The Foundations of Personality, Abraham Myerson [books to read to be successful txt] 📗
- Author: Abraham Myerson
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when Tyndall’s thoughts came slowly and he was fatigued he
said—“Well, a good cup of coffee will make me think faster.” In
conceding this practical connection between mind and body, every
“spiritualist” philosopher gives away his case whenever he rests
or eats.
The statement that mind is a function of the organism is not
necessarily “materialistic.” The body is a living thing and as
such is as “spiritualistic” as life itself. Enzymes, internal
secretions, nervous activities are the products of cells whose
powers are indeed drawn from the ocean of life.
To prove this statement, which is a cardinal thesis of this book,
I shall adduce facts of scientific and facts of common knowledge.
One might start with the statement that the death of the body
brings about the abolition of mind and character, but this, of
course, proves nothing, since it might well be that the body was
a lever for the expression of mind and character, and with its
disappearance as a functioning agent such expression was no
longer possible.
It is convenient to divide our exposition into two parts, the
first the dependence upon proper brain function and structure,
and the second the dependence upon the proper health of other
organs. For it is not true that mind and character are functions
of the brain alone; they are functions of the entire organism.
The brain is simply the largest and most active of the organs
upon which the mental life depends; but there are minute organs,
as we shall see, upon whose activity the brain absolutely
depends.
Any injury to the brain may destroy or seriously impair the
mentality of the individual. This is too well known to need
detailed exposition. Yet some cases of this type are fundamental
in the exquisite way they prove (if anything can be proven) the
dependence of mind upon bodily structure.
In some cases of fracture of the skull, a piece of bone pressing
upon the brain may profoundly alter memory, mood and character.
Removal of the piece of bone restores the mind to normality. This
is also true of brain tumor of certain types, for example,
frontal endotheliomata, where early removal of the growth
demonstrates first that a “physical” agent changes mind and
character, and second that a “physical” agent, such as the knife
of the surgeon, may act to reestablish mentality.
In cases of hydrocephalus (or water on the brain), where there is
an abnormal secretion of cerebro-spinal fluid acting to increase
the pressure on the brain, the simple expedient of withdrawing
the fluid by lumbar puncture brings about normal mental life. As
the fluid again collects, the mental life becomes cloudy, and the
character alters (irritability, depressed mood, changed purpose,
lowered will); another lumbar puncture and presto!—the
individual is for a time made over more completely than
conversion changes a sinner,—and more easily.
Take the case of the disease known as General Paresis, officially
called Dementia Paralytica. This disease is caused by syphilis
and is one of its late results. The pathological changes are
widespread throughout the brain but may at the onset be confined
mostly to the frontal lobes. The very first change may be—and
usually is—a change in character! The man hitherto kind and
gentle becomes irritable, perhaps even brutal. One whose sex
morals have been of the most conventional kind, a loyal husband,
suddenly becomes a profligate, reckless and debauched, perhaps
even perverted. The man of firm purposes and indefatigable
industry may lose his grip upon the ambitions and strivings of
his lifetime and become an inert slacker, to the amazement of his
associates. Many a fine character, many a splendid mind, has
reached a lofty height and then crumbled before the assaults of
this disease upon the brain. Philosopher, poet, artist,
statesman, captain of industry, handicraftsman, peasant,
courtesan and housewife,—all are lowered to the same level of
dementia and destroyed character by the consequences of the
thickened meninges, the altered blood vessels and the injured
nerve cells.
Now and then one is fortunate enough to treat with success an
early case of General Paresis. And then the reversed miracle
takes place, unfortunately too rarely! The disordered mind, the
altered character, leaps upward to its old place,—after being
dosed by the marvelous drug Salvarsan, created by the German
Jewish scientist, Paul Ehrlich.
Of extraordinary interest are the rare cases of loss of personal
identity seen after brain injury, say in war. A man is knocked
unconscious by a blow and upon restoration of consciousness is
separated from that past in which his ego resides. He does not
know his history or his name, and that continuity of the “self”
so deeply prized and held by all religions to be part of his
immortality is gone. Then after a little while, a few days or
weeks, the disarranged neuronic pathways reestablish themselves
as usual,—and the ego comes back to the man.
One might cite the feeblemindedness that results from
meningitis, brain tumor, brain abscess, brain wounds, etc., as
further evidence of the dependence of mind upon brain, of its
status as a function of brain. No philosopher seriously doubts
that equilibrium and movement are functions of the brain, and yet
to prove this there is no evidence of any other kind than that
cited to prove the relationship of mind to brain.[1] And what
applies to the intelligence applies as forcibly to character, for
purpose, emotion, mood, instinct and will are altered with these
diseases.
