The gland that he is referring to is the pineal gland. He credited the pineal gland as the link between the material body or brain and the immaterial mind or soul. Through this, we can see the Descartes is also talking about the animal nature in each of us. He deliberately says, “by means of the animal spirits” to relate how we are still animals by nature. Descartes’ theories got a lot of attention from the science world with his claims about the pineal gland. He was the first to put so much emphasis on this area of the brain that it caused there to be more focus on it in the scientific world. Research has shown that the pineal gland is an endocrine organ that secretes hormones, specifically Melatonin, but there has been no evidence that it is the connection between the mind and body. This idea about the pineal gland is largely rejected in the science community and by many theorists. Even Descartes started to be unsure about the pineal gland since there was no way to tell how the connection was actually made. Later in his life, he wrote a letter to Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate in which he said, “[T]he union of mind and body is best understood by not thinking about it, and that it is just one of those mysteries that has to be accepted without …show more content…
The first part of Descates’ that I don’t agree with is when he says that the body is a non-thinking thing. Having done sports the majority of my life, I know that this is not true. Muscle memory is a very real thing and it plays a key role in more athletes’ lives. After doing one motion over and over hundreds of times to perfect it, your body gets to a point where it can just do that movement by itself without even thinking about it. There have been countless times where I do something without even realizing that I did it because it is so engrained into my