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CABANIS, PIERRE JEAN GEORGE (1757-1808)
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See also:CABANIS, See also:PIERRE See also:JEAN See also:GEORGE (1757-1808) , See also:French physiologist, was See also:born at Cosnac (See also:Correze) on the 5th of See also:June 1757, and was the son of Jean See also:Baptiste Cabanis (1723-1786), a lawyer and agronomist. Sent at the See also:age of ten to the See also:college of Brives, he showed See also:great aptitude for study, but his See also:independence of spirit was so excessive that he was almost constantly in a See also:state of See also:rebellion against his teachers, and was finally dismissed from the school. He was then taken to See also:Paris by his See also:father and See also:left to carry on his studies at his own discretion for two years. From 1773 to 1775 he travelled in See also:Poland and See also:Germany, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself mainly to See also:poetry. About this See also:time he ventured to send in to,,,the See also:Academy a See also:translation of the passage from See also:Homer proposed for their See also:prize, and, though his See also:attempt passed without See also:notice, he received so much encouragement from his See also:friends that he contemplated translating the whole of the Iliad, But at the 914 See also:desire of his father he relinquished these pleasant See also:literary employments, and resolving to engage in some settled profession selected that of See also:medicine. In 1789 his Observations sur See also:les hopitaux procured him an See also:appointment as See also:administrator of hospitals in Paris, and in 1795 he became See also:professor of See also:hygiene at the medical school of Paris, a See also:post which he exchanged for the See also:chair of legal medicine and the See also:history of medicine in 1799. From inclination and from weak See also:health he never engaged much in practice as a physician, his interests lying in the deeper problems of medical and physiological See also:science. During the last two years of See also:Mirabeau's See also:life he was intimately connected with that extraordinary See also:man, and wrote the four papers on public See also:education which were found among the papers of Mirabeau at his See also:death, and were edited by the real author soon afterwards in 1791. During the illness which terminated his life Mirabeau confided himself entirely to the professional skill of Cabanis. Of the progress of the malady, and the circumstances attending the death of Mirabeau, Cabanis See also:drew up a detailed narrative, intended as a See also:justification of his treatment of the See also:case. Cabanis espoused with See also:enthusiasm the cause of the Revolution. He was a member of the See also:Council of Five See also:Hundred and then of the Conservative See also:senate, and the See also:dissolution of the See also:Directory was the result of a See also:motion which he made to that effect. But his See also:political career was not of See also:long continuance. A foe to tyranny in every shape, he was decidedly hostile to the policy of See also:Bonaparte, and constantly rejected every solicitation to accept a See also:place under his See also:government. He died at Meulan on the 5th of May 18o8. A See also:complete edition of Cabanis's See also:works was begun in 1825, and five volumes were published. His See also:principal See also:work, Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme, consists in See also:part of See also:memoirs, read in 1796 and 1797 to the See also:Institute, and is a See also:sketch of physiological See also:psychology. Psychology is with Cabanis directly linked on to See also:biology, for sensibility, the fundamental fact, is the highest grade of life and the lowest of intelligence. All the intellectual processes are evolved from sensibility, and sensibility itself is a See also:property of the See also:nervous See also:system. The soul is not an entity, but a See also:faculty; thought is the See also:function of the See also:brain. Just as the See also:stomach and intestines receive See also:food and See also:digest it, so the brain receives impressions, digests them, and has as its organic secretion, thought. Alongside of this harsh See also:materialism Cabanis held another principle. He belonged in biology to the vitalistic school of G. E. See also:Stahl, and in the See also:posthumous work, Lettre sur les causes premieres (1824), the consequences of this See also:opinion became clear. Life is something added to the organism; over and above the universally diffused sensibility there is some living and productive See also:power to which we give the name of Nature. But it is impossible to avoid ascribing to this, power both intelligence and will. In us this living power constitutes the ego, which is truly immaterial and immortal. These results Cabanis did not think out of See also:harmony with his earlier theory. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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