Somatopsychonoologia: showing that the proofs of body, life and mind ... cannot be deduced from physiology ... being an examination of the controversy concerning life carried on by Laurence [sic], Abernethy, Rennell, and others / By Philostratus [i.e. T.I.M. Forster].

  • Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster
Date:
[1824]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Somatopsychonoologia: showing that the proofs of body, life and mind ... cannot be deduced from physiology ... being an examination of the controversy concerning life carried on by Laurence [sic], Abernethy, Rennell, and others / By Philostratus [i.e. T.I.M. Forster]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/50 (page 519)
    1 41 ] the Controversy concerning Life. 5I9 of motion, and the Mind is Spirit, so embodied and connected with the two foregoing elements, as to become a separate, identical, intelligent Being. So, from body,'Fax??, life, and Nous, the mind, comes the compound word ^/juxTo^vxovooXoyLa. Q. How do you know that Life is distinct from Body ? A. I perceive that an organized Body has two states, the living and the dead ; or, in other words, the moving, and the motionless. Q. How, then, do you know that motion is not the only thing necessary to render an organism of matter a Jiving body ? A. Because motion is at times nearly suspended in animal bodies for a time, and afterwards resumed ; but, during its suspension, the body does not putrify, but continues to resist chemical action: it must, therefore, possess some principle capable of resisting the destructive agents which after death eventually decompose it. Q. But may not the ultimate atoms of matter possess the properties of motion and of rest, and of resisting, for a limited period, the effects of che¬ mical agents ? A. They may; but as that property only belongs to the matter of organized bodies, and as it belongs to them only for a time, I find it easier to suppose the addition of another principle, than to suppose the particles of matter to obtain, and eventually lose, the properties we denominate vital. Q. Are you not deceived by words, and have you clear ideas of property and principle, as distinct things ? A. Perhaps not; but I have a distinct idea of motion, or the change of figure in matter; the terms property, principle, &c. are forms of indivi¬ dualization, caused by the activity of that same faculty by which I identify and individualize objects in general; and therefore in conceiving a dis¬ tinct principle of vitality, I assume a separate cause of vital action acting on the atoms of matter, and contradistinguished from a power properly inherent in them. Out of these two hypotheses, I choose that which best explains the phenomena of animals, both in a state of perfection and of monstrosity. Q. How do you know' that Mind is a distinct principle? A. Because 1 do not find that vital motion will render matter percipient. Matter and motion, that is, matter in a state of rest, and matter changing its figure, are things perceived, and therefore cannot be the same as that which perceives them. Q. Your answer suggests to me to bring the question into a smaller compass, and to ask you then—By what means you distinguish the Perci¬ pient from the Perceived; or how you know that you are something dis¬ tinct from the qualities of matter w hich alone are the subject of your pre¬ tended perceptions ? A. Here I am lost. I am incapable of stating any other reason why I distinguish between myself and the object of my perceptions, than this— that 1 am, and, as long as I can remember, always have been, conscious of it. [ cannot philosophically distinguish Time from the succession of events which measure it, nor Space from the objects filling it; at the same time I feel that Time and Space are different from the successive occurrences, and the occupation of place by objects, by which they are measured. In like manner, I can only knowf that I am one thing, and the surrounding wTorld another, by a sort of intuitive feeling that it is so. I cannot prove, when I see the color, and feel the solidity, of an object, • that any thing more exists than these qualities; nevertheless, I feel com¬ pelled to allow an actual independent existence to the objects which thus, by its gustation, affect my sensoriurn. All that can be properly called the