MIND IS FUNCTION 161 



sensation, and its reaction in the brain, in much the 

 same manner, that the conversion, of heat into power 

 is measured. Not finding any instrument delicate 

 enough to do this, they declare for independence. It 

 is most probable that thought being a condition is not 

 thus measurable. This idea of independence has a 

 parallel, in some former physiological superstitions. 

 For example, in the sixteenth century physiologists 

 held that "the blood which has come through the 

 septum is mixed with the air thus drawn in," (into 

 the left ventricle of the heart from the lungs), "and 

 by the help of the heat, which is innate' in the heart, 

 which was placed there as the source of the heat of 

 the body, by God, in the beginning of life, and which 

 remains there until death, is imbued with further quali- 

 ties, is laden with 'vital spirits' and so fitted for its 

 higher duties." This conception of an "independ- 

 ence," separate from the physiological, in the produc- 

 tion of thought, is not quite so crude, as the ignoring 

 of the chemistry of heat, and considering it as the 

 direct gift of God, because the chemists of that day 

 had no "measurable" evidence that oxidation of the 

 blood in the lungs produced the heat of the body. But, 

 the ideas of "separate independence of molecular mo- 

 tion and psychical phenomena" is only less apparent 

 as a superstition, than the former is now. It has 

 always been that unknown causes were traced to a 

 divine power by the majority of mankind. Van-Hel- 

 mont, 1577-1644, held that "the food absorbed from 

 the stomach and intestines is, in the liver, endued with 

 natural spirits, and in the brain, the vital spirits are 

 transformed into animal spirits." The various "inde- 

 pendent powers" called "spirits" have all faded away, 

 as the true knowledge of the human organism came, 



