Principles of mental physiology : with their applications to the training and discipline of the mind and the study of its morbid conditions / by William B. Carpenter.

  • Carpenter, William Benjamin, 1813-1885.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Principles of mental physiology : with their applications to the training and discipline of the mind and the study of its morbid conditions / by William B. Carpenter. 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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    One of the most admirable sayings of Fred. W. Robertson lias always seemed to me to be bis reply to the remonstrance addressed to bim by one of his churchwardens, as to the displeasing effect of the outspokenness of his preaching upon some of the principal supporters of his church. I don't care, he said; meaning, of course, I must preach as my own sense of duty prompts me.— You know what1 don't care' came to ? said the remonstrator.—Yes, sir, replied Robertson, it came to Calvary. That the sympathetic thrill which every true Christian disciple must feel when he realises the full force of these pregnant words, is the illusion of an unenlightened nature, which the revelations of Science will dispel by proving their utterer to have been an Auto- maton whose choice between duty and self-interest was determined solely by circumstances, may be the conclu- sion of the unimpassioned closet-philosopher; but the expe- rience of all who, like Robertson, make the sublimest of all acts of self-sacrifice the rule and guide of their own lives, recognises in such sacrifice a Moral power far transcending in probative value any logical deduction of the Intellect. 3. I find the embodiment of that Moral consciousness in all Language and Literature; for whatever may be the judg- ment of Ethical philosophers as to the nature and source of the fundamental distinction betwen right and wrong, and whatever may be the direction given to that notion by the No'/xos by which the judgment of each individual is shaped as to what is right and what is wrong (§ 292), the sense in which these terms are universally accepted is based on the