184 Journal of Comparative Neurolo(;y. 



awakened intellect surged everywhere over the weakened 

 ecclesiastical barriers, was content to view the struggle across 

 the moat of his chateau at Fraueker and to contribute to the 

 conflict indirectly so far as personal safety permitted. 



In a time when the Copernican astronomy deprived man 

 of his commanding position at the heart of the universe, but 

 opened a vaster though humbler arena to his intellect, when 

 Gallileo was formulating the laws of motion, and when Har- 

 vey had awakened the hope of affording for the activities of 

 the body a similar mechanical explanation, it was quite 

 natural that the attempt should be made to discover a 

 mechanical explanation for the phenomena of mind. 



Influenced by Baconian teaching, Descartes insists upon a 

 basis for speculation in observation, though his philosophical 

 system seems to show so little evidence of it and stands forth 

 in systematic completeness and logical unassailability strik- 

 ingly contrasted with his famous fundamental doubt. 



It is evident that in his study of the relation of soul and 

 body, which he regarded as one of his most important 

 achievements, and whose effects have long outlived his philo- 

 sophical system, he was very largely influenced by anatom- 

 ical investigations. Even vivisection was employed by him, 

 since his conception of lower animals as soulless automata 

 opposed no scruples to such studies, however repugnant 

 to popular feeling or condemned by his church. He was 

 wont to point to the animals he had dissected, saying, " here 

 are my books." Science he compared to a tree; metaphysics 

 being the root, physics the trunk, and the most important 

 branches mechanics, medicine, and morals; nor is it diflicult 

 to trace the effects of this conception in his treatment of the 

 body. 



Proceeding upon Harvey's discovery of the mechanics of 

 circulation, he taught that the friction involved in circulation 

 sufficed to vaporize and excite various elements in the blood. 

 Some of these elements pass to the reproductive organs and 

 behave as the forerunners of Darwin's gemmules might be 



