Nor is he in the bony framework which is
the rack over which nature hangs her veil of flesh. In
none of these things lies the essence of the man. And
now what is left? An arched whitish putty-like mass,
some fifty odd ounces in weight, with a number of white
filaments hanging down from it, looking not unlike the
medusae which float in our summer seas. But these
filaments only serve to conduct nerve force to muscles
and to organs which serve secondary purposes. They may
themselves therefore be disregarded. Nor can we stop
here in our elimination. This central mass of nervous
matter may be pared down on all sides before we seem to
get at the very seat of the soul. Suicides have shot
away the front lobes of the brain, and have lived to
repent it. Surgeons have cut down upon it and have
removed sections. Much of it is merely for the
purpose of furnishing the springs of motion, and much
for the reception of impressions. All this may be put
aside as we search for the physical seat of what we call
the soul--the spiritual part of the man. And what is
left then? A little blob of matter, a handful of nervous
dough, a few ounces of tissue, but there--somewhere
there--lurks that impalpable seed, to which the rest of
our frame is but the pod. The old philosophers who put
the soul in the pineal gland were not right, but after
all they were uncommonly near the mark.
You'll find my physiology even worse than my
theology, Bertie.
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