The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological PhilosophyHaeckel, Ernst
Philosophy
The Wonders of Life: A Popular Study of Biological Philosophy
Haeckel, Ernst
Biology; Evolution (Biology); Life -- Origin
An impartial and critical study of the action of the brain in
various scientific leaders shows that, as a rule, there is a certain
opposition, or an antagonistic correlation, between the two sections
of the highest mental power. The empirical representatives of science,
or those who are devoted to physical studies, have a preponderant
development of the sensorium, which means a greater disposition and
capacity for the observation of phenomena in detail. On the other hand,
the speculative representatives of what is called mental science and
philosophy, or of metaphysical studies, have the phronema more strongly
developed, which means a preponderant tendency to, and capacity for,
a comprehensive perception of the universal in particulars. Hence it
is that metaphysicians usually look with disdain on "materialistic"
scientists and observers; while the latter regard the play of ideas
of the former as an unscientific and speculative dissipation.
This physiological antagonism may be traced histologically to the
comparative development of the æsthetal and the phronetal cells in
the two cases. It is only in natural philosophers of the first rank,
such as Copernicus, Newton, Lamarck, Darwin, and Johannes Müller, that
both sections are harmoniously developed, and thus the individual is
equipped for the highest mental achievements.
If we take the ambiguous term "soul" (_psyche_ or _anima_) in the
narrower sense of the higher mental power, we may assign as its
"seat" (or, more correctly, its organ), in man and the other mammals,
that part of the cortex which contains the phroneta and is made up
of the phronetal cells; a short and convenient name for this is the
_phronema_. According to our monistic theory, the phronema is the
organ of thought in the same sense in which we consider the eye the
organ of vision, or the heart the central organ of circulation. With
the destruction of the organ its function disappears. In opposition
to this biological and empirically grounded theory, the current
metaphysical psychology regards the brain as the seat of the soul,
only in a very different sense. It has a strictly dualistic conception
of the human soul as a being apart, only dwelling in the brain (like
a snail in its shell) for a time. At the death of the brain it is
supposed to live on, and indeed for all eternity. The immortal soul,
on this theory (which we can trace to Plato), is an immaterial entity,
feeling, thinking, and acting independently, and only using the
material body as a temporary implement. The well-known "piano-theory"
compares the soul to a musician who plays an interesting piece (the
individual life) on the instrument of the body, and then deserts it, to
live forever on its own account. According to Descartes, who insured
the widest acceptance for Plato's dualistic mysticism, the proper
habitation of the soul in the brain--in the music-room--is the pineal
gland, a posterior section of the middle-brain (the second embryonic
cerebral vesicle).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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