646 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION [. 
more. Here is to be found the reason that abstract conception in regard to their 
specific structure finally possesses no precise correlation in the world of sensory 
pereeption. 
2. Discussion on the Relation of Mind to Body. 
(i) From the Standpoint of Philosophy. By R. Larra, M.A., D.Phil. 
It is almost impossible to treat this problem from a purely scientific point of 
view without introducing metaphysical considerations. ‘Lhis is due to the fact 
that at.the present stage of our knowledge the problem is to a great extent a 
problem of method. ‘There are two main groups of theories, the parallelist and 
the animist, the latter including various forms of the interaction theory. The 
parallelist theory was first set forth by the Cartesian philosophers, and there has 
been no essential development of the position since the time of Spinoza. It rests 
on the mechanical hypothesis of physical science, according to which all physica] 
phenomena may be regarded as forming a self-complete and self-explaining 
system. This system excludes nothing except what is non-material. Parallelism 
consists essentially in the hypothesis of a similar mechanical system of mental 
phenomena, corresponding point for point with the physical system, but entirely 
independent of it. We have thus in parallelism an a priori extension of the 
mechanical hypothesis to mind, although the basis of the mechanical hypothesis 
was the necessity of excluding everything mental from the physical system. 
Parallelism, accordingly, transforms the mechanical method from a scientific 
hypothesis into an ultimate metaphysical principle. On the other hand, the 
vitalist and animist theories insist on the recognition of a teleological factor in 
organism and in mind. ‘They are thus in direct opposition to the mechanical 
hypothesis, as it was originally conceived, for this hypothesis had as its aim the 
rejection of final causes as principles of explanation in the physical world. 
The mechanical view is right in rejecting final causes if they are regarded not 
as immanent in nature, but as external and accidental. The vitalist and the 
animist are right in insisting on a teleological factor; but they expose them- 
selves to criticism from the mechanist point of view by placing the teleological 
factor entirely outside the mechanical system. The two realms, the mechanical 
and the teleological, thus remain, on the animist view, as much apart as they 
are on the mechanical theory. But teleology is not external, but immanent. 
Wherever we have system, we have final cause, and the ends are not outside of 
the system. If the physical world is a real system, it has an immanent teleology. 
If the mental is also teleological, we may set aside the hypothesis of a gulf 
between the two realms, and recognise that the distinction of the physical from 
the psychical is a distinction within one system. This brings us nearer to the 
actual facts of experience, and it does not mean the merging of one system in 
the other or of both in a vague unity, for increasing knowledge means more 
exact and real distinction, and at the same time the recognition of more profound 
unity between the things distinguished. 
(ii) From the Standpoint of Psychiatry. 
By Sir Tuomas Ciouston, M.D., LL.D. 
Psychiatry is a word of German origin expressing the study and treatment 
of mental diseases and defects. Psychiatry implies the general assumption that 
body and mind have a constant and necessary relationship. The progress of 
physiological science and of modern psychology has compelled the psychiatrist 
to the conclusion that the brain is the necessary vehicle of mind, and therefore 
the study of brain in its physiological and pathological relations is by far the 
most important, indeed the absolutely necessary, preliminary to his work. 
It is definitely proved that when the brain is not developed in a normal way 
from birth onwards the mental functions are also non-developed. Careful 
observation has also shown that under these conditions the outward expressions 
of mind, in the shape of speech and the workings of the mind-muscles of expres- 
sion in the face and eye, are usually accompanied by what have been wrongly 
