wherein the concomitant intellectual activity is reduced to a minimum,
_e. g._, in the task of memorizing a poem, or recitation. Here, in the
all but complete absence of intellectual activity, the same fatigue
results as that induced by a prolonged period of analytic study or
investigation, in which imaginative activity and rational thinking are
concomitant. The point to be noted, in this latter case, is that the
intellect does not show the same dependence upon the physiological
vicissitudes as the imagination. The imagery of our imagination, being
rigidly correlated with the metabolic processes of waste and repair
at work in the cerebral cortex, manifests correspondingly variable
degrees of intensity and integrity, but the intensity of thought is
not dependent upon this alternation of excitation and inhibition in
the cortex. Hence, while the concomitant imagery is fitful, sporadic,
and fragmentary, intellectual thought itself is steady, lucid,
and continuous. The intensity of thought does not vary with the
fluctuations of neural metabolism, and may reach a maximum without
involving corresponding fatigue in the brain. The brain-fag, therefore,
which results from study does not correspond to the height of our
intellectual vision, but is due to the intensity of the concomitant
imaginative process.
The intellect, therefore, is not subject to the metabolic laws
which rigidly regulate organic functions like sense-perception
and imagination. Man’s capacity for logical thought is frequently
unaffected by the decline of the organism which sets in after maturity.
All organic functions, however, such as sight, hearing, sense-memory,
are impaired in exact proportion to the deterioration of the organism,
which is the inevitable sequel of old age. The intellectual powers, on
the contrary, remain unimpaired, so long as the cortex is sound enough
to furnish the required minimum of imagery, upon which intellectual
activity is objectively dependent. There are, in fact, many cases on
record where men have remained perfectly sane and rational, despite the
fact that notable portions of the cerebral cortex had been destroyed by
accident or disease (_e. g._, tumors). Intellectual thought, therefore,
is a superorganic function, having its source in a spiritual principle
and not in a corruptible organ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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