Body and mind : an inquiry into their connection and mutual influence, specially in reference to mental disorders : being the Gulstonian lectures for 1870, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians : with appendix / by Henry Maudsley.
- Maudsley Henry, 1835-1918.
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Body and mind : an inquiry into their connection and mutual influence, specially in reference to mental disorders : being the Gulstonian lectures for 1870, delivered before the Royal College of Physicians : with appendix / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
25/216 page 5
![I.] METHOD OF INQUIRY. S inductive method, which has proved its worth by its abundant fruitfulness wherever it has been faithfully applied, should not be as rigidly used in the investigation of mind as in the investigation of other natural pheno- mena. If so, we ought certainly to begin our inquiry Avith the observation of the simplest instances—with its physiological manifestations in animals, in children, in idiots, in savages, mounting by degrees to the highest and most recondite facts of consciousness, the interpretation or the misinterpretation of which constitutes what has hitherto claimed to be mental philosophy. The induction s which we get by observing the simple may be used with success to disentangle the phenomena of the complex; but the endeavour to apply the complex and obscure to the interpretation of the simple is sure to end in con- fusion and error. The higher mental faculties are formed by evolution from the more simple and elementary, just as the more special and complex structure proceeds from the more simple and general; and in the one case as in the other we must, if we would truly learn, follow the order of development. Not that it is within my present purpose to trace the plan of development of our mental faculties, but the facts and arguments which I shall bring forward will prove how vain and futile it is to strive to rear a sound fabric of mental science on any other foundation. To begin the study of mind, then, with the observation of its humblest bodily manifestations, is a strictly scien- tific method. When we come to inquire what these are, it is far from easy to fix the point at which mental func-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21694540_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
