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SPECIAL ARTICLE
Giuseppe Santoro, M.D.
Department of Biomorphology
and Biotechnologies,
University of Messina,
Messina, Italy
Mark D. Wood, Ph.D.
School of World Studies,
Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond, Virginia
Lucia Merlo, M.D.
Department of Neurosciences,
Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology,
University of Messina,
Messina, Italy
Giuseppe Pio Anastasi, M.D.
Department of Biomorphology
and Biotechnologies,
University of Messina, and
Center for Integrative Mediterranean Studies,
University of Messina,
Messina, Italy;
Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond Virginia; and
University of Cordoba,
Cordoba, Spain
Francesco Tomasello, M.D.
Department of Neurosciences,
Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology,
University of Messina,
Messina, Italy
Antonino Germanò, M.D.
Department of Neurosciences,
Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology,
University of Messina, and
Center for Integrative Mediterranean Studies,
University of Messina,
Messina, Italy;
Virginia Commonwealth University,
Richmond Virginia; and
University of Cordoba,
Cordoba, Spain
Reprint requests:
Antonino Germanò, M.D.,
Department of Neurosciences,
Psychiatry and Anaesthesiology,
University of Messina,
A.O.U. Policlinico G. Martino,
Via Consolare Valeria, 1,
98125 Messina, Italy.
Email: germano@unime.it
Received, November 27, 2008.
Accepted, March 30, 2009.
Copyright © 2009 by the
Congress of Neurological Surgeons
Debates regarding stem cell research
often turn around questions, e.g.,
regarding the status of the embryo.
Those who oppose stem cell research fre-
quently believe that the em bryo is fully a per-
son at the moment of conception, endowed
with all the same rights and deserving of the
same respect, dignity, and care as persons who
are already born. Underlying this, there is
another belief that is fundamental to sustaining
the first. This second belief is not merely that an
embryo is fully a person be cause it possesses
T
HE
A
NATOMIC
L
OCATION OF THE
S
OUL
F
ROM THE
H
EART
, T
HROUGH THE
B
RAIN
,
TO THE
W
HOLE
B
ODY
,
AND
B
EYOND
: A J
OURNEY
T
HROUGH
W
ESTERN
H
ISTORY
, S
CIENCE
,
AND
P
HILOSOPHY
OBJECTIVE: To describe representative Western philosophical, theological, and scien-
tific ideas regarding the nature and location of the soul from the Egyptians to the con-
temporary period; and to determine the principal themes that have structured the his-
tory of the development of the concept of the soul and the implications of the concept
of the soul for medical theory and practice.
METHODS: We surveyed the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman periods, the early,
Medieval, and late Christian eras, as well as the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and
Modern periods to determine the most salient ideas regarding the nature and location
of the soul.
RESULTS: In the history of Western theological, philosophical, and scientific/medical
thought, there exist 2 dominant and, in many respects, incompatible concepts of the soul:
one that understands the soul to be spiritual and immortal, and another that under-
stands the soul to be material and mortal. In both cases, the soul has been described as
being located in a specific organ or anatomic structure or as pan-corporeal, pervading
the entire body, and, in some instances, trans-human and even pan-cosmological.
Moreover, efforts to discern the nature and location of the soul have, throughout Western
history, stimulated physiological exploration as well as theoretical understanding of
human anatomy. The search for the soul has, in other words, led to a deepening of our
scientific knowledge regarding the physiological and, in particular, cardiovascular and
neurological nature of human beings. In addition, in virtually every period, the con-
cept of the soul has shaped how societies thought about, evaluated, and understood
the moral legitimacy of scientific and medical procedures: from performing abortions
and autopsies to engaging in stem cell research and genetic engineering.
CONCLUSION: Our work enriches our shared understanding of the soul by describing
some of the key formulations regarding the nature and location of the soul by philoso-
phers, theologians, and physicians. In doing so, we are better able to appreciate the sig-
nificant role that the concept of the soul has played in the development of Western sci-
entific, medical, and spiritual life. Although ideas about the soul have changed significantly
throughout Western history, the idea of the soul as being real and essential to one’s per-
sonhood has been, and remains, pervasive throughout every period of Western history.
KEY WORDS: Anatomy, Medical history, Soul
Neurosurgery 65:633–643, 2009
DOI: 10.1227/01.NEU.0000349750.22332.6A www.neurosurgery- online.com
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all of the genetic material necessary to ensure that it will
develop into a human being, but rather, that an embryo is fully
a person because, in addition to having the genetic potential to
become a person, it is endowed by God at the moment of con-
ception with an immortal and personal soul. Opposition to
stem cell research derives, then, from the assumption that an
embryo is, from the moment of conception, both a physi-
cal/genetic and metaphysical/spiritual being and thus morally
equivalent in moral status to a person who is already born.
The debate over stem cell research is not the first contro-
versy in history in which ideas about the soul have shaped
discussions and decisions regarding medical research and pro-
cedures. On the contrary, it is exemplary of the influence that
the concept of the soul has exercised on determining the moral
legitimacy of medical research and procedures: from abortion,
autopsies, and stem cell research to the utilization of assisted
reproductive technologies, practice of genetic engineering, and
animal testing. All of these issues also have been and remain
shaped by our understanding of the soul.
The principal goal of this article is to survey the dominant
Western ideas regarding the nature and location of the soul.
What our survey reveals are 2 dominant and, in many respects,
incompatible concepts of the soul: one that understands the
soul to be spiritual and immortal, and another that understands
the soul to be material and mortal. In both cases, the soul has
been described as being localized in a specific organ or
anatomic structure, or as being nonlocalized in any organ or
structure and, in some instances, as being trans-human and
even pan-cosmological (e.g., the idea of a world soul).
