The Mind and the Brain
By Editor
It is customary for the Methodist ministers of San Francisco to meet together every Monday morning, to compare notes, discuss questions of varying degrees of importance, etc. From the report of the last one held we extract the following:— “Rev. Dr. Wythe, of Oakland, then read a very interesting paper to prove that the brain is not, as is generally supposed, the special seat of the mind. He maintained that the mind is an independent organization which may operate at any part of the body, and preside at any given time where its action is required. There are, he said, three grades of organization—physical, psychical, and spiritual. The first is the lowest, embracing the sensuous, then the psychical, embracing all mathematical and purely intellectual forms, while the highest grade is the spiritual, embracing all religious conceptions and moral ideas, and being in fact itself the basis of morality. The practical effect of this view, Dr. Wythe remarked, would be to do away with materialism by showing that the mind can act independently of the brain.” We would like to know the arguments by which these remarkable propositions were “maintained.” How did the Doctor find out that the brain is not the seat of the mind? If the brain does not do the thinking, what does? Is thought itself an entity? and if so, of what is it made? Is it gathered from the air? These are a few of the many questions we would like to ask. And one more: If it is all as Dr. Wythe says, will he tell us what the brain is good for anyway?—his own, for instance.