The Heart

People used to believe that emotions were located in the heart, but that opinion was abandoned centuries ago. It is more than 350 years since Descartes wrote:

"'The mind does not immediately receive the impression from all parts of the body, but only from the brain" (Meditations, p 139 of the Everyman Edition of Descartes works translated into English)

And for at least a century we've had quite a good idea of how the brain controls the rest of the body, but people still talk as if their emotions were in their hearts.

 The various 'heart' locutions have become cliche's. When people say 'I love you from the bottom of my heart' they don't think of their blood pumps, but visualise a large box of chocolates, shaped like the heart in a pack of cards and tied with a pink ribbon. 

Emotions do have some effect on the heart - it tends to speed up when we are stressed, but emotions have at least as marked effect on the bowels.

''My heart goes out to you' might just as well be 'my bowels move for you', in fact that would be much better because bowels do move, but hearts don't go out.

Similarly 'hand on Heart' might be replaced as a declaration of sincerity by 'fingers up the bum'

I expect most readers of this blog are either  too polite or too timid to adopt either of those alternatives; I certainly am, but when I hear people talking about their hearts, I can't help thinking of what they might more aptly have said.