The psychology of memory and recollection : read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, June 1st, 1876 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Edward William Cox
Date:
1876
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of memory and recollection : read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, June 1st, 1876 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    theme are impossible. We have no facts on which to found them. The subject has not been sufficiently considered with a view to a definite and practical conception of it. But observation of the phe- nomena of Psychology, and continued reflection upon the theme, incline me more and more to the conclusion that the connection of the Conscious Self and its material mechanism (or that which in con- ventional language we term “soul” and “body”)is not, as we have been accustomed to consider it, the occupation of one structure by another structure, the junction of two distinct entities—a soul, in short dwelling in a body—but the Mechanism of Man is that of a Self (or Soul) clothed with a body ; that we are Souls, of which our molecular structure is merely the garment, our bodies being as it were incrus- tations at the point of contact with the molecular world ; that the thing we call spirit is in fact the substance, and matter only so much of spirit as is presented to our senses, and which alone our senses are competent to perceive. If there be any truth in this suggestion, all that our senses can perceive is matter to ourselves, and all jthat the vastly larger portion of creation our senses cannot perceive is spirit to us. A new sense bestowed upon us would instantly convert much we now deem to be spirit into matter. The deprivation of one sense would instantly convert much we now call matter into that which new to us is spirit. Such an explanation solves many problems of Psychology and Physiology otherwise insoluble, and removes a thousand difficulties which attend every theory yet mooted of the relationship of a non-molecular Conscious Self to the molecular struc- ture it moves and directs. [146]
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