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.

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    upon each other, or upon sentient organisms; and as these results are due to the mutual action of their in- ternal forces, force is the cause of the properties as well as of the form. The forces by which the particles of a body are held together [and give it its form], also cause; it to be hard or soft, heavy or light, opaque or transparent, black or red; for if these forces are not the cause of these peculiarities, what can be the cause ? By the very supposition which we make respecting these forces, they include all the relations by which the parts are combined into a whole ; and therefore they, and they only, must determine all the attributes of the whole.f Form, thus taken in its widest sense, passes into the illimitable. We cannot, for example, limit the gravi- tating force of the earth to the moon or to the sun, since it extends to the whole of the planetary system. Nor, in this sense, can we limit the form of the planetary system, taken as a whole, except in its isodynamic rela- tions to other systems. The great law of continuity applies, in short, to form, as to all other things in creation. 23G. Form is due to co-existence of phenomena: the form of a thing at any moment is the result of the co- existent forces of the moment. When the successions of co-existent changes are so minute as to be inappreciable, the form is said to be permanent; on the contrary, if the forces are active, and the successions of changes frequent, the form varies accordingly. Permanence and change of form are proportionate, therefore, to the simplicity or com- plexity of the teleiotic ideas, and of their manifestations in time and space. The cosmic class are the most simple in character; hence there is little change in the form of the great masses of the universe. The chemical teleiotic ideas are manifested by greater variety and changeable-
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