ABSTRACT
Thomas Willis was an English doctor and a pioneer in neurology. Willis sought to formulate a description of human nature to reveal the connection between the mind and the body. Departing from Galenic humoral theories, Willis sought to demonstrate that the animal spirits played a crucial role in the connection between brain and body. His examination of the passions and their effects led him to conclude that the passions were in fact the direct result of processes within the brain and nervous system. In the eighth chapter of his work De Anima Brutorum Willis describes various ‘Passions or Affections’ of the corporeal soul and divides into physical, metaphysical, corporeal and moral. There are besides some other gestures of the aforesaid soul, by which the same departing from its equal expansion, becomes not congruous to the body; and in these kind of cases, chiefly the sensitive power affects a new species, and brings the brain and imagination into its party.
