is defective; irritation developes or greatly augments their faculties. These examples prove, more and more, that the innateness of the properties of the soul and mind, and their dependence on organization, must pass for demonstrated truths.

It is true, that in a state of health, man does not feel that he exercises his intellectual faculties by means of material organs; but he is equally unconscious that digestion, nutrition, and secretion are exercised in him by material apparatuses. Inattentive to the nature of his being, to the phenomena which relate to it, and to their causes, he hardly dreams that the difference which shows itself in him, according to the difference of age, in the exercise of his propensities and his faculties, is the result of the change which has taken place in his organization. "We must, consequently," as Herder says, "pardon the error of the people, when, in the midst of the dream of life, they regard the reason with which they are endowed, as independent of the senses and the organs, and raise it to the rank of a primordial and pure faculty. The observer of nature, on the contrary, who knows, by experience, the origin and the whole course of human life, and who, by the study of the history of nature, can trace the chain of the gradual perfection of the animal kingdom, up to man, is unceasingly reminded of the influence of organization. Every thing shows him, that man no more makes himself, as respects the use of his intellectual faculties, than he depends on himself for his birth." Malebranche has also said with reason, "that* the difference in the tastes of nations and even of individuals, for the various kinds of music, arises in a great measure from differences in organization; that, in general, our propensities and our faculties depend on the same cause; and that, consequently, we cannot better employ our time, than in seeking the material causes of the changes which befal us, in order to

* L. i. c. tom. i. p. 113 et 157.

learn to know ourselves. Let us hope that men will not long defer to acknowledge, generally, as Bonnet* says, that it is only by the physical, that we can penetrate into the moral nature of man, and that, consequently, the basis of all the philosophy of the human mind, is a knowledge of the functions of the brain.

SECTION IV.

OF FATALISM, MATERIALISM, AND MORAL LIBERTY.

In the preceding sections, I have proved, by indisputable facts, that the faculties of the soul and the mind are innate, and that their exercise depends on the organization. I have also shown that the origin of the moral and intellectual faculties, and the different modes in which they are manifested, can be explained in no other way. But, there is a kind of objection, which new truths never escape, especially when they may lead to great results. Ignorance, prejudice, envy, and often bad faith, endeavor to combat these truths. If they cannot attack the principles of a doctrine, they try at least to render it suspected, by the dangerous consequences of which they accuse it. Thus, it is reproached to the physiology of the brain, that it overturns the first foundations of morality and religion; that it eminently favors materialism and fatalism; and that, consequently, it denies free will. History teaches that the same has always happened to every discovery.

The followers of the different schools of philosophy among the Greeks, mutually accused each other of impiety and of perjury. The people, in turn, detested the philosophers, and accused those who sought to discern the principles of things, of invading, in a presumptuous manner, the rights of the divinity. The novelty of the opinions of Pythagoras, caused his expulsion from Athens; those of Anaxagoras, threw him into prison. The Abderites treated Democritus as insane, because he wished to discover in dead bodies the cause of insanity; and Socrates, for having demonstrated the unity of God, was condemned to drink hemlock.

The same scandal has been renewed in all ages and among all nations. Many of those who distinguished themselves in the fourteenth century by their knowledge in the natural sciences, were punished with death, as magicians. Galileo, for having proved the motion of the earth, was imprisoned at the age of seventy years. Those who first maintained that climate influences the intellectual faculties of nations, made themselves suspected of materialism.

In general, nature sports in a singular manner, and yet always uniformly, with new truths and those who discover them. With what indignation and what animosity have men repulsed the greatest benefits. For example, the potatoe, Peruvian bark, vaccination, &c. As soon as Varolius made his anatomical discoveries, he was decried by Silvius as the most ignorant, the most senseless, the most infamous of men: Vesanum, literarum imperitissimum arrogantissimum, calumniatorem, maledicentissimum, rerum omnium ignarissimum, transfugam impium, ingratum, monstrum ignorantiæ, impietatis exemplar perniciosissimum quod pestilentiali halitu Europam venenat, etc. Varolius was reproached with dazzling his hearers by a captious eloquence, and with producing, artificially, the prolongation of the optic nerve to the thalami of the same name. Harvey, maintaining the circnlation of the blood, was treated as a visionary; and the envy of his enemies went so far

as to seek to ruin him with the Kings James I. and Charles I.; and when it was no longer possible to cut short the optic nerve, or to arrest the blood in its vessels, the honor of these two discoveries was suddenly transferred to Hippocrates. The physical truths announced by Linnæus, Buffon, and that pious philosopher Bonnet, by George Leroy, were represented as impieties which threatened to commence the total ruin of religion and morality; even the virtuous and generous Lavater has been treated as a fatalist and a materialist. Every where, fatalism and materialism, placed before the sanctuary of truth, served to deter the world from entering it. Every where, those, whose judgment the confiding public awaits, not only attribute to the author of a discovery, the absurdities of their own prejudice, but even renounce truths already established, as soon as they are opposed to their ends, and resuscitate exploded errors, provided they will serve to ruin the man who allows them their due weight.

Such is a faithful picture of what has happened to me. I have therefore, some reason to be proud of having experienced the same fate, as the men to whom the world is indebted for so great a mass of knowledge. It would seem that nature had subjected all truths to persecution, in order to establish them in a more solid manner; for, he who knows how to wrest one from her, presents always a front of brass to the darts hurled against him, and has always the strength to defend and to consolidate it. History shows us, that all the efforts and all the sophism, directed against a truth once drawn from the abyss, fall like dust, raised by the wind against a rock.

The examples of Aristotle and of Descartes ought in a special manner to be quoted, when we would make known the influence of prejudice on the good and bad fortune of new doctrines. The antagonists of Aristotle caused his books to be burned; afterwards they burned the works of Ramus, who had written against Aristotle, and declared the adversaries of the Stagyrite, 17

VOL. I.

heretics; and there were even legislative acts, forbidding to attack his philosophy under pain of the galleys. And yet no one now concerns himself with the philosophy of Aristotle! Descartes was persecuted because he maintained innate ideas, and the University of Paris caused his books to be burned. He had written the sublimest thoughts on the existence of God; Voet, his enemy, accused him of atheism.* Still later, this same university declared itself for innate ideas; and when Locke and Condillac attacked innate ideas, there was a cry on all sides of materialism and fatalism.

It is thus, that the same opinions have been regarded sometimes as dangerous, because they were new, sometimes as useful, because they were old. We must then conclude to take pity upon man; that the judgment of cotemporaries on truth or error, or on the dangerous or innocent consequences of a doctrine, is singularly suspicious; and that the author of a discovery ought not trouble himself about any thing but to know whether he has actually discovered the truth. "Reason," says Anchillon,† following Bonnet, "knows neither useful truths nor dangerous truths. What is, is; there is no compromising with this principle. It is the only answer we need make; and to those, who, subjecting every thing to utility, ask what is this good for? and to those, who, always yielding to their fears, inquire 'whither will this lead?' Jesus, the son of Sirach, has already said, § 'We must not say, what good will this do?' for the use of every thing will be found in its season; but we cannot abuse the truth.'”

I do not pretend to say, that ignorance and ill faith will not abuse my doctrine; for what will not man abuse? Tell him that he must expiate his crimes, and you will see him, in his superstition, immolate his

* Malebranche Recherche de la vérité, t. 2. p. 49.

Melange de lit. et de philosophie, Paris, 1809. tom. 2. p. 42. + Palingen, tom. 1. p. 42. § Ecclesiasticus, ch. 39. ver. 26.