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to the fundamental law which throughout subjects the highest phenomena to the most elementary.

relation

and objec

manifest in

highest

Subjective superiority, objective dependence, such is the The double relation between any two consecutive degrees of the encyclo- subjective pædic scale, but in no case is it so applicable as in the two last. tive-most The goal being neared, we are in their case more alive to the the two defective rationality of the preparatory sciences, not with- sciences. standing the greater difficulty of establishing the just distinction between the two. Profane science having in its own way given us an elementary knowledge of the milieu, and that of the body as its complement; sacred science enters on the systematic study of the soul, by analysing our collective existence, first from the statical, then from the dynamical point of view. But, though indispensable as a preliminary, this process is only a last preparation, the incompleteness of which we cannot but allow. We feel in regard to it that, as the intellect and activity are studied by themselves apart from the emotional nature, we are left to judge results alone, their origin and their purpose being questions for the following science. If, in the present work, the false position in which the mind is thus placed is not obvious, it is due solely to this, that the elaboration of Morals is therein, by a spontaneous process, blended inseparably with the construction of Sociology. Similarly, in my Philosophy,' I was enabled provisionally to shirk the obligation to create social statics prior to attacking social dynamics, by attending incidentally to existence, as occasion offered, in the course of the study of movement.

Without any illusion as to the character and object of the twofold mission devolving on me, as the result of the whole antecedent evolution of the race, I have always been aware that the full execution of the final construction would belong to my successors. What was reserved for me was to lay its immediate basis, and to characterise its spirit after having conceived its plan. In a word it was for me to institute the Positive religion, it was not for me to constitute it. Superior as is my religious construction in point of system to my philosophical creation, the present work cannot achieve the complete rationality which was ever my aspiration. For the normal distinction between Sociology and Morals, which is capital as regards the synthesis, arose whilst I was effecting a construction over which it ought to have presided. The atti

Comte's own work of final

share in the

systematisa

tion.

The seven chapters of

the treatise on Morals.

The three first chap

ters.

The four remaining chapters.

Detailed ex

planation of the fourth

tude required for the creation of a strictly dogmatic system could be finally taken only in this fourth volume as a result of the whole series of preparatory labours; labours I venture to say, as much needed for the public as for myself. What I have to do at present then is to complete my exposition of the true character of a definitive systematisation, in which, at the actual stage of my career, the normal execution of two works only falls to me, the two extremes of the Second Philosophy; between them my successors will intercalate five indispensable treatises. Enough having been said on the introduction of the last volume of the abstract encyclopædia, I must examine, in more detail than in the case of the others, its seven chapters.

I shall devote the three first to establishing systematically the general doctrines which form the immediate basis of moral science as a whole. The first chapter will state the Positive theory of human nature, under the guidance of my subjective conception of the consensus of the brain. On the basis thus laid, the second chapter will construct the theory of the Great Being, the Being in which alone we can trace on a decisive scale the developement of this consensus. Then it will be possible in the third chapter, without any preliminaries, to establish the definitive theory of true unity, as its nature and origin have been already determined. Evidently then the present work contains all the great primary principles of the one announced, not however in such a form as to dispense with their synthetical elaboration.

In the other four chapters of this last volume, the immediate object is the construction of the indivisible science of man, by laying down the real laws of human existence in its normal form, with full recognition of the external necessities to which man is subject. The fourth chapter will deal with the body, the study of which in Biology could only be preliminary, even as regards the lower animals, from want of the notions relating to the brain which are indispensable to a right conception of its consensus. After this, the direct and special object of the three last chapters will be the study of the soul; in them we shall lay down the general laws of human existence as a synthesis of the affections in the first place; then of the intelligence; lastly of activity.

In regard to the work in question, which alone will give the full conception of the Second Philosophy as a system, I

The doctrine

harmony.

am bound to explain more particularly the character and object chapter. of the middle chapter, that in which we effect once for all of vital the normal fusion of the profane with the sacred domain. The right understanding of this chapter is more calculated than anything else to set in a clear light the ultimate unity of the Positive doctrine, all the several elements of which will thus be shown to cooperate in the direct solution of the most important problem in the science of man. The aim of this decisive chapter is mainly this: to delineate the consensus, the indispensable consensus between our bodily existence and our cerebral life, the end in view being the perfecting the one and the other by the aid of their mutual influence.

The principal point in the work under consideration is to give completeness and system to my subjective theory of the brain, proceeding on the logical and scientific bases laid down in the first volume of the present treatise. To do this I must first deal with the external functions of the central apparatus, particularly with the part it plays in sensation, on which point my original remarks are not sufficiently clear. As with the organs of the soul, so I must determine by the subjective method the number and position of the cerebral ganglia which preside over the relations of the organism with the milieu, so far as it is the source of impressions.

