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]
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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.

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    I field between Materialism and Psychology, and here the main fight must be fought. Psychology says, “ we see in this Consciousness the existence of something that is conscious— conscious of itself—conscious of the external world—itself always, whatever irregularity attends the action of the molecular mechanism. This something that is not the body Psychology supposes to be an entity, and that entity is the true Man, We call it Soul, for lack of a better name, but we attach to this name no foregone conclusions of its structure, its faculties, its capacities—nor even of necessity for existence after the dissolution of the body. At this point we afl&rm only that the thing ive call Soiol exists—but what it is, what it does, what it can do, where it is at present, what it is to be in the future, are questions for Psychology to answer, as they can only be satisfactorily answered, by extensive and accuvate observation of Psychic phenomena.” Materialism replies to this, that there are no such phe- nomena, and that there is absolutely no evidenee of the being of Soul—that it is purely mythical—that it is imper- ceptible by any sense—that it cannot even be imagined that it is not only unknown but unknowable. Here, also. Psychology challenges Materiahsm to the test. There are facts and phenomena, neither few nor rare, that may be found by all who make honest search for them, and for which they have not to wander far afield, but may see in their own homes, among their own families, nay, in their own personal experiences. These facts and pheno- mena, we say. Materialism can by no stretch of ingenuity explain, nor even rationally account for. They can be explained only by recognising the existence of something forming a part of the Mechanism of Man—something non-molecular and therefore imperceptible to the human senses, which are constructed to perceive only such part of Creation as is composed of the special combination of atoms that makes molecules. Now beyond dispute mole- [250]