Volume 1

In search of the soul and the mechanism of thought, emotion, and conduct ... / by Bernard Hollander.

  • Bernard Hollander
Date:
[1920]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: In search of the soul and the mechanism of thought, emotion, and conduct ... / by Bernard Hollander. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Dalton was colour-blind, and on his post-mortem examination the phrenologists were able to confirm their theory that this defect is due to a deficiency of a certain part of the brain (one of the supra-orbital convolutions). See Mr. Stanley’s paper to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, March ist, 1845 ; Manchester Courier, August 17th, 1844 ; and Journal of Psychological Medicine, 1856, p. 106. Transformation in astronomy resulted from the discovery of specirum analysis, thanks to which we know the chemical constitution of the most remote stars more correctly than that of our own planet. [It was in 1822 that Sir WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822), and in 1859 that G. R. KIRCHOFF (1824-1887) and W. v. BUNSEN (1811-1899) discovered the meaning of the spectral lines.] The &0NTGEN rays, which have the property of traversing all opaque bodies with the exception of metals, were discovered in 1895 ; and in 1898 Mr. and Mrs. CURIE isolated radium chloride. The electric telegraph was invented by WHEATSTONE (1802-1875) and COOKE in 1837 ; later came telephonic communication (BELL’S Telephone, 1872), and the realisation of wireless telegraphy by HERTZ (1887) and MARCONI (1895).- JAMES WATT (1736-1819) made the first steam engine (1765), locomotive engines were made in 1804, and the first railway by GEORGE STEPHENSON (1781-1848) in 1825 ; and now we have aerial navigation, both bv dirigible balloons and by aeroplanes. Finally, as the result of the recent world war, destructive engineering has made such progress that more human lives can be destroyed in an hour than could be massacred formerly in a number of years. This is progress in the wrong direction. Altogether the external achievements of humanity have outrun the moral achievements. We have shown that novel philosophic theories met with opposition ; but in the enlightened XIXth century practical inventions sometimes fared not much better. Thus, when gas was first introduced, such a sagacious and practical mind as that of Sir Walter Scott recoiled from this great practical improvement, apparently for no other reason but that the idea was new to him, and he wrote of the idea as that of a visionary ; and yet, before thirty years had passed, he had a gas factory at Abbotsford, and was chairman of the Edinburgh Oil-Gas Company. Similarly Stephenson, who invented the locomotive steam engine (1812), a safety lamp (1815) before Sir Humphry Davy, and built the first railway (1825), was ridiculed and violently opposed by all the great men, with a few exceptions. Still, he ultimately conquered all opposition. It seems that it is a primary impulse of man to reject the new. This is more likely to be the case where the new doctrine treats of matters not lying on the surface, and where a personal knowledge and conviction of the truth can hardly be obtained without laborious study and observation. If, in addition, the new doctrine should clash, or should appear to clash, with established views on points on which the feelings are apt to be excited and interested, we may reckon, with absolute certainty, even at the present time, on opposition to it. The XIXth century saw also the extension of education to the masses of the population through the establishment of compulsory elementary education, and the propaganda for popular education, beginning in Switzerland with PESTALOZZI (1746-1827) and his follower, the celebrated FROBEL (1782-1852), the founder of the Kindergarten. Pedagogics and juvenile psychology have been treated by BINET, SEGUIN, STANLEY HALL, MARIA MONTESSORI, and others. DIETRICH TIEDEMANN (1748-1803), with his “Observations on the Develop¬ ment of the Mental Capacities in Children ’’ (1787), was followed nearly a century later with an essay by CHARLES DARWIN, “ Psychology of Infants ’’ in Mind (1877) ; by WILHELM PREYER (1841-1897), with his classical work on “The Mind of the Child ” (1881) ; by J. MARK BALDWIN, “ Mental Development in the Child and the Race ” (1895) ; and a host of others too numerous to mention. Finally came the enormous spread of knowledge by periodical literature and the enor¬ mous power of the Press, which is not always exercised for the good of the public. PRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTEEE, ESSEX, ENGLAND. 03RARY LIBRARY S