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more literary than scientific; those who have had the best opportunity for observation have been more engaged in governing their patients than in analysing their cases; and the successors of Pinel have added nothing essential to the ameliorations introduced by him, half a century ago, in regard to the theory and treatment of mental alienation. As for the study of animals, its use has been vitiated by the old notions of the difference between instinct and intelligence. Humanity and animality ought reciprocally to cast light upon each other. If the whole set of faculties constitutes the complement of animal life, it must surely be that all that are fundamental must be common to all the superior animals, in some degree or other: and differences of intensity are enough to account for the existing diversities, the association of the faculties being taken into the account, on the one hand, and, on the other, the improvement of Man in society being set aside. If there are any faculties which belong to Man exclusively, it can only be such as correspond to the highest intellectual aptitudes and this much may appear doubtful if we compare, in an unprejudiced way, the actions of the highest. mammifers with those of the least developed savages. It seems to me more rational to suppose that power of observation and even of combination exists in animals, though in an immeasurably inferior degree;-the want of exercise, resulting chiefly from their state of isolation, tending to benumb and even starve the organs. Much might be learned from a study of domestic animals, though they are far from being the most intelligent. Much might be learned by comparing their moral nature now with what it was at periods nearer to their first domestication; for it would be strange if the changes that they have undergone in so many physical respects had been unaccompanied by variations in the functions which more easily than any others admit of modification. The extreme imperfection of phrenological science is manifest in the pride with which Man, from the height of his supremacy, judges of animals as a despot judges of his subjects; that is, in the mass, without perceiving any inequality in them worth noticing. It is not the less certain that, surveying the whole animal hierarchy, the principal orders of this hierarchy sometimes

differ more from each other, in intellectual and moral respects, than the highest of them vary from the human type. The rational study of the mind and the ways of animals has still to be instituted,-nothing having yet been done but in the way of preparation. It promises an ample harvest of important discovery directly applicable to the advancement of the study of Man, if only the naturalists will disregard the declamation of theologians and metaphysicians about their pretended degradation of human nature, while they are, on the contrary, rectifying the fundamental notion of it by establishing, rigorously and finally, the profound differences which positively separate us from the animals nearest to us in the scale.

Laws of action.

Intermittence

The two laws of action,-intermission and association, require much more attention. than they have yet received in connection with cerebral physiology. The law of intermittence is eminently applicable to the functions of the brain,-the symmetry of the organs being borne in mind. But this great and continuity. subject requires a new examination, seeing that it is requisite for science to reconcile their evident intermittence with the perfect continuity that seems to be involved in the connection which mutually unites all our intellectual operations, from earliest infancy to extreme decrepitude, and which cannot be interrupted by the deepest cerebral perturbations, provided they are transient. This question, for which metaphysical theories allowed no place, certainly offers serious difficulties: but its positive solution must throw great light upon the general course of intellectual acts. As for the association of the faculties, in sympathy or synergy, the physioAssociation. logists begin to understand its high importance, though its general laws have not yet been scientifically studied. Without this consideration, the number of propensities, sentiments, or aptitudes would seem to be susceptible of any degree of multiplication. For one instance, investigators of human nature have been wont to distinguish various kinds of courage, under the names of civil, military, etc., though the original disposition to brave any kind of danger must always be uniform, but more or less directed by the understanding. No doubt, the martyr who

endures the most horrible tortures with unshaken fortitude rather than deny his convictions, and the man of science who undertakes a perilous experiment after having calculated the chances, might fly in the field of battle if compelled to fight for a cause in which they felt no interest; but not the less is their kind of courage the same as that of the brave soldier. Apart from inequalities of degree, there is no other difference than the superior influence of the intellectual faculties. Without the diverse cerebral synergies, either between the two great orders of faculties, or between the different functions of each order, it would be impossible to analyse the greater proportion of mental actions; and it is in the positive interpretation of each of them by such association that the application of phrenological doctrine will chiefly consist, when such doctrine shall have been scientifically erected. When the elementary analysis shall have been instituted, allowing us to pass on to the study of these compound phenomena, we may think of proceeding to the more delicate inquiry whether, in each cerebral organ, a distinct part is not especially appropriate to the establishment of these synergies and sympathies. Some pathological observations have given rise to this suspicion,-the grey substance of the brain appearing more inflamed in those perturbations which affect the phenomena of the will, and the white in those which relate to intellectual operations.

Unity of the brain and nervous system.

If our existing phrenology isolates the cerebral functions too much, it is yet more open to reproach for separating the brain from the whole of the nervous system. Bichat taught us that the intellectual and affective phenomena, all-important as they are, constitute, in the whole system of the animal economy, only an intermediate agency between the action of the external world upon the animal through sensorial impressions, and the final reaction of the animal by muscular contractions. Now, in the present state of phrenological physiology, no positive conception exists with regard to the relation of the series of cerebral acts to this last necessary reaction. We merely suspect that the spinal marrow is its immediate organ. Even if cerebral physiology carefully comprehended the whole of the nervous system, it

would still, at present, separate it too much from the rest

of the economy. While rightly discarding the ancient

error about the seat of the passions being in the organs of the vegetative life, it has too much neglected the great influence to which the chief intellectual and moral functions are subject from other physiological phenomena; as Cabanis pointed out so emphatically, while preparing the way for the philosophical revolution which we owe to Gall.

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We have now seen how irrational and narrow is the way in which intellectual and moral physiology is conceived of and studied and that till this is rectified, the science, which really appears not to have advanced a single step since its institution, cannot make any true progress. see how it requires, above even the other Imperfect state branches of physiology, the preparation of of Phrenology. scientific habits, and familiarity with the foregoing departments of natural philosophy; and how, from its vicious isolation, it tends to sink to the level of the most superficial and ill-prepared minds, which will make it the groundwork of a gross and mischievous quackery, if the true scientific inquirers do not take it out of their hands. No inconveniences of this kind, however, should blind us to the eminent merits of a conception which will ever be one of the principal grounds of distinction of the philosophy of the nineteenth century, in comparison with the one which preceded it.

Present state of Biology.

Looking back, on the completion of this survey of the positive study of living bodies, we see that, imperfect as it is, and unsatisfactory as are the parts which relate to life, compared with those which relate to organization, still the most imperfect have begun to assume a scientific character, more or less clearly indicated, in proportion to the complexity of the phenomena.

We have now surveyed the whole system of natural philosophy, from its basis in mathematical, to its termination in biological philosophy. Notwithstanding the vast interval embraced by these two extremities, we have passed through the whole by an almost insensible gradation, finding nothing hypothetical in the transition, through

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chemistry, from inorganic to organic philo- Retrospect of sophy, and verifying as we proceeded the Natural Phirigorous continuity of the system of the losophy. natural sciences. That system, though comprehending all existing knowledge, is, however, still incomplete, leaving a wide area to the retrograde influence of the theologicometaphysical philosophy, to which it abandons a whole order of ideas, the most immediately applicable of all. There is yet wanting, to complete the body of positive philosophy, and to organize its universal preponderance, the subjection to it of the most complex and special phenomena of all, those of humanity in a state of association. I shall therefore venture to propose the new science of Social Physics, which I have found myself compelled to create, as the necessary complement of the system. This new science is rooted in biology, as every science is in the one which precedes it; and it will render the body of doctrine complete and indivisible, enabling the human mind to proceed on positive principles in all directions whatever, to which its activity may be incited. Imperfect as the preceding sciences are, they have enough of the positive character to render this last transformation possible and when it is effected, the way will be open for their future advancement, through such an organization of scientific labour as must put an end to the intellectual anarchy of our present condition.