Introduction to science / by Alex Hill.

  • Alexander Hill
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introduction to science / by Alex Hill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    again before its power of swimming is exhausted; whereas science, more cautious, builds solid facts into a causeway and never allows the waves of uncertainty to wet it above the ankles. Yet it is a question only of degree, for the shortest hypothesis which bridges across from fact to fact is in itself as wanting in solidity as the widest generalisation of which the human mind is capable ; and the widest general¬ isation is equally with the narrowest but an attempt to unite isolated territories of solid fact. The process of reasoning is in the two cases the same ; but the one regards certainty as the chief desideratum, the other aims at enunciating the theory which will embrace the greatest number of phenomena within its scope. “Scientific” and “philosophical” are not antithetical terms, for there can be no opposition between science and philosophy. It would be easy to show, seeing that the scientific process—the process of induction—is carried to the utmost confines of thought, that all products of human intelligence deserve to be classed as science; or, on the other hand, since knowledge acquires value only when worked into thought, the whole field of science might with equal propriety be assigned to philosophy. The Senses the Agents of the Mind.—From very ancient times it has been recognised that the great brain or cerebrum is the seat of consciousness, thought, and volition. It may now be asserted that the cortex or sheet of grey matter which covers the cerebral hemispheres is alone con¬ cerned with these processes. The cortex cerebri is therefore the apparatus of mind. Prior to 1870 the brain was a mysterious organ, forbidding further physiological explora¬ tion. It was thought that it functioned “ as a whole,” and any attempt to analyse the constituent physiological processes of the act of thinking was looked upon as frivolous if not sacrilegious. Our mode of viewing the apparatus of thought has undergone a great change since 1870. Since then it has been shown—(1) that stimulation of particular areas of the cortex results in definite movements, while removal of the said areas is followed by paralysis for these movements, and
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