This inquiry involves, as a preliminary, the enumeration of the senses, properly so-called. Now the ultimate conclusion which I feel bound to adopt is, that there are eight really distinct senses, one general, the sense of touch, and seven special: the muscular sense, the sense of taste, the sense of heat, the sense of smell, the sense of hearing, of sight, and of electricity. I rank the seven following Gall and Blainville, on the principle of increase in speciality, in harmony with that of the phenomena to which they correspond, and measured by the succession of their appearance in the animal series. The first and last alone require any special explanation. For the first, I adopt substantially the opinion of Blainville, who distinguished it from the general sense of pressure and assigned to it the direct appreciation of muscular efforts and of the fatigue consequent on them. As for the last, its feeble habitual developement in man must not prevent our recognising its distinct existence, in some animals very strongly marked, and more or less common to all the vertebrata. For each of the eight senses we must

The main systematise tive theory

point to

the subjec

of the brain.

Determinanumber of They are

tion of the

the senses.

eight.

A cerebral ganglion

each sense.

admit separate nerves, nerves not so easily traceable, but quite as independent, as those of sight and hearing; unless we do so, the functions which the nerves subserve would remain as indistinct as they would be if we had only the lower organisms to draw inferences from.

The same reasoning leads us to admit for each sense, the admitted for necessary existence of a cerebral ganglion, in which the nervous apparatus terminates, equally when it has a circumscribed sphere of action, as when it extends to the whole of the integument, internal or external. Since contemplation takes place equally though the senses involved differ, its organ must be distinct from theirs. Nevertheless these latter must be nearer the speculative region of the brain than the two other regions, with which they have no direct relation. Neither, again, have they with the organs of meditation, so that their position is necessarily under the organ of contemplation, so to avoid any disturbance of the operations of the intellect by lying athwart their organs. But as it is the knowledge of phenomena rather than of beings that the senses give us, their analytical character requires a position adjacent to that of abstract contemplation. This decision finds support in the obligation to place them on the median line, in order that the symmetrical impressions may be in sufficient agreement. As for the site of each of the eight sensitive ganglia in particular, all I can do at present is to give an idea, taking the easier cases, of a complementary explanation which has its proper place in the promised work.

The ganglia of touch, muscula

Looking at the pre-eminent importance and the greater diffusion of the sense of touch, always common to both the exand hearing. ternal and internal integument, its ganglion must be nearest

tion, sight,

The motor functions.

the organ of contemplation, thus better informed of the general state of the envelope, mucous membrane or skin. The ganglion of musculation marches with the active region of the brain, in order that its impressions may affect in an equal degree the three portions of the apparatus which regulates movement, excited, controlled, or sustained. On a comparison of the senses of sight and hearing, the one more intellectual, the other more social, we see that the respective ganglia of the two must be placed, that of sight nearer the faculty of synthesis, that of hearing nearer the instinct of sympathy.

As for the other division of the external functions of the Innervation. brain our remarks for the present may be less detailed. To

avoid all exaggeration on this point, we must consider it the function of innervation to stimulate contractions which the muscular fibre can effect of itself, and which are effected in the animals which are without nerves. The close solidarity which characterises the motor apparatus, the various parts of which can supply the place of one another reciprocally, does not require, and does not even allow of, any special ganglion, but does demand a direct relation with the active region of the brain. To afford such connection is the great function of the Spinal cord. spinal cord, which also affords a rallying point for the impressions of touch. The only serious modification of this connection is due to the distinctions relating to the will, which condenses the whole cerebral existence. But the division of movements into involuntary and voluntary resolves itself into this, that we substitute intermittent for continuous action. This done, and putting aside spontaneous contractions, we recognise that innervation is always voluntary in its origin, though it may become involuntary in its results by long habit.

After this introduction with its two divisions, the chapter under consideration has for its main subject the relations of the principal region of the brain with the body. The system of these relations will constitute the theory, a theory in outline so adequately sketched by Cabanis, of the general connection of the physical and moral nature of man. But to constitute it we must begin by drawing a fundamental distinction between the two simultaneous influences constantly exerted by the body upon the brain, through the blood-vessels or the nerves, the two bonds of union between the life of nutrition and the life of relation. Common to all the regions of the brain and indispensable for all, the action of the blood which oppresses or stimulates according to the mode and degree of its supply, only so far concerns the affective apparatus more than the others, in that this portion of the brain predominates by itself and has connections with the other parts. Over and above this general influence, the centre of the brain has a particular connection with the body through the special nerves of nutrition. These nerves perform for nutrition, though with less energy, a service in the way of perfecting it, analogous to that which the nerves. of motion perform for the muscular functions. More necessary the higher the organism, the relation between the viscera of organic life and the brain, a relation which equally, whether

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