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 trust now to have shown, to the satisfaction at least of all who hear me, and as I hope it will prove hereafter, to the equal satisfaction of those who may honour me by reading this address—that Psychology is not a sham, but a very real, Science j that it has a vast province—far wider, indeed, than may have been imagined by those who have not devoted to it much time and thought. I trust that I have amply vindi- cated its claims to be admitted into the Circle of the Sciences—to be welcomed at the British Association, and to be made a branch of any study of Anthropology worthy of the name. Our Society, speaking by the voice of its President, puts forward this programme of its purposes, of the many great subjects it comprises, of their vast import- ance to humanity, of the profound interest that attaches to them and its ambition to enlist for them, not the sympa- thies merely, hut the active co-operation, of all who take an interest in the general objects of its constitution the investigation of the forces by which the Mechanism of Man is moved and the direction of its motions determined—the intelligent force of Mind or Soul—of one, or of both, or of any one or more of its many departments. The pursuit of Psychology is certainly as elevating as that of Materialism is degrading. The eyes of the ]\laterialist are fixed upon the earth; Psychology at least looks up to the heaven. The regards of Materialism are only for the present; Psychology contemplates a future. Materialism despairs; Psychology hopes. Materialism deems us animals; Psycho- logy makes us Men. This Society was a bold, but a successful, experiment to combat the great and growing power of Materialism, not, as hitherto, by metaphysical abstractions, but with its own weapons of fact and phenomena, of evidence and proof. “ Argue and dogmatise as much as you please, said the Physicists, ‘'modern Science repudiates such methods for the pursuit of truth. We demand from you [256]