they possess for that purpose something that no other amí mal possesses, who like man, has also perceptions, ideas, and volitions. Then their perceptions, ideas, and volitions, must be of a different nature from those of other animals. We have noticed already the recollection and the volition of the dog, the wolf, the fox, the cat; we have seen that they are exhibited in opposition to sensitive impressions, this implies something within, some internal perception, consciousness. On the other hand, we have exhibited man, of imperfect age, and imperfect organization, possessing neither perception, or volition, and of course ideas neither so distinct or complete, as we see them in animals. If this does not depend on the perfection or nonperfection of the nervous apparatus of these living animals, will these gentlemen be good enough to inform us on what it does depend? Is there not contradiction in ascribing the very same phenomena to nervous substance in animals, and to something very different in men? In pretending that the chief source of motion in animals is the nervous apparatus, which in man is only an inferior and secondary instrument? Let us act honestly. Is there any good reason for assigning to man a principle which animals do not possess? There can be no reason for it, unless man possess intellectual faculties which other animals do not for it is not to be denied that the organs which put these faculties in operation, are the same in men and in other animals, excepting that the organs of man being more complicated and more perfect, are able to execute intellectual operations, which those of other animals cannot. This may be wonderful. But when the animal executes intellectual operations which the human being is not equal to—as when we compare a full grown well educated dog to a new born infant, where is the proof of any principle existing except nervous matter? Let the psychologists choose their side. They must place this principle somewhere; they cannot put it on the road, travelling toward its destination, nor can they conceal it in the brain and leave it there in perfect idleness, as they used to do formerly before they fabricated hypotheses.

On the other hand, the physiologists advance no hypothesis, when setting out from certain known, and acknowledged facts, namely, that sensation, thought, volition, are developed with and in proportion as the cerebral substance is developed; diminished and augmented as that substance

is so; disappearing forever when the brain disappears and shewing themselves connected with the brain as an ef fect is with its cause, in every possible case where an animal possessing a nervous apparatus can be observed-they advance I say, nothing like hypothesis or supposition, when they conclude that these faculties are nothing else than the results of the operations and functions of the brain and nervous system.

It is true, the physiologists have taken the facts from which they reason from the evidence of their senses, but they have deduced from these facts no forced, no contradictory conclusions; while the psychologists who have also pushed their opposite arguments into the perceptions of sense, as I have superabundantly shewn, have drawn conclusions which no rules of sound logic can justify. This it will be well to shew them definitely. For this purpose, I shall concentrate their arguments, which are exactly such as they employ to prove, that to attribute thought to a nervous apparatus, is an hypothesis far less probable than that which attributes it to a principle in man, that is not bestowed upon other animals.

1st objection of the psychologists. To attribute to an organized apparatus the faculty of producing thought, &c. is to attribute to it what we can never discover in it. We acknowledge dependence of the phenomena on the apparatus; but as the results of the action of this apparatus, would be exactly the same if it were no other than a mere instrument, there is no reason why we should not so consider it, or why we should prefer the hypothesis of our adversaries to our own.

Reply. We discover perfectly in this apparatus the faculty of producing thought, &c. What we do not pretend to discover, is the manner how this is produced. This proposition has been already demonstrated.

The dependence of the phenomena on the apparatus, cannot be explained by means of a separate intelligent cause having no relation to nervous matter; this is an hypothesis merely; the type or model of this cause no where exists. We cannot admit that what is in no sense matter or body, can act upon matter or body. A mere negation cannot act upon that which is positive.

2nd Objection. Observation can shew us nothing but material particles arranged in a certain manner. As no

molecule of the mass can produce these phenomena, the physiologists themselves cannot comprehend how the mass, or arranged assemblage of molecules, can produce them; they must therefore recur to supposition and hypothesis. Örganization, therefore, proves no more than any other word of any other sound.

Reply. It has been proved that the nervous apparatus in a certain state, does produce by its action, intellectual phenomena in animals as well as in man. This then is the question before us, the fact itself, and not the how and the why. Hypothesis begins so soon as we go beyond the matter of fact and offer to comment on it. The physiologists make no comments; the psychologists alone keep their imagination alive.

3d Objection. In machines we have examples of organized matter put into action by separate intelligent beings. We have nothing like, nothing equivalent to this in the supposed organization which gives rise to intellectual faculties. Hypothesis is, therefore, against hypothesis, that of the psychologists is preferable.

