1. Sense and Sensibility
in the Long 18th
Century
History of Science & Technology since 1750
Jason M. Kelly

2. Aristotle and the
Brain
•
the heart is the center of
intelligence and emotion
•
the heart processes sensation
•
the brain helps regulate the
temperature of the heart
Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek
bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BCE. The
alabaster mantle is a modern addition. Ludovisi
Collection, Palazzo Altaemps, Rome. Inv. 8575

3. Aristotle and the
Soul’s Relation to
the Body
“. . . the soul does not exist
without a body and yet is not itself
a kind of body. For it is not a
body, but something which
belongs to a body, and for this
reason exists in a body, and in a
body of such-and-such a kind.”
in other words, the soul is
inseparable from the body
Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek
bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BCE. The
alabaster mantle is a modern addition. Ludovisi
Collection, Palazzo Altaemps, Rome. Inv. 8575

4. Aristotle and the
Soul’s Relation to
the Body
There are three degrees of soul:
•
Nutritive soul (plants)
•
Sensitive soul (all animals)
•
Rational soul (human beings)
Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek
bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BCE. The
alabaster mantle is a modern addition. Ludovisi
Collection, Palazzo Altaemps, Rome. Inv. 8575

5. Aristotelianism and
the Brain
•
Often saw brain and heart as
physiologically intertwined
•
Blood was key to transmitting
sensation and ideas
Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek
bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BCE. The
alabaster mantle is a modern addition. Ludovisi
Collection, Palazzo Altaemps, Rome. Inv. 8575

6. Galenic Physiology

7. Galenic Physiology
“Natural spirit generated in the
liver is carried by venous blood
through the interventricular
septum of the heart to the left
ventricle where, under the
influence of air carried to the left
ventricle of the heart by the arteria
venalis, it is transformed into vital
spirit. Carried to the brain via the
carotids, vital spirit is transformed
by the rete mirabili at the base of
the brain (shown hatched) into
animal spirits.”
Charles Singer, The Evolution of
Anatomy (1925), Figure 30.

8. Rene Descartes
(1596-1650)
•
Mechanism
•
Automaton
•
Mind, body, and soul
•
Pineal Gland
After Frans Hals. René Descartes. ca. 1649-1700.
oil on canvas. 77.5 x 68.5 cm. Louvre, Paris,
France. Inv. 1317.

9. Rene Descartes
(1596-1650)
"Although the soul is united to the whole body, its
principal functions are, nevertheless, performed in
the brain; it is here that it not only understands and
imagines, but also feels; and this is effected by the
intermediation of the nerves, which extend in the
form of delicate threads from the brain to all parts of
the body, to which they are attached in such a
manner, that we can hardly touch any part of the
body without setting the extremity of some nerve in
motion. This motion passes along the nerve to that
part of the brain which is the common sensorium, as
I have sufficiently explained in my 'Treatise on
Dioptrics;' and the movements which thus travel
along the nerves, as far as that part of the brain with
which the soul is closely joined and united, cause it,
by reason of their diverse characters, to have
different thoughts. And it is these different thoughts
of the soul, which arise immediately from the
movements that are excited by the nerves in the
brain, which we properly term our feelings, or the
perceptions of our senses.”
—Descartes, Principes de la Philosophie (1644),
§169

10. Descartes, Traité de l' homme (written
before 1637 and published in 1662 and
1664)
“These men will be composed, as we are, of a soul and a body. First I must
describe the body on its own; then the soul, again on its own; and fìnally I
must show how these two natures would have to be joined and united in
order to constitute men who resemble us.
I suppose the body to be nothing but a statue or machine made of earth,
which God forms with the explicit intention of making it as much is possible
like us. Thus God not only gives it externally the colours and shapes of all the
parts of our bodies, but also places inside it all the parts required to make it
walk, eat, breathe, and indeed to imitate all those of our functions which can
be imagined to proceed from matter and to depend solely on the disposition
of our organs.
We see clocks, artificial fountains, mills, and other such machines which,
although only man-made, have the power to move of their own accord in
many different ways. But I am supposing this machine to be made by the
hands of God, and so I think you may reasonably think it capable of a greater
variety of movements than I could possibly imagine in it, and of exhibiting
more artistry than I could possibly ascribe to it.”

11. LEFT: Mechanical Marvels: Clockwork Dreams (BBC, 2013),
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rVevX-YXqo | RIGHT: Complimentarius. 16th century. FockeMuseum, Bremen. The automaton, clad in armor was a mechanical greeting-automaton that was
installed from the early 17th to the early 19th century in the Schütting (the merchant guild headquarters)
in Bremen.

12. “I desire you to consider, I say, that these functions imitate those of a
real man as perfectly as possible and that they follow naturally in this
machine entirely from the disposition of the organs-no more nor less
than do the movements of a clock or other automaton, from the
arrangement of its counterweights and wheels.”
L’homme de René Descartes, et la formation du foetus (Paris: Compagnie des
Libraires, 1729)

13. Gender and
Sensibility
Her fair left arm around a vase she flings,
From which the tender plant mimosa
springs:
Towards its leaves, o’er which she fondly
bends,
The youthful fair her vacant hand extends
With gentle motion, anxious to survey
How far the feeling fibres own her sway:
The leaves, as conscious of their queen’s
command,
Successive fall at her approaching hand:
Her tender breast with pity seems to pant,
And shrinks at every shrinking of the plant.
William Hayley, The Triumphs of Temper
(1781), Canto V