Outlines of a philosophical argument on the infinite, and the final cause of creation; and on the intercourse between the soul and the body / by Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated from the Latin by James John Garth Wilkinson.

  • Emmanuel Swedenborg
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Outlines of a philosophical argument on the infinite, and the final cause of creation; and on the intercourse between the soul and the body / by Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated from the Latin by James John Garth Wilkinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/208 (page 32)
    very soul or subtlest parts; likewise in nourishing, and keeping in their places, the neighboring and the hard parts; of all which not only the parts, but their parts again, contribute all their endowments to ensure the nourishment, subsistence, action and passion of the general system; in a word, to enable man ‘to live, to feel; and so to live and feel, that his subtlest part shall live in a sense above all others. And in order that all things may tend to this end, there are, besides other provisions, certain remarkable cavities in the cerebrum, two of which are in front; and when these are exposed by the knife, other parts again come in view, as the septum lucidum, a transparent par- tition of medullary substance covered with pia mater, and divid- ing the above cavities or ventriclés from each other. Also the fornix [under the septum lucidum], likewise composed of me- dullary substance. The choroid plexus, a membrane replete with blood-vessels. The corpora striata, two bodies [cineritious on the outside, and] through which the cortical or cineritious substances run in stripes and rays from one end to the other, to enter and originate the noblest of the marrows, 7.e. the medulla oblongata, which is the source of nerves of all descriptions. The thalami nervorum opticorum, a pair of bodies, white [on the outside], and cineritious [internally]. On opening the third ventricle again, we find several parts deserving of notice; as the pineal gland, the nates, the testes, under these the great valve of the brain, and [the aqueduct of Sylvius], at the posterior orifice of the latter, the anus, and the iter ad infundibulum, through which all the four ventricles communicate with each other. We will not now dwell upon the fourth ventricle, which is situated between the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata, but will content ourselves with observing, that all these organs minister to keeping the parts of the cerebrum in the most dis- tinct order of mutual subdivision, so that each is not only nourished, but enjoys communion with its fellows, and what is of main importance, superfluous matters are excreted from it, and prevented from embarrassing its functions.* We now come to the cerebellum, which is separate from the cerebrum, and only one-sixth its size, and lies in the occipital * Respecting this paragraph see Heister, Op. Cit., n. 270.—( Tv.)