The following passages seem to bear closest upon the general question, and I shall apply myself to answer them as well as I can.
‘The intellectual faculties have been placed in the brain; but it was impossible to point out any organ, because organs have been sought for faculties which have no organ, namely, for common and general faculties.... General or common phenomena never have any particular organ. Secretion, for instance, is a common name, and secretion in general has no particular organ; but the particular secretions, as of saliva, bile, tears, &c. are attached to particular organs. Sensation is an expression which indicates the common function of the five external senses; therefore this common faculty has no particular organ, but every determinate sensation—as of sight, hearing, smelling, taste, or feeling—is attached to some particular organ.’ Page 273.
In the first place, then, Dr. Spurzheim himself assigns particular organs for common and general faculties; such as self-love, veneration, hope, covetousness, language, comparison, causality, wit, imitation, &c. He also talks of the organs of abstraction, individuality, invention, &c. It would be hard to deny that these mean more than one thing, and refer to more than to one class of sensations. In fact, the author all through his volume regularly confounds general principles with particular acts and mechanic exercises of the mind. Secondly, he either does not or will not apprehend the precise meaning of the terms common or general faculties, as applied to the mind. Sensation is a common function of the five external senses, that is, it belongs severally to the exercise of the five external senses: but understanding is a common faculty of the mind—not because it belongs to any number of ideas in succession, but because it takes cognizance of a number of them together. Understanding is perceiving the relations between objects and impressions, which the senses and particular or individual organs can never do. It is this superintending or conscious faculty or principle which is aware both of the colour, form, and sound of an object; which connects its present appearance with its past history; which arranges and combines the multifarious impressions of nature into one whole; which balances the various motives of action, and renders man what he is—a rational and moral agent: but for this faculty we find no regular place or station assigned amongst that heap of organic tumuli, which could produce nothing but mistakes and confusion. The seat of this faculty is one, or its impressions are communicated to the same intelligent mind, which contemplates and reacts upon them all with more or less wisdom and comprehensive power. Thus the poet is not a being made up of a string of organs—an eye, an ear, a heart, a tongue—but is one and the same intellectual essence, looking out from its own nature on all the different impressions it receives, and to a certain degree moulding them into itself. It is I who remember certain objects, who judge of them, who invent from them, who connect certain sounds that I hear, as of a thrush singing, with certain sights that I see, as the wood whence the notes issue. There is some bond, some conscious connexion brought about between these impressions and acts of the mind; that is, there is a principle of joint and common understanding in the mind, quite different from the ignorance in which the ear is left of what passes before the eye, &c. and which overruling and primary faculty of the soul, blending with all our thoughts and feelings, Dr. Spurzheim does not once try to explain, but does all he can to overturn.
‘Understanding,’ he continues, ‘being an expression which designates a general faculty, has no particular organ, but every determinate species of understanding is attached to a particular organ.’ Ibid.
If so, how does it contrive to compare notes with the impressions of other particular organs? For example, how does the organ of wit combine with the organ of form or of individuality, to give a grotesque description of a particular person, without some common and intermediate faculty to which these several impressions are consciously referred? Will any one tell me that one of these detached and very particular organs perceives the stained colour of an old cloak—[How would it apprehend any thing of the age of the cloak?]—that another has a glimpse of its antiquated form; that a third supplies a witty allusion or apt illustration of what it knows nothing about; and that this patchwork process is clubbed by a number of organic impressions that have no law of subordination, nor any common principle of reference between them, to make a lively caricature?
‘Finally, it is the same with all common faculties of the understanding—of which philosophers and physiologists speak—namely, with perception, memory, or recollection, judgment, and imagination. These expressions are common, and the respective faculties have no organs; but every peculiar perception—memory, judgment, and imagination—as of space, form, colour, tune, and number, have their particular organs. If the common faculties of understanding were attached to particular organs, the person who possesses the organ of any common faculty ought to be endowed with all particular kinds of faculties. If there were an organ of perception, of memory, of judgment, or of imagination, any one who has the organ of perception, of memory, of judgment, or of imagination, ought to possess all kinds of perception, of memory, of judgment, or of imagination. Now this is against all experience.’ Ibid.
No more, than a person possessed of the general organ of sight must be acquainted equally with all objects of sight, whether they have ever fallen in his way, or whether he has studied them or not. But it is according to all experience, that some persons are distinguished more by memory, others more by judgment, others more by imagination, generally speaking. That is, upon whatever subject they exercise their attention, they show the same turn of mind or predominating faculty. Some people do every thing from impulse. It is their character under all impressions and in all studies and pursuits. Is there then an organ of impulse? An organ of tune is intelligible, because it denotes a general faculty exercised upon a particular class of impressions, viz. sounds. But what is an organ of wit? It means nothing; for it denotes a faculty without any specific objects: and yet an organ means a faculty limited to specific objects. Wit is the faculty of combining suddenly and glancing over the whole range of art and nature; but an organ is shut up in a particular cell of sensation, and sees nothing beyond itself.
‘One has a great memory of one kind,’ proceeds our author, ‘and a very little memory of other things.’
Yes, partly from habit, but chiefly, I grant, from original character; not because certain things strike upon a certain part of the brain, but touch a certain quality or disposition of the mind. Thus, some remember trifles, others things of importance. Some retain forms, others feelings. Some have a memory of words, others of things. Some remember what regards their own interests, others what is interesting in itself, according to the bias and scope of their sensibility. All these results depend evidently not on a particular local impression, but on a variety of general causes combined in one common effect. Again: ‘a poet possesses one kind of imagination in a high degree; but has he therefore every kind of imagination, as that of inventing machines, of composing music, &c.?’ Page 275.
Or it may be retorted—Has he therefore every kind of poetical imagination? Does the same person write epigrams and epics, comedies and tragedies? Is there not light and serious poetry? Is not Mr. T. Moore just as likely to become Newton as to become Milton? Or as the wren the eagle? Yet Dr. Spurzheim has but one organ for poetry, as he says—‘We allow but one organ for tune.’ But is there not tune in poetry? Has not the poet an ear as well as the musician? How then does the author reconcile these common or analogous qualities, and the complex impressions from all the senses implied in poetry (for instance) with his detached, circumscribed, local organs? His system is merely nominal, and a very clumsy specimen of nomenclature into the bargain.—Poetry relates to all sorts of impressions, from all sorts of objects, moral and physical. Music relates to one sort of impressions only, and so far there is an excuse for assigning it to a particular organ; but it also implies common and general faculties, such as retention, judgment, invention, &c. which essentially reside in the understanding or thinking principle at large. But suppose them to be cooped and cabined up in the particular organ:—do they not exist in different degrees, and is this difference expressed merely by the size of the organ?—It cannot be. The circumstance of size can only determine that such a one is a great musician; not what sort of a musician he is. Therefore this characteristic difference is not expressed by quantity, and therefore none of the differences themselves, or faculties of judgment, invention, refinement, &c. which form the great musician, can be expressed by quantity; and if none of these component parts of musical genius are so expressed, why then ‘it follows, as the night the day,’ that there can be no organ of music. There may be an organ peculiarly adapted for retaining musical impressions, but this (without including the intellectual operations, which is impossible) would only answer the purposes of a peculiarly fine and sensitive ear.