THE SEATS OF THE SOUL IN HISTORY 151 



to see it executed without a special method of preparing" (1662). 

 We had to wait about 200 years for that special method. 



The notions of a central soul and peripherally acting spirits 

 in the nerves of the senses and in the motor nerves lingered for 

 a long time in the minds of the learned. The closing lines of 

 the Principia (1687) show that they were the working hypothesis 

 of such an intellectual giant as Sir Isaac Newton. 



A return to the idea of the soul as permeating the entire body 

 was made by the famous German thinker, Georg Ernst Stahl 

 (1660-1734), the originator of the unfortunate conception of 

 phlogiston. Stahl spoke of an " anima sensitiva " which pene- 

 trated into and possessed every organ and tissue of the body. 

 No tissue really living was outside the sphere of its imma- 

 nence. The views of Stahl are alluded to as those of 

 "Animism." 



The modern statement of the problem has come to be — Is 

 consciousness restricted to an association with cerebral activity, 

 or does it also accompany activity of lower centres, including 

 those of the spinal cord ? Few biologists can now be found 

 who uphold the doctrine that consciousness is awakened by 

 activity of the spinal cord alone : all inferences from experi- 

 mental work on the nervous system forbid such a conclusion. 

 We cannot imagine that the decapitated snake with only its cord 

 intact which coils itself round the red-hot poker is a conscious 

 organism. On the contrary, it allows itself reflexly to be 

 burnt up just because the seat of its consciousness, its brain, 

 has been removed from the intelligent direction of its body. 



As regards emotional and intellectual localisation, the 

 phrenologists have neither advanced nor retarded the scientific 

 study of the material relationships of consciousness. John 

 Joseph Gall (1758-1828), usually thought to be the founder of 

 phrenology, originated neither the term itself nor the body of 

 beliefs known by that name. The term was given by one 

 Forster in 181 5. Gall was imbued with the notion, correct, 

 but in advance of his time, that certain mental attributes were 

 localised in the cerebrum. He rightly supposed centres to exist 

 for intelligent speech and for word-memories. Gall lectured on 

 the functions of the cerebrum before various universities in 

 Germany. His colleague, Spurtzheim, much less of a man of 

 science and more of a popular lecturer, developed phrenology 

 as we know it to-day. Its dogmas and absurdities are too well 



