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. This brain is not
residual matter, nor yet is it one of the parts which are anatomically
continuous with each other; but it has a character peculiar to itself,
as might indeed be expected. That it has no continuity with the organs
of sense is plain from simple inspection, and is still more clearly
shown by the fact, that, when it is touched, no sensation is produced;
in which respect it resembles the blood of animals and their
excrement. The purpose of its presence in animals is no less than
the preservation of the whole body. For some writers assert that the
soul is fire or some such force. This, however, is but a rough and
inaccurate assertion; and it would perhaps be better to say that the
soul is incorporate in some substance of a fiery character. The reason
for this being so is that of all substances there is none so
suitable for ministering to the operations of the soul as that which
is possessed of heat. For nutrition and the imparting of motion are
offices of the soul, and it is by heat that these are most readily
effected. To say then that the soul is fire is much the same thing
as to confound the auger or the saw with the carpenter or his craft,
simply because the work is wrought by the two in conjunction. So far
then this much is plain, that all animals must necessarily have a
certain amount of heat. But as all influences require to be
counterbalanced, so that they may be reduced to moderation and brought
to the mean (for in the mean, and not in either extreme, lies the true
and rational position), nature has contrived the brain as a
counterpoise to the region of the heart with its contained heat, and
has given it to animals to moderate the latter, combining in it the
properties of earth and water
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