J. C. Eccles – författare

The titling of this book - "Facing Reality" - came to me unbidden, presumably from my subconscious! But, when it came, it seemed to be right, because that essentially is what I am trying to do in this book. " Facing" is to be understood in the sense of "looking at in a steadfast and unflinching manner". It thus contrasts with "Confronting" which has the sense of "looking at with hostility and defiance". As I face life with its joys and its sorrows, its successes and its failures, its peace and its turmoil, my attitude is one of serene acceptance and gratitude and not one of angry and arrogant confrontation and rejection. The other component of the title - "Reality" - is the ultimate reality for each of us as conscious beings - our birth - our self-hood in its long stream of becoming throughout our life - our death and apparent annihilation. This is the Reality that we each of us must face if we are to live and adventure as free and responsible beings and not as mere playthings of chance and circumstance, going through a mean­ ingless farce from birth to death with the search ever for distraction and self-forgetfulness. As a brain scientist I have specialist knowledge of that wonderful part of the body that is alone concerned in the whole Iife-Iong interplay between the conscious self and the extern al world, including other selves.

The titling of this book - "Facing Reality" - came to me unbidden, presumably from my subconscious! But, when it came, it seemed to be right, because that essentially is what I am trying to do in this book. " Facing" is to be understood in the sense of "looking at in a steadfast and unflinching manner". It thus contrasts with "Confronting" which has the sense of "looking at with hostility and defiance". As I face life with its joys and its sorrows, its successes and its failures, its peace and its turmoil, my attitude is one of serene acceptance and gratitude and not one of angry and arrogant confrontation and rejection. The other component of the title - "Reality" - is the ultimate reality for each of us as conscious beings - our birth - our self-hood in its long stream of becoming throughout our life - our death and apparent annihilation. This is the Reality that we each of us must face if we are to live and adventure as free and responsible beings and not as mere playthings of chance and circumstance, going through a mean­ ingless farce from birth to death with the search ever for distraction and self-forgetfulness. As a brain scientist I have specialist knowledge of that wonderful part of the body that is alone concerned in the whole Iife-Iong interplay between the conscious self and the extern al world, including other selves.

Under the terms of the endowment by Lord Gifford, the Gifford Lectures have been an annual event in the University of Edin­ burgh since 1887, and also in three other Scottish universities. According to the will of Lord Gifford they were set up " ... to promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term - in other words, the knowledge of God". The assignment is for ten lectures, and I delivered them from 20 February, to 13 March, 1978. I chose the theme of the Human Mystery because I believe that it is vitally important to emphasize the great mysteries that confront us when, as scientists, we try to understand the natural world including ourselves. There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explantation in principle of all phenomena in the world of nature including man, even of human consciousness in all its manifesta­ tions. When that is accomplished scientific materialism will then be in the position of being an unchallengable dogma accounting for all experience.

In February and March 1978 I delivered my first series of Gifford Lectures in the University of Edinburgh. These lectures have been published under the title The Human Mystery. The second series of ten lectures were delivered from April 18 to May 4 1979 under the title The Human Psyche. As with the first series, the printed text is actually the manuscript prepared for those lectures, not some later compilation. The lectures were delivered informally, but based strictly on this manuscript. It is hoped that the printed text will convey the dramatic character of a lecture presenta­ tion. This book must not be regarded as a definitive text in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, but rather as a series of ''adventures of ideas'', to revive a Whiteheadean title. The brain-mind problem has been the theme of three recent books: The Self and Its Brain; The Human Mystery (in its latter part); and now The Human Psyche. In this book there is critical discussion in the first lecture of the materialist hypotheses of the relationship of the self-con­ scious mind to the brain. In the subsequent lectures the strong dualist-interactionism developed in The Self and Its Brain is explored in depth in relation to a wide variety of phenomena relating to self-consciousness. The aim has been to demonstrate the great explanatory power of dualist­ interactionism in contrast to the poverty and inadequacy of all varieties of the materialist theories of the mind.

In February and March 1978 I delivered my first series of Gifford Lectures in the University of Edinburgh. These lectures have been published under the title The Human Mystery. The second series of ten lectures were delivered from April 18 to May 4 1979 under the title The Human Psyche. As with the first series, the printed text is actually the manuscript prepared for those lectures, not some later compilation. The lectures were delivered informally, but based strictly on this manuscript. It is hoped that the printed text will convey the dramatic character of a lecture presenta­ tion. This book must not be regarded as a definitive text in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, but rather as a series of 'adventures of ideas', to revive a Whiteheadean title. The brain-mind problem has been the theme of three recent books: The Self and Its Brain; The Human Mystery (in its latter part); and now The Human Psyche. In this book there is critical discussion in the first lecture of the materialist hypotheses of the relationship of the self-con­ scious mind to the brain. In the subsequent lectures the strong dualist-interactionism developed in The Self and Its Brain is explored in depth in relation to a wide variety of phenomena relating to self-consciousness. The aim has been to demonstrate the great explanatory power of dualist­ interactionism in contrast to the poverty and inadequacy of all varieties of the materialist theories of the mind.

So much has been written about the scientific contributions of Sherrington that the man himself, and his thoughts, have been overshadowed. More and more, students of history are calling for creative writing on the whole man, particularly when he is a genius. Those interested in the genesis of ideas want to know the settings for discoveries and the relevant circumstances which ushered in new truths and new insights. The "prepared mind" which Pasteur saw as the only one to be "favoured by fortune" is of immense importance in science, and our account of Sherring­ ton, we hope, will fill a very real gap in this field. During his life Sherrington actively discouraged any sugges­ tions that a biography be written. For that reason it was not until 1947 that there were any biographical notes by John Fulton, Graham Brown and A. D. Ritchie in a number of the British Medical Journal commemorating his ninetieth birthday, and in addition there was a leading article entitled "The Influence of Sherrington on Oinical Neurology". He left no autobiographical material except the few pages of reminiscences entitled "Mar­ ginalia", an essay written in honour of Charles Singer (1953).