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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    of the physician, would have also led the metaphysician to a right estimate of that knowledge which experience gives as to the fundamental relations of body and mind; or that, at least, while he attempted to explain the laws of Thought as manifested in healthy states of mind, a solution of the problem as to unhealthy states would have been attempted also. But philosophy does nothing of the kind. These morbid mental states are even re- jected as sources of knowledge. Eeid only represents the notion of a school when, in reference to the delusions of lunatics, he remarks— All I have to say to this is, that our minds, in our present state, are, like our bodies, liable to strange disorders; and as we do not judge of the natural constitution of the body from the disorders or diseases to which it is subject from accidents [a false premiss], so neither ought we to judge -of the natural powers of the mind from its disorders, but from its sound stat<'.* Hence philosophy, in rejecting so valuable a source of knowledge, sheds no light upon one of the most terrible inflictions to which the mind of man is exposed,—gives no knowledge as to its relations to mo- rals, no information as to its causes, no help as to its cure. The social evils that have resulted from this rejection of the teachings of experience are incalculably great, and pervade the whole business of human life. In particular, education, ethical philosophy, and the ad- ministration of justice manifest them. Thus, the judges and juries of the land cannot pass by the question in this easy fashion when they have to decide what is or is not insanity. To a conclusion they must come, whether or no, in the case before them; and as they appeal to philosophy, the law, as administered by them, is involved in the errors and ignorance of philosophy. This prac-