Intimate connection of the vessels and higher or ganisms. active or passive, is unconscious, is concentrated by means of a triple series of ganglionic communications, which serve the further purpose of increasing the solidarity of the motor organs and even of the organs of tact. Such are the two sources, the one general, the other special, of the relation between man's physical and moral nature. They nerves in the come into direct combination by virtue of the close connection, peculiar to the higher organisms, between the vessels and nerves, which everywhere mutually aid one another, for nutrition and for stimulation. But the doctrine of vital harmony, to be sufficiently precise, demands more detail on the mutual relation between the organic life and the cerebral existence. Further specification tion between the vegetal life and the brain. In the first volume of this work, I limited the relation to of the rela- the affective region of the brain, since for the two other regions we can admit a direct connection solely with the outer world, for movements or impressions. By a further application of the same principle the relation is restricted to the self-regarding instincts, the only instincts which are concerned with the within; so that the organs of sympathy are connected with the life of nutrition only by virtue of their special relations with the egoistic propensities. But with them we must also exclude the two noblest personal affections, vanity and pride, as being directed on the without equally with the social affections, though with a different object. As a last application of the same principle, we eliminate, as not within the scope of this particular relation, the two instincts of improvement, destructive or constructive, for they are in as close connection with the environment, as the active region of the brain which they command. This suite of restrictions leads ultimately to the limitation of the special relations between the body and the brain to the three instincts of conservation. Limitation to the three instincts of conservation. Distinction between the three cases. But again, in regard to these three, a broad distinction must be drawn, founded on the nature and function of the several organs. In all the higher animals, the two instincts that relate to the preservation of the species may be set aside, almost as completely as those which directly bear on this external world. They have no immediate connection but with their respective viscera, the one as regards the germs, the other as concerns the offspring. There is a difference in this respect between the sexes, especially in the human species, the sexual instinct being more developed in man, the maternal in woman. For the due appreciation of this difference, I must intimate that the organic viscera which correspond to these two instincts, over and above their direct and special action on the brain, affect it indirectly through the blood it receives. In fact the fluids they secrete are always susceptible of reabsorption into the system when they are not discharged. The reaction of these fluids, the more normal the higher the organism, is to stimulate or calm, according as it proceeds from the fertilising or the alimentary liquid. The nutritus directly only with the nutrition. tive appara connected instinct of But we must It follows that we must restrict the special relations between the life of the body and the life of the brain to the correlation between the nutritive apparatus and the instinct of selfpreservation, both in their own way bound up with the whole economy of which they are parts. Paramount and unintermit- not forget ting however as this connection is, it must never put out of connections. sight those which are due to fecundation or lactation. Finally, if we would systematise the vital harmony, we must ever combine these special ties with the general tie furnished by the blood. the other three in they suffice number, the reactions cal and stitution of man. In this combination we see the nature and the difficulty of Together, the theory to be explained in the fourth chapter of the seventh volume, which deals directly with all the relations whatsoever of man's physical with his moral constitution. The three influences just indicated suffice to explain all the normal interactions, and even those originating in disease, whether mental or bodily; and as a consequence, medicine re-enters, on system, the domain of sacred science. To show more clearly that this capital property resides in the three, it will not be out of place to instance it in the case of Dreams, where the two distinct investigations of disturbance and agreement are found in spontaneous combination. When constructing social dynamics, I lamented the disuse imposed by Monotheism on the polytheistic inquiries into this important phenomenon, and I anticipated the systematic resumption of such inquiries in the ultimate state of human reason. We have now reached the point at which we can understand the Positive grounds for such resumption, to be given at length in the promised work. By the aid of the three influences above mentioned, we can appreciate the direct, nay even the indirect, modifications of our internal life, whether bodily ro cerebral, due to the suspension of all relations with the exter The Posi tive theory of Dreams. Sleep. Connection of the vital harmony with the feminine Utopia. The nervous and vascular systems more de veloped in woman. She is the best type of between the brain and body. nal world. This implies, however, that, realising the wish of Cabanis, we have previously formed sounder views of sleep than those which as yet prevail. According to my theory of the brain, sleep never has the character of a purely passive state, the affective life persisting during sleep quite as much as the vegetal. Neither the one nor the other objects of direct cognisance, they produce appreciable results by modifying the intelligence and even the activity, more profoundly even than when their influence is complicated with that of environment. Adopting this principle, the sacred science will be enabled to reduce to system the subjective interpretation of Dreams, to the point of directing their course by means of suitable impressions, derived from the brain or the body. To complete the exposition of the theory of vital harmony, I have to point out its legitimate connection with the bold hypothesis I ventured, in the last chapter, on the limitation to women of the function of reproduction. The higher the organism, the more