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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    be by much the most influential in the production of insanity. I am unwilling to conclude these desultory reflections, and to bring this chapter of hints rather than of expo- sition to an end, without pointing out that the ordinary education of the day systematically leaves undeveloped a vast amount of mentality in the race. It would seem in- dispensable to a right training of the mind of every child that it should be instructed in the knowledge of the nature of the world in which it has been placed, and of which it is a part. The relations of the earth in the planetary system, the changes which have taken place on its surface through the ages, the elements of which it is formed, and the laws of their combinations and decompo- sitions, the nature and function of the vegetable and animal life on its surface, the constitution of the human body and mind, and the relations of body and mind to their environment, are subjects on which a vast amount of knowledge has been formulated in the various natural sciences. It is strange, when we think of it, that any education which leaves a man ignorant of these things should be deemed an education at all; marvellous that intelligent men should be content to go through their lives knowing little more of them than the savages. Apart, however, from the positive duty of man to get the clearest understanding possible of his relations with his surroundings, in order to make the best of them for the promotion of his own development, the study and pursuit of the natural sciences furnish a most valuable training of the intellectual faculties, through