''MENTAL physiology:' 123 



ology." I need not say that the original groundwork of the 

 volume has long been familiar to me. Indeed, I owe to it a 

 large part of my small store of knowledge with regard to the 

 nervous system and its fimctions in man. The new elements 

 in the volume are most inviting ; it is impossible to cut open 

 the sheets without alighting, by merely indulging a cursory 

 glance, on a rich vein of instruction or suggestion. To me, 

 also, it is always a comfort when I take up your books to know 

 that in surveying the belt of borderland between the domains 

 of physiology and of psychology, you will treat the rights of 

 both with due respect, and will not turn a professed scientific 

 exploration into an expedition of aggression and conquest. If 

 anything is absolutely and ultimately certain, it is that neither 

 of these provinces can ever merge by annexation into the other ; 

 and that therefore the true method of prosecuting both requires 

 the creation and observance of a separate nomenclature and 

 descriptive vocabulary for each. Yet among our English 

 writers on these subjects, nine out of tea conceal their real 

 distinctness, and thrust them into artificial approximation by 

 carrying over the language of the one into their reports of the 

 phenomena of the other. 



Within two years of its publication, the " Mental 

 Physiology" ran through four editions, and in 1876 Dr. 

 Carpenter drew up a final statement of his views on the 

 limits of human automatism in the shape of a preface to 

 the fourth edition, which dealt with recent utterances of 

 some of his scientific friends, notably Professor Huxley 

 and Professor Clififord.* The days were still full of eager 

 labour, but the longing for rest rose more and more fre- 

 quently in his mind. In the spring of 1875 he was greatly 

 interested in the project of University Extension, and joined 

 a deputation to the Lord Mayor on behalf of a scheme 

 " originated by Cambridge, but here taken up at my in- 

 " stance in a more comprehensive spirit. Our object is to 

 "induce the City Companies to co-operate in a People's 



• See below, p. 2S4 



