Therefore, each and every faculty is an understanding by itself, and Gall says so expressly. “There are,” says he, “as many different kinds of intellect or understanding as there are distinct faculties.”[28] “Each distinct faculty,” says he, further, “is intellect or understanding—each individual intelligence (the words are precise) has its proper organ.”[29]
But, admitting all these kinds of intellects, all these individual understandings, where are we to seek for the General Intelligence, the understanding, properly so called? It must, as you may please, be either an attribute of each faculty,[30] or the collective expression of all the faculties, or even the mere simple result of their common and simultaneous action;[31] in one word, it cannot be that positive and single faculty which we understand, conceive of, and feel in ourselves, when we pronounce the word soul or understanding.
Now here is the sum and the substance of Gall’s psycology. For the understanding, essentially a unit faculty, he substitutes a multitude of little understandings or faculties, distinct and isolate. And, as these faculties, which perform just as he wills them to do—which he multiplies according to his pleasure,[32] seem in his eyes to explain certain phenomena which are not well explained by the lights of ordinary philosophy, he triumphs!
He does not perceive that an explanation, which is words merely, adapts itself to any and to every thing. In the time of Malebranche, every thing was explained by animal spirits; Barthez explained every thing by his vital principle, &c.
“This,” says Gall, “explains how the same man may possess a judgment that is ready and sure as to certain objects, while it is imbecile as to certain others; how he may have the liveliest and most fruitful imagination upon some subjects, while it is cold and sterile upon others.”[33]
“Grant,” says he, further, “to the animals certain fundamental faculties, and you have the dog that follows the chase with passion; the weasel that strangles the poultry with rage; the nightingale that sings with fervour beside his mate,”[34] &c.
No doubt of it. But what sort of philosophy is that, that thinks to explain a fact by a word? You observe such or such a penchant in an animal, such or such a taste or talent in a man; presto, a particular faculty is produced for each one of these peculiarities, and you suppose the whole matter to be settled. You deceive yourself; your faculty is only a word,—it is the name of the fact,—and all the difficulty remains just where it was before.
Besides, you speak only of the facts that you suppose yourself able to explain; you say nothing of those that you render by your system wholly inexplicable. You say not one word as to the unity of the understanding, the unity of the me, or you deny it. But the unity of the understanding, the unity of the me, is a fact of the conscious sense, and the conscious sense is more powerful than all the philosophies together.