The Foundations of Personality - Abraham Myerson (best large ereader .txt) 📗

the end of motion, we cannot understand causation. Probably

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