Reply. There is no room for comparison between an inanimate machine, and the living, organized, cerebral apparatus. Moreover, the intelligence which the psychologists show us in their machine, is nothing else than the cerebral apparatus of the man himself who moves and directs it: but to suppose one cerebral organ within another, would be an absurdity explaining nothing.

4th Objection. The nerves, the senses, the muscles, being indispensible to sensation and action, and being no more than instruments of the brain, without which they can do nothing, we can have no difficulty in supposing how a brain also may itself be in the same inactive situation as the senses and muscles, in respect of that presiding principle of which it is but the instrument.

Reply. There is no parity in the things compared. Our senses shew us that nerves and muscles are capable of action independently of the brain; that action, however, cannot be regulated but by means of the brain; so as that the result of these motions afford us an idea of an inciting intelligence. But no sense has ever demonstrated to the psychologists, that the brain was the instrument of any other agent, than the whole nervous system with which it is connected. The brain and the nerves are successively, and in

turns agents and patients; in this circle there is no point to designate a beginning or an end. As to the muscles, they can only serve as instruments of the brain and nerves, for the execution of certain acts which the nervous apparatus was not designed to execute; although the muscular tissue is sometimes subject to other influences.

5th Objection. By destroying certain parts of the brain, in experimenting on living animals, certain actions are destroyed also. Diseases also analyse the human faculties, abolishing one after another: but no disease has yet destroyed the will. This happens, according to certain psychologists, from the principle of voluntarity being distinct from the brain. For if the brain itself were the principle of voluntarity, when you altered the brain you would alter also the voluntary principle: but no operation, no disease has produced this effect.

Reply. Let us attend to facts. It is not true that experiments have not destroyed volition. You may suspend and you may renew it by merely compressing the brain. Nor is it true that no disease has yet destroyed volition : all the violent congestions of the brain suppress it; all violent inflammations of that organ put an end to volition while they continue, and by their long duration; and life may remain a long time even after this loss. Moreover, the embryo has no voluntarity, and the embryo we presume partakes of the nature of man.

And now what becomes of the railleries of the psychologists on the supposed hypothesis of the physiologists?

Seeing that it is demonstrated by reasonings founded on the known evidence of a man's senses, without which there can be no knowledge, that the nervous apparatus, consisting of the encephalon and the nerves distributed to all parts of the body, is the source of all the phenomena of instinct, of sensibility, of perception, of volition, in one word, of intelligence-seeing that you cannot impose upon that apparatus a separate, stronger principle, without introducing by means of thought, within the brain itself all the scenes of the material world, of which the senses alone can furnish any ideas -the pretensions of the psychologists fall of themselves. The how, or the first cause, remains equally unknown to the one disputant and the other. But this circumstance of being unknown as to the first cause, is no obstacle to researches whose object extends no farther than the pheno

mena, the facts of the sensible world. That this first cause should remain unknown, is of no consequence to physiologists, moralists, publicists, and legislators. As to metaphysicians and psychologists, it is a very different thing. They cannot, unfortunately, erect a science on the basis of consciousness alone, independent of the influence of the senses, because all the phenomena of this, their consciousness are reduced to this single expression, I feel that I feel. Beyond this they cannot go, without calling in the aid of the senses. If they would confine their pretensions to the study of those relations, which bind man to man, they would enlist among the moralists and publicists: if they will pretend to discuss the actual origin of the intellectual faculties, let them study physiology, anatomy and even pathology, not in books, but at the bedside of the sick. This last occupation will teach them far more than all the treatises on ideology. All the efforts they make to emancipate themselves from the influence of these branches of knowledge will prove useless, because without them no one can be acquainted with the facts necessary to treat the question properly. Consciousness was their last refuge; hereafter it will serve them in no stead; they cannot with any success oppose sophisms and declamations to the facts which we have exhibited. But I shall give them credit for more judgement and coolness than to choose such weapons.

Sec. 7. Of the rationalists and modern theologians.

Hitherto I have spoken only of psycologists who take into consideration the evidence of their senses, and who pride themselves on the strictness of their reasoning. But there are some who pay no attention to what their organs of sense report to them. They set out at once from consciousness as a starting point to arrive at reason: this being once discovered, becomes the oracle of all their philosophy. In the name of reason, they employ arguments to despoil the ner.. vous apparatus of all its functions. I do not aspire to the honor of convincing them by reasoning, although they tell us they are the interpreters of reason. For what can I say to men who profess the following doctrine. "Reason is that which places a man in connection with the Deity. It is an emanation from the Deity. The identical, individual being, le moi, (myself,) is susceptible of feeling, of willing, of perceiving he rests upon his volition, and he is connected with