Some account of the life, writings, and character of the late James Cowles Prichard : being the substance of a memoir read at the meeting of the Bath and Bristol branch of the Provincial and Surgical Association, in March, 1849 / by John Addington Symonds.

  • John Addington Symonds
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some account of the life, writings, and character of the late James Cowles Prichard : being the substance of a memoir read at the meeting of the Bath and Bristol branch of the Provincial and Surgical Association, in March, 1849 / by John Addington Symonds. 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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    evidence to the contrary derivable from these signs ; J indeed they do not seem to us to indicate either the ’ one view or the other. By the same reasoning, if, on ^ a desert island, a tool or a piece of machinery were - discovered, which furnished evident marks of the operation of human contrivance, there would be no intimation from this source alone, that the designing mind was, or was not, connected with a brain and nerves ; the knowledge that the human mind acts in concert with an appropriate organization, would be the result of other kinds of experience. The evi- dence, then, of the Divine mind, is contained in the effects of its operations ; and we are ignorant whether any organization is, or has been, made use of by this exalted principle. The evidence of human or animal mind is also contained in its effects ; but we likewise know that it never produces these results, except in co-operation with the nervous system. | We may be wrong in this view, and it is suggested with diffidence; but even if it be correct, and the objection, founded on a different view of it, to Dr. ; Priestley’s argument, be consequently weakened, there still appear to us to be sufficient reasons for rejecting the conclusion of the materialist. A certain collection of properties which we call mind, is never presented to our observation, except in connection with a col- lection of properties utterly dissimilar, which we de- signate organic matter ; bat it is not a legitimate inference from these premises, that the connection is one of dependence, not of alliance only. It is true, that when the organic phenomena are dissipated the
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