"Indeed, a few authors have run even such lengths, as to suppose the very animus, or rational soul itself, material: but surely the powers and faculties of the mind are not to be found in matter, or in any of those principles, or elements, whereof either the antients or moderns have imagined it to consist: fire itself, the most subtile and active among these, being as incapable of thought and reflexion, as water or earth, the most sluggish: and in what manner self-motion, sense or reason can possibly result from the figure, connexion, situation or arrangement of the various parts of the body, (without supposing a mind) is a point which the abettors of Materialism, to their confusion, will never be able to clear up."
— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)
Metaphor
"Indeed, a few authors have run even such lengths, as to suppose the very animus, or rational soul itself, material: but surely the powers and faculties of the mind are not to be found in matter, or in any of those principles, or elements, whereof either the antients or moderns have imagined it to consist: fire itself, the most subtile and active among these, being as incapable of thought and reflexion, as water or earth, the most sluggish: and in what manner self-motion, sense or reason can possibly result from the figure, connexion, situation or arrangement of the various parts of the body, (without supposing a mind) is a point which the abettors of Materialism, to their confusion, will never be able to clear up."
Metaphor in Context
Some modern Materialists have imagined the anima to be no other than a more subtile kind of matter lodged chiefly, in the brain and nerves, and circulating with the grosser fluids. But such spirits, or subtile matter, can no more be acknowledged the vital principle or source of animal life, than the blood from which they are derived; and still with less reason can this material anima be supposed endued with sense, since matter, of itself, and unactuated by any higher principle, is equally as incapable of sense or perception, pleasure or pain, as it is of self-motion. Indeed, a few authors have run even such lengths, as to suppose the very animus, or rational soul itself, material: but surely the powers and faculties of the mind are not to be found in matter, or in any of those principles, or elements, whereof either the antients or moderns have imagined it to consist: fire itself, the most subtile and active among these, being as incapable of thought and reflexion, as water or earth, the most sluggish: and in what manner self-motion, sense or reason can possibly result from the figure, connexion, situation or arrangement of the various parts of the body, (without supposing a mind) is a point which the abettors of Materialism, to their confusion, will never be able to clear up.
(Sect XI, pp. 280-1)
