The Description of the Human Body The Description of the Human Body The Description of the Human Body () is an unfinished treatise written in 1647 by René Descartes (1596-1650). Descartes felt knowing oneself was particularly useful. This for him included medical knowledge. He hoped to cure and prevent disease, even to slow down aging. René Descartes believed the soul caused conscious thought. The body caused automatic functions like the beating of the heart and digestion he felt. The body was necessary for voluntary movement as well as the will. However, he believed the power to move the body was wrongly imagined to come from the
Catholic theology of the body dominating all subordinate material instincts, becomes similar to God. This similarity must be goal of all human undertaking. Gregory of Nazianzus (330-390) contemplated on the origin of the human body. Man was created by God with body and soul, a visible and invisible part, like the angels. He was created to praise God like they did. The body was given to man, so he may suffer and eventually die, and thus not consider himself to be God. The material essence of the body separates us from God, like a cloud, or, as Gregory stated, like the cloud between the Egyptians