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"Shall we insist that the brain is to be isolated like a leper, that with it alone no permanent and predicable modifications follow from activity, though in both instances the effects are precisely similar and are produced in exactly the same manner?"

— Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Author

Spiller, Gustav (1864-1940)

Work Title

The Mind of Man: A Text-book of Psychology

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Swan Sonnenschein

Date

1902

Metaphor

"Shall we insist that the brain is to be isolated like a leper, that with it alone no permanent and predicable modifications follow from activity, though in both instances the effects are precisely similar and are produced in exactly the same manner?"

Metaphor in Context

Is it a far cry to apply to the brain that which holds good of the muscles, and, by analogy, applies to the heart, the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, the kidneys, the liver and other parts ? Energy spent in a definite way has ascertainable results in every part of the body, from the eyes downwards. Shall we insist that the brain is to be isolated like a leper, that with it alone no permanent and predicable modifications follow from activity, though in both instances the effects are precisely similar and are produced in exactly the same manner? Shall we, again, assert that though the feelings accompanying muscular action do not represent even a small percentage of the physical changes involved, it is otherwise with the relation of memory to the brain ? Is there no similar source in both cases for the comparatively sparse, disconnected and unintelligible feelings? We may conclude unhesitatingly that appropriate neural exercise creates more or less permanent changes in the way we have just described, and that these modifications again tend to lapse. Accompanying them are indefinite feelings which only hint at the extensive revolution which is proceeding behind the vizor of immediate life. What happens when the modified centres are re-stimulated is scarcely suspected, the process being represented very partially by certain vague combination feelings or thought feelings, as when we believe, or doubt or rejoice. These feelings no more typify or explain what is going on than the muscular feelings are a copy or an explanation of the muscular process.
(p. 318)