The power of the soul over the body : considered in relation to health and morals / by George Moore.

  • George Moore
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The power of the soul over the body : considered in relation to health and morals / by George Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    sentaneously set in motion in the act of using either of the senses, but more especially, perhaps, sight and touch. It is not enough that the sensa- tion of a visible object should be present in the eye ; in order to look so as to examine an object, it is also necessary that the will be exerted. The first sensation of an object only serves as a stimu- lus to the appetite of the mind, to rouse its atten- tion, and excite the will, which, acting on the muscles, prepares the eye for further scrutiny, and at the same time places all the body in keeping with the state and desire of the mind, so that we can generally see from the attitude of a person how his eye is engaged. The muscular consent between the eye and the rest of the body, particularly the hand, is well shown in fencing, where every movement is guided, not by looking to see how the weapon should be di- rected, but by fixing your eye on your antagonist's eye : his intention there expressed, and acting as it were through your own eye on your nervous sys- tem, causes an instantaneous and instinctive ad- justment of your body accordingly. The same thing is exhibited, also, in the precision with which the savage hunter learns to direct his arrow, and the politer sportsman to point his gun. Here let us inquire—does organization produce the consciousness of self] No; for we feel or- ganization to be distinct from ourselves. • The child just beginning to use its senses never con- founds the objects of sense with itself, and its own body is but one of these objects. The individual soul, which, by experience and suitable organs,
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