Education, rightly understood, signifies the development of all the
faculties or capacities of the soul, and, as a necessary consequence,
of the brain, in which that soul is lodged, and of the body, which is
as essential to the brain as the brain is to the soul. For without the
brain there is no soul expression, and in proportion to the condition
and development of the brain is the expression of all the soul
faculties. A soft and watery brain is always accompanied by feebleness
of character and mind. In like manner the manifestations of the brain
depend for their strength upon the body, when the lungs and heart fail
to send a vigorous current of arterial blood to the brain, its power
declines proportionally; and when the current ceases entirely, the
action of the brain itself ceases, and with its cessation all
manifestations of the soul cease also. Or when the disordered viscera
fail to supply a healthy blood, as in fevers of a low type, the brain,
like all other organs, is brought down to the level of the depraved
blood, and shows by its utter feebleness and by the incoherent
expressions of the patient that brain and soul depend upon the body
for their power and all their action in this life.[2]
[2] The insane folly which assumes, without a particle of
evidence, that everything depends upon mind, and that the
brain, the body, and their environment, which is continually
acting upon the _entire_ man, are of no importance whatever,
would not be worthy even of mere mention if it were not for
the fact that this form of delusion has of late become so
common, under the deceptive names of metaphysics, Christian
science, and mind-cure, when the theory is simply an attempt
to get rid of science and common sense.