Volume 1

Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation; systemically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation; systemically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    of the physician, would have also led the metaphysician to a right estimate of that knowledge which experience gives as to the fundamental relations of body and mmd ; or .that, at least, while he attempted to explain the laws of Thought as manifested in healthy states of mmd, a solution of the problem as to unhealthy states would have been attempted also. But philosophy does nothing of the kind These morbid mental states are even re- jected as sources of knowledge. Beid only represents the notion of a school when, in reference to the delusions of lunatics, he remarks- All I have to say to this is, that our minds, in our present state, are, like our bodies liable to strange disorders; and as we do not judge ot the natural constitution of the body from the disorders or diseases to which it is subject from accidents [a false premiss], so neither ought we to judge of the natural powers of the mind from its disorders, but from its sound state* Hence philosophy, in rejecting so valuable a source of knowledge, sheds no light upon one of the most terrible inflictions to which the mmd of man is exposed,-gives no knowledge as. to its re ations to mo- rals no information as to its causes, no help as to its cure The social evils that have resulted from this reiection of the teachings of experience are incalculably giat, and pervade the whole business of human hfe. L particular, education, ethical philosophy, and the ad- ministration of justice manifest them. Thus, the judges aud iuries of the land cannot pass by the question m this easy fashion when they have to decide what is or is • not insanity. To a conclusion they must come, whether or no in the case before them; and as they appeal to nhilosophy, the law, as administered by them, is mvolved L the e^^^^^^ and ignorance of philosophy. This prac-
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