need help with translation

[iguanodon]

Can somebody control my translation? Me chinese is too poor to understand these sentences completely, i do not understand the grammatical relations:

 

1 神经系统没有人那么完善的动物就不可能在物质上表现出人能表现的那种精神。

2 虽然不能说只要有很好的物质的神经系统，就会有精神不过，如果没有这个物质的神经系统，精神也无法被表现出来

 

1 Even the animal with the most perfect nervous system cannot express such a spirit as man does.

2 indeed, you cannot say: if only the nervous system is well-formed, then you have spirit; but if the nervous system is not well-formed, then spirit cannot become manifest.

[MPhillips]

Who wrote the original text and is it available on line? My knowledge of philosophy is somewhat lacking--it would be nice to see what came before.

[MPhillips]

1) "It is impossible for animals, with their less highly developed nervous systems to display the quality of mind of which man is capable." 2) "While it cannot be said that the mere fact of the existence of a well-functioning physical nervous system implies the existence of mind, nevertheless without this physical nervous system, mind finds no means of expression." [The second statement sounds like the Cartesian dualist position in a nutshell!]

[iguanodon]

Thanks for your help. The original is in German, by Carl Gustav Carus (19th century). My excerpt is taken from a quotation of this author:

 

"The finer, inner construction of the nervous system and especially of the brain remains still an unsolved problem for the physiologist and the anatomist. That this concentration of structures ever increases in the animal kingdom and reaches in man a stage unequalled in any other being is a fully established fact — a fact that is of the deepest significance in regard to the mental evolution of man. Indeed, we may go so far as to say it is really a sufficient explanation of that evolution. Where, therefore, the structure of the brain has not developed properly, where its smallness and poverty are in evidence as in the case of microcephali and idiots, it goes without saying that we can no more expect the appearance of original ideas and of knowledge than we can expect the propagation of the species from persons with completely stunted reproductive organs. On the other hand, a strong and beautifully developed build of the whole man, and especially of the brain, will certainly not in itself take the place of genius but it will at any rate supply the first and indispensable condition for higher knowledge."

 

The complete Chinese version is this:

Carus 说: 我们虽然还没有研究完人的神经系统，可是人的神经系统比动物的高级这个事实能证明，人具有动物没有的一种精神。

神经系统没有人那么完善的动物就不可能在物质上表现出人能表现的那种精神。

虽然不能说只要有很好的物质的神经系统，就会有精神不过，如果没有这个物质的神经系统，精神也无法被表现出来。

 

It seems to me that the Chinese translation is actually just a summary in a rather primitive diction. Am I right?

[MPhillips]

I don't think it's a very faithful summary of the original, or at least of the English version above.