Physiological psychology.

  • William McDougall
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physiological psychology. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    upon, and that of parallelism involves a breach of, laws far more certainly established than the law of conservation of energy, namely, the logical laws of causation on which all inductive science is based. One law of causation tells us that, when two processes invariably occur in conjunction in time, no matter how varied the conditions, we must believe them to be causally related. . Now our sensations at least are admitted by all to have this relation of invariable con- comitance with certain neural processes. Some ol those who reject interaction are yet sufficiently logical to admit the neces- sity of recognizing a causal relation here, and therefore in order to maintain the independence of nervous processes from psychical interference they admit a one-sided action, action of the physical on the psychical without reaction of the psychical on the physical;1 and they assert that the neural process is in no wise modified in producing its psychical effects, and that it therefore produces exactly the same physical effects as it would if the psychical effects were lacking. But this involves a breach of another law of causation, the law, namely, that the cause must always in some degree pass over into its effects—must in some degree spend itself in producing its effects. All our experience of causation confirms this law, and there is no reason for believing that the causation of psychical effects is an exception to it. We are then logically compelled to believe that neural processes and psychical processes are causally related accord- ing to ascertainable laws, and that the discovery of those laws is the supreme task of physiological psychology. We must therefore recognize that the swing of the pendulum has carried many moderns too far in their reaction against; the old intro- spective and spiritualistic psychology, and that the path of progress lies in the direction pointed out by Lotze, and will be trodden by those who, whatever their metaphysical 1 This was the view taken by the late Prof. Huxley in the essay referred to on p. 8. In that essay he describes consciousness as an epiphenomenon, and by that word this view is now generally denoted.