Classics in Psychology

Robert H. Wozniak - Bryn Mawr College

Henry Maudsley: Body and Mind (1870)

The problem of the relationship of mind to body and body to mind has a long and distinguished history inphilosophy and psychology. First formulated by Descartes in 1641, in his Meditationes de prima philosophia,61 the mind/body problem bedeviled 17th and 18th century thinkers from Spinoza and Leibniz to La Mettrieand Cabanis. 62

During the 19th century, one aspect of this problem, 63 that of the relationship between mind and brain, grewespecially pressing. Interest in mind/brain relations during this period became so great that it is difficult to finda systematic text written after 1870 that does not contain a discussion of this issue. To a large extent, thisreflected the convergence of two major developments: progress in understanding the localization of cerebralfunction and growing familiarity with the facts of functional neurosis. Evidence for cortical localization offunctioncorrelation between specific mental processes and discrete regions of the brainsuggested a cleardependence of mind on brain process. 64 Data on functional neurosesradical alterations in the body broughtabout by psychic trauma, mental suggestion, mesmeric trance and the like suggested a clear dependenceof brain process on the mind. 65

In response to these developments, a variety of mind/body views were espoused. These includedinteractionism (brain influences mind, mind influences brain), 66 epiphenomenalism (brain influ-ences mind,but mind exerts no influence on brain), 67 psychophysical parallelism (neither mind nor brain influences theother, but mind and brain run a parallel course), 68 dual-aspect theory (mind and brain are simply two differentaspects of one and the same psychophysical process), 69 and idealist monism (what appears, like brain, to bematerial substance is only a property of mind). 70

Several authors even devoted entire volumes to the topic of mind and body. One of these, Henry Maudsley, 71

championed a mind/body view that might best be called materialist function-alism, a view that is probably stillthe predominant position among modern psychologists and psychiatrists. The essence of this perspective isan unwavering belief in the functional depen-dence of mind on body and brain. Mind is, in essence, a productof bodily and brain process. A healthy mind depends on a healthy brain in a healthy body. Disorders of bodyand brain will be reflected in disorders of mind.

Maudsleys defence of this thesis, Body and Mind, was published in 1870. 72 It consisted primarily of the threeGulstonian lectures that he had given earlier that year before the Royal College of Physicians. 73 In the firstlecture, Maudsley began by reiterating two points fundamental to his perspective. First, physiology andpathology of mind are two branches of one science. Study of the healthy mind helps to clarify the nature ofmorbid phenomena and vice versa. Second, mind is a function of the nervous system; nervous disorderunderlies mental disorder. He then devoted the remainder of this lecture to an analysis of the physiology ofnormal mind defined not only in terms of higher mental functions such as intelligence, will, and emotion butalso in terms of lower sensorimotor automatisms, the relationship between higher and lower functions, andthe relationship between these mental functions and internal organs such as the heart, liver, and genitals.

In the second and third lectures, Maudsley described aspects of mental pathology designed to illustrate thedependence of insanity on physical causes to be found in morbid states of the body. Here he argued thatmental disorders are neither more nor less than nervous diseases in which mental symptoms predominate,74 emphasized hereditary constitutional factors (the insane temperament 75 ) in predisposing to disorder, andprovided a lengthy analysis of the particular effects of various internal organs (organic sympathies 76 ) on thespecific characteristics of different forms of insanity.

If there was one major point that emerged from the three lectures taken as a whole, it was a view of mind notas a single function but as a federation of functions dependent not only upon processes at different levels ofnervous organization but even upon internal organs. Correlative to this view was a conception of insanity asmultiply determined, caused not only by degeneration of higher nervous processes, but by disorders of lowernervous function and even by morbid conditions of the internal organs. For Maudsley, in short, the body wasan organic whole and healthy mental process was dependent upon the proper functioning of that totality. In

clearly and persuasively articu- lating this view and emphasizing the relevance of pathological phenomena foran understanding of normal mind and the relevance of normal phenomena for an understanding of pathology,Maudsley placed himself among the earliest propo-nents of what eventually came to called the psychosomatic perspective.

61 Des-Cartes, R. (1641). Meditationes de prima philosophiae, in qua Deiexistentia et animae immo talitasdemonstratur. Paris: Michaelem Soly.

62 Spinoza, B. (1677). Opera posthuma, quorum series post praefationem exhibetur. Amsterdam: J. Rieuwert;Leibniz, G.W. (1695). Systme nouveau de la nature et de la communication des substances, aussi bien quede lunion quil y a entre lme et le corps. Journal des Savans, 27 Juin, 294300; et 4 Juillet, 3016; LaMettrie, J. O. de. (1748). LHomme machine. Leyde: Elie Luzac, Fils; and Cabanis, P.J.G. (1802). Rapportsdu physique et du moral de lhomme. Paris: Crapart, Caille et Ravier.

63 Note that there are really two related but distinguishable aspects of the mind/body problem, one, which hasbeen the traditional subject matter of epistemology, has to do with the relationship between mind and theexternal bodies of the material world, between thoughts and things; the second, which is the aspect underdiscussion here, has to do with the relationship between mind and brain as a material substance.

64 See, for example, Broca, P.P. (1861). Remarques sur le sige de la facult du langage articul, suiviesdune observation daphmie (perte de la parole). Bulletins de la socit anatomique de Paris, anne 36,2me serie, tome 6, 33057.

65 See, for example, the work of Jean-Martin Charcot His research and that of his students, published over anumber of years, was summarized in: Charcot, J-M. (187273). Leons sur les maladies du systme nerveuxfaites la Salptrire. Paris: Adrien Delahaye.

66 Carpenter, W.B. (1874). Principles of Mental Physiology, with their Applications to the Training andDiscipline of the Mind, and the Study of Its Morbid Conditions. London: Henry S. King; for a discussion ofCarpenters interactionism, see the essay on Carpenter in this volume.

67 Hodgson, S.H. (1870). The Theory of Practice. An Ethical Enquiry in Two Books. London: Longmans,Green, Reader, and Dyer.

68 Bain, A. (1855). The Senses and the Intellect. London: John W. Parker and Son.

69 Lewes, G.H. (1877). The Physical Basis of Mind. With Illustrations. Being the Second Series of Problems ofLife and Mind. London: Trbner; for a discussion of Lewess dual-aspect monism, see the essay on Lewes inthis volume.

70 Prince, M. (1885). The Nature of Mind and Human Automatism. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott.

71 18351918. For biographical information on Maudsley, see Collie, M. (1988). Henry Maudsley: VictorianPsychiatrist. A Bibliographical Study. Winchester: St. Pauls Bibliographies.

72 Maudsley, H. (1870). Body and Mind: An Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influence, Specially inReference to Mental Disorders. London: Macmillan.

73 In an Appendix to this work, Maudsley also reprinted two earlier papers, one on the limits of philosophicalinquiry, one on the theory of vitality.

74 Maudsley, op. cit., p. 41.

75 Ibid., p. 64.

76 Ibid., p. 81.

Extracted from Classics in Psychology, 18551914: Historical Essays ISBN 1 85506 703 X Robert H. Wozniak, 1999

Classics in Psychology, 18551914 Historical Essays - Contents