Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T15:25:36.138Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

VIII - The Organ of Liaison

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2010

Get access

Summary

Mind knows the world and operates on the world by means of its body. It is hard to escape the conclusion that bodies existed before minds and minds only exist because there are bodies fit for them.

A. D. Ritchie, The Natural History of Mind.

Science has put the old teleology to death. Its disembodied spirit, freed from vitalism and all material ties, immortal, alone lives on, and from such a ghost science has nothing to fear.

Lawrence Henderson, The Fitness of the Environment.

Could we look altogether naively at the question of a seat of the mind within the body we might suppose the mind diffused, not confined to any one part. An individual, one's dog, one's self, is a mass of microscopic lives, each one self-centred. It might then perhaps be that our mind, at least so far as sentience, would extend through all our parts. That is not found to be so.

The fact is that the mind—the finite mind of the individual— as to ‘place’ is related with one only of the systems in the body. That system itself is the opposite of diffused. There are indeed what are called, and justifiably, diffuse nervous systems. They too are built of cells, unpolarized nerve-cells, called ‘protoneurones’ (Parker). They are however the very simplest of nervous systems, nor have they correlated with them any plainly demonstrable or recognizable mind. The nervous system, though mind ultimately is correlated with it, shows no such correlation primarily.

Type
Chapter
Information
Man on his Nature , pp. 235 - 262
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1940

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×