Constance Naden and hylo-idealism : a critical study / by E. Cobham Brewer ; annotated by R. Lewins.

  • Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham, 1810-1897.
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Constance Naden and hylo-idealism : a critical study / by E. Cobham Brewer ; annotated by R. Lewins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ( 28 ) philosophy.” Here the doctor most distinctly recognizes a “ starry heaven ” and an existing world, a non-ego till it has entered the realm of our Ego,* and then we are one together— heaven and earth, the fields of imagination, subject and object, all that is and all we think there is, all is one Ego. We do not create this mighty store out of nothing, but we asself it, and give it “ a local habitation and a name.” I am quite prepared to echo the quotation “ truly we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” It is wonderful beyond the range of words that this little organism, called man, should yet be a sensitive camera upon whose brain is writ all that eye can see, or mind conceive; all that is, and all that is supposed to be, a macrocosm of a vast microcosm without beginning and without end. Yet so it is, for man’s Ego is all this.f I was not asked to write a Memoir of Miss Naden, others who knew her well have done that. All I have been asked to do is to show how far this rare youthful Englishwoman was a faithful exponent of Hylo-idealism, as I myself read the subject. Probably I have been but a halting interpreter, but I have known Dr. Lewins for more than thirty years, some- times as travelling companion, sometimes as an intimate friend, and sometimes as a frequent correspondent. He well knows that we do not at all times see eye to eye. I do not * Both Mis.s Naclen and myself everywhere contest Kant’s dualism in separating the motions of the celestial bodies from those of his own mind—the former for us having no locxs standi till merged in the latter.—E. L. t And yet it is only common sense and commonplace reality that all man see.s, or can possibly see (percept and concept alike)—in all senses of the term—is but the project of the Self. Fact is indeed stranger than all fiction, both of which, however, being alike issues of the vesiculo-neurine. A dream and waking reality only differ in the condition of the Brain. In the dream there is less than normal circu- lation, through it, of arterial blood. A Brain not propei ly supplied throughout with that pabulum vitae is thus a dream-land. And that, as yet, is the state of the vast majority of our race, and especially of specialists. See Miss Naden’s poem, The Pilgrim, at page 39 of “ Songs and Sonnets of Springtime.”—E. L.