Spiritualist and Spiritist phrenology.

— Is the black race perfectible? According to some people, this question is judged and resolved in the negative. If this is so, and if this race is consigned by God to an eternal inferiority, it follows that it is useless to concern ourselves with it and that we should limit ourselves to making of the black man a kind of domestic animal, prepared for the cultivation of sugar and cotton. Yet Humanity, as much as social interest, requires a more careful examination. This is what we shall attempt to do. But since a conclusion of such gravity, in one sense or the other, cannot be taken lightly and must rest upon serious reasoning, we ask permission to develop some preliminary considerations, which will serve us to show, once more, that Spiritism is the only possible key to a multitude of problems, insoluble with the aid of the present data of science. Phrenology will serve us as a point of departure. We shall summarily set forth its fundamental bases for a better understanding of the subject.

— As is known, phrenology rests upon the principle that the brain is the organ of thought, as the heart is of circulation, the stomach of digestion, and the liver of the secretion of bile. This point is admitted by all, for there is no one who could attribute thought to another part of the body. Each one feels that he thinks through the head and not through the arm and the leg. More still: one feels instinctively that the seat of thought is in the forehead; it is there, and not at the occiput, that one raises the hand to indicate that a thought has just arisen. For everyone the development of the frontal part leads one to presume more intelligence than when it is low and depressed. On the other hand, anatomical and physiological experiments have clearly demonstrated the special role of certain parts of the brain in vital functions, and the difference of the phenomena produced by the lesion of one or another part. The researches of Science cannot leave any doubt in this regard; those of Mr. Flourens, above all, proved to evidence the specialty of the functions of the cerebellum. Thus, it is admitted as a principle that the different parts of the brain do not exercise the same functions. Moreover, it is recognized that, originating from the brain, the nerve cords, like the filaments of a root, branch out into all parts of the body and are affected in a different manner, according to their destination. It is thus that the optic nerve, which reaches the eye and opens out into the retina, is affected by light and colors and transmits these sensations to the brain in a special portion; that the auditory nerve is affected by sounds, the olfactory nerves by odors. If one of these nerves loses its sensibility from any cause whatever, there will no longer be the sensation: one becomes blind, deaf, or deprived of smell. These nerves have, then, distinct functions and can in no way substitute for one another, although the most minute examination shows not the least difference in their texture. Starting from these principles, phrenology goes far: it localizes all the moral and intellectual faculties, attributing to each one a special place in the brain. It is thus that it assigns to one organ the instinct of destruction which, carried to excess, becomes cruelty and ferocity; to another firmness, whose excess, without the counterweight of judgment, produces obstinacy; to another the love of offspring; finally, to others, the memory of localities, of numbers, of forms, of poetic sentiment, of the harmony of sounds, of colors, etc., etc. Here is not the place to make the anatomical description of the brain. We shall say only that, if we make a longitudinal section in the mass, we shall recognize that from the base there issue fibrous bundles, which go to unfold at the surface, presenting more or less the aspect of a mushroom cut at its height. Each bundle corresponds to one of the convolutions of the outer surface, whence it follows that the development of the convolution corresponds to the development of the fibrous bundle. Each bundle being, according to phrenology, the seat of a sensation or of a faculty, it concludes that the energy of the sensation or of the faculty is proportional to the development of the organ. In the fetus the bony case of the skull is not yet formed; at first it is no more than a film, a very flexible membrane, which is consequently molded upon the salient parts of the brain and preserves their impression, as it hardens through the deposits of calcium phosphate, which is the base of the bones. From the protuberances of the skull phrenology concludes the volume of the organ, and from the volume of the organ it concludes the development of the faculty.

Such is, in brief words, the principle of the phrenological science.

— Although our aim is not to develop it here, a few words are still necessary regarding the manner of appreciation. He would be roundly mistaken who believed he could deduce the absolute character of a person from the simple inspection of the protuberances of the skull. The faculties counterbalance one another reciprocally, balance one another, corroborate or attenuate one another, in such a way that, to judge an individual, it is necessary to take into account the degree of influence of each one, by reason of its development, then to bring into the scale the temperament, the milieu, the habits, and the education.

