CHAPTER V.

OF PHILOSOPHICAL PHYSIOLOGY.

"Nous croyons qu'il y'a des faits qui ne sont point visibles a l'œil, point tangibles a la main, que le microscope ni le scalpel ne peuvent atteindre si parfaits qu'on les suppose, qui echappent egalement au gout, a l'odorat, a l'ouie, et qui cependant sont susceptibles d'etre constatés, avec une absolue certitude."

JOUFFROY, Esquisses de Philosophie Morale.

FROM the principle of Locke, that all the thoughts arise from the senses, we have seen a new science emanate, physiology. It was then supposed that the source of some great discoveries was attained. Having been drawn upon this ground by their adversaries, the philosophers were obliged to continue the contest upon it. They were accused of ignorance because they reasoned upon man without knowing the composition of his body; and they were consequently obliged to become anatomists, as their adversaries had become philosophers. This double metamorphosis produced no result; for the latter quitting the domain of matter in order to arrive at the soul, the former leaving that of the soul to arrive at matter, each remained in his element; the point of departure sufficed to separate them for ever.

I will then conclude, not that these two sciences are incompatible, but that each attaches itself separately to a distinct part of man, and of which the point of contact can neither be seized by means of the dissecting knife,

nor of thought. The one studies all of that which in man belongs to the animal, the other all of that which in man belongs to the angel; how can they meet?

Another conclusion not less rigorous, is that physiologists have accorded to physiology a power which it has not: in other words, they have required from it the explanation of psychological facts which lie out of its sphere.

The anatomist may seek the relations of our organs with the phenomena of the intelligence; he may seek in the perceptions of our senses all the animal thoughts and passions, and he will have attained the limits of his science. The scalpel can reach nothing but matter; but is there nothing beyond its reach?

Is there nothing in us which contradicts, combats, and condemns our material thoughts and passions?

That which exists in us beyond intelligence and matter is what constitutes the science of the philosopher. A reason superior to animal interests.

A sense of infinity which neither time nor space can satisfy.

A sense of the beautiful, the type of which we have a glimpse of, but which has no perfect model upon earth.

A moral sense, which opposes all our vicious inclinations.

A conscience, which either condemns or absolves us. This is what exists in us beyond intelligence and matter; faculties and a will higher than our intellect, stronger than our passions, and which often direct them towards an end totally opposed to our material interests.

And truly, what man is there so unfortunate as never to have felt his soul rise against baseness and crime? What individual is there who in this terrible contest of our vices and our virtues has not experienced, at least once in his life,

F

the celestial joy of causing the triumph of inclinations, which are not of the earth?

The soul is there, it is the soul which triumphs, which enjoys, which drives back crime, hatred, vengeance, and which from the summit of the cross, while the body suffered and the intellect grew dim, still prayed for the

"La réalité qui tombe sous nos sens n'est pas toute la réalité."

JOUFFROY.

DESIROUS of explaining the nature of man, Condillac supposes a statue; he presents to it odours, images, sounds. Each sense produces its ideas, each idea instructs the understanding. The statue thinks, compares, reasons, imagines, knows, and wills; the education of the ass is complete, and man appears, material, intelligent; The first among animals-no more.

The statue having received everything from without, * as a moral, infinite being does not exist. In fact, thing is more variable than sensation, nothing more imuntable than truth. How could sensation produce in man das independent of things, times, and places? The variall does not produce the immutable.

Unskilful sculptor! Condillac forgot to invoke a god

in beginning his work. He gives life to a statue, and refuses it immortality.

Let us observe, that the statue being once perfect in this sense, the author wishes for it nothing more. He desires to prove that one may form a man with sensations, and he sends forth nothing more than an ape or a parrot: such is the whole power of the materialist. In spite of himself, Condillac refutes Locke; the disciple destroys the master in the very book wherein he promises himself to establish his triumph.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE TRUE FACULTIES OF THE SOUL.

"Revenons a l'homme maintenant, et laissons ce qu'il a de commun avec les plantes et avec les bèste."

SAINT AUGUSTIN. De la Verité religieuse. “Dans le sein de l'homme, je ne sais quel Dieu, mais il habite un Dieu."

SENEQUE.

OUR body partakes, at the same time, of the plant and of the animal: there takes place in us a multitude of operations, over which our will has no power. The blood circulates, the hair grows, the flesh is renewed; we vegetate, we grow, we exist, and die without our own consent. Thus is man, as a plant.

It is the vegetative faculty which impresses matter with its forms; it is as the mould of all things, and of all beings.

Man, as an animal, unites within himself alone, the

inclinations, the passions, the instincts, the intelligence, of all organised beings: he is more industrious than the bee, more cruel than the tiger, more cunning than the fox; more terrible, more variable, more dissolute, more insatiable, than all the other animals together. This is so striking, that their names alone express his different characters; so that, at the first view, man with his armies, his towns, and his palaces, appears to be only the most intelligent of animals.

Let him speak of his affections, of his foresight, of his memory. I cast my eyes around, and I find all the faculties of which he boasts, attached to matter in the brute. The bird which measures its flight by the experience which it has acquired of the reach of gun-shot; the swallow which throws itself into the flames to save its brood; the fox which, by its ever-varying stratagems, puzzles the huntsman's pack, reveal to me treasures of imagination, of intelligence, tenderness, and judgment. I am forced to admit in animals, as in man, innate sentiments; attachment, hatred, jealousy, gratitude, revenge, are renewed in them at each generation. What we feel, they feel; what we will, they will; man has only more scope, because his organs are more perfect. He is an universal animal: a being who thinks, remembers, combines, reflects, desires, reasons, and wills.

But if I were to destroy all these faculties, all these passions, would man be annihilated: to a certainty I should have only destroyed a plant, and an animal—the intelligent and thinking faculties which are possessed by the brute, and which exist in us. Is this, then, the whole man? Does his intelligence restrict itself to raising dykes like the beaver, or palaces like the bee, with all the developement which his organs permit him? Is all his soul concentrated in the wants of his body? are all his thoughts