Quivering Hearts: The intimate union of bodies and souls

This chapter discusses some of the physiological models used during the early eighteenth century to explain the origin of passions and afflictions of the soul—or emotions, as we would call them today. It focuses on the celebrated Spanish natural philosopher Benito J. Feijoo (1676–1764) and his ideas about how love could be aroused. The importance of considering Feijoo in this volume is twofold. First, Feijoo held a privileged place in the public sphere, as he was enormously successful in playing a role that was almost new in the Spanish context, that of the scientific popularizer; his ideas arguably influenced how many people experienced their bodies and their emotions as intimately connected. Second, his model complicates the traditional view that bodies were progressively gendered from the eighteenth century on. According to Feijoo, the degree of feeling one might experience is determined by the distribution of nervous fibers and other internal structures, irrespective of one's sex.