On the influence of education and training in preventing diseases of the nervous system / by Robert Brudenell Carter.

  • Carter, Robert Brudenell, 1828-1918.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the influence of education and training in preventing diseases of the nervous system / by Robert Brudenell Carter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    for stealing, an idea of suffering would be associated with that of the idulgence to which it was tempted; and, if the punishment had been sufficiently severe or frequent, this last idea would overpower the former, and the animal would instinctively avoid a repetition of the fault. If it were a clever dog,—that is, one having a large and active brain,—it would, perhaps, associate punishment, not with theft as such, but only with detected theft; and then its final idea would be determined chiefly by the presence or absence of wit- nesses. But, in either case, the process in the brain of the dog differs widely from volitional thinking; because its ideas follow one another in spontaneous or uncontrolled succession, and do not result in move- ment until the associations of the first have been exhausted. The animal has no power to balance two courses of action, and to decide between them; but the idea that ultimately predominates in its mind will be the one that directs its conduct. Many animals, and especially the dog, will go through a complicated process of reasoning, and then act upon it; but their reasoning is the unsolicited and involuntary working of the brain; and their acts are expressions of this working, which they are unable either to restrain or modify: their behaviour, as a rule, being the same that, under similar circumstances, has formerly been most to their advantage. Eor, of the va- rious ideas which may be recalled to a dog by the sight of unprotected food, that one will be re- called most vividly, which has been most frequently and most forcibly impressed upon it. Thus, if it has been occasionally punished for stealing, but has