Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man

Edinburgh and London

John Bell, and G.G.J. & J. Robinson

1785

"He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion."

To omit many ancient systems of this kind, Des Cartes, about the middle of the last century, dissatisfied with the materia prima, the substantial forms, and the occult qualities of the Peripatetics, conjectured boldly, that the heavenly bodies of our system are carried round by a vortex or whirlpool of subtile matter, just as straws and chaff are carried round in a tub of water. He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion. By such conjectures as these, Des Cartes could account for every phænomenon in nature, in such a plausible manner, as gave satisfaction to a great part of the learned world for more than half a century.
(I.iii, p. 47)

Uncategorized::Seat Architecture::Room::Presence Chamber Population::Messengers

Reading

4 entries in ESTC (1785, 1786, 1790, 1793).

See Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (Edinburgh and London: Printed for John Bell, and G.G.J. & J. Robinson, 1785). <Link to Google Books>

03/01/2012