A History of Science — Volume 4Williams, Henry Smith
History
A History of Science — Volume 4
Williams, Henry Smith
Science -- History
Of course this new movement has not been confined to Germany. Indeed,
it had long had exponents elsewhere. Thus in England, a full century
earlier, Dr. Hartley had championed the theory of the close and
indissoluble dependence of the mind upon the brain, and formulated
a famous vibration theory of association that still merits careful
consideration. Then, too, in France, at the beginning of the century,
there was Dr. Cabanis with his tangible, if crudely phrased, doctrine
that the brain digests impressions and secretes thought as the stomach
digests food and the liver secretes bile. Moreover, Herbert Spencer's
Principles of Psychology, with its avowed co-ordination of mind and body
and its vitalizing theory of evolution, appeared in 1855, half a
decade before the work of Fechner. But these influences, though of vast
educational value, were theoretical rather than demonstrative, and the
fact remains that the experimental work which first attempted to gauge
mental operations by physical principles was mainly done in Germany.
Wundt's Physiological Psychology, with its full preliminary descriptions
of the anatomy of the nervous system, gave tangible expression to the
growth of the new movement in 1874; and four years later, with the
opening of his laboratory of physiological psychology at the University
of Leipzig, the new psychology may be said to have gained a permanent
foothold and to have forced itself into official recognition. From then
on its conquest of the world was but a matter of time.
It should be noted, however, that there is one other method of strictly
experimental examination of the mental field, latterly much in vogue,
which had a different origin. This is the scientific investigation of
the phenomena of hypnotism. This subject was rescued from the hands of
charlatans, rechristened, and subjected to accurate investigation by
Dr. James Braid, of Manchester, as early as 1841. But his results, after
attracting momentary attention, fell from view, and, despite desultory
efforts, the subject was not again accorded a general hearing from
the scientific world until 1878, when Dr. Charcot took it up at
the Salpetriere, in Paris, followed soon afterwards by Dr. Rudolf
Heidenhain, of Breslau, and a host of other experimenters. The value
of the method in the study of mental states was soon apparent. Most
of Braid's experiments were repeated, and in the main his results were
confirmed. His explanation of hypnotism, or artificial somnambulism,
as a self-induced state, independent of any occult or supersensible
influence, soon gained general credence. His belief that the initial
stages are due to fatigue of nervous centres, usually from excessive
stimulation, has not been supplanted, though supplemented by notions
growing out of the new knowledge as to subconscious mentality in
general, and the inhibitory influence of one centre over another in the
central nervous mechanism.
THE BRAIN AS THE ORGAN OF MIND
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