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As I am quoting Descartes, who, I ask, more clearly than Descartes has perceived that the soul can have only a very circumscribed seat in the economy, and that that circumscribed seat is the brain itself?

“We know,” says he, “that, properly speaking, it is not inasmuch as the soul is in the members that serve as organs to the exterior senses, that the soul feels, but inasmuch as she is in the brain, where she exercises the faculty denominated common sense.”[11]

He elsewhere observes: “Surprise is expressed because I do not recognise any other point of sensation except that which exists in the brain; but all physicians and surgeons will, I hope, assist me in proving this point, for they are aware of the common fact that a person who has been subjected to amputation of a limb, continues to feel pain in a part that he no longer possesses.”[12]

Here then, according to Descartes, we find that the soul is situated, that is to say, feels in the brain, and only in the brain. The following passage shows with what precision he excluded even the external senses from any participation with the functions of the soul.