extensive naturally become the inter-reactions of the physical and moral constitution, and this as a consequence of the relations between the three kinds of nerves and the vessels assuming greater imthe relations portance as compared with the purely vegetative functions. Now, in this respect, woman is superior to man, by virtue of a more complete developement of the nervous and vascular systems. Woman is naturally qualified to be the highest type of the mutual influence of the cerebral and bodily life. This superiority in organisation has been aided, and that increasingly, by the social position of woman, for by it she has been, step by step, set free from the pressure of active life, and made more and more amenable to the influence of the emotions, especially of the sympathetic emotions. When the Positive reorganisation of opinions and manners shall have given women the first place in the Sociocracy, their share in reproduction will be largely increased, as a result of their increasing accessibility to the combined influences of continuity. Utopia of the VirginMother. If so, the Utopia of the Virgin Mother will become, for the purer and nobler women, an ideal limit, well adapted to stand as the concise expression of human progress, carried to the point of systematising and so ennobling procreation. This adaptation of the theory will always be independent of its realisation in practice, provided only that it be looked upon as realisable, by virtue of the power over its own organisation, even its physical organisation, possessed by the species most susceptible of modification, a power of which as yet we have only witnessed the faint beginnings. As success must depend principally on the general developement of the relations between soul and body, the persistent effort to solve the problem will place on a sound footing the systematic study of the vital consensus, as it will supply at once the noblest end and the best instruments. Summary as these remarks must necessarily be, they seem to me to define with sufficient clearness the character and object of the most critical chapter in the whole of my elaboration of moral science. In reference to the treatise in which the Second Philosophy receives its complete and systematic form, all that remains is to explain its synthetical conclusion, which will be the general summary of the abstract, and the immediate source of the concrete, encyclopædia. ration of science. cally. In natural correspondence with the introduction already The regene examined, the conclusion will give prominent expression to the profane capital renovation of profane science, due to its amalgamation) Logiwith the sacred science. From the logical point of view, the continuous application of the subjective method will by this time have evidenced its intrinsic superiority to the objective in all its forms. Whilst the supreme science offers the only possible connection of the six preliminary sciences, its method alone can systematise deduction and the five modes of induction which answer to these sciences. Suppress this two-fold service, and analysis could never have issued in synthesis, where the doctrine allies itself with the worship with a view to the regime. And it is in this synthesis only that we can fully appreciate the intellectual efficacy of feeling, the sole possible source of any systematic construction. In principle, we had an indication of its power in this respect in the peculiar prerogative of feeling in regard to the continuity of our cerebral life, which it alone upholds during sleep and in spite of disease. But for this, its general influence, to exhibit the true logic, it is requisite that moral science give prominence in particular to the combination of feelings with images and signs, the combination which is destined to regenerate even Mathematics, as I explained at the outset. This grand result of intellectual progress finds direct expression in the systematic incorporation of Fetichism with This result the incorpo expressed in ration of Fetichism. (b) Scientifically. Morals derive discipline from within. Positivism. Originating in feeling and sanctioned for the purposes of art, the fusion of the two is no less applicable in science, as aiding it to perfect the lower speculations by assimilating them to the higher. In the maturity of human reason, the Positivist hands over to the Fetichist spirit the whole domain of profane science, reserving to itself that of sacred science, once the property of Theologism, which finally dis appears. From the point of view of science, Morals, as the supreme science, establishes for all the other sciences a discipline they cannot reject, a discipline as useful for guidance as for control, in which the intellect and the heart concur. Previously, even when best directed, the intellect could only attain an unsatisfactory rationality, for its investigations, if they had a basis, wanted an aim, in the absence of the persistent subordination of analysis to synthesis. On reaching Morals, reason may congratulate itself on having duly undergone this series of preparatory efforts, as necessary for its systematisation in its normal state on the basis of the instinctive suggestions of feeling. The several theories, hitherto provisional and precarious, now appear in their true character, as necessary elements of a science which is inherently indivisible, a science in which theory is in direct contact with practice. Never treated as purely arbitrary, the divisions of the sciences assume in Morals the character of artifices invented to facilitate a study which must long be abstract, previous to acquiring the concrete character which is the result of an entire coincidence of subject and object. Rejecting idle enquiries, the great problems come forward, problems which previously escaped the intellect, for this reason, that whilst compelled to select its true sphere from an immense multitude of questions open to it, it had no principle to guide it in its choice. The nobler theories, no longer hampered by the suggestions of empiricism, become the object of systematic attention, in proportion as the direct study of the soul demands a larger knowledge of the Great Being which it is to serve, of the body on which it depends, or of the environment to which it is subject. The discipline seems to fail in the case of the science to which we owe it, and yet which is exposed to an inroad of misdirected enquiries, if studied in too abstract a spirit. But the same principle suffices for its regulation by virtue of the direct |