The physical basis of mind

"In the Physical Basis of Mind we have the fruit of Lewes's many years of research in biology. Those who look with unprejudiced eyes into the present state of neurological research will acknowledge that, whether right in his own particular account and interpretation of the phenomena, he has done good service by challenging too readily accepted views, by reminding a scientific age of its ignorance of many things, and by proposing alternative hypotheses which may at least disturb a drowsy overconfidence in received theory and stimulate new lines of inquiry. To psychologists and neurologists alike, Lewes says much which will repay careful attention. The volume contains four essays. The first, on the Nature of Life, deals with the speciality of organic phenomena, as distinguished from the inorganic. It sets forth the physiological principles which psychology must incessantly invoke. In the course of the exposition I have incorporated several passages from four articles on Darwin's hypotheses, contributed to the Fortnightly Review during the year 1868. I have also suggested a modification of the hypothesis of Natural Selection, by extending to the tissues and organs that principle of competition which Darwin has so luminously applied to organisms. Should this generalization of the "struggle for existence" be accepted, it will answer many of the hitherto unanswerable objections. The second essay is on the Nervous Mechanism, setting forth what is known and what is inferred respecting the structure and properties of that all-important system. If the skeptical and revolutionary attitude, in presence of opinions currently held to be established truths, surprises or pains the reader unprepared for such doubts, I can only ask him to submit my statements to a similar skepticism, and confront them with the ascertained evidence. After many years of laborious investigation and meditation, the conclusion has slowly forced itself upon me, that on this subject there is a "false persuasion of knowledge" very fatal in its influence, because unhesitatingly adopted as the ground of speculation both in Pathology and Psychology. This persuasion is sustained because few are aware how much of what passes for observation is in reality sheer hypothesis. The third essay treats of Animal Automatism. Here the constant insistence on the biological point of view, while it causes a rejection of the mechanical theory, admits the fullest recognition of all the mechanical relations involved in animal movements, and thus endeavors to reconcile the contending schools. In this essay I have also attempted a psychological solution of that much-debated question--the relation between Body and Mind. This solution explains why physical and mental phenomena must necessarily present to our apprehension such profoundly diverse characters; and shows that Materialism, in attempting to deduce the mental from the physical, puts into the conclusion what the very terms have excluded from the premises; whereas, on the hypothesis of a physical process being only the objective aspect of a mental process, the attempt to interpret the one by the other is as legitimate as the solution of a geometrical problem by algebra. In the final essay the Reflex Theory is discussed; and here once more the biological point of view rectifies the error of an analysis which has led to the denial of Sensibility in reflex actions, because that analysis has overlooked the necessary presence of the conditions which determine Sensibility. In these chapters are reproduced several passages from the Physiology of Common Life. According to my original intention, this volume was to have included an exposition of the part I conceive the brain to play in physiological and psychological processes, but that must be postponed until it can be accompanied by a survey of psychological processes which, would render the exposition more intelligible"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).