Although Western ideas about the soul have changed through-
out history, belief in the existence of the soul and the associa-
tion of the soul with the essence of the self remains pervasive.
The hypothesis of an immaterial soul and efforts to determine
its precise location in the human body have, in other words,
acted as a heuristic for stimulating research that has advanced
humanity’s understanding of itself as a material being.
ORIGINS OF THE WORD “SOUL”
The idea of the soul can be found in every Western historical
period, civilization, philosophical anthropology, and religion.
The English word soul and the German seele derive from the
ancient German saiwolò, which in turn derives from the Greek
aiòlos, a word that means both agile and self-moving. Soul, in
this case, designates the intrinsic principle of motion within
every human being, the internal embodiment of the prime
mover whose origins are divine.
The Latin term anima derives from the Greek word psyche
and has been translated variously as soul, appetite, desire, and
passion. According to Plato (427–347
BCE
), psyche derives from
a combination of the verb anapneîn, which means to breathe,
and anapsycho, which means refreshment. Aristotle (384–322
BCE
) reported that psyche derives from the word katápsyxis,
which signifies cooling (9).
Turning to ancient religious sources, we find the Hebrew
word nephesh, which has been sometimes translated as breath,
life, or vital impulse. In the Hindu tradition, we find the
Sanskrit atman (from which the German atmen is derived),
which also refers to breath and to the core self. In this case,
however, the core self is understood to be a manifestation of the
ultimate Godhead.
While rich in variations, all of these terms share an empha-
sis on the ideas of breath, vital energy, the power that animates
physical movement, thought, reflection, deliberation, imagina-
tion, and ultimately all life activities, and that which is at the
core of the self, making a person who he or she is.
THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS
The earliest ideas we have regarding the nature and location
of the soul come from Egyptian societies, dating back as far as
the third millennium
BCE
. The Egyptians understood the soul to
be composed of 5 distinct parts: the Ren, Ba, Ka, Sheut, and Ib.
The most important of these dimensions was the Ib, or heart.
Egyptians thought the heart was the locus and source of our
thoughts, feelings, and will and therefore the animating force
within all human beings. Its status at death determined a per-
son’s post-mortem destiny. The god Anubis would examine
the heart during the weighing of the heart ceremony. If the
heart were too heavy, it would be consumed by the demon
Ammit (Fig. 1). The Ancient Egyptian view of the soul as per-
sonal, immortal, and located in the heart provided the basis for
subsequent cardiocentric formulations regarding the location of
the soul (36).
HOMER, ORPHISM, AND
THE PRE-SOCRATICS
In the second half of the eighth century
BCE
, the poet Homer
(Fig. 2A), whose epics provided the foundation for the cultural
and religious ideas of the classical Greek world, identified 2
types of souls (19). The first type included 3 body souls that
were active during waking life: the thymos, noos, and menos.
The thymos was thought to be the source of the emotions of joy
and grief, pity and revenge, anger and fear, and the source of
potency that set the body in motion. It was thought to be
located in the phrenes, which were identified with the diaphrag-
matic muscle or the lungs—a position that reflects the associa-
tion of the soul with the breath and breathing. The noos was
associated with the powers of the intellect and reason and was
closely associated with the chest region, although it was not
identified with any particular organ. The menos also resided in
the chest, again without being associated with a particular
organ, and represented the aggressive impulse and rage one
feels in battle. Some scholars have noted that references can be
found in the Iliad and the Odyssey, which identify the heart as
the site of the soul. This idea echoes the Egyptian cardiocentric
theory of the location of the soul.
The second type of soul, called psyche, was understood to be
a kind of living (life) or breathing (breath) soul, and it was not
associated with any particular organ or anatomic structure, but
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the nature and location of the
soul were Parmenides of Elea
(520–450
BCE
), founder of the
Eleatic school, and Demo critus
of Abdera (460–370
BCE
), who
developed the atomist’s doc-
trine, which has influenced the
entire history of Western sci-
ence. Whereas Par menides
suggested that the soul was
made of igneous material
and localized in the thorax,
Democritus proposed 2 parts
of the soul: one rational,
located in the chest or brain,
the other irrational and spread
over the whole body (19).
PLATO’S
REASONABLE SOUL
Since we possess no texts written by Socrates, our knowledge
of him and his ideas derives from Xenophon, Aristophanes,
Aristotle, and above all Plato, a student of Socrates, whose
works are the most extensive among these philosophers and
provide the foundation for much of Western philosophy; as
Whitehead famously said, in large measure it “consists of a
series of a footnote to Plato” (38, p 39). It has to be assumed that
it is difficult to distinguish between the ideas of Socrates and
those of his translators/transcribers/interpreters, and espe-
cially between Socrates and Plato; however, their philosophical
positions are discernibly different in style, method, and aim.
Whereas Socrates shared more in common with the Sophists,
raising critical questions more than providing reassuring
answers to the pressing issues of life and death, Plato (424/423–
348/347
BCE
) sought to develop a grand metaphysical philoso-
phy, which included his ideas regarding the nature and location
of the soul (1) (Fig. 2C).
Plato thought of the soul as the essence of the person. As
an incorporeal and self-moving (autokineton) substance, the
soul lived, gave life, and was immortal. Of celestial origin,
the soul entered the human body as a result of a fall from an
infinite spirit. After living a good earthly life, in which the
person achieved a state of self-purification, the soul was rein-
tegrated into its primitive spiritual origin. In his view, the
soul was composed of a rational aspect located in the brain,
a spirited or impulsive part located in the thorax, and an
appetitive portion located in the abdomen. Possessing the
virtue of wisdom, the rational aspect was bound to “ . . . the
head, which is the most divine part and dominates over the
rest of the body in us. And the gods gave to this part also the
whole body as servant . . . and this part of the marrow
molded (the gods) wholly round and named it brain because
. . . the vase that contained it was the head ...” (32, p 300;
33, p 212). Possessing the virtue of courage, the spirited part
T
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NATOMIC
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OCATION OF THE
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OUL
rather with a person’s individual life and identity. Unlike the
body souls, psyche was quiet during waking life, appearing
only in dreams, and was thought to be what leaves a person’s
body at the time of death. This soul was not associated with
any specific psychological attribute, capacity, or function, but
rather with the force that animates and transcends the body
after death.
