To the members of the New Church, Miss Beekman’s resignation came as a great surprise. Her opponents were relieved, while supporters were by no means shaken in their belief of much that she had taught.
Before undertaking an examination of the human mind as this is presented to us in the inspired teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg, it would be useful to devote some attention to what the world about us says or has said on the subject. Every man talks about his “mind” as if this was without question the chief element of his personality. Yet ask men to define what their mind is, and we encounter a great confusion. Some will identify it with their consciousness or with their thought and knowledge; some will grant that it includes also emotions and will; others will say that it is a process which goes on more or less constantly in the cells of the central nervous system—as some kind of physiological reaction.
This book is written by a biochemist teacher-research worker with the purpose of describing in popular terms what is known today about the chemical structure and chemical mechanism of living things, particularly the human body. Although it is not the only book of its kind, as the book jacket says, or even the best, Man, the Chemical Machine is a fairly interesting account of the chemistry of the living body, as known to modern science.