A plea for the conjoined study of mental science and practice : being the introductory lecture to a course of medical psychology / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Thomas Laycock
Date:
1866
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A plea for the conjoined study of mental science and practice : being the introductory lecture to a course of medical psychology / by Thomas Laycock. 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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    which medical psychology affords^ and with results too well known to need detail. It may be objected that at least cerebral physiology offers to the physician all that he may require. I very freely admit that mental physiology has advanced greatly of late years; but I am constrained to object that in this department also the methods of inquiry are defective. It is to be remembered that the intelligent observation of mental disease must constitute the chief if not the best foundation of any true system of mental science^ yet our most eminent writers and inquirers into mental physiology display little if any practical knowledge of morbid mind and of the scientific deductions there- from. Andj what is more objectionable, they follow the method of the psychologists in separating vital from mental ])henomena, as if the two were wholly distinct, and by an easy transition adopt the general principles of psychology thus reached. It would be unjust not to admit that speculative philosophy, through the long lapse of ages and the labours of the highest minds, has attained to valuable truths j but then, since these truths have been attained by reflection on the phenomena of consciousness, wholly apart from those of organization, they are incapable of easy or satisfactory amalgamation with principles deduced from close observation of the infinitely varied phenomena of life. Hence, we find that those of our physiologists who have made the attempt have done little more than darken counsel thereby. It is still more important to note another point of difference. All true science, to use a theological phrase, is sceptical; it has no be- liefs. On the contrary, psychology is not only professedly founded on thought, to the exclusion of observation, but it as professedly in- cludes beliefs. It is thus far more closely connected with faith and all that concerns the religious life of man than with science, for science, when restricted to its proper work, never enters upon the domain of faith. In thus dealing with beliefs, speculative psychology is occupied, in fact, with its proper work as the science of beliefs. Man is just as much a believing as an inquiring animal, and there- fore will always need a science of beliefs. In science, theories and hypotheses take the place of beliefs in psychology, and the two are not infrequently commingled in certain natural sciences, as geology; but in truth our theoretical and our religious beliefs differ in this important particular—that the former are diverse, because of dif- ferences in the observation and interpretation of phenomena, whereas the latter differ according to our thoughts, and are as diverse as the instincts, habits, and prejudices whence these arise. They have, therefore, no relation to mental science as a science of observation, except as to their own nature and origin. Arising in thought, beliefs involve such problems as the unconditioned, the infinite, and the absolute, regarding which science can make no utterance—at present, at least; when, therefore, the mental physiologist or pathologist seeks