The Propensity to Kill

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the part of the brain beneath the prominence alluded to, the seat of a sense or instinct for killing and for murdering ('instinct carnassier; penchant au meurtre'). An outcry was forthwith raised against him for teaching that man is born to be a murderer, and irresponsible for one of the very worst of his actions ; and this misconception of his views has lasted to the present day. What Gall taught was simply that a particular part of the brain, when abnormally developed, and not having its action modified by other faculties, moral and intellectual, frequently leads to the committal of murder. In his work on the functions of the brain, Gall gives the natural history of the faculty in question, and, by a vast array of historical data, particularly the records of crime, he shows that there is in man a natural disposition to shed blood, and not only to kill whatever creatures he requires for food, but generally those that come in his way, whether injurious to him or not. In extreme cases, he adds, positive pleasure is taken in slaughtering, even in acts of cruelty and torturing, as many murderers, when on the scaffold, have acknowledged.

Spurzheim, Vimont, Brousais, Félix Voisin,1 G. Combe, myself, and other followers of Gall, have added many facts to those enumerated by him, and

1 'De l'homme animal.' Paris, 1839. A work particularly valuable, as showing the connection of man with lower animals.

have entered fully into the different forms of activity of a faculty of 'destructiveness,' as the one in question now is called, and into its influence on human conduct in general. The facts and arguments of the named writers are worthy of earnest consideration, particularly as they offer a more natural and satisfactory explanation than any theories of metaphysicians and moralists have done, of the undeniable and terrible instances of man's bloodthirstiness and cruelty with which history abounds. Murderers, I may add, when their passions are calm, have frequently found themselves unable to give any other explanation of their horrible deeds than in saying they were committed at the 'instigation of the devil!'

Facts, psychological and cerebro-morphological, and inductive reasonings, similar to those used by Gall in proof of an inborn faculty for destroying life, are brought forward by him to show that there are other animal faculties in the mind of man. As my chief aim, however, in this essay, is to establish the general principle of localisation of mental faculties, I must content myself with referring to Gall's works, and those of his followers, for the data on which the conclusions alluded to have been arrived at. And with regard to the works of Dr. Gall, I must express my opinion that they have been almost entirely ignored in this country. With the exception of my late friends Dr. Elliotson and George Combe, and

Mental States Complex

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Mr. Charles Bray amongst the living, I have never met with any Englishman who had read them. Indeed, the chief opponents of phrenology—those who have made themselves the most conspicuous for the tone of apodictical certainty and contempt with which they repudiate its principles-have, at the same time, plainly disclosed their ignorance of the labours and teachings of Dr. Gall.

It is not to be inferred from what has been said concerning 'fundamental faculties' that Gall was so wanting in insight into the phenomena of mental life as a whole, as to imagine that any particular faculty could be observed in an isolated state of activity. Neither did he fancy that he had discovered a sufficient number of faculties to account for all human actions. All mental states are more or less complex, display the associated activity of various faculties, intellectual and emotional, together with the results of their education, not to speak here of other circumstances, physiological and pathological, as the general constitution, and the state of the blood and the viscera, their action and reaction on the brain, and consequent influence on mental life. However necessary, therefore, for the full comprehension of the latter in its more intricate forms and phases, to take into consideration all the circumstances alluded to, nevertheless, in human actions some particular impulse or motive may be seen to predominate; and it

was, I repeat, the observation of strong impulses, under great variety of inward and outward circumstances, and of the coincidences in the forms of the head, which guided Gall in his studies of human nature.

It is quite unnecessary at the present day to cite authorities in physiology in proof that the brain is regarded as the organ of the mind; or, as some physiologists still prefer to express it, as 'the material substratum for the manifestation of mental actions.' A celebrated German physiologist, Johannes Müller, has declared that, in view of the differences in the mental life of human beings, à priori, nothing can be said against the general principle of Gall's system." He rejects Gall's 'organology,' however, for several reasons, one of which is, that 'no province of the brain can be shown to be the seat of memory, imagination, &c.' Undoubtedly, as I have pointed out, it must be so; and the other psychological objections to Gall's teachings are based by Müller on his conception of the human mind as a metaphysical entity.2

A later German physiologist, Valentin, has, however, declared it to be theoretically necessary that

''Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen.' Coblenz, 1844, vol. i. p. 730. (I cite this edition of Müller's work, as it is later than the one translated into English.)

2 In my German work 'Grundzüge der Phrenologie,' 2nd edition, I have spoken fully of Müller's objections to 'Gall's system.'

R. Wagner on the Brain

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mental faculties should be localised;1 and another physiologist, Rudolph Wagner, says: 'Investigations appear to have had the remarkable result, that the mechanical apparatuses (the brain) for the manifestation of mental actions (Seelenthätigkeiten) in different human beings, already in their fundamental and embryonic developments, display positive sexual and individual peculiarities, which have a decided influence on the form (Ausbildung) of the mind in later life. With a certain limitation, it may therefore be said that anatomically genius and idiocy are innate, as the development-history of brains shows.' 2

This statement of an eminent physiologist, who certainly cannot be said to have belonged to a materialistic school of philosophy, entirely upholds the main principle of phrenology, for the law which applies to extreme cases must necessarily apply to intermediate; and and every human being has an inborn character, an individuality, however little remarkable it may be, especially to superficial observers.

By the term 'individuality,' I do not imply homogeneousness. The human mind displays' variety in unity,' a 'unity of opposites'-to borrow a phrase from German psychologists; and the striking alternations of feeling, the antithetical nature of the

1 'Lehrbuch der Physiologie des Menschen.' Brunswick, 1844, vol. ii. p. 816.

2 'Göttingen gelehrten Nachrichten,' 1861, No. xxii. p. 392.

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