The mechanical conception of the brain both reflected and refuted the famous theory of dualism that René Descartes had laid out in his Meditations of 1641. Descartes claimed that the brain and the mind existed in two separate spheres: one material, one ethereal. The physical brain, like the rest of the body, was a purely mechanical instrument that, like a clock or a pump, acted according to the movements of its component parts. But the workings of the brain, argued Descartes, did not explain the workings of the conscious mind. As the essence of the self, the mind existed outside of space,
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