Date: 1644, 1647
"In later years the mind is no longer a total slave to the body, and does not refer everything to it."
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1644, 1647
False judgments stick in the memory and are difficult to erase
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1644, 1647
"It must be realized that the human soul, while informing the entire body, nevertheless has its principal seat in the brain."
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1644, 1647
"Sensory awareness comes about by means of nerves, which stretch like threads from the brain to all the limbs, and are joined together in such a way that hardly any part of the human body can be touched without producing movement in several of the nerve-ends that are scattered around in that area"
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1648
"Thus all common notions which are engraved in the mind have their origin in observation of things or in verbal instruction."
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1648
"Thus a man who is dressed can be regarded as a compound of a man and clothes. But with respect to the man, his being dressed is merely a mode, although clothes are substances. In the same way, in the case of a man, who is composed of a soul and a body, our author might be regarding the body as t...
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1658
"The soul seems to be like a little flame or a most attenuated kind of fire, which thrives or remains kindled while the animal lives, since if it no longer thrives or is put out, the animal dies."
preview | full record— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)
Date: 1664
"I suppose the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth."
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1664
"The parts of the blood which penetrate as far as the brain serve not only to nourish and sustain its substance, but also and primarily to produce in it a certain very fine wind, or rather a very lively and pure flame, which is called the animal spirits."
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)
Date: 1664
"Indeed, one may compare the nerves of the machine I am describing with the pipes in the works of these fountains, its muscles and tendons with the various devices and springs which serve to set them in motion, its animal spirits with the water which drives them, the heart with the source of the ...
preview | full record— Descartes, René (1596-1650)