387.
A person's mind is his spirit, and the spirit is the person, for the reason that by the mind are meant all the constituents of a person's will and intellect, and these exist in their first elements in
the brain and in their derivative elements in the body. Thus they are all the constituents of the person as regards their forms. And because this is the case, therefore the mind-or will and intellect-impels
the body and all its constituents to do its bidding. Does the body not do whatever the mind thinks and wills? Does the mind not prick up the ear to listen, and strain the eye to see? Does the
mind not move the tongue and lips to speak, the hands and fingers to do whatever it pleases, and the feet to walk wherever it wishes? Is the body anything else then but the obedient instrument of its
mind? Could the body be such an instrument without the mind's being present in its derivative elements in the body? Is it reasonable to suppose that the body obeys simply because the mind so wills?
In that case they would be two beings, one above and the other below, with the one giving orders and the other heeding. Because this is incongruous with any degree of reason, it follows in accordance
with what we said in no. 365 above that a person's life exists in its first elements in the brain, and in its derivative elements in the body; furthermore, that as life is in its first elements, so
it is in the whole and in every part, no. 366; and that life through those first elements is present from every part in the whole, and from the whole in every part, no. 367. We have already shown in
previous discussions that all the constituents of the mind are connected with the will and intellect, that the will and intellect are the recipient vessels of love and wisdom from the Lord, and that
these two constitute a person's life.