Address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of California at its annual session, April, 1873 / by G.A. Shurtleff.

  • Shurtleff, G. A., -1902.
Date:
1873
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered before the Medical Society of the State of California at its annual session, April, 1873 / by G.A. Shurtleff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    Herbert Spencer fails to grasp it, and all metaphysical attempts to explain it leave us in confusion and darkness. Mere science can neither comprehend it nor pursue its existence or condition beyond its connection with the body. It is only its mode of action, in its somatic relations, which comes within the prov- ince of medical study and research. The conflicting opinions of mental physiologists arise from an attempt to explain the nature of mind, not from any dispute that the brain, with its nervous connections, is the organ by which its action is mani- fested. I know of no purely psychical theory maintaining that the mind possesses the power of acting to the comprehension of human beings unconnected with its material organism, unless the so-called spiritists, with whose doctrines I am unfamiliar, entertain such a belief. Among the most eminent and learned physiologists there seem to be two pretty distinct theories advocated regarding the connection between the mind and the body. One class of physiologists holds that the will, or some men- tal force which is purely the attribute of the soul, directs the mental action of the brain. The brain is the necessary instru- ment of our mental operations, which receives impressions from without, elaborates ideas, and gives expression to intelli- gence and emotion, as the telegrapher's apparatus develops the electric energy, receives impressions, and intelligibly expresses them. The operator represents the higher mental principle, the ego or will (Van der Kolk). Yet he is unable to evoke and apply the energy, and to receive and give expression to his message, without the means of the material apparatus; and the instrument is equally incapable of performing its office without the higher directing power of the operator. This view of the