[1] Except that equilibrium does not itself judge of its
relationship to brain, whereas mind is the sole judge of its
relationship and dependence on brain. Since everything in the
world is a mental event, mentality cannot be dependent upon
anything, and everything depends upon mind for its existence, or
at least its recognition. But we get nowhere by such “logic” gone
mad. Apply the same kind of reasoning to brain-mind, body-mind
relationship which anatomists and physiologists apply to other
functions, and one can no longer separate body and mind.
Interesting as is the relationship between mind and character and
the brain, it is at the present overshadowed by the fascinating
relationship between these psychical activities and the bodily
organs. What I am about to cite from medicine and biology is part
of the finest achievements of these sciences and hints at a
future in which a true science of mind and character will appear.
Certain of the glands of the body are described as glands of
internal secretions in that the products of their activity, their
secretions, are poured into the blood stream rather than on the
surface of the body or into the digestive tract. The most
prominent of these glands, all of which are very small and
extraordinarily active, are as follows:
The Pituitary Body (Hypophysis)—a tiny structure which is
situated at the base of the brain but is not a part of that
organ.
The Pineal Body (Epiphysis)—a still smaller structure, located
within the brain substance, having, however, no relationship to
the brain. This gland has only lately acquired a significance.
Descartes thought it the seat of the soul because it is situated
in the middle of the brain.
The Thyroid gland, a somewhat larger body, situated in the front
of the neck, just beneath the larynx. We shall deal with this in
some detail later on.
The Parathyroids, minute organs, four in number, just behind the
thyroid.
The Thymus, a gland placed just within the thorax, which reaches
its maximum size at birth and then gradually recedes until at
twenty it has almost disappeared.
The Adrenal glands, one on each side of the body, above and
adjacent to the kidney. These glands, which are each made up of
two opposing structures, stand in intimate relation to the
sympathetic nervous system and secrete a substance called
adrenalin.
The Sex organs, the ovary in the female and the testicle in the
male, in addition to producing the female egg (ovum) and the male
seed (sperm), respectively, produce substances of unknown
character that have hugely important roles in the establishment
of mind, temperament and sex character.
Without going into the details of the functions of the endocrine
glands, one may say that they are “the managers of the human
body.” Every individual, from the time he is born until the time
he dies, is under the influence of these many different kinds of
elements,—some of them having to do with the development of the
bones and teeth, some with the development of the body and
nervous system, some with the development of the mind, etc. (and
character), and later on with reproduction. These glands are not
independent of one another but interact in a marvelous manner so
that under or overaction of any one of them upsets a balance that
exists between them, and thus produces a disorder that is quite
generalized in its effects. The work on this subject is a tribute
to medicine and one pauses in respect and admiration before the
names and labors of Brown, Sequard, Addison, Graves and Basedow,
Horsley, King, Schiff, Schafer, Takamine, Marie, Cushing, Kendal,
Sajous and others of equal insight and patient endeavor.
But let us pass over to the specific instances that bear on our
thesis, to wit, that mind and character are functions of the
organism and have their seat not only in the brain but in the
entire organism.
How do the endocrines prove this? As well as they prove that
physical growth and the growth of the secondary sex characters
are dependent on these glands. Take diseases of the thyroid gland
as the first and shining example.
The thyroid secretes a substance which substantially is an
“iodized globulin,”—and which can be separated from the gland
products. This secretion has the main effect of “activating
metabolism” (Vassale and Generali); in ordinary phrase it acts to
increase the discharge of energy of the cells of the body. In all
living things there is a twofold process constantly going on:
first the building up of energy by means of the foodstuffs, air
and water taken in, and second a discharge of energy in the form
of heat, motion and—in my belief —emotion and thought itself,
though this would be denied by many psychologists. Yet how escape
this conclusion from the following facts?
There is a congenital disease called cretinism which essentially
is due to a lack of thyroid secretion. This disease is
particularly prevalent in Southern France, Spain, Upper Italy and
Switzerland. It is characterized mainly by marked dwarfism and
imbecility, so that the adult untreated cretin remains about as
large as a three or four-year-old child and has the mental level
about that of a child of the same age. But, this comparison as to
intelligence is a gross injustice to the child, for it leaves out
the difference in character between the child and the cretin. The
latter has none of the curiosity, the seeking for experience, the
active interest, the pliant expanding will, the sweet capacity
for affection, friendship and love present in the average child.
The cretin is a travesty on the human being in body, mind and
character.
But feed him thyroid gland. Mind you, the dried substance of the
glands, not of human beings, but of mere sheep. The cretin begins
to grow mentally and physically and loses to a large extent the
grotesqueness of his appearance. He grows taller; his tongue no
longer lolls in his mouth; the hair becomes finer, the hands less
coarse, and the patient exhibits more normal human emotions,
purposes, intelligence. True, he does not reach normality, but
that is because other defects beside the thyroid defect exist and
are not altered by the thyroid feeding.
There is a much more spectacular disease to be cited, —a
relatively infrequent but well-understood condition
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