The simile of an instrument and the master who plays upon it, which is
often used of the relation between body and mind, is in many respects a
very imperfect one; for the master does not develop with and in his
instrument. But in regard to the most oppressive arguments of naturalism,
the influence of disease, of old age, of mental disturbances due to brain
changes, the comparison serves our turn well enough, for undoubtedly the
master is dependent upon his instrument; upon an organ which is going more
and more out of tune, rusting, losing its pipes, his harmonies will become
poorer, more imperfect. And if we think of the association between the two
as further obstructed, the master becoming deaf, the stops confused, the
relation between the notes and pipes altered, then what may still live
within him in perfect and unclouded purity, and in undiminished richness,
may present itself outwardly as confused and unintelligible, may even find
only disconnected expression, and finally cease altogether; so that no
conclusion would be possible except that the master himself had become
different or poorer. The melancholy field of mental diseases perhaps
yields proofs against naturalism to an even greater degree than for it. It
is by no means the case that all mental diseases are invariably diseases
of the brain, for even more frequently they are real sicknesses of the
mind, which yield not to physical but to psychical remedies. And the fact
that the mind can be ill, is a sad but emphatic proof that it goes its own
way.
Immortality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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