Principles of mental physiology : with their applications to the training and discipline of the mind and the study of its morbid conditions / by William B. Carpenter.

  • William Benjamin Carpenter
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of mental physiology : with their applications to the training and discipline of the mind and the study of its morbid conditions / by William B. Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    cession to a dominant passion tends to make the individual i its slave. And thus a man (or woman) may come at last ■ so far to have lost the power of self-control, as to be 1 unable to resist a temptation to what is known to be 'wrong, and to be therefore morally irresponsible for the ]particular act; but such an individual, like the drunkard i in the commission of violence, is responsible for his irrespon- sibility, because he has wilfully abnegated his power of : self-control, by habitually yielding to temptations which he 1 knows that he ought to have resisted. The Moral judgments which we form of the actions of i other men, are necessarily as imperfect as our predictions of I their conduct; since no one can fully estimate the relative \ potency of heredity and environments, on the one side, and i of the sense of duty and capacity of willing, on the other: : and the consciousness of our own weakness in resisting the ' temptations which we feel most attractive to ourselves, should I lead us to make large allowance for the frailties and short- i comings of others. There are too many, who, as old Butler ■ pithily said, 0 Compound for sins they are inclined to, By damning those they have no mind to. Kindly allowance for the offender ( considering thyself, 'lest thou also be tempted) is perfectly consistent with reprobation of the offence. And thus the charity which ' beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, is in strict accordance with the results of Psychological enquiry into the influences d2