A Discussion With An Infidel.
XIV. The Seat Of The Soul.
Büchner. You will admit, I presume, that “the brain is not merely the organ of thought and of all the higher mental faculties, but also the sole and exclusive seat of the soul. Every thought is produced in the brain, every kind of feeling and sensation, exertion of the will, and voluntary motion, proceeds from it” (p. 141).
Reader. Not exactly “from it,” but from the soul, as I have already established; though certainly the brain is instrumental in all vital operations. As to the brain being “the sole and exclusive” seat of the soul I think that physiologists do not agree, and that philosophers have something to object.
Büchner. It is now a recognized truth. “It took a long time before it was recognized, and it is even to this day difficult for those who are not physicians to convince themselves of its correctness” (ibid.)
Reader. It must be difficult indeed; for although we have reason to believe that the brain is, so to say, the central telegraphic office where every intelligence from the other parts of the body is received, yet it is but natural to suppose that there cannot be a central office if there are no other offices destined to correspond with it. On the other hand, philosophers teach that the soul is the form of the body; which implies that there are other parts of our body, besides the brain, where the soul must be present.
Büchner. “These philosophers are a singular people. They talk of the creation of the world as if they had been present on the occasion; they define the Absolute as if they had sat at its table for years; they babble about the nothing and the something, the ego and non-ego, the per se and in se, universals and particulars, perishability and absolute existence, the unknown x, etc., etc., with a confidence as if a celestial codex had given them exact information about all these ideas and things, and they plaster up the simplest notions with such a confused mass of high-sounding and learned but incomprehensible words and phrases as to turn the head of a rational man. But, in spite of all this, upon their metaphysical eminence they are not unfrequently so far off from any positive knowledge that they commit the most amusing blunders, especially in those cases in which philosophy and science meet, and when the latter threatens to destroy the results of metaphysical speculation. Thus almost all philosophical psychologists have struggled with rare energy against the theory of the seat of the soul in the brain, and continue in their opposition without taking the least notice of the progress of experimental science” (pp. 142, 143).
Reader. I am surprised, doctor, at your declamation against philosophers. You have no right to denounce them either in general or in particular. I admit that rationalistic philosophers richly deserve all the contempt you can heap upon [pg 176] them, but it is not fair in you to attack them; for they are better than you. To lay your own faults on the shoulders of your opponents is an old trick. The burglar calls his victim a thief; designing Freemasons always prate about Jesuitical machinations; and writers whose philosophical baggage is as light as their pretensions are high inveigh against those by whom they dread to be exposed, refuted, and supplanted. Such is the case with you. While pretending to describe others, you have made the portrait of yourself. It is certainly difficult to find another man in the world who babbles with as much confidence as you do about, or rather against, creation, the Absolute, and the unknown x, etc., etc. Yet your opponents are not infallible, nor do they pretend to be; but if they “commit the most amusing blunders,” it is not owing to their “metaphysical eminence,” as you suppose, but rather to their metaphysical incapacity. Science, you say, sometimes “threatens to destroy the results of metaphysical speculation”; but you should have added that metaphysical speculation oftentimes saves science from shipwreck; for empiricism without philosophy is a ship without a rudder.
You denounce your adversaries as men who do not take “the least notice of the progress of experimental science.” This is a calumny. In fact, you yourself inform us that one of your adversaries is philosopher Fischer, a man who not only took notice of the progress of experimental science, but greatly contributed to such a progress by his own intelligent and indefatigable labors. You cannot therefore pretend that such a man lacked “positive knowledge.” Now, he says: “That the soul is immanent in the whole nervous system is proved, as it feels, perceives, and acts in every part thereof. I do not feel pain in a central part of the brain, but in a particular spot and place.”