Anatomy and Medidn^y^-^^'-^r^^^ 



for the very kind manner in which they have been received in Edin- 

 burgh, which was unanimously agreed to. 



Dr Abercrombie concluded the business of the Medical Section 

 by an address, in which, . after some allusion to the subjects which 

 had more particularly engaged their attention, he expressed his 

 confidence in the zeal of the members in following out tlie investi- 

 gations which had been recommended to them ; and he impressed 

 upon them the importance of a zealous cultivation of pathology, as 

 the only foundation of certain knowledge resjjecting the phenomena 

 of disease. Dr Abercrombie then proceeded to make some obser- 

 vations on the interest and importance to the medical profession of 

 the study of Mental Philosophy. In alluding to this subject, he 

 said he was aware of the objections which had been brought against 

 admitting the philosophy of mind as one of the regular Sections of 

 the Association ; and to a considerable extent he admitted their 

 truth, as it might be difficult to preserve such discussions from those 

 hypothetical speculations by which this important science had been 

 so much obscured and retarded in its progress. But, by treating 

 it as a branch of Physiology, he trusted this might be avoided, by 

 rigidly restricting the investigation to a careful observation of facts, 

 and the purposes of high practical utility to which they might be 

 applied. Keeping in view the importance of these rules, he ear- 

 nestly recommended the subject to medical inquirers, as capable of 

 being cultivated, on strict philosophical principles, as a science of 

 observation, and as likely to yield laws, principles, or universal 

 facts, which might be ascertained with the same precision as the 

 laws of physical science. For this purpose, however, inquii'ers 

 must abstain from all vain speculations respecting the nature and 

 essence of mind, or the mode of its communication with external 

 things, and must confine themselves to a simple and careful study 

 of its operations. Some of these Dr Abercrombie alluded to under 

 the following heads : — the laws of the succession of thoughts, and 

 the remarkable influence of association ; — the voluntary power which 

 we possess over the succession of thought, the due culture of which 

 lies at the foundation of all sound mental discipline ; — the influence 

 of habit upon mental processes, and the means of correcting inju- 

 rious habits ; — the important relation between voluntary intellectual 

 processes and moral emotions, and between such intellectual pro- 

 cesses and the result of evidence in producing conviction ; — the laws 

 of reason or judgment — the means (»f cultivating it — and the ruin- 



