In fine, Gall and Spurzheim rarely agree as to their faculties. In hope Gall sees nothing more than an attribute; Spurzheim beholds it as a primary faculty. In conscience Gall sees nothing but an effect of benevolence; Spurzheim looks upon it as a peculiar faculty. Gall resolves that there is only one organ of religion, and Spurzheim insists upon three—the organ of causality, that of supernaturality, and that of veneration, &c. &c.
We should never end, were we to follow them throughout their debates. I have said enough to show the case, and I now pass on to Broussais.
V.
OF BROUSSAIS.
Broussais appears to have been born solely for the purpose of imagining or propagating systems.
Guided by facts which he seized upon with a rare sagacity, Broussais begins by bringing back certain affections to their real seats;[161] but soon, by an immoderate generalization of this fine result, he perceives all affections in the same affection, all diseases in the same malady; he imagines one abstract affection, by means of which he explains all other affections: fevers are nothing but irritations of the digestive apparatus; insanity is nothing but an irritation of the brain;[162] and he who is so intolerant of the personifications proposed by others, makes one personification more; in fine, his exclusive and headstrong genius carries him beyond himself, and, as if merely to amuse him after the fatigue of forming his systems, plunges him into the question of phrenology, where he enjoys himself so much the more, because he finds in it his own accustomed method, his own ideas, and his own language: there are plenty of faculties to bring back to their organs, plenty of localizations to establish.
Broussais ought not to be judged of by his “Cours de Phrénologie.”[163] The five or six first lessons, or, as he calls them, generalities,[164] are merely a confused mixture of ideas: the notions of Condillac rejected by Cabanis, and the ideas of the phrenologists.
He says that sensibility is the common origin of the faculties;[165] he calls perception a primary faculty,[166] &c. &c.; and Condillac would not speak differently.
But, on the other hand, he says that there are as many memories as there are organs;[167] that the instincts and the sentiments possess a memory, as the external perceptions[168] have theirs; that the mind is the sum of the faculties,[169] &c.; and Gall could not say it more clearly.