraent comme presqu' au-dessus de I'esprit humain." — "II existe 

 une science dont le but est, d'apprendre a raisonner justement: c'est la 

 logique: mais le ju^ement errone ou I'esprit faux (for judgment, genius, and 

 imagination, and therefore false reasoning, all depend on organization) tien- 

 nent a I'organization. II est impossible de se changer a cet egard ; nous 

 restons, tels que la nature nous a faits."f 



Dr. Spurzheim has generally been considered, from the concurrent tenor 

 of his doctrines, as belonging to the class of materialists ; but this is to mis- 

 take his own positive assertion upon the subject, or to conclude in opposition 

 to it. He speaks, indeed, upon this topic with a singular hesitation and re- 

 serve, more so, perhaps, than upon any other point whatever ; but as far as 

 he chooses to express himself on so abstruse a subject, he regards the soul 

 as a distinct being from the body, and at least intimates that it may be nearer 

 akin to the Deity. Man is with him also possessed of two lives, an auto- 

 matic and animal: the first produced by organization alone, and destitute of 

 consciousness ; the second possessed of consciousness dependent on the 

 soul, and merely manifesting itself by organization. " We do not," says he, 

 " attempt to explain how the body and soul are joined together and exercise 

 a mutual influence. We do not examine what the soul can do without the 

 body. Souls, so far as we know, may be united to bodies at the moment of 

 conception or afterward ; they may be different in all individuals, or of the 

 same kind in every one ; they may be emanations from God, or something 

 essentially different."! The mind of this celebrated craniologist seems to be 

 wonderfully skeptical and bewildered upon the subject, and studiously avoids 

 the important question of the capacity of the soul for an independent and 

 future existence ; but with the above declaration he cannot well be arranged 

 in the class of materialists. 



The hypothesis which has lately been started by Mr. Lawrence^ is alto- 

 gether of a different kind, and though undoubtedly much simpler than any of 

 the preceding, does not seem to be built on a more stable foundation. Accord- 

 ing to his view of the subject, organized differs from inorganized matter 

 merely by the addition of certain properties which are called vital, as sensi- 

 bility and irritability. Masses of matter endowed with these new properties 

 become organs and systems of organs, constitute an animal frame, and exe- 



* Pr6cis Elementaire de Physiologie, torn. ii. 8vo. Paris, 1816, 1817. 



t Precis Elementaire, &c. utsu]ira, passim. % Physiognomical System, &c. p. 253,8vo. Lond. 1815 

 $ Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, Sec. 8vo. 1816; 



