Boswell, James (1740-1795)

The Hypochondriack, No. 6

March, 1778

"An eminent physician in Holland, entrusted at once with a medical chair in the university of Leyden, and with the health of the Prince of Orange, being asked what the soul was? paused, and then answer, 'C'est un ressort. It is a spring.' As the main-spring actuates the wheels and other component part of a watch, so the soul actuates the faculties of the mind; and as the main-spring of a watch may either be broken alltogether, or hurt in different degrees, we may justly talk from analogy in the same terms of the soul."

Nothing characterises a Hypochondriack more peculiarly than irresolution, or the want of power over his own mind. What that power is by which the conscious spirit governs and directs various mental faculties, is, it must be confessed, utterly inexplicable as long as our souls are enclosed in material frames. While a watch is shut up in its case, we cannot see how the operations of its curious machinery are carried on; and the operations of the mind may, I think, be very well assimilated to those of a watch, as that comparison probably suggests the justest conception of what we can only fancy. An eminent physician in Holland, entrusted at once with a medical chair in the university of Leyden, and with the health of the Prince of Orange, being asked what the soul was? paused, and then answer, "C'est un ressort. It is a spring." As the main-spring actuates the wheels and other component part of a watch, so the soul actuates the faculties of the mind; and as the main-spring of a watch may either be broken alltogether, or hurt in different degrees, we may justly talk from analogy in the same terms of the soul. (I, p. 142 in SUP edition)

Machine::Spring::Main-Spring Machine::Wheels Machine::Watch

Reading

The Hypochondriack, No. 6 (March, 1778). See The London Magazine, or Gentleman's Monthly Intelligencer <Link to Google Books>

See also James Boswell, The Hypochondriack, ed. Margery Bailey, 2 vols. (Stanford UP, 1928)

07/09/2013