Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:25:41.111Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On Unlearning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

Extract

“O well for him whose will is strong!

He suffers, but he will not suffer long;

He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.”

Tennyson.

" Πολλὰ τὰ δεινά, κ' οῦδὲν ὰν—

θρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.

∗∗∗

καὶ φθέγμα, καὶ ὰνεμόεν

φρόνημα, καὶ ὰστυνόμους

όργὰς έδιδάξατο."

Sophocles.

From the earliest period of his history down to the present day man has ever been an object of eager study to himself. Nevertheless it is questionable whether he has yet succeeded in satisfying himself what he really is. “Everything by turns, and nothing long,” seems to be the conclusion to which one may most safely come after consideration of the numerous definitions which man has at different times seriously given of himself. He has likened himself to most things on earth, and to not a few under the earth. He has, as it were, dissolved himself, tested, precipitated, dried, and weighed himself; he has frequently lost himself, gone in search of himself, traced himself back to an homunculus, and forward to his final disappearance in a general dissolution of his constituent particles. But after making all these and many other experiments upon himself, whether he is the godlike son of Heaven, or an idealised monkey, he has not yet decided.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1864 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.