Experimental researches, illustrative of the functional oneness, unity, and diffusion, of nervous action, of four sets of nerves, and a fourfold set of functions, and transmitted impressions : with a brief exposition of the philosophy of vivisection, and of sensation / by Bennet Dowler.

  • Dowler, Bennet, 1797-1879.
Date:
[1851]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental researches, illustrative of the functional oneness, unity, and diffusion, of nervous action, of four sets of nerves, and a fourfold set of functions, and transmitted impressions : with a brief exposition of the philosophy of vivisection, and of sensation / by Bennet Dowler. 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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    immediacy and intuition, and not on representationalism, being like every other ultimate and self evident fact, incapable of any proof stronger than that which is inherent in itself. All attempts to explain this felt relation, tend but to make it more obscure. That change or sensational relation that takes place between the object seen, and the subject that sees, cannot be defined, although the phenomema, the con- ditions, and laws according to which the latter conform, contribute to illustrate or rather constitute the science of optics. When an object is touched, the result is a felt relation directly between the subject and object, not between the subject and a mere representation of the object. If the mind cannot know things, but their representations or impres- sions only, Berkley, was right in affirming, that as the mind could know these alone, there could be no valid proof of the reality of a ma- terial world. The present representational system of physiology, besides subject, object, nerve and impression, expresses or implies, four kinds of nerves, four kinds of locomotive impressions, an encephalic sensorial spot, an excitomotory centre, not to name a ganglionic one-complications found in books, not in nature—in maps, not in intuition. The present system of representationalism in physiology, is infi- nitely more complex and obscure than the ancient system of ideas or. phantasms, advocated by Aristotle and his followers. Fearing that the above experiments and speculations, may seem in- accordant with received views in psychology, as well as in physiology, it may be proper to add a few words concerning their fundamental relations, differences and tendencies. Psychology, in its highest functional modality, unity, and inherent ontological qualities and relations (substantia et accidens) is but little amenable to the materializing process of physiology. Whether psy- chological life is from its inherent constitution capable of a separate and perpetual existence, independently of the sensuous life, is a pro- blem which mere science is unable to solve. The dissection of the inferior animals can neither prove, nor disprove it. Psychology does not rest wholly upon the sensuous, nor upon the transcendental. It derives many of its fundamental truths from its own proper nature ; its inward reality, its subjective element, or consciousness. In its sub- objective, this fell relation, is, properly, a sensation—an intuition, immediate, not by means of strolling, representational, transmitted impressions, but by one or more direct impressions on the organ or tissue that is excited or impressed. The science of sensation has nothing to do in explaining the sensational intui- tion itself. The circumstances, conditions, and laws under which sensation takes place, are susceptible of explanation, as in optics, accoustics, &c.