Strangely (to modern ears) the Bible and subsequently written Hebrew prayers often refer to the Kidneys as the seat of thought. God is even referred to in one prayer as “Diviner of kidneys and heart”!
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Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
Why is the heart considered the center of love and affection? (16-Feb-1996)
By the way, in ancient times, the liver was also considered to be the seat of emotions.
Encyclopædia Britannica says the following:
That belief gives rise to the expression “pigeon-livered” for cowardly in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (~1600):
Hamlet, Act II, Scene II
Ha? Why I should take it: for it cannot be,
But I am Pigeon-Liuer’d, and lacke Gall
To make Oppression bitter, or ere this,
I should haue fatted all the Region Kites
With this Slaues Offall, bloudy: a Bawdy villaine,
Remorselesse, Treacherous, Letcherous, kindles villaine!
I wouldn’t count on “klayot”, the Hebrew term refering to kidneys, meant the same thing back then as it does today (or when the bible was translated to European languages). From the feable memory of the old testament that I have, me being an atheist forced to study bible by the Israeli schooling system, I can’t for the life of me remember any usage of the word “kravayim”, which means “entrails”, or “all that gunk in the vicinity of the stomache”. It may very well bethat “klayot” simply meant “entrails”. After all - when our heart isn’t yearning for our love or pounding with expectation for battle, we sometimes have a “gut feeling” that something is wrong. That’s probably what god is supposed to be inspecting.
I see a clear conflict of interest here. It is the brain that is saying that the brain is the center of intellect and personality. Shouldn’t we be looking for a second opinion.
The column (including Slug Signorino’s illustration) can also be found on pages 271-272 of Cecil Adams’ book “Triumph of the Straight Dope”.