On the localisation of movements in the brain / by J. Hughlings Jackson.
- Jackson, John Hughlings, 1834-1911.
- Date:
- [1875]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the localisation of movements in the brain / by J. Hughlings Jackson. 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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![is concerned, I do not care. If any one feels warranted in assuming that physical states in the highest nervous centres and mental states are one and the same thing, he is just as much bound as anyone else to seek the anatomical nature of the nervous arrangements in which the psychico-physical states occur. To give a materialistic explanation oj mental states is not to give an anatomical one. For clinical purposes it matters nothing whether we believe (1) that conscious states are parallel with active states of nerve fibres and cells, the nature of the association being unknown, or (2) that mental states and nervous states are the very same thing, or (3) whether we believe that there is a soul acting through a mere mechanism. I wish to insist that to hold any one of these beliefs does not one whit justify us in omitting anatomy. Betwixt our Morphology of the Nervous System and our Psy- chology there must be an Anatomy and a Physiology. Mor- phology has to do with cells and fibres or with masses of them. Anatomy has to do with sensori-motor processes. I have no doubt too much “ taken it for granted” that the “ organ of mind” is made up of processes representing im- pressions and movements. Let me give a prominent ex- ample. I fear that such expressions as that (which is only another way of making the statement that the organ of mind is made up of nervous processes representing impressions and movements) “ we do not make enough use of cases of convulsions in our physiological studies of [the substrata of] mind.” (Med. Times and Gazette, Nov. 30, 1872) seem simply grotesque. But I submit that this may be owing to the prevalent confusion of Psychology with the Physiology of the Nervous System to which I have adverted.* The con- * The expression “ Physiology of Mind” is, strictly speaking, a very erroneous one, and is itself an example of the confusion spoken of. I have therefore, intercalated the words “ substrata of” in the quotation in the text. Neural Physiology is concerned only with the varying conditions of anatomical arrangements of nerve cells and fibres—with the Physics of the nervous system. Yet the expression is now almost universally used by medical men, and it is](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22355078_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
