Date: 1751

"If the brain, or some part of it, were not in a manner the fountain of sensation and motion, and more peculiarly the seat of the mind than the other bowels or members of the body; why should a slight inflammation of its membranes cause madness, or a small compression of it produce a palsy or apo...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"The necessity therefore of the influence of the brain and nerves towards producing muscular motion, is not to be disproved by a few rare instances of ossified, petrified, or otherwise morbid brains found in animals, which seemed tolerably healthy, and had the motion of all their muscles; since i...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"The sympathy, therefore, or consent observed between the nerves of various parts of the body, is not to be explained mechanically, but ought to be ascribed to the energy of that sentient being, which seems in a peculiar manner to reside in the brain, and, by means of the nerves, moves, actuates,...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"When the body is disordered,or exhausted with fatigue, the soul frequently hides herself in sleep, and retires from external things, in order that she may be more at leisure to recruit the body, or to rectify what has happened amiss in it; and hence the inclination to sleep after child-bearing: ...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"In fevers, the sudden failing of the strength and pulse ought, we are told, to be regarded by us as signs of the despairing soul's discontinuing her care of the body, and being soon about to relinquish it: nay, sometimes, like a mean and silly coward, she sinks even under such diseases, as, in t...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"But, as this account of the agency of the soul, and of its power over the body, scarcely seems to demand a serious answer, I shall only observe, that to imagine the soul should, with the wisest views and in the most skilful manner, at first form the body, (a work far above the utmost efforts of ...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"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 t...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"Nay, Epicurus himself, according to Lucretius, did not look upon these two as separate beings, but regarded the mind as a kind of mouvement produced by the anima or soul."

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"[F]or though, when we are solicitously engaged in any action, deeply involved in any thought, or strongly hurried away by any passion, we may often be unconscious of the impressions made by material causes on the organs of sense; yet we cannot but be sensible of the ideas formed within us by the...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"To avoid all metaphysical disputes about different degrees of consciousness; I desire it may be understood, that here and in other parts of this Essay, when I say we are not conscious of certain impressions made on the mind by the action of material causes on the organs of the body, I mean no mo...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)