Let us suppose a man with the organ of destruction very pronounced, with atrophy of the organs of the moral and affective faculties: he will be wretchedly ferocious. But if to destruction he allies benevolence, affection, the intellectual faculties, destruction will be neutralized and will have the effect of giving him more energy; he may be a very honorable man, whereas the superficial observer, who judged him solely by the inspection of the first organ, would take him for an assassin. One conceives, thus, all the modifications of character that may result from the concurrence of the other faculties, such as cunning, circumspection, self-esteem, courage, etc. The sensation of color alone will make the colorist, but it will not make the painter; that of form alone will not make the draftsman; the two reunited will only make a good copyist if, at the same time, there is not the sentiment of ideality or of poetry, and the reflective and comparative faculties. This suffices to show that practical phrenological observations present great difficulty and rest upon philosophical considerations, which are not within the reach of everyone. These preliminaries being established, let us view the matter from another point of view.

— Two radically opposed systems divided, from the outset, the phrenologists into materialists and spiritualists. Admitting nothing outside of matter, the former say that thought is a product of the cerebral substance; that the brain secretes thought, as the salivary glands secrete saliva, as the liver secretes bile. Now, as the quantity of secretion is generally proportional to the volume and the quality of the secreting organ, they say that the quantity of thoughts is proportional to the volume and the quality of the brain; that, each part of the brain secreting a particular order of thoughts, the diverse sentiments and the diverse aptitudes are in direct ratio to the organ that produces them. We shall not refute this monstrous doctrine, which makes of man a machine, without responsibility for his evil acts, without merits for his good qualities, and which owes its genius and its virtues only to the chance of its organization. n With such a system all punishment is unjust and all crimes are justified. The spiritualists say, on the contrary, that the organs are not the cause of the faculties, but the instruments of the manifestation of the faculties; that thought is an attribute of the soul and not of the brain; that, the soul possessing of itself diverse aptitudes, the predominance of one or another faculty impels the development of the corresponding organ, as the exercise of an arm induces the development of the muscles of that arm. From this it follows that the development of an organ is the effect, and not the cause.

Thus, a man is not a poet because he has the organ of poetry: he has the organ of poetry because he is a poet, which is very different. But here another difficulty presents itself, against which the phrenologists necessarily stumble: if he is a spiritualist, he will say that the poet has the organ of poetry because he is a poet; but he does not tell us why he is a poet, why he is one, instead of his brother, although educated under the same conditions; and so, with respect to all the other aptitudes. Spiritism alone explains it.

— In effect, if the soul were created at the same time as the body, that of the scholar of the Institute would be as new as that of the savage. Then, why are there on Earth savages and members of the Institute? You will say that it depends on the milieu in which they live. So be it. Say, then, why men born in the most ungrateful and most refractory milieus become geniuses, whereas others, who receive Science from infancy, are imbeciles? Do the facts not prove to evidence that there are men instinctively good or bad, intelligent or stupid? There must, then, be in the soul a germ. Whence does it come? Can it reasonably be said that God made them of all types, some arriving without effort and others not even with obstinate labor? Would that be justice and goodness? Evidently not. A single solution is possible: the pre-existence of the soul, its anteriority to the birth of the body, the development acquired according to the time lived and the various migrations traversed. In uniting itself to the body, the soul brings, then, what it has acquired, its good or bad qualities. Hence the instinctive predispositions, whence it can be said with certainty that he who was born a poet has already cultivated poetry; that he who was born a musician has cultivated music; that he who was born a scoundrel was already more of a scoundrel. Such is the source of the innate faculties that produce, in the organs assigned to their manifestation, an interior, molecular labor, which provokes their development. This leads us to the examination of the important question of the inferiority of certain races and of their perfectibility.

Before all else, let us admit as a principle that all the faculties, all the passions, all the sentiments, all the aptitudes are in Nature; that they are necessary to the general harmony, since God makes nothing useless; that evil results from abuse, as well as from the lack of counterweight and of equilibrium among the diverse faculties. Because the faculties do not develop simultaneously, it results that the equilibrium cannot be established except with time; that this lack of equilibrium produces imperfect men, in whom evil dominates momentarily.