Around the sixth century
BCE
, a religious movement called
Orphism developed around the poet Orpheus. Son of the Muse
Calliope, Orpheus was believed to have descended into the
underworld to retrieve his spouse Eurydice, who had died
from a poisonous snake’s bite (Fig. 2B). Cults formed around
Orpheus in both Greece and Southern Italy, which held that,
through inward reflection, one could gain insight into the
nature of the divine. Orphism held that the human soul was
divine in nature, immortal, trapped within the human body,
and doomed to reincarnation if not liberated from the cycle of
rebirth through certain esthetic practices and secret initiation
rituals. Once liberated from being reincarnated, the soul com-
muned eternally with the gods (1).
The pre-Socratics constituted a heterogeneous group of
philosophers. Unlike Socrates (469/471–399
BCE
), whose pri-
mary philosophical focus was the nature of human beings, the
pre-Socratics were concerned with investigating and discerning
the nature of reality to determine the fundamental substance
that makes reality what it is. In many aspects, their methodolog-
ical approach and object of study were similar to those of mod-
ern physicists, biologists, and cosmologists. The pre-Socratics
included numerous figures and schools of thought, such as the
Ionics of Miletus (including Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes),
the Pythagoreans (Pythagoras and disciples), the Heracliteans
(Heraclitus and disciples), the Eleatics (Par menides and disci-
ples), and the Posterior Physicists (Empedocles, Anaxagoras,
and Democritus) (1). Among those who attempted to explain
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FIGURE 1. The god Anubis proceeds to the weighing of the dead’s heart against a feather, symbol of truth, on a bal-
ance. (Book of the Dead (circa 1250
BCE
), courtesy of British Museum, London, England.)
impulses of the body, and that of the superego, representing
the internalized moral-social demands of society.
Plato’s theory of the soul finds its social complement and
support in his theory of the state. In The Republic, Plato
advances the view that, like every individual, every class in
society possesses all 3 aspects of the soul. However, each aspect
preponderates to a greater or lesser extent in each class, with
the rational aspect found in greater quantity among the rulers,
the spirited in greater quantity among the guardians, and the
appetitive in greater quantity among the artisans. Moreover,
Plato stated that just as a person enjoys optimal health when a
state of harmony prevails among the 3 aspects of the soul,
where the spirited and appetitive are subordinate to the author-
ity of the rational aspect of the soul, so too does the republic
enjoy optimal health when the guardians and artisans subordi-
nate themselves to the authority of the rulers and the individ-
uals belonging to each class establish proper harmony among
each aspect of the soul. The ideal state is thus predicated on
and simultaneously supports the ideal state of the soul.
Plato derived his tripartite theory of the soul in no small
measure from the Pythagoreans (15). The Pythagoreans
thought that the soul resulted from the harmonic composition
of the elements that comprised the body, in a manner not
unlike music that results when the elements that comprise a
musical instrument are in harmony with each other (1).
According to Diogenes Laertius, the Pythagoreans also imag-
ined the soul as a tripartite structure composed of the no˜us (or
mind) and phrenes or faculty of reason, both located in the
brain, and the thymos, source of courage, bravery, and audacity
and located in the heart (22). Alcmaeon of Croton echoed this
view, arguing the brain was “the seat, in which the highest,
principal power of the soul is located” (22, DK 24 A10). Noting
that head trauma and brain injuries alter our experience of sen-
sation and consciousness, he concluded that the brain is the
locus of human understanding and that, inasmuch as the soul
makes consciousness possible, it must be located in the brain.
Likewise, Hippon of Samos shared Croton’s view, reporting
that the principal part of the soul was located in the head, and,
more specifically, in the brain (22). In all, both Plato and the
Pythagoreans developed the philosophical basis for the notion
that the soul is located in the brain, or what is sometimes
referred to as the encephalocentric theory. This idea, in addition
to Aristotle’s contrasting cardiocentric theory, has influenced all
subsequent ideas regarding the nature and location of the soul.
It is to Aristotle’s theory of the soul that we now turn.
ARISTOTLE’S HEART
Like his teacher Plato, Aristotle (circa 384–383
BCE
) con-
tended that the soul was the essence of our being, but he dis-
agreed with Plato that the soul has a separate existence from
the body of a person, and in this respect he did not believe that
the soul was immortal (Fig. 2D). The soul, Aristotle wrote in De
Anima, is “... the final main act (entelechy) of a natural body
that has life in power ...” (10, p 312). Like Plato, Aristotle held
that rational activity was the essence of the soul even if, unlike
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ANTORO ET AL
.
was associated with the will and was identified with the area
of the chest above the diaphragm near the heart and lungs
(19, p 331). The third portion of the soul was the appetitive,
and associated with love “ . . . for foods, drinks and loving
delights . . . .” (19, p 331). The virtue governing the appeti-
tive aspect of the soul was temperance, or moderation, and
was demonstrated by a healthy person when the wisdom of
the rational aspect of the soul exercises authority over the
appetitive. This last aspect of the soul was, according to
Plato, located between the diaphragm and the umbilicus,
near the liver, and thereby anatomically distant from the
rational soul (19). In the Phaedrus, Plato represented his tri-
partite theory of the soul with the image of a wing-stroked
biga, traversing the heavens and guided by the charioteer
Auriga, who represented the rational soul, and powered by 2
horses, one white and docile, representing the spirited soul
serving reason, and the other black and recalcitrant, repre-
senting the appetitive soul and resistant to reason (4). It was
the task of Auriga to achieve and maintain an optimal har-
mony and balance between the spirited and appetitive souls.
