Broussais is particularly opposed to the moi of Descartes. “Seduced,” says he, “by the moi of Descartes, philosophers have been led to reason according to the testimony of their consciousness....”[170] And according to what testimony does Broussais think they ought to reason?
He thinks it very funny to call the moi an intra-cranial entity,[171] intra-cranial central being,[172] person par excellence, &c.[173]
He laughs at the moi of Descartes; he forgets that the moi of Gall is either nothing else than the sum (ensemble) of the intellectual faculties, or nothing else than a word; and he makes for himself a peculiar moi,[174] which he locates in the organ of comparison. “We owe,” says he, “to the organ of general comparison the distinction of one person expressed by the sign me.”[175]
Broussais was never designed for compliance with the ideas of others; a yoke oppresses him; he is never truly Broussais, except in the midst of conflict. In 1816 he publishes a volume,[176] and the medical doctrines are shook for half a century: we ought to read that volume over again, and forget the “Cours de Phrénologie.”
VI.
BROUSSAIS’S PSYCOLOGY.
The fact is, Broussais is busier with his own opinions than with what Gall thought; and here is a specimen of his way of thinking: “The understanding and its different manifestations are,” says he, “the phenomena of the nervous actions.”[177] “The faculties,” says he further, “are the actions of the material organs,”[178] &c.
Broussais’s whole psycology is contained in these words. The organ, and the phenomenon produced by the organ. To speak more clearly, the organ and the action of the organ. To speak like Cabanis, the organ and the secretion of the organ, or thought.[179] That’s all!
The understanding, therefore, is merely a phenomenon, a product, an act. But if this be the case, how can there be a continuity of the moi? Now, the consciousness which gives me the unity of the moi, gives me not less assuredly the continuity of the moi. Descartes’ admirable words are: “I find that there is in us an intellectual memory.”[180]