The Physicality of Thought (Part II)

Hi all--

A few choice quotes on the eighteenth-century brain, as well as Jonathan Swift joking about the animal spirits. Enjoy...

"Brain" in Ephraim Chambers' Cyclopaedia (1728):

 BRAIN, in its general Sense, that large, soft, whitish Mass, inclos’d in the Cranium or Skull; wherein all the Organs of Sense terminate, and the Soul is supposed principally to reside. the Brain is encompass’d with two Meniges, or Membranes, call’d Dura and Pia Mater; see MENINGES. Its Figure is the same as that of the Bones that contain it; viz. roundish, oblong, and flat on the Sides; it is divided into three principal Parts, viz. the Cerebrum, or Brain strictly so call’d, the Cerebellum, and the Medulla oblongata.

The Cerebrum, or Brain, properly so call’d, is that large globulous Prt which fills the fore and upper Part of the Skull: It is divided by a Duplicature of the Dura Mater, call’d from its Figure Falx, into two equal Parts, call’d Right and Left Hemispheres: Tho the Figure of the Brain be pretty far from a Sphere. It is also separated from the Cerebellum by another duplicature of the same Dura Mater. The Brain consists of two Kinds of Subtstance, the one Cineritous, or of an Ash-color, soft and moist; which being the Exterior, is call’d the Cortex, or Cortical Part of the Brain; the Thickness of this is about half an Inch...The other, or inner Substance, is white, more solid, as well as more dry than the Cortex, and is call’d the Marrow or Medullary, and sometimes the Fibrous Part, in contra-distinction to the other, which is call’d the Glandulous Part...

[and yet, later...]

The Brain does not appear absolutely necessary to animal Life. We have several Instances in Authors, particularly in the Philosophical Transactions, of Children brought forth alive, and surviving their Birth for some time, without any Brain: […] we have a History from Paris, of a Child, deliver’d at Maturity; and living four Days, not only without a Brain, but even a Head: instead of both which, was a Mass of Flesh like Liver found.  M. Denys gives us another Instance, of a Child born in 1673, which, setting aside the Head, was well form’d, but without any Brain, Cerebellum, or Medulla oblongata...

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Swift and the Brain

Two (distinctly mocking) descriptions of the brain-based discourse of mind and its metaphors from Jonathan Swift.

The Brain a Crowd of Animals

"It is the Opinion of Choice Virtuosi, that the Brain is only a Crowd of little Animals with Claws extremely sharp, and therefore, cling together in the Contexture we behold, like the Picture of Hobbes’s Leviathan, or like Bees in perpendicular swarm upon a Tree, or like a Carrion corrupted into Vermin, till preserving the Shape and Figure of the Mother Animal.

That all Invention is formed by the Morsure of two or more of these Animals, upon certain capillary Nerves, which proceed from thence, whereof three Branches spread into the Tongue, and two into the right Hand. They hold also that these Animals are of a Constitution extremely cold; that their Food is the Air we attract, their Excrement Phlegm; and that what we vulgarly call Rheums and Colds and Distillations is nothing but an Epidemical Looseness, to which that little Commonwealth is very subject, from the Climate it lyes under. Farther, that nothing less than a violent Heat, can disentangle these Creatures from their hamated Station of Life, or give them Vigor and Humor, to imprint the Marks of their little Teeth. That if the Morsure be Hexagonal, it produces Poetry; the Circular gives Eloquence; if the Bite hath been Conical, the person, whose Nerve is so affected, shall be disposed to write upon the Politics; and so of the rest.

--Swift, Mechanical Operation of the Spirit (1704)  

   
Anger, Satire and the Brain:

I have learned from long Experience, never to apprehend Mischief from those Understandings, I have been able to provoke; For, Anger and Fury, though they add Strength to the Sinews of the Body, yet are found to relax those of the Mind, and to render all its Efforts feeble and impotent.

There is a Brain that will endure but one Scumming: Let the Owner gather it with Discretion, and manage his little Stock with Husbandry; but of all things, let him beware of bringing it under the Lash of his Betters; because, That will make it all bubble up into Impertinence, and he will find no new Supply: Wit, without knowledge, being a sort of Cream, which gathers in a Night to the Top, and by a skilful Hand, may be soon whipt into Froth; but once scumm'd away, what appears underneath will be fit for nothing, but to be thrown to the Hogs.  


--Swift, Battle of the Books (1704)