Interestingly, Plato’s tripartite theory of the soul finds a struc-
tural-functional similarity with Freud’s tripartite theory of
the ego, id, and superego (23), with the ego representing the
rational principle that seeks to harmonize the primitive
demands of the id, representing the instinctual or spirited
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FIGURE 2. A, bust of imaginary appearance of Homer (second half of the
eighth century
BCE
). (Courtesy of Louvre Museum, Paris, France.) B,
Orpheus and the animals. Roman mosaic, Imperial age. (Courtesy of
Archeological Museum, Palermo, Italy.) C, Plato, the School of Athens
(detail). Raffaello, Fresco, Stanza della Segnatura. (Courtesy of Palazzi
Pontifici, Vatican.) D, bust of Aristotle, copy of Lysippus. (Courtesy of
Palazzo Altemps, Rome, Italy.)
AB
CD
Plato, he considered this activity to be an effect of the totality of
actions of the human body. For Aristotle, the soul is to the body
what running is to a runner: it signifies the body’s expression
of its vitality. Thus, just as there is no running without a runner,
so there is no soul without a body. Like Plato, Aristotle also
elaborated a tripartite theory of the soul. In this case, however,
the 3 parts denote different capacities or functions, rather than
different substances: a vegetative function, associated with
nourishment and reproduction and present within all living
beings, including plants; a sensitive function, associated with
sensation and movement and present in all animals; and an
intellectual function, associated with cognition and deliberation
and present only in man (5). These functions, argued Aristotle,
originate from the heart, the organ he considered central to the
body; it was the origin of blood and blood vessels, generator of
body heat, and locus of the life principle (8, 10, 11, 19). Aristotle
in this way reinforced the heart-centered or cardiocentric view
of the soul developed by the Egyptians.
Whereas Plato elaborated and defended a dualistic anthro-
pology, in which the human being is composed of a material
and mortal body and an immaterial and immortal soul,
Aristotle elaborated and defended a monistic anthropology, in
which the body and soul enjoy substantial unity. Whereas Plato
identified the brain as the seat of the soul, Aristotle identified
its location within the heart. These 2 theories of the soul estab-
lished the fundamental metaphysical framework for virtually
every subsequent discussion regarding the nature and location
of the soul.
THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD
The death of Alexander the Great in 323
BCE
, just 1 year
before the death of Aristotle, marks the beginning of the period
historians refer to as the Hellenistic age. The Hellenistic age
marks the transition between classical Greece and the height of
the Roman Empire. Although it was characterized by cultural
decline, extensive commerce nevertheless created a fertile basis
for the development of art, architecture, literature, and philos-
ophy. Among the most important of the philosophical schools
to develop during this period were the Epicureans and the
Stoics. Both of these schools of thought affirmed a view of the
soul as corporeal.
Founded in Greece by Zeno of Citium (331–262
BCE
) and
Chysippus of Soli (277–204
BCE
), the Stoics articulated a theory
of the soul as a unity of thoughts, feelings, and desires that
were subordinated to a single controlling or governing princi-
ple called the hegemonikon (Fig. 3). The hegemonikon pervades
the human being and is identified with reason and intellect
(capacity for choice), and it provides the virtuous and wise
man with the capability of living in permanent communion
with divine providence and law (14). To cause bodily move-
ment, the soul must, the Stoics reasoned, be corporeal, as only
a material force can affect another material force. They also
considered the soul as mortal, even as it survives a person’s
death as fine entities until a conflagration disperses the entities
throughout the cosmos. While the Stoics thought that the soul’s
governance extended throughout the body, they located the
hegemonikon in the heart and pneuma surrounding the heart, as
they assumed that the soul was intimately bound to and
expressed through the voice; and the voice, they believed, came
from the heart (19).
The famous physician Galen of Pergamon (129–circa 200/216
BCE
) challenged the Stoic view regarding the location of the
soul on the basis of his anatomic research. Galen dismissed
both the heart and lungs as likely locations for the human soul.
Noting that touching the human heart produced no changes in
cognition or sensation, he concluded that the soul, which at this
point was closely associated with both cognition and sensa-
tion, must not reside there (19). Galen’s research convinced
him that the brain was the organ responsible for generating
thoughts, representing sensations, and initiating movements,
and he concluded that the soul must therefore reside in the
brain. In this way, Galen augmented Plato’s encephalocentric
theory of the soul (24).
Epicurus from Samos (341–270
BCE
), who was among the
most important of Hellenistic philosophers, made significant
contributions to the development of what later becomes known
as the scientific method. Like Galen, he used the method of
experimentation and observation and resisted recourse to
mythological or religious ideas to explain the nature of things.
Epicurus posited the existence of the soul to account for sense-
perception, which he believed was perquisite for intellectual
life. Like Democritus before him, Epicurus argued that the soul
was composed of corporeal particles diffused like breath
T
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OUL
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FIGURE 3. Cube of Space. The Stoic philosophers
identified the seat of the soul as the Hegemonikon, the
central facility that receives and organizes the impres-
sions of phantasia, or imagination, delivered by the
senses. The Hegemonikon has 4 powers: phantasia,
reason, impulse, and assent. Phantasia may be either
esthetic (sensory) or mental reproductions of stored
past phantasies. Impulse is a desire (an inclination to
act) toward a phantasia, and assent is the action per-
formed after evaluation of the object of desire.
throughout the entire body. These particles were thinner and
rounder, and consequentially freer, than other particles. At
death, the atoms of the soul were completely separated, and
with their separation, any possibility of sensation ceased. Death
was a “privation of sensations,” and for this reason we are,
said Epicurus, foolish to fear death (6). In this respect, Epicurus
took Aristotle’s thought to its logical conclusions. If the soul, as
Aristotle contended, was an epiphenomenon or reverberation
of the body, an expression of the totality of the body’s capaci-
ties and potentialities, then the soul would necessarily pass out
of existence with the passing away of the body. In this respect,
Epicurus develops a more thoroughly materialist conception of
the soul that denies the immortality of the soul and the concept
of free will associated with the soul. It is not surprising, then,
that Christian thinkers argued against the Epicurean and Stoic
theories of the soul.
