Returning then to Gall’s psychology, Comte can explain its defects to himself. Gall had “oscillated between subjective inspiration and objective tendencies,” without adopting a systematic plan. There has not been any very great disadvantage in this empirical fluctuation in what concerns the theory of the affective functions. Without a doubt, Gall had established an ill-founded distinction between the inclinations and the feelings. But he could not be mistaken concerning the fundamental inclinations of human nature. In default of the true method, he was supported on this point by common wisdom, and by the observation of animals. It is on the subject of the intellectual functions that he is entirely wrong, because here this twofold help failed him, and nothing, in this case, filled the place of the true method which was then unknown. In order to discover the static and dynamic laws of the intellect, it was necessary to abandon the biological point of view. To Gall’s theory Comte then substitutes a new classification of the intellectual functions. He distinguishes between the faculties of conception and the faculties of expression. He indicates the relations of the intellectual functions proper with the affective functions and the functions of motion. He makes us apprehend the very intimate relations which connect desire and will. Finally, to determine the fundamental intellectual functions, he takes into account the historical evolution of the human species. It does not enter into the purpose of this work to set forth Comte’s theory in detail, and to examine the eighteen irreducible faculties of the cerebral table one by one. But the systematic character of the doctrine does not prevent us from taking up a certain number of interesting and deep psychological views in it. To limit ourselves to a few examples, Comte drew imitation near to habit, and he brought habit itself back “to the great cosmological law of persistence,” which, in the vital order is modified by the intermittance of phenomena.[197] He remarked that attention is never produced without an affective phenomenon upon which it depends.[198] He also indicated the distinction between strong states and weak states, and the “reduction” of images by actual perceptions. “If our images could offer as much intensity, he says, as our external sensations, our mental state would not allow of any consistency. The appreciation of what is without would be troubled by this conflict with what is within....” Hence a theory of hallucination and insanity.[199]