Let us take for example the instinct of destruction. It is necessary because in Nature it is necessary that everything be destroyed in order to be renewed. For this reason all living species are, at the same time, destructive and reproductive agents. But the instinct of destruction in isolation is a blind and brutal instinct; it reigns among primitive peoples, among savages whose soul has not yet acquired the reflective qualities proper to regulate destruction in just measure. In a single existence, will the savage be able to acquire the qualities that he lacks? Whatever education you give him from the cradle, will you make of him a Saint Vincent de Paul, a scholar, an orator, an artist? No; it is materially impossible. And yet, the savage has a soul. What is the lot of this soul after death? Is it punished for the barbarous acts that no one repressed? Is it placed on equality with the man of good? Neither is more rational than the other. Is it, then, condemned to remain eternally in a mixed state, which is neither happiness nor unhappiness? This would not be just, because if it is not more perfect, it did not depend on it. You can only emerge from this dilemma by admitting the possibility of progress. Now, how can the soul progress, except by having new existences? It will be said that it could progress as a Spirit, without returning to Earth. But, then, why do we, the civilized, the enlightened, are born in Europe and not in Oceania? in white bodies, instead of black bodies? Why a point of departure so different, if one progresses only as a Spirit? Why did God free us from the long route traversed by the savages? Would our souls be of a nature different from theirs? Why try to make them Christians? If you make them Christians, it is because you regard them as your equal before God. And if he is your equal before God, why does God grant you privileges? However much you do, you will arrive at no solution, unless you admit for us a prior progress and for the savages an ulterior progress. If the soul of the savage must progress subsequently, it is because it will catch up with us; if we progressed previously, it is because we were savages, for if the point of departure is different, there will no longer be justice, and if God is not just, He will no longer be God. Here, then, necessarily, are two extreme existences: that of the savage and that of the ultra-civilized man; but, between these two extremes, will there be no intermediate point? Follow the scale of peoples and you will see that it is an uninterrupted chain, without solution of continuity. Once again, all these problems are insoluble without the plurality of existences. Say that the Zealanders will be reborn into a people a little less barbarous, and so on up to civilization, and all is explained; whereas if, instead of following the steps of the scale, one were to leap over them in a single bound and arrive without transition among us, he would give the hideous spectacle of a Dumollard, who for us is a monster and who would have presented nothing abnormal among the peoples of central Africa, whence perhaps he came forth. It is thus that, by restricting ourselves to a single existence, all is obscurity, all is a problem without exit, whereas with reincarnation, all is clarity, all is solution.

— Let us return to phrenology. It admits special organs for each faculty and we judge that it is right. But let us go further. We have seen that each cerebral organ is formed of a bundle of fibers; we think that each fiber corresponds to a nuance of faculty. This is no more than a hypothesis, it is true, but one that may open the way to new observations. The auditory nerve receives sounds and transmits them to the brain. But if the nerve is homogeneous, how does it perceive sounds so varied? It is, then, permissible to admit that each nerve fiber is affected by a different sound, with which, in a certain manner, it vibrates in unison, like the strings of a harp. All the tones are in Nature. Let us imagine a hundred of them, from the most acute to the most grave. The man who possessed a hundred corresponding fibers would perceive them all; he who possessed only the half would perceive only the half of the sounds, for the others would escape him and he would have no consciousness of them. The same happens with the vocal cords for expressing sounds, with the optic fibers for the perception of the diverse colors, with the olfactory fibers for registering all the odors. The same reasoning can be applied to the organs of all kinds of perceptions and of manifestations. All animate bodies incontestably enclose the principle of all the organs; some of them, however, in certain individuals, are found in a state so rudimentary that they are not susceptible of development; it is exactly as if they did not exist. Thus, in these persons, there can be no perceptions or manifestations corresponding to these organs; in a word, they are, for such faculties, like the blind in relation to light and the deaf to music.

The phrenological examination of peoples of little intelligence verifies the predominance of the instinctive faculties and the atrophy of the organs of intelligence. That which is exceptional in advanced peoples is the rule in certain races. Why? Is it an unjust preference? No; it is wisdom. Nature is always provident, it makes nothing useless. Now, it would be useless to give a complete instrument to one who does not have the means to make use of it. The savage Spirits are still children, if we may so express ourselves. In them many faculties are still latent. What would the Spirit of a Hottentot do in the body of an Arago? He would be like someone who knows nothing of music before an excellent piano. By an inverse reason, what would the Spirit of Arago do in the body of a Hottentot? He would be like Liszt before a piano containing only a few out-of-tune strings, from which his talent could never draw harmonious sounds. Arago among the savages, with all his genius, will be as intelligent as a savage can be, and nothing more; he will never be, in a black skin, a member of the Institute. Would his Spirit induce the development of the organs? Weak organs, yes; rudimentary organs, no. n Nature, therefore, has appropriated the bodies to the degree of development of the Spirits that are to incarnate in them; this is why the bodies of the primitive races possess fewer vibrant strings than those of the advanced races. There are, then, in man two beings quite distinct: the Spirit, thinking being; the body, instrument of the manifestations of thought, more or less complete, more or less rich in strings, according to the necessities.

