The claims of psychology to a place in the circle of the sciences / sessional address of the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Edward William Cox
Date:
[1878]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The claims of psychology to a place in the circle of the sciences / sessional address of the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    10/24 (page 10)
    of somnambulism, in its natural or in its indnced condition, the mystery of mental sympathy and communion, and that cnrious consequence of the double brain and double mental mechanism, the action of one brain without the other, or the action of both brains in divergent directions, the Individual being conscious of the action of one brain only, his attention being engrossed in receivieg the impressions of the one brain that is most active at the moment. Not less within the province of Psychology are the pheno- mena of Memory and Recollection.. What are they ? What is the process that stamps the passing impression upon the everchanging brain and so preserves it that it can be reproduced long years afterwards ? This mystery of Memory, and the still more marvellous process of Recol- lection, are problems which it is the proper province of Psychology to solve—or attempt to solve. All this vast field of Icnowledge relating to the individual Man is the proper province of Psychology. But our science has a work even beyond this. It searches into the history of the past, as presently we shall see that it projects itself into the future. Was Man always what he is now ? Is the Darwinian theory true, that he is the lineal descendant of a mollusc, grown to be what he is by a slow process of evolution, continued through mons of years, under the action of the universal law of the survival of the fittest, being thus gradually adapted to the ever-changing conditions of the world he has inhabited ? If his corporeal mechanism grew to be thus, how and where did mind come to him ? Mr. Herbeet Spencer, with admir- able ingenuity, has sought to apply the Darwinian theory of the evolution of the bodj'' of Man to the development of his Mind. He has devoted extraordinary labour to the collection of facts in the history of Man, from which he hopes to deduce conclusive evidence that Intelligence also has been evolved. He does succeed, to some extent, in tracing the gradual growth of bi’aiu structure; he shows [248]