Life and the Mind in Nineteenth-Century Britain

Abstract

It might be said that vitalism has two histories. As a metaphysical admonishment– to treat “life” as a special class of phenomena –its place in the historical record is already assured. But as a way to explain bodily processes, its history seems more complicated and uncertain. Perhaps this stems from classificatory problems: which theories should be described as vitalistic, and in what ways these use vitalistic notions is unclear. In this chapter, I will argue for a history of vitalism as a series of conceptual tools that were used as researchers in early- to mid-nineteenth century Britain attempted to explain the mind in physiological terms. Phrenology (George Combe), reflex action (Marshall Hall) and cerebral reflex function (Thomas Laycock) all provided a model for how the mind operated, yet all three in some way failed to persuade their scientific colleagues. From their efforts, however, a satisfactory account emerged that explained the mind as a series of abstract and teleological processes: a vitalistic account of the mind.