Prospectus français et anglais : Treatise on human and comparative phrenology / [Vimont].

  • Vimont, Joseph.
Date:
1831
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prospectus français et anglais : Treatise on human and comparative phrenology / [Vimont]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    perfectly well, to examine at the same time the other species? It is in consequence of having neglected this study that ancient and modern philosophers and oven physiologists have committed grave errors. All studied man separately, and neglected the knowledge of the organization and functions of animals without considering that these two sciences are inseparable and ought to strengthen each other. Bulfon has observed animals, but rather as a poet than as a profound naturalist. His eloquent writings strike us with admiration for the works of nature but they make them imperfectly known to us. G. Le Roy, in his so true and so acute ob- servations, has shown himself a better philosopher than Bulfon; unhappily he was deprived of all anatomical and physiological science which ought to serve as a basis to all researches made upon animals. The spirit of observation which presides in the works of our age, has overturned for ever the phi- losophical and physiological theories purely ideal. The reign of positive things has replaced that of imaginary speculations. We cannot any longer hear of functions without organical conditions for their manifestation; it would be extraordinary, nay ridiculous nowadays, to make a faculty act with- out the intervention of an organ. All the func- tions of the organs had been till now the object of tbe labours of philosophers and physiologists; the brain alone seemed to make an exception, and though the greatest part of ancient and modern learned men had considered this organ as the in- strument of the moral and intellectual faculties, the little concord which reigned in their writings often full of spirit, sometimes energetically re- flected, proved that they had not any ideas which could direct them iu the study of intellectual physiology .There is not a single philosopher or phy- siologist of our age who does not consider the brain as the organ of the soul. The facts which contribute occupe le degre' le plus eleve', ne sera-t-il pas utile pour bien connaitre celui-ci, d’exarainer en meme temps les autres especes? C’est pour avoir neglige' cette e'tude que les philosophes anciens et modernes, et meme les physiologistes ont commis de graves erreurs. Tons e'tudierent I’homme se'pare'ment, et ne'gligerent la coniiaissance de rorganisation et des fonctions chez les animaux, ne songeant pas que ces deux sciences sont inseparables, et doivent se fortifier I’une par I’autre. Bulfon a observe les animaux, mais plutot eu poete qu’en naturaliste profond. Ses ecrits e'loquens nous frappent d’admiration pour les cEUvres de la nature, mais nous les font connaitre imparfaitement. G. Leroy, dans ses ob- servations si vraies et si piquantes, s’est montre meilleur philosophe que Bulfon; malheureusement il e'tait de'pourvu de connaissances anatomiques et physiologiques , qui doivent servir de base a toutes les recherches faites sur les animaux. L’esprit d’observatiou qui preside aux travaux de notre siecle , a reiiverse' pour toujours les theo- ries pbilosopliiques et physiologiques purement ideales. Le regue des choses positives a remplace' celui des spe'culations imaginaires. L’on ne pent plus entendre parler de fonctions sans conditions organiques propres a leur manifestation. II serait aujoLird’hui extraordinaire, et meme ridicule de faire agir une faculte' sans I’interme'dlaire d’un vis- cere. Toutes les fonctions des visceres avaient e'td jusqu’a ce jour I’objet des tiavaux des philosophes et des physiologistes, le cerveau seul semblait faire exception : et bien que la plupart de ces sa- vans anciens et nouveaux eussent considere' cet organe comme I’lnstrument des facultes intellec- tuelles et morales; le peu d’accord qui re'gnait dans leurs e'crits, souvent spirituels, quelquefois fortement penses, prouvalent qu’ils n’avaient pas de connaissances arrete'es qui pussent les diriger dans Fe'tude de la physiologie intellectuelle. II n’est pas un seul philosophe ou pbysiologiste de notre e'poque qui ne considere le cerveau