232 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
In ethics, in political economy, in jurisprudence, in international 
law, how many points of profound interest are still in dispute or 
are involved in obscurity ! In psychology, how many new theories 
and methods have recently emerged, both in this country and on 
the Continent, which may change the entire aspect of that science, 
and which, at any rate, challenge the careful consideration of all 
philosophic thinkers! A new science, indeed, has of late sprung 
up in this department, — the science, so-called, of physiological 
psychology, — an infelicitous designation, as I cannot but think, see- 
ing that as physiology can never become psychology nor psycho- 
logy physiology, the union of the two words in one designation 
is almost tantamount to a negation of the possibility of the science 
so designated. This science has found so many enthusiastic and 
able cultivators that its claims on the attention and study of Scien- 
tific inquirers cannot be neglected. I confess I am not myself 
sanguine of any great advantage accruing to psychology from its 
being approached through the medium of physiology, for this, were 
there no other reason, that, as on the one hand, the physiologist 
must first learn from consciousness or experience the existence of 
any faculty before he can search for or find an organ for that 
faculty in the body ; so, on the other hand, he is unable from the 
mere observation of the bodily organs or functions to throw any 
light upon the mental faculties, seeing all he can accomplish at the 
utmost is to point to a connection of some sort between the mental 
faculty and the bodily organ. At the same time, I defer to the 
judgment of the eminent men who have appeared as the cultivators 
of this science, and claim for it a place among the objects which 
engage the attention of the members of this Society. 
“ Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and 
intermeddleth with all wisdom ” (Prov. xviii. 1). This saying of the 
Hebrew sage might be adopted as a fitting motto for such a Society ( 
as this. By joining it the members separate or set themselves 
apart, under the impulse of a master desire, to the pursuit of 
knowledge; and it beseems them, as so separated, to take all wis- 
dom for their province. It is true that in the present day know- 
ledge is no longer confined to the few, or locked up within Societies 
of those who give themselves to the pursuit of it as their business 
and occupation. It is true that “science has now left her retreats, 
