IS THE MIND IN THE BODY? 453 



and guide and turn about the whole man, and when we see that none of these 

 effects can take place without touch nor touch without body, must we not admit 

 that the mind and soul are of a bodily nature? 



But of what sort of bodies must we conceive this part of a man to 

 be composed? The mind acts with great nimbleness; it is very easily 

 moved, so it is inferred that it consists of bodies very small, smooth 

 and round : 



The following fact, too, demonstrates how fine the texture is of which its 

 nature is composed, and how small the room is in which it can be contained, 

 could it only be collected into one mass: soon as the untroubled sleep of death 

 has gotten hold of a man and the nature of the mind and soul has withdrawn, 

 you can perceive then no diminution of the entire body either in appearance or 

 weight; death makes all good save the vital sense and heat. Therefore the 

 whole soul must consist of very small seeds and be inwoven through veins and 

 flesh and sinews; inasmuch as, after it has all withdrawn from the whole body, 

 the exterior contour of the limbs preserves itself entire and not a tittle of the 

 weight is lost. 1 



Lucretius thinks that something analogous takes place ' when the 

 flavor of a wine is gone, or when the delicious aroma of a perfume has 

 been dispersed into the air.' Something is gone, but the weight of 

 objects is not altered by the loss. 



For hundreds of years it did not seem to men ridiculous to talk 

 about the mind in this way. Yet they all had the common experiences 

 of mental phenomena that we have. Nor was it the weakness of a 

 single school to be thus grossly materialistic. The Stoic school, the 

 great rival of the Epicurean, and also a long-lived one, was in its way 

 as materialistic. The Stoics identified the soul of man with the warm 

 breath that is found in his body. 



Indeed, it is not too much to say that, among that very acute 

 people, the Greeks, from whom we have gained so much, it did not 

 seem at all unnatural to conceive of the mind of man as a breath, or 

 a fire, or collection of fine small material particles. Some raised their 

 voices in protest, but the protest was scarcely effectual. 



Now, suppose someone had come to Lucretius and had initiated 

 him into the mysteries of the microscope. Would he have scouted the 

 idea of getting a direct vision of the ' seeds ' that constituted the mind 

 of man? I think not; there was certainly nothing in his doctrine to 

 make the idea absurd to him. If, in general, invisible material things 

 can be made visible, and the barrier set by their minuteness can be 

 done away, why should not coughed-out soul atoms be captured and 

 inspected ? 



But Professor Leidy was amused at the notion of the investigation 

 proposed to him. Why was this? His experience of the mind was 

 no more direct or complete than that of Lucretius. He had never 



1 ' De Rerum Natura,' III., trans. Munro. 



