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.

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    the structure of a bug and rejecting a debate on the mechanism of a Man ! But what the British Association did to Anthropology the Anthropological Institute does to Psychology. The British Association rejected the whole Science of Man. The Anthropological Institute rejects the Science of that part of him that makes him Man. It gives long debates to the shape of his skull—not a word or a thought to the structure of his mind! It listens to dull and learned essays upon the barrows that preserve his bones; but it will not promote an inquiry into the spirit that animated those relics, the mind that moved those bones, nor if that handful of dust be all that really remains of a being whom high authority declares to be immortal ! The study of Man, omitting the Mind and Soul of Man— Anthropology without Psychology—is surely the caricature of a caricature—the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted by particular desire. For Anthropology should properly be divided into three branches. First, Human Physiology, the structure of the body of Man. Secondly, Psychology, the forces by which the action^ of that structure are directed. Thirdly, Ethnology, the geographical distribution and history of the races of men. The Society that omits either of these has no right to the large title of “Anthropologist.’^ It is Ethnological merely. There is in truth no Anthropological Society promoting Anthropology—as the Science of Man— and of the whole Man. The example of these two Societies has been followed, as of course, by the outside world. Psychology is tabooed. Eeports of discussions on Psychological questions are by the Journals who profess to report the “Proceedings of Scientific Societies” denied a place, expressly on the ground that Psychology has no pretension to be deemed a Science. If questioned why, the ready answer is, “Your province is with something the being of which is not B 2 [2il]