6iz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



human history this new social force comes into play, we have no need 

 here to inquire. What I am concerned to point out is that it is a new 

 social force, wholly different in character from any which had hitherto 

 helped to shape human destiny wholly different, also, from those in- 

 fluences which have gnided the unfolding either of the individual 

 animal or of the species. We cannot, by taking thought, add a cubit 

 to our stature. The species, in undergoing the process of improve- 

 ment, is wholly unconscious of the influences that are determining its 

 career. It is not so with human evolution. Civilized mankind are 

 aware of the changes taking place in their social conditions, and do 

 consciously and deliberately take measures for its improvement. 

 Fortnightly Review. 



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SKETCH OF DE. HENRY MAUDSLEY. 



THOSE who are familiar with the growing literature of psycho- 

 logical medicine during the last quarter of a century will remem- 

 ber the appearance of various papers remarkable for literary brilliancy 

 and expressive of the most advanced opinion which appeared, nearly 

 twenty years ago, in the English periodicals devoted to this subject, 

 and written by Dr. Henry Maudsley. He was then a very young- 

 man, and the promise of his early efforts has been thoroughly redeemed 

 by rfis subsequent professional career. A voluminous and able writer, 

 and an eminent practitioner, he is now among the foremost men in the 

 branch of medicine to which he has devoted himself. The last quarter 

 of a century has witnessed a great change in the mode of studying 

 mental phenomena. The old metaphysical method, which confined 

 itself mainly to introspection of consciousness, with no more regard 

 to the organic conditions under which mind is manifested than as if 

 such conditions had no existence, has been invaded, and perhaps it is 

 not too much to say, as a method of study, has completely broken down. 

 Not that the introversive study of the phenomena of consciousness 

 has been abandoned, but its sufficiency has been completely discred- 

 ited; and mental science takes a new departure with the recognition 

 that its organic basis is a fundamental element in its problems. The 

 physicians whose studies begin with the body and traverse the field both 

 of its normal and abnormal states, were forced to consider the subject 

 of mind from the corporeal side, and with reference to the exigencies 

 of practice. Metaphysical speculation was fruitless for their pur- 

 poses ; the miad had to be considered as dependent upon material 

 conditions. The new order of truths thus brought forward has had 

 a profound influence upon recent mental philosophy, and, in this recon- 

 struction and reexposition of the science, the subject of the present 

 sketch has had a prominent share. His contributions to the literature 