Two other figures worthy of mention with regard to our sur-
vey of ideas concerning the nature and location of the soul are
the Greek anatomists and physicians Herophilus of Chalcedon
(335–280
BCE
) and Erasistratus of Chios (310–250
BCE
).
Herophilus in particular is regarded as a founder of the med-
ical school in Alexandria, although it is not certain that he actu-
ally lived or worked in Alexandria. Often considered the father
of human anatomy, as he based his conclusions on dissection of
the human body, Herophilus produced a number of accurate
descriptions of neuroanatomy and the brain. Like Galen and
Epicurus, Herophilus and Erasistratus drew their conclusions
from empirical studies and in particular from their research on
animals and human beings. They both believed that the brain
was the seat of the soul. Drawing from and reformulating
Plato’s concept of the 3 components of the brain’s mental func-
tioning, Herophilus identified each of these components with
different ventricles in the brain, locating the ruling principle
over the body in the fourth or posterior ventricle (20).
Herophilus’ decision to locate the soul in the fourth ventricle
derived from 2 related observations: first, that all the nerves
extend from the spinal cord and cerebellum, which are near the
fourth ventricle; and second, that there are sensory nerves
responsible for transmitting information from the senses and
motor nerves responsible for stimulating movement. As the
principle of both understanding and motion, the soul must
then necessarily be located in the fourth ventricle.
The final theory of the soul we consider in this section is
that of neo-Platonism. Although numerous figures are associ-
ated with the development of neo-Platonism, including
Ammonius Saccas (birth unknown, death circa 265
CE
),
Porphyry (233–circa 309
CE
), and Iamblichus (circa 245–circa
325
CE
), it is Plotinus, an Egyptian philosopher, who is consid-
ered the father of neo-Platonism. Drawing from Pythagoras
and Plato, as well as elements of Persian, Indian, and Egyptian
thought, Plotinus (205–270
CE
) synthesized some of the main
ideas of the Greek-Alexandrian world and provided a philo-
sophical position that informed many of the early Christian
theologians, including Origen, a student of Ammonius Saccas,
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and, for a time, Augustine of
Hippo. Plotinus sought to preserve the purity of Plato’s meta-
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physics. For this reason, it is not surprising that his thought
bears the stamp of Plato’s ideas about the soul. For Plotinus, the
soul possessed a superior aspect associated with reason and an
inferior aspect associated with the body. It is worth noting that,
in addition to the division between those who argued for an
immaterial soul and those who argued for a material concept of
the soul, we can see the internalization of these concepts in the
form of a soul divided into an immaterial and a material aspect,
a dualistic concept that has structured the history of Western
thought. Deriving from a transcendent source, the soul,
Plotinus argued, became incarnated and, upon death, returned
to the one from which it originated. Plotinus, like Plato, under-
stood incarnation to be a kind of fall into “the shackles of the
body.” Once embodied, the soul yearned to escape its impris-
onment and return to the transcendent source from which it fell
(34). Plotinus’s ideas regarding the nature, origin, and destiny
of the soul would, as we shall see, profoundly inform a group
of early Christian thinkers who are today commonly referred to
as the Church Fathers. Together, they formulated the funda-
mental concepts which became Catholic orthodoxy.
THE AUGUST BEGINNINGS
OF CHRISTIANITY
Among early Christian theologians, none has had a greater
impact on the formulation of Christian thought than Aurelius
Augustine. Born in 354
CE
at Tagaste, North Africa, Augustine
clarified a complex of interrelated ideas regarding creation,
original sin, free will, grace, faith, the incarnation, just war the-
ory, and the nature of the soul (Fig. 4A). Augustine explained
that he sought to know God and the soul—Deum et animam
scire cupio—and added that to know the soul was to know God.
In On the Immortality of the Soul, Augustine presupposes the
neo-Platonic idea that the soul gives form to the body and is in
no way altered by the body but, rather, retains its purity. Just as
God is the summum bonum of the soul, so the soul is the sum-
mum bonum of the body (12). The soul is present not only in the
entire body but also in every part of the body. Drawing from
Aristotle, Augustine believed that the soul did not enter the
body until the fetus was completely formed. This idea is some-
times called “delayed ensoulment.” In doing so, Augustine
reversed the early teachings of such figures as Clement of
Alexandria (circa 150–215
CE
), who wrote “... that women
who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs
which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time
their own human feelings, . . . induce abortions are murderers
[hellip”; Tertullian (circa 155–225
CE
) who affirmed that “...
we are not permitted, since murder has been prohibited to us
once and for all, even to destroy . . . the fetus in the womb [as]
it makes no difference whether one destroys a life that has
already been born or one that is in the process of birth . . . ”; St.
