Psychology proved by physical science / abstracted from a paper by James Croll ; read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, Thursday, March 15, 1877, by the President.

  • Croll, James, 1821-1890.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychology proved by physical science / abstracted from a paper by James Croll ; read to the Psychological Society of Great Britain, Thursday, March 15, 1877, by the President. 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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    of atoms than that which forms “matter,” and of whose existence, being wholly imperceptible to any sense, we are and must be entirely unconscious, at least so long as we can obtain perceptions of the external world through the medium of the senses alone. If ever there be for us, here or hereafter, a condition in which we can perceive some or all of the non-molecular combinations of atoms, then a wholly new and strange existence—a new world, in fact— would be opened to us here, in our very dwelling place, all around us and above us. The second problem, however, is that which has most invited the investigation of Mr. Croll, namely, what are the motions of molecules ? Upon this I quote Mr. Croll himself. The second problem, we have seen, refers not to the nature of the molecule, but to its motions. Now in regard to all physical change or motion, no matter what the nature of that change or motion may be, there are at the very outset two fundamental ques- tions which suggest themselves: (1) What produces the change- causes motion ? (2) What determines or directs it ? In regard to the first question, there is no diversity of opinion. All agree that what produces change or causes motion is Force. The second question, however, viz. what determines or directs the motion, is not so easily answered. This question is not only the more difficult of the two, but also by far the more important. All physicists agree that what is called Physical Law is just the expression of the manner in which forces act in the production of their effects, or “ the paths along which they travel to their parti- cular resuits,” as Mr. Lewes expresses it. (a) In the production of all physical phenomena we have, therefore, two distinct elements viz force, and the way or manner in which force acts-force, and the paths along which it travels, so to speak-or, in other words still, 1 orce and the Laws of Force. One of the most important results of modern physical inquiry has (a) Comte’R Philosophy of the Sciences, By G. II. Lewes. Section V. [179]