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of psychology, Galen’s idea
    c.190 CE The Natural Faculties
    by imbalances of the humors, he
    that many physical and mental
    c.190 CE Three Treatises on the
    claimed they can be cured by diet
    illnesses are connected forms the
    Nature of Science
    and exercise. In more extreme
    basis of some modern therapies. ■

    20
    THERE IS A
    REASONING SOUL
    IN
    RENE DESCARTES (1596–1650)

    THIS MACHINE
    IN CONTEXT
    The mind and the body
    APPROACH
    are separate .
    Mind/body dualism
    BEFORE
    4th century BCE Greek
    philosopher Plato claims that
    The mind (or “soul”) is
    the body is from the material
    The body is a material ,
    immaterial , but seated in the
    world, but the soul, or mind,
    mechanical machine .
    pineal gland of the brain .
    is from the immortal world
    of ideas.
    4th century BCE Greek
    philosopher Aristotle says
    The mind can control
    that the soul and body are
    the physical body by
    inseparable: the soul is the
    causing “animal
    actuality of the body.
    spirits” to flow through
    the nervous system.
    AFTER
    1710 In A Treatise Concerning
    the Principles of Human
    Knowledge , Anglo-Irish
    seated in the brain’s pineal gland
    philosopher George Berkeley
    doing the thinking, while the body
    claims that the body is merely
    T he idea that the mind and
    body are separate and
    different dates back to Plato
    is like a machine that operates by
    the perception of the mind.
    and the ancient Greeks, but it was
    “animal spirits,” or fluids, flowing
    the 17th-century philosopher René
    through the nervous system to
    1904 In Does Consciousness
    Descartes who first described in
    cause movement. This idea had
    Exist? William James asserts
    detail the mind-body relationship.
    been popularized in the 2nd century
    that consciousness is not a
    Descartes wrote De Homine (“Man”),
    by Galen, who attached it to his
    separate entity but a function
    his first philosophical book, in 1633,
    theory of the humors; but Descartes
    of particular experiences.
    in which he describes the dualism
    was the first to describe it in detail,
    of mind and body: the nonmaterial
    and to emphasize the separation
    mind, or “soul,” Descartes says, is
    of mind and body.

    PHILOSOPHICAL ROOTS 21
    See also: Galen 18–19 ■ William James 38–45 ■ Sigmund Freud 92–99
    In a letter to the French philosopher
    Marin Mersenne, Descartes
    explains that the pineal gland is
    the “seat of thought,” and so must
    be the home of the soul, “because
    the one cannot be separated from
    There is a great
    the other.” This was important,
    difference between
    because otherwise the soul would
    mind and body.
    not be connected to any solid part
    René Descartes
    of the body, he said, but only to the
    psychic spirits.
    René Descartes
    Descartes imagined the mind
    and body interacting through an
    René Descartes was born in
    La Haye en Touraine (now
    awareness of the animal spirits
    called Descartes), France. He
    that were said to flow through the
    contracted tuberculosis from
    body. The mind, or soul, residing
    An analogy for the mind
    his mother, who died a few
    in the pineal gland, located deep
    Taking his inspiration from the
    days after he was born, and
    within the brain, was thought to
    French formal gardens of Versailles,
    remained weak his entire life.
    sometimes become aware of the
    with their hydraulic systems that
    From the age of eight, he was
    moving spirits, which then caused
    supply water to the gardens and
    educated at the Jesuit college
    conscious sensation. In this way,
    their elaborate fountains, Descartes
    of La Flèche, Anjou, where he
    the body could affect the mind.
    describes the spirits of the body
    began the habit of spending
    Likewise, the mind could affect
    operating the nerves and muscles
    each morning in bed, due
    the body by causing an outflow of
    like the force of water, and “by this
    to his poor health, doing
    animal spirits to a particular region
    means to cause motion in all the
    “systematic meditation”—
    of the body,