Seventeenth-century philosopher and scientist René Descartes was highly interested in anatomy and physiology. He discussed the pineal gland both in his first book, the "Treatise of Man" (written before 1637, but only published posthumously 1662/1664), and in his last book, "The Passions of the Soul" (1649) and he regarded it as "the principal seat of the soul and the place in which all our thoughts are formed." In the "Treatise of Man", Descartes described conceptual models of man, namely creatures created by God, which consist of two ingredients, a body and a soul. In the "Passions", Descartes split man up into a body and a soul and emphasized that the soul is joined to the whole body by "a certain very small gland situated in the middle of the brain's substance and suspended above the passage through which the spirits in the brain's anterior cavities communicate with those in its posterior cavities". Descartes attached significance to the gland because he believed it to be the only section of the brain to exist as a single part rather than one-half of a pair. Most of Descartes's basic anatomical and physiological assumptions were totally mistaken, not only by modern standards, but also in light of what was already known in his time.