196 W. L. COURTNEY, M.A., LL.D., 
allow us to put it in one locality, viz., the brain. More 
precisely, we can say that the real seat and home of mind is 
in the cerebral cortex, the rind of gray nervous matter which 
surrounds and envelops the white matter of the brain. But 
I must remind you that such language as that the brain is 
the “seat” or “home” of mind, or, as we sometimes hear, the 
“organ” of mind, is merely poetical and metaphorical 
language. Noone would pretend that this was a precise 
and scientific language ; it is in reality quite as metaphorical 
and poetic as the assertion that the body is the “prison” or 
“tenement” or “ tabernacle” of the soul, which Plato thought 
gave a true account of the relation between the two. But 
that in some real sense the mind is in the brain—of this 
there can be no doubt, because we have no recorded instance 
of thought taking place without a brain. We talk indeed 
sometimes of feeling and emotion—which are conscious states 
of mind—as belonging elsewhere, to the heart, for example. 
A “man of heart” signifies a man who is sensitive and 
affectionate and emotional, and falling in love is in the 
language of poetry and common life supposed to be some 
feverish condition of the heart. We even distinguish between 
“feeling” and “intellect” by ascribing the first to the heart, 
and the second to the head, as when we say that “morality 
is rather a matter of the heart than of the head.” But except 
in the language of poets, except to Aristotle and Hobbes, 
both of whom thought that the heart was the central organ 
of intelligence, such statements are absurd. The heart is a 
pump with chambers and valves—a pump and nothing more, 
The real “seat” of conscious mental states—sensations, 
perceptions, feelings, volitions, ideas—is the brain. Mr. 
Lewes (Physical Basis of Mind) it is true, thinks it proper to 
say that a certain “soul” belongs also to the spinal cord, 
because it is by itself capable of reflex activity: but at all 
events it is not the seat of conscious activity, and it is with 
conscious states that we have to do, The mind is in the 
brain. 
Our other question, however, what is the mind? cannot 
be thus summarily answered, nor indeed can it ever 
be answered, except in part. We cannot define by 
thought that which is thought, any more than a man 
can say exactly what his own personality means. What 
is the mind, therefore, is an absurd question, if we want a 
direct, immediate answer. But we can get some sort of 
answer if we ask the question in an indirect way, if we ask, 
for instance, whether there is evidence to prove that there is 
