Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Cox, Edward W. (Edward William), 1809-1879.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some more phenomena of sleep and dream : paper read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain / by the President, 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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    ' entity as a part of the mechanism of man in opposition to the dark and debasing doctrine of materialism. The subject is very large and cannot be treated in two papers, or within the limits of our ordinary discourses, and therefore I must return to it hereafter. But I purpose now to set before you some suggestions as to the effect upon dream of the action of the double brain. The business of the two brains, like that of the two eyes, is^to correct each other. With one eye we see little more than a flat surface. The mutual action of the two eyes enables us to perceive objects as we see what is a really flat surface in the spectroscope, but which, so seen, is presented in its proper proportions and true perspective. So it is with the two brains. Each supplements the other and the various mental faculties are thus made to co-operate. To take an instance or two. The mental faculty of com- parison can only work by having before it the two ideas that are to be compared. But each brain can entertain but one idea at the same instant of time. The two brains supply the two ideas and thus enable the work of com- paring to be done. Now comparison is the foundation of the process of reasoning, which is not one mental act, as is commonly believed, but a combination of mental actions. We reason by comparing two or more ideas and noting their differences and resemblances; then we compare them with a third idea in like manner, and see how they resem- ble or differ; and then we reason upon the result of this comparison, and say, “in such a particular A. resembles B., and, in the same particular, C. resembles B.; therefore, in this particular, A. and C. are alike or unlike.” Starting from this simple act of comparison and deduction, we proceed step by step from what is known to learn the unknown. Hence it is that, as one brain alone cannot do the work of compai’ison, so one brain alone cannot reason, [174]