Basil the Great (circa 330–379
CE
), who stated that “... she
who has deliberately destroyed a fetus has to pay the penalty
of murder . . . ”; and St. John Chrysostom (circa 340–407
CE
),
who described that we must not “ . . . make the place of pro-
creation a chamber for murder . . . .” According to Augustine,
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fetus is sufficiently developed
to receive the soul; i.e., around
the beginning of the second
trimester, or the period of
“quickening.” Thomas’ ar gu -
ment for the concept of
“delayed ensoulment” influ-
enced the Roman Catholic
Church’s position on abortion,
as the Church deemed abor-
tion acceptable as long as the
procedure was done before
the body received the soul. As
indicated above, this position
did not change until the mid-
dle of the 19th century, when
the idea that the body receives
a soul at the moment of con-
ception, also known as “simul -
taneous animation,” was affir -
med. In 1886, Pope Leo XIII
(1878–1903) issued a papal
decree prohibiting all proce-
dures that resulted in the
death of the fetus—a position that has remained the orthodox
position of the Church ever since.
THE RENAISSANCE
The Renaissance represents the great cultural transformation
that began in roughly the 14th century in Italy and spread
throughout Europe during the 16th century. The Renaissance
represented a radical renewal in the worlds of literature, arts,
philosophy, politics, and science. One of the key developments
during this period was the development of what came to be
known as Humanism. Humanism was born through the cre-
ative appropriation of classical Greek, Roman, and Arabic tra-
ditions and ultimately provided the basis for both a critique of
the intellectually rigid and hierarchical power of the Church
and the development of a more human-centered concept of
humanity and its capacities to shape its own destiny. Whereas
the Medieval concept of knowledge held that theology was the
queen of the sciences, possessing the capacity to clarify the
truth as revealed in biblical scripture and God’s creation, with
other disciplines acting as ancillae theologiae, the Renaissance
saw a progressive secularization of knowledge in which truth
was no longer to be found solely by reading scripture or dis-
cerning God’s signs in Nature, but rather through the creative
and critical application of humanity’s own powers of inquiry
and analysis to understanding the world (2).
The greatest representative of the spirit of the Renaissance
was, of course, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519). Scientist, math-
ematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor,
architect, musician, and writer, Leonardo is perhaps the most
diversely talented person ever to have lived. He drew from
ancient and contemporary sources and his own anatomic inves-
T
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S
OUL
abortions performed during the early period of pregnancy
were not considered murder because the rational, animating
soul had not entered the body and was therefore not destroyed.
Only after the point at which a mother felt the baby moving, a
sign of ensoulment, was abortion considered murder. As we
shall see, Aquinas shared Augustine’s view on this point, even
as the Church would overturn it in the 19th century (12).
LIGHTING UP THE DARK AGES
What is sometimes called the Dark Ages in European history
began in the seventh century. Intellectual culture was kept alive
by a small number of erudite theologians and philosophers
who preserved past religious, philosophical, and medical
works by translating and commenting on them. This period,
referred to as that of Scholasticism, was dominated by a num-
ber of thinkers, including Anselm of Canterbury (1033/
1034–1109), Bernard of Clairvaux (1098–1179), and Thomas
Aquinas (1225–1274), who drew from and applied classical
Greek thought and especially dialectical methods of inquiry
and analysis to problems in psychology, cosmology, ethics, and
theology (Fig. 4B).
Aquinas attempted, as noted, to reconcile the Christian reve-
lation with reason by way of Aristotelian logic. According to
Aquinas, the soul was the vital principle that enabled human
beings to know and to move. Unlike Scotus Eriugena (815–877),
who, like Plotinus, posited a pantheistic theory of the soul as all-
pervading, Aquinas contended that the soul was distinct and
derived directly from God (Anima habet esse per se, anima habet
esse subsistens) (7). The soul is of a spiritual, i.e., nonmaterial, and
immortal nature. The rational or superior soul is generated by
“special,” i.e., non-natural, creation at the moment when the
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FIGURE 4. A, Saint Augustine, Sandro Botticelli, Fresco. (Courtesy of Church of Ognissanti, Florence, Italy.) B,
Saint Thomas Aquinas, the School of Athens (detail). Raffaello, Fresco, Stanza della Segnatura. (Courtesy of Palazzi
Pontifici, Vatican.) C, René Descartes (1596–1650). (From De homine figuris: et latinitate donatus a Florentio
Schuyl. Lugduni Bata vorum, Ex Officina Hackiana, 1664.)
ABC
mined (here, we can see echoes of Plotinus’s dualistic concept
of the soul). Having accepted this dualism, Descartes, like dual-
ists before him, was confronted by the challenge of explaining
the nature of the relationship between the mind and the body.
Descartes’ solution was to argue that the mind and body were
connected through the pineal gland and that this must there-
fore be the site of the soul (3) (Fig. 4C).(Interestingly, 3 centuries
later, Edgar Cayce [1877–1945] argued that Leydig’s gland, a lit-
tle gland just above the reproductive organs, was the site of the
soul. He did so because he knew that destruction of this gland
resulted in neurological and psychological problems, including
epilepsy, schizophrenia, and manic-depressiveness [16].) In The
Passions of the Soul, Descartes describes the method by which he
arrived at this conclusion (21):
But to understand all these things more perfectly, it
is necessary to know that the soul is really joined to all
the body, but it cannot properly be said to be in any of
the parts thereof, excluding the rest, because it is one,
and in some sort indivisible by reason of the disposi-
tion of the organs, which do all so relate one to another
that when any one of them is taken away, it renders
the whole body defective. And, because it is of a nature
that has no reference to extension, dimensions, or other
properties of matter, whereof the body is composed,
but only to the whole mass or contexture of organs as
appears by this: that you cannot conceive the half or
third part of a soul, nor what space it takes up, and
that it becomes not any whit less by cutting off any
part of the body, but absolutely withdraws when the
contexture of its organs is dissolved. It is also neces-
sary to know that although the soul be joined to all the
body, yet there is some part in that body wherein she
exercises her functions more peculiarly than all the
rest. And, it is commonly believed that this part is the
brain, or it may be the heart. The brain, because thither
tend the organs of the senses, and the heart because
therein the passions are felt. But having searched this
business carefully, me thinks I have plainly found out
that that part of the body wherein the soul immedi-
ately exercises her function is not a jot of the heart,
nor yet all the brain, but only the most interior part of
it, which is a certain very small kernel [pineal gland]
situated in the middle of the substance of it and so
hung on the top of the conduit by which the spirits of
its anterior cavities have communication with those of
the posterior, whose least motions in it cause the
course of the spirits very much to change, and recipro-
cally, the least alteration befalling the course of the
spirits cause the motions of the kernel very much to
alter. The reason which persuades me that the soul can
have no other place in the whole body but this kernel
where she immediately exercises her functions is for
that I see: all the other parts of our brain are paired, as
also we have two eyes, two hands, two ears; lastly, all
the organs of our exterior senses are double and foras-
S
ANTORO ET AL
.
tigations to determine the nature and location of the soul (28).
