Some Recent Views Upon Mind [pp. 747-756]

748 So~ RECENT VIEWS UFON MIND. [`Mar.,
strive to. creep in ~~~~ him under the insinuating garb of science.
Catholics, therefore, can alone consistently challenge these erroneous speculations and strive to winnow what may be called the
chaff of mere scientific opinion from the golden wheat of scientific truth.
The latest contribution to physiological materialism is from
the~en of Professor Bastian, of London, one of the most accomplished physiologists of the day. His book is replete with instruction, and he submits to his readers the most recent facts of
neurological science which intelligent and industrious researches
in Germany, France, and England have brought to light. With
these, however, we have n9 concern just now, but will consider
his attempt to modify the hitherto current views of the mind in
order to bring mind and recent neurological discoveries into
harmonious relation. This modification he undertakes to bring
about in the chapter entitled the "Scope of Mind," and he begins
by assuming the incorrectness of the view which holds to mind as
an entity distinct from the nervous structure. That this is a mere
assumption his own words will prove. He says at fhe very
opening of the chapter: "It is customary to speak of the`mind'
as though it were a som~thing having an actual independent existence-an entity, that is, of spiritual or uncorporeal existence.
Consequently we find spread abroad in all directions definitions of
mind which, to say the least, carry with them implications of a
decidedly misleading character." This is all he says in refutation of what he calls a misleading conception of mind, and he proceeds at once to offer a substitute which will be more in harmony, he says, with the data of physiology. Now, it would seem
that when a scientific man rejects a wide-spread and cherished
belief he ought at least to c@nsider a few of the arguments upon
which that belief rests-arguments that date back to the remotest
antiquity, and which were deemed of no small consequence by
every philosophical writer from Thales of Miletus down to the
compiler of the latest handbook on mental philosophy..
Dr. Bastian, together with all his ilk, evidently ffeems it a
work of supererogation to attempt the refutation of views which
are not in consonance with his own. The class of physiologists
who undertake the task of building up a new science of mind are
men who unfortunately have devoted their lives with untiring
zeal and ardor to the consideration of only one side of the question, and that the narrowest. One would take it for granted that
the first step requisite in a logical endeavor to substitute a new
theory for an older one would be to point out the insufficiency