Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Maudsley, Henry, 1835-1918.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    342/364 (page 324)
    best of them for the promotion of his own develop- ment, the study and pursuit of the natural sciences furnish a most valuable training of the intellectual faculties, through the steps of observation, generali- sation, abstraction, inductive and deductive reason- ing. No other studies are so well fitted to teach him to observe accurately and to reason correctly; for in the sciences truth is earnestly pursued for its own sake, without regard to whether it may seem useful or not, and without regard to preconceived opinion, or to the claims of authority of any kind ; and in them a conclusion is not accepted as true until it has been subjected to every possible verifi- cation. What is truth if it be not the adequate ex- pression in human thought of sincere relations be- tween man and nature, undergoing modification and increasing in complexity as these relations daily be- come more true, special, and complex in the succes- sive developments of the different sciences ? In these developments, and in the arts founded upon them, nature is undergoing its latest evolution through man, its last and highest product. How then can any one be properly trained to make the best of his powers and to discharge fitly his functions in the world, how can he be educated in the true sense of the word, if he be left without knowledge of natural science ? It will not be denied that there are a great many persons who are quite incapable of sustained atten- tion, accurate observation, and sound reasoning. They are unable to apprehend a question distinctly,