Initially, he located the soul or senso comune in the brain, and
more specifically in the middle ventricle. Using a series of inter-
secting lines superimposed on drawings of the human cra-
nium, Leonardo located the soul just above the optic chiasm,
close to the anterior portion of the third ventricle of the brain
(Fig. 5). His argument regarding its location found support
from clinical observations that disturbances to the anterior
third ventricle-hypothalamic region affect perceptions of the
inner and outer world (20).
ENLIGHTMENT RATIONALISM, EMPRICISM,
AND MODERN SCIENCE
The 17th century saw the development of what came to be
known as Rationalism. Among the most important philoso-
phers during this period were René Descartes (1596–1650),
Baruch de Spinoza (1632–1677), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
(1646–1716). Rationalism inherited much of the philosophical
development associated with the Renaissance, including the
emphasis on humanity’s power to shape its own destiny, and it
assumed that philosophy should not merely remain a specula-
tive discipline, but rather a discipline that helps guide every-
day actions and efforts to create a better world. Descartes
understood human beings to be composed of a thinking sub-
stance (res cogitans), aware and free, and a corporeal substance
(res extensa), divisible into parts that are mechanically deter-
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FIGURE 5. Leonardo da Vinci, using a series of intersecting lines super-
imposed on his drawings the human cranium, located the soul just above
the optic chiasm, close to the anterior portion of the third ventricle of the
brain. RL 19058r; K/P 42r. (Courtesy of Windsor Royal Library, London,
England.)
much as we have but one very thing at one and the
same time. (21, p 25–27)
It was not long before Descartes’ claim regarding the pineal
gland as the locus of the soul came under attack. Among the
first of Descartes’ critics was the anatomist Thomas Willis
(1621–1675). In De Anima Brutorum, published in 1672, Willis
reported that since the corpus striatum received all of the
body’s sensory information, it must be the principal site of the
senso comune. Noting that the corpus callosum is associated
with imagination and the cerebral cortex with memory, Willis
reintroduced a tripartite theory of the soul as responsible for
different dimensions of brain and body functioning (20). In
doing so, he revived a version of Aristotle’s idea that different
aspects of the soul are responsible for different functions.
English empiricism developed during the 17th and 18th cen-
turies. John Locke (1632–1704), often considered the father of
classical British empiricism, argued against the rationalist and
speculative tendencies of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. He
proposed that all knowledge derives from experience, which
derives from the senses, which derive their data from the
world. Locke contended that he could provide a theory regard-
ing the origins of knowledge that did not depend on the
assumption of the existence of innate (a priori) ideas. Assuming
the mind to be a tabula rasa, Locke argued that all knowledge is
the result of the accumulation and assemblage of simple ideas
deriving from sense experiences and reflection on those expe-
riences. In Book IV of his Essay Concerning Human Under -
standing (29), Locke reported that:
All the great ends of Morality and Religion are well
enough secured without the philosophical Proofs of
the Soul’s Immateriality; since it is evident that he
who, at first made us beings to subsist here, sensible
intelligent Beings, and for several years continued us
in such a state, can and will restore us to a like state of
Sensibility in another World, and make us there capa-
ble to receive the Retribution he has designed to men,
according to the doings in this life. And therefore this
not a mighty necessity to determine one way or
t’other, as some overzealous for or against the Imma -
teriality of the Soul, have been foreward to make the
World believe. (29, p 1)
Locke’s critique of Descartes’ emphasis on reason as the
source of knowledge moved him away from Descartes’ view
that thinking is the essence of the soul and strongly in the direc-
tion of materialism. Voltaire had this to say about Locke’s posi-
tion on the soul:
Mr. Locke, after having destroyed innate ideas; after
having fully renounced the vanity of believing that we
think always; after having laid down, from the most
solid principles, that ideas enter the mind through the
senses; having examined our simple and complex
ideas; having traced the human mind through its sev-
eral operations; having shown that all the languages in
the world are imperfect, and the great abuse that is
made of words every moment, he at last comes to con-
sider the extent or rather the narrow limits of human
knowledge. It was in this chapter he presumed to
advance, but very modestly, the following words: “We
shall, perhaps, never be capable of knowing whether a
being, purely material, thinks or not.” (37)
Inasmuch as we cannot determine this with any degree of
certainty, we cannot a priori accept, as did the Rationalists, the
existence of the soul.
The Enlightenment acquired its name from a number of 18th
century philosophers, most notably Immanuel Kant (1724–
1804), who were committed to subjecting all aspects of human
experience to the critical light of reason. Their anti-dogmatic and
anti-authoritarian stance invigorated revolutionary criticisms of
inherited philosophical, ethical, religious, and political ideas.
