Volume 1

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

  • Thomas Laycock
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    205/470 page 165
    div. m.] ONTOLOGY. 165 latent,—that is, if manifested in a past time, as not mani- fested now—or if manifested now, as not to be manifested at a future time. In this way we arrive at the con- ception of the latent existence of the soul after death— that is, as not manifested for a time until the man lives again ; or. in other words, until the mind is manifested in another body. And this process is the more easy, because we already apply it to the comprehension of those powers or forces of matter, that, like mind, are known only by their effects. We thus speak of latent heat 5 that is, heat not manifested by changes in matter, or in our own bodies. The so-called electric and mag- netic fluids may in like manner be latent; that is to say, only manifested when matter undergoes a change cognisable by us. It is, indeed, on these relations of the Imponderables to matter, that the doctrine of a corre- lation of forces is founded. As we shall speedily see, what we call light, heat, magnetism, electricity, chemical affinity, &c, are the manifestations of one and the same primary force acting differently under varying condi- tions, but which are only possible in and through matter. 52. Applying these illustrations to mind in its relations to matter, we clearly see that the generalisation which distinguishes between mind and matter, is as well-founded as that which distinguishes between matter and the forces of matter; but it is equally true that we can no more realise mind as acting apart from matter, than we can realise the force of gravity or of chemical affinity as acting apart from matter. And this is one of the great empirical laws derived from human experience. The term individual indicates the one indivisible being con- stituted of both matter and mind. No man of common sense believes that his mind really acts in the ordinary concerns of life, does anything in the world apart from
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