It was for the French that Fontenelle wrote these words: “The approbation
of mankind is a sort of forced state, which seeks nothing so much as to
come to an end.”[122]
Descartes goes off to die in Sweden, and Gall comes to reign in France.
IV.
OF SPURZHEIM.
Spurzheim published two works; the first of which is entitled,
“Observations sur la Phrénologie, ou la connaissance de l’homme moral
et intellectuel, fondée sur les fonctions du système nerveux:”[123]
the title of the second is, “Essai philosophique sur la nature morâle
et intellectuelle de l’homme;”[124] and these two works are merely a
reproduction of the doctrine of Gall. Spurzheim makes Gall’s book over
again—the same book that they commenced together—and abridges it.
Spurzheim tells us how he heard Gall, and having heard him, felt himself
drawn to participate in his labours, and propagate his doctrine.
“In 1800, I attended for the first time a course of lectures which
M. Gall had from time to time repeated at Vienna for four years. He
spoke then of the necessity there was for a brain to give out the
manifestations of the soul; and of the plurality of organs; ... but he
had not as yet begun to examine into the structure of the brain.[125]
From the very first, I found myself much attracted by the doctrine of the
brain; and from the period of my first attention to that subject to the
present moment, I have never lost sight of it as an object of study.
After finishing my studies in 1800, I joined M. Gall, in order to pursue
in a special manner the anatomical part of the researches.[126] In 1805,
we left Vienna for the purpose of travelling together; from which time,
up to the year 1813, we made our observations in common,” &c.[127]
In fact, the two authors, uniting their labours, first published,
in 1808, their fine memoir upon the anatomy of the brain,[128] and
subsequently, in 1810 and 1812, the two first volumes of Gall’s great
work.[129]
In the year 1813 they separated, and that separation even proved useful.
Gall, when writing independently, has a freer movement. Had he continued
united with Spurzheim, he either would not have written the last chapter
of his fourth volume, or he would have written it very differently, and
we should not have obtained the definite expression of his doctrine.
That chapter, entitled “Philosophy of Man,” is Gall’s philosophy entire.
It is in that chapter that he says what he does understand by faculties,
by understanding, by will, &c. &c. and it is there that he defines
the faculties of the individual understandings;[130] understanding, a
simple _attribute of each faculty_;[131] will, a simple result of the
simultaneous action of superior faculties, &c.[132]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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