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.

    209/470 page 169
    » div. IU.] ONTOLOGY. l6o It would be presumption in me to contradict a man of his clear and steady judgment—therefore shall suppose I have somehow or other misunderstood him; but, to the best of my apprehension, he seems to have placed our exist- tence in a quality, rather than a substance; for by the term consciousness I cannot understand a Being, but only a power or property of some Being ; nor do I apprehend a man loses his existence or personality every time he loses his consciousness by falling asleep. Could Mr Locke himself imagine that his person was annihilated every night when he went to sleep, and recreated again when he awoke in the morning? The most that I can allow to consciousness, unless I grossly mistake the word, is, that it should be, in most cases, the evidence to us of our identity; for scenes that we remember convince us of our being the very persons present at them.* 55. Sir William Hamilton advances, on the opposite side, experimental inquiries, as well as the usual argu- ment, that we are conscious in sound sleep, but do not recollect having been conscious. This latter he supports by the phenomena of somnambulism, in which it is very certain that there are two parallel but wholly distinct series of conscious states, and in which the individual lias, as it were, two mental lives, or, as some might say, two souls; so that, when existent in the one state, he is utterly unconscious of what he thought, or felt, or did in the other. But in these instances (which are by no means rare) the one state is clearly dependent upon bodily conditions; for when those conditions again occur, then there is recollection of the thoughts and actions done or felt during a previous state of the same bodily conditions. Further, although the individual himself be unconscious of his somnambulistic acts, those about him
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