Volume 1

Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation : systematically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mind and brain, or, The correlations of consciousness and organisation : systematically investigated and applied to philosophy, mental science and practice / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    law. And this state of public opinion lias influenced so strongly the welfare of families and the administration of justice, that leading minds now see the absolute neces- sity there is for a science of Mind more available to bene- ficial legislation on this question than that which the divisive method has hitherto afforded. A large number of persons of general culture also feel the necessity of some more available general principles than philosophy or physiology affords, and are endea- vouring, according to a method of their own, to attain them. Phrenology first made the physiological study of mental science popular; but there arose concurrently with it a variety of methods of experimental research into the laws of action of the brain and nervous system, known as Mesmerism, Electro-biology, and the like, the great object of which is to establish certain mystic theories of life and organisation, and thought. Such is always the first stage of inquiry, when the operation of forces of nature hitherto unknown is discovered. All modern physical philosophy thus arose. What is to be regretted is, that this great truth in the development of science should have failed to impress this class of inquirers ; and that, as a consequence, some of the best intellects of the day should have heroically suffered so much in defence of the truth as to fact, and yet have been led away so widely into the false as to theory. In a mental philoso- phy which takes due cognisance of the laws of Life, will be found the best antidote to this evil. The phenomena of mesmeric and of analogous processes are in truth nothing more than the results of experiments upon the functions of the brain by impressions on the senses. As