— We come now to the perfectibility of the races. So to speak, this question is resolved by the preceding one: we have only to deduce some consequences. They are perfectible for the Spirit which develops itself through its various migrations, in each of which it acquires little by little the faculties that it lacks; but, in proportion as these faculties expand, it requires an appropriate instrument, as a child that grows needs larger clothes. Now, the bodies constituted for its primitive state being insufficient, they need to incarnate under better conditions, and so on, as it progresses.

Thus, the races are perfectible through the body, by crossing with more perfected races, which bring new elements, grafting there, so to speak, the germs of new organs. This crossing is done through migrations, wars, and conquests. Under this point of view, there are races, as there are families, that become debased if they do not mix diverse bloods. So it cannot be said that there is a pure primitive race, since, without crossing, this race will always be the same, for its state of inferiority is bound to its nature; it will degenerate, instead of progressing, which will result in its disappearance, after a certain time.

It is said regarding black slaves: “They are beings so brutish, so little intelligent, that it would be labor lost to wish to instruct them. They are an inferior race, incorrigible and profoundly incapable.” The theory we have just given permits us to regard them under another light. In the question of the perfecting of races, one must always take into account two constitutive elements of man: the spiritual element and the corporeal element. It is necessary to know both, and only Spiritism can enlighten us about the nature of the spiritual element, the most important, being that which thinks and which survives, while the corporeal element is destroyed.

Thus, as physical organization, the blacks will always be the same; as Spirits, it is without doubt an inferior race, n that is to say, primitive; they are true children to whom very little can be taught. But, by means of intelligent care it is always possible to modify certain habits, certain tendencies, which already constitutes a progress that they will carry into another existence and which will permit them, later, to take an envelope under better conditions. In working for their improvement, one works less for their present than for their future and, however little is gained, for them it is always an acquisition. Each progress is a step forward, facilitating new progress.

Under the same envelope, that is to say, with the same instruments of manifestation of thought, the races are perfectible only within narrow limits, for the reasons we have developed. This is why the black race, as a black race, corporeally speaking, will never attain the level of the Caucasian races; but, in the quality of Spirit, it is another thing: it can become and will become that which we are. It will only require time and better instruments. For this reason the savage races, even in contact with civilization, will always remain savage; however, as the civilized races spread, the savage races diminish, until they disappear completely, as happened with the race of the Caribs, of the Guanches and others. The bodies disappeared; as for the Spirits, into what were they transformed? Many of them, perhaps, are found among us.

We have already said it and we shall repeat it: Spiritism unfolds new horizons to all the sciences. When the scientists take into consideration the spiritual element in the phenomena of Nature, they will be surprised to see that the difficulties against which they stumble at every step are removed as if by enchantment. But it is probable that, for many, it will be necessary to renew the habit.

When they return, they will have had time to reflect and they will bring new ideas. They will find things much changed here on Earth; the Spiritist ideas, which today they repel, will have germinated everywhere and will be the base of all social institutions. They themselves will be educated and sustained in that belief, which will open to their genius a new field for the progress of science. While they wait, and while they are still found here, they seek the solution of the problem: Why does the authority of their knowledge, and their negations, not detain, even for an instant, the ever more rapid march of the new ideas?

[1] Translator’s note: See Spiritist Review, July 1860: Phrenology and Physiognomy.

[2] See the Spiritist Review of March 1861: The head of Garibaldi.

[3] See the Spiritist Review of October 1861: The Cretins.

[4] Translator’s note: Allan Kardec, to be sure, is referring to the Spirits incarnated in the uncultured, savage tribes, then existing in some regions of the planet and which today, in contact with other poles of civilization, are evolving progressively, as is wont to happen with the other races, whatever the coloration of their skin. [v. Editor’s Note in:

Explanatory note.]