The 18th century was characterized not only by several philo-
sophical movements but also by a great impulse in the scientific
study of brain and its relationship with the soul. The physician
Franz Josef Gall (1758–1828), born at Tiefendorf in the Gran
Duchy of Baden into a family of Italian origin (25, 26), formu-
lated a systematic theory of the relationship between the struc-
ture of the brain and the psychological faculties. He described his
thinking about the soul in a report to the Institut de France (13):
The soul is simple; then its seat must be simple also;
in consequence there can only be one single place
from which and to which all the nerves end. It is
indisputable, according to Cesalpius, that there can
be only one origin of the nerves since there is only one
soul in every individual. Bonnet and Haller, and oth-
ers, having extended the location of the soul to the
entire capacity of the cerebrum, were already contra-
dicted by the metaphysicians who found it much too
vast, not reflecting that, with a little more or a little
less place, they did not explain better the nature of a
simple soul. Moreover, according to a remark of van
Swieten and Fiedeman, and others, the simplicity of a
material point where all the sentiments and all ideas
must assemble themselves, had already became dis-
putable. We have proven, to the misfortune of these
dreams, that the authors of nature followed an
entirely different plan in creation. In general nothing
seems to us more ridiculous for the naturalist, to
whom all nature offers itself openly, than to direct his
researches and his inductions by such vain and frivo-
lous speculations. If the metaphysician would remain,
like us, attached to the facts and restrict his researches
to the knowledge of conditions on which they de -
pend, his ideas would run head on into reality and
one science would not arrogate to itself the right to
prescribe limits to the other. It is a fact and an impre-
scriptible verity that a sole origin and a sole center are
neither real nor possible for all the nerves. (13, p 419)
In his treatise Uber das Organ der Seele (On the Organ of the
Soul) of 1796, the famous anatomist Samuel Thomas Soem -
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OUL
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ther shaped by culture” (18), and to the extent this is the case, we
may still assume that we are morally obligated to act compas-
sionately in relationship to each other (18).
Even with all of the recent scientific advances with regard to
understanding the nature and relationship between the brain
and mind, inasmuch as science explores material realities, ques-
tions regarding the existence of a soul, to the extent that the
soul is thought to transcend material reality, are questions that
transcend the epistemological and methodological boundaries
of science. Moreover, to the extent that people experience the
soul as something real, however purely imaginary its reality
may be, the search for the soul and determination of its nature
will continue for quite some time to come. Or, as Richard
Dawkins clarified, in a discussion with Steven Pinker, while sci-
ence may continue to marginalize theoretically the idea of an
immaterial soul, the classical notion of a soul, the idea of the
soul as spiritual awareness, esthetic sensibility, intellectual
power, musical ability, emotional sensitivity, and imagination
has, if anything, been dramatically enriched by scientific
inquiry and provides the basis for what may become the rich-
est exploration of the soul to date (39).
CONCLUSIONS
Based on our survey of representative philosophical, theo-
logical, and scientific theories of the nature and location of the
soul, we reach the following conclusions. First, theories
regarding the nature and location of the soul have varied over
time and within philosophical or theological traditions.
Second, theories regarding the nature of the soul may be gen-
erally divided between those which hold that the soul is
immaterial and imperishable and those which hold that the
soul is material and perishable, with the former position being
the dominant position throughout most of Western history.
Third, theories regarding the location of the soul have varied
between those which hold that the soul is located in a specific
organ, most often the heart or the brain, and those which hold
that the soul is not located within a particular organ or
anatomic structure but is rather transpersonal, pervading the
entire body. Fourth, efforts to determine the nature and dis-
cover the location of the soul have resulted in the acquisition
of a better understanding of human physiology, biology, neu-
rology, cognition, and psychology, that is, of the nature of
human beings as material beings.
Disclosure
The authors have no personal financial or institutional interest in any of the
drugs, materials, or devices described in this article.
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Acknowledgments
This article is a scientific interdisciplinary product of the Center for Integrated
Mediterranean Studies, a joint Academic Institution established in 2004 by the
University of Messina (Messina, Italy), Virginia Commonwealth University
(Richmond, VA), and the University of Cordoba (Cordoba, Spain).
COMMENTS
The seat of the soul has been an elusive concept for philosophers,
scholars, and seculars over the centuries. In an effort to reveal many
of the historical tenets, Santoro et al. have reviewed a number of lead-
ing historical figures and their ideas on the location of the seat of soul.
In addition, these writings have even revealed some views of what the
“soul” might be, in reality. Historically, that soul started out in the
heart, later involved the heart and lungs, and eventually ended up in
the brain; then, one had to decide which part of the brain contained the
soul. From cardiocentric to encephalocentric soul site, one sees an inter-
esting and remarkable migration in thought and ideas. Even after an
exhaustive review of these concepts, seeing errors such as those of the
great anatomist Leonardo da Vinci, who put the soul in the ventricles,
one realizes that we do not yet know where this elusive concept lies. So
then, one ends up with the more modern view of Steve Pinker’s that
the soul perhaps does not exist; rather, the brain is just an “electrochem-
ical” mix of high technology that works well; nothing further needs to
be accepted.
This is a remarkable piece of scholarship. The authors have given us
an insightful overview.
James T. Goodrich
Bronx, New York
This thoughtful and unusual article is provocative in many ways. It
elegantly traces the concept of the soul in Western thought, philos-
ophy, and religion. The idea of the soul and its relationship to life and
the human condition is pervasive in Western and other cultures. If one
accepts the concept, perhaps the next step is to define its function. This
breath of life gives mankind the potential for the development of moral
and ethical values, the ability to postulate a continuance of the individ-
ual life spirit, to plan for the future, and to develop societal structures
that themselves incorporate moral values and norms.
A logical next step is to postulate the characteristics and the location
of the soul. Surely, neuroscientists tend to focus on the brain; it is not,
however, difficult to conceive that the heart and the body as a whole
are also possibilities. A logical extension of this discussion regarding
the soul is the continuing level of scientific and philosophic inquiry into
the mind-brain relationship.
Edward R. Laws, Jr.
Boston, Massachusetts
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