Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Henry Maudsley
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    its conscious minister and interpreter, to bring himself into harmony with nature in his thoughts and actions; and so to promote the progressing evolution of nature through him, its conscious self. The highest evolution of which man's being is capable, physically, morally and intellectually, through knowledge of, and obedience to, those natural laws which govern not only the physical world, but, not less surely, every thought and feeling which it enters into his mind to conceive—must be the aim of an education founded on a truly scientific psy- chology. But if this be the true aim of education, how vast a revolution remains to be accomplished! How many things are men yet taught which they ought not to be taught, and how many things are they not taught which they ought to be taught! To lay down the principles of mental hygiene on a scientific basis would, alas, be to offend many cherished beliefs, and to go counter to the convictions of all but a small minority of mankind. Nevertheless, I believe that the aims of a true education would, if sincerely recognised and earnestly pursued, do more than all the maxims of philosophy have done, and all the arts of medicine can do, to lessen the amount of insanity on earth. It will be admitted that as regards a knowledge of the laws of his own nature and of their relations to the laws of external nature, man is yet in a position of ignorance very like that in which the savages of old were, or the savages of to-day are, in regard to a knowledge of the laws of physical nature. Like them, he feels their effects without understanding their nature; like them, he