The various theories of the relation of mind and brain reviewed / by George Duncan.

  • Duncan, G. (George)
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The various theories of the relation of mind and brain reviewed / by George Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    organism mind decays, and becomes decrepit witli the body, and tbat both are at the same time extinguished by death. This assertion is neat, and has the appear- ance of a formula, but it sm-ely is not true. The mmd does not always decay with the body. Some men mani- fest a strength of mmd at the hoiu* of death which they never previously exhibited; and if this assertion is not true of every man, then it is utterly worthless as a defence of materialism. Dr Priestly, who taught a doctrine of the materiaHsts similar to this, at liis hour of dissolution, gave the lie to the doctrines of his life, for, as he approached his end, his miad seemed to get clearer and clearer. So with Dr Dwight—^his latter end proved that mind was not wholly subject to the body—and so with thousands whose minds were not enfeebled by bodily weakness. That the body is the instrument of the mmd I do not deny, and that its ailments often affect our mental expression I quite admit; but if an mstrument is out of tune and order, it surely is not the fault of the musician, or a mani- festation of weakness on his part, if he cannot bring harmony out of this disordered instrument? Surely no one would be rash enough to assert that. Why, then, do they argue that, because the body is out of tune, the mind is also in a like condition? If the deduction is false in the former case, it is no less so in the latter. These are the principal arguments adduced by mate- rialists in defence of their theory of the brain. I think that they are very weak ones; but their weakness
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