Physiology v. metaphysics in relation to mind / by Walter Hayle Walshe.

  • Walshe, Walter Hayle, 1812-1892.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiology v. metaphysics in relation to mind / by Walter Hayle Walshe. 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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    more varied, than has yet been even approximately proved. It will gradually conduct us to the possible limits of objectivity,—show us the boundary line where demon- stration ceases to be attainable, and where introspective guesswork must take its place. But scarcely can we in our most ardent moments of scientific enthusiasm hope through physiology to fathom the mystery to its lowest depth—to grasp the true nature of the force that sets to work the dynamic and statical activities evolving mental phenomena out of brain—to identify the potentiality that vivifies cerebral pulp into an emotional, volitional, and intellectual agent, or seize the link that unites thinking substance and thought. No ! even if argnme?itigratia the hypothesis of Hooke, that ideas themselves are actually material substances, be accepted, there will remain a some- thing behind, giving to the brain-matter power to throw off that kind of substance, the nature of which something will elude our grasp. But are we more enlightened concerning the intimate nature of the special potentiality attached to any structure in the body ? What do we really know of the force that evolves motion from muscle ? Will any con- ceivable amount of success in working out the histology and chemistry of liver-tissue give us the veriest glimmer- ing of a notion why hepatic cells should produce bile and not saliva ? And just as in regard of the wider phenomena of life, of which mental activity is but a part, though a large part, so science will in all surety continue long, long (though possibly not for ever) forced to accept agnosticism as the only attainable creed in the sphere of ideation—the iiltima Thule of loftiest physiology.