The Study of the Human Mind from a Physiological View

Abstract

The scientific method of studying the phenomena of the human mind by founding it on a physiological basis, and thereby tracing the cerebral functions through the lower animals and uncultivated man, according to the plans adopted in other physiological investigations, must necessarily tend to modify or even change much that is contained in our received systems of psychology. In the hands of such men as Darwin and Huxley, the comparative method, when worked out in all its truthfulness, must necessarily bear good fruit, and be unaffected by any of the bias which the purely metaphysical method of the schools is apt to give to the investigation. The objection that it is degrading to compare the human being with the lower animals, or to take mankind in the mass, is of no value to the scientific investigator, who is merely seeking after truth, and knows that no researches of his can in any way affect man's history in the past or for the present; although they may afford many explanations of human conduct.