Philosopher Raymond Tallis was asked to write a book about the brain, but he refused—everything that could be written about it has already been written. The head is another matter altogether: it is a very interesting subject for study, a vast unplowed field for an inquisitive scholar. Raymond reflects on what the head meant to people of different eras, examines its role in various aspects of life, and gathers interesting statements about it.
What emerges is not only a witty study, but also a fine collection of quotations about the head. And most of the maxims belong to Tallis himself. “Yes, I am my head (in a sense that is extraordinarily difficult to explain). But I am also its master, if we speak of my actions as possession… I use my head, act through it, sometimes quite roughly, as though it were some kind of instrument. I represent it. Judge it. Know it. Every face is unique, and its portrait will be only an average identikit. The very thought of how little we know about our own head firsthand is astonishing.”