Presidential address at the opening of the third session, Nov. 2, 1876 / by Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Edward William Cox
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Presidential address at the opening of the third session, Nov. 2, 1876 / by 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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    honestly that man is wholly material—that he is merely an automaton—that his intelligence is only brain structure— that the Conscious Self is but a condition of matter— thought but a seci’etion of the brain—that man is nothing but the machine our senses show us—that soul is a diluted insanity—spirit a myth—and life after death an invention of priestcraft, the hostility of the Scientists to such a Society as this is readily explained. Denying the very existence of Soul, an Association that proposes to investigate the Science of Soul cannot but appear to them a ridiculous folly. “There is nothing for you to inquire into,” they say. “There is no such thing as that which your name assumes. If there be, you cannot find it, for it is imperceptible and inconceivable. You canuot grasp it, carve it, analyse it, exhibit it before the Royal Society. Until you do this Psychology can be only a sham science. We will none of it.” But why the fierceness of wrath with which Psychology is assailed by the Scientists ? What means the rage it excites ? The question must have occurred often to many and we may pause for a moment to find the answer. Enthusiasm in favour of proofs of the being of Soul is intelligible enough. It is at least a natural emotion. But an enthusiasm on behalf of materialism—an almost fanatical hope to prove soul not to be—a burning desire to defeat whatever tends to prove its being, to suppress inquiry and deter from investigation by appeals to prejudice and igno- rance and by every unscrupulous device that the vocabulary of abuse and the letter of the law can furnish, seems utterly un- intelligible. A pursuit in search of Soul might have been sup- posed to be at least harmless. Any proofs of it asserted to be found might have been expected to be received with respect and examined with eagerness. But the fact is otherwise. If a blight and a curse were looked for instead of that which, if it be, is the greatest prize that could be offered to laborious investigation, the howls raised against it could not be more full of malignity. Wherefore so ? [154]
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