Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Matter and spirit / read 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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![learn its nature and qualities, and, consequently, that Psychology is no science. But Psychologists contend that they can learn the presence and character of things which are imperceptible toThe senses by precisely the same process as the Physicists learn The qualities of the imperceptible forces of magnetism, that is to say by observing the operations of such imper- ceptible being upon the molecular structure that is per- ceptible. ~SpirU, then, in the scientific sense in which it is recog- nised and used by the Psychological Society, is not used inThepopular seuse of the term, Spirits, Ghosts, and Eob- goblins; but in the contemplation of Psychologists Spirit is whatever existence there may be in the world or elsewhere that is imperceptible to our senses, but as real and sub- stantial as ourselves. “ Matter,” then, is the structure which alone our senses are constructed to perceive. When we say that a thing is material, we mean only that it is made of that which is perceptible to us. When we speak of spirit, we mean anything formed of some other than a combination of atoms which alone is perceptible to us. When we speak of a Spirit, we mean any intelligent being formed of some such non-material structure, and conse- quently imperceptible to us. When we use the term Materialism, we mean the doctrine that Man is made of matter only, that is, of molecules, and that his material mechanism is not associated with any non-material intelligent being other than the material body. When we speak of a Materialist, we mean nothing more than one whose doctrine is that Man is wholly material; that there is of him nothing but the body, which dies [129]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22443897_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
