Fourth sessional address / by the President Mr. Serjeant Cox.

  • Cox, Edward W. (Edward William), 1809-1879.
Date:
[1877]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fourth sessional address / by the President Mr. Serjeant Cox. 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.

    5/20 (page 5)
    Tyndall, for we cordially concur in his contention that Soul is not a question of sentiment, desire, or do»ma, but of fact, to be decided like other questions of fact. We take up the glove the eloquent Professor has thrown down. We accept his challenge. At this point we join issue with him. We have said, again and again, and we repeat now, that we propose to prove the existence of Soul as a fact, by evidence of precisely the same kind as that by which Pro- fessor Tyndall proves the existence of magnetism and electricity. If such proof should be found to fail, then we will sorrowfully admit that Professor Tyndall and the Scientists are right—that Soul is a myth—Psychology a sham science, and Man a machine merely. But not to do him an injustice, I must cite Professor Tyndall himself. The argument is. conducted with exceeding subtlet}'. He bases it upon the now admitted theory of the Con- servation of Energy—which may be desci'ibed as meaning, that this World is a ball composed of a certain quantity of matter incessantly moved by some energy (or force) existing within or applied from without. Of this mass of matter no particle is ever lost. It may and does change its forms continually, but there is not now an atom less than there was yesterday and will be tomorrow. So with the energy, or cause of motion, that permeates every part and particle. That, too, is not lost. It disappears only to reappear in another form, presenting itself in other modes of motion, insomuch that one form of motion can be converted into another form of motion by the skill of the Scientist, as many of us have seen in his own inimitable experiments in the lecture-room of the Royal Institution. This principle of transferred instead of extinguished force shown in inorganic matter the Professor applies to organic structure and finds it there also. The muscles work—that is, they generate force. How ? By consuming a portion of themselves. It is the force stored up in the [223]