Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T14:49:53.630Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Letter. 4 - What is the Brain?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2010

Get access

Summary

H. G. A. to H. M.

I am glad to find that we agree so far. I will not make any comment on your last note, because I see you wish to proceed, at once, into the heart of the subject. Nor will I now detain you with observations on the nature of knowledge,—or the facts of organic chemistry, and some other matters which appear to me to be fundamental to the subject. Exactness of method does not greatly signify, in a matter so interlaced; where it is impossible to speak on any one point without, in some measure, assuming an acquaintance with some other department of the subject, or with some general notions only to be abstracted from the whole.

What I wish to indicate in the first place, then, is this:—that Man has his place in natural history: that his nature does not essentially differ from that of the lower animals: that he is but a fuller development and varied condition of the same fundamental nature or cause; of that which we contemplate as Matter, and its changes, relations, and properties. Mind is the consequence or product of the material man, its existence depending on the action of the brain. Mental Philosophy is, therefore, the physiology of the brain, as Gall termed it. Spurzheim called it Phrenology. Perhaps I might suggest Phreno-physiology, as a more comprehensive term.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009
First published in: 1851

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×