Broussais appears to have been born solely for the purpose of imagining or propagating systems.

Guided by facts which he seized upon with a rare sagacity, Broussais begins by bringing back certain affections to their real seats;[161] but soon, by an immoderate generalization of this fine result, he perceives all affections in the same affection, all diseases in the same malady; he imagines one abstract affection, by means of which he explains all other affections: fevers are nothing but irritations of the digestive apparatus; insanity is nothing but an irritation of the brain;[162] and he who is so intolerant of the personifications proposed by others, makes one personification more; in fine, his exclusive and headstrong genius carries him beyond himself, and, as if merely to amuse him after the fatigue of forming his systems, plunges him into the question of phrenology, where he enjoys himself so much the more, because he finds in it his own accustomed method, his own ideas, and his own language: there are plenty of faculties to bring back to their organs, plenty of localizations to establish.

Broussais ought not to be judged of by his “Cours de Phrénologie.”[163] The five or six first lessons, or, as he calls them, generalities,[164] are merely a confused mixture of ideas: the notions of Condillac rejected by Cabanis, and the ideas of the phrenologists.

He says that sensibility is the common origin of the faculties;[165] he calls perception a primary faculty,[166] &c. &c.; and Condillac would not speak differently.

But, on the other hand, he says that there are as many memories as there are organs;[167] that the instincts and the sentiments possess a memory, as the external perceptions[168] have theirs; that the mind is the sum of the faculties,[169] &c.; and Gall could not say it more clearly.

Broussais is particularly opposed to the moi of Descartes. “Seduced,” says he, “by the moi of Descartes, philosophers have been led to reason according to the testimony of their consciousness....”[170] And according to what testimony does Broussais think they ought to reason?

He thinks it very funny to call the moi an intra-cranial entity,[171] intra-cranial central being,[172] person par excellence, &c.[173]

He laughs at the moi of Descartes; he forgets that the moi of Gall is either nothing else than the sum (ensemble) of the intellectual faculties, or nothing else than a word; and he makes for himself a peculiar moi,[174] which he locates in the organ of comparison. “We owe,” says he, “to the organ of general comparison the distinction of one person expressed by the sign me.”[175]

Broussais was never designed for compliance with the ideas of others; a yoke oppresses him; he is never truly Broussais, except in the midst of conflict. In 1816 he publishes a volume,[176] and the medical doctrines are shook for half a century: we ought to read that volume over again, and forget the “Cours de Phrénologie.”