William A. F. Browne - Student Atheism and Radicalism

Student Atheism and Radicalism

"Mr Browne then read his paper on organization as connected with Life and Mind in which he endeavoured to establish the following propositions: 1. That all matter is organised. 2. That it is the gradually increased perfection in the arrangement of the parts constituting organization, which is the ?cause /?source of the distinctions perceptible in the various objects of nature, and not specific differences. 3. That life is the abstract of the qualities inherent in these modes of arranging matter. 4. That mind is to be distinguished from life, being neither one of the functions or combination of qualities, by the concatenation of which life is constituted - nor a term indicating a similar idea. And 5. That mind as far as one individual sense, and consciousness are concerned, is material."
The Deleted Minutes, The Plinian Society, Edinburgh, 27th March 1827. Suppressed, probably by Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History. First quoted by Paul H. Barrett (1974, 1980) (in) Metaphysics, Materialism and the Evolution of Mind - early writings of Charles Darwin London and Chicago: University of Chicago Press, page 219.

"Browne, the fiery radical, gave such an inflammatory harangue on matter and mind that it sparked a raging debate. He provoked the students by arguing that mind and consciousness are not spiritual entities, separate from the body; they are simple spin-offs from brain activity. Such a notion raised dreadful questions...." Adrian Desmond and James Moore (1991) Darwin.

As a medical student, Browne was a Radical and an atheist, welcoming the changes in revolutionary France, and supporting democratic reform to overturn the Church, monarchy, and aristocracy. In addition, Browne was an outspoken advocate of phrenology which George and Andrew Combe had developed into a form of materialism, asserting that the mind was an outcome of material properties of the brain. Through phrenological meetings, Browne became acquainted with a remarkable group of secular and interdisciplinary thinkers, including Hewett Cottrell Watson (an evolutionary thinker and friend of Charles Darwin), William Ballantyne Hodgson and Robert Chambers, author of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. His interest in natural history led to his membership of the Plinian Society, where he took part in vigorous debates concerning phrenology and early evolutionary theories and became one of the five joint presidents of this student club. The leader of the phrenologists, George Combe, toasted Browne for his success in proselytising other students.

Browne also presented Plinian papers on various subjects, including plants he had collected, the habits of the cuckoo, the aurora borealis, and ghosts. On 21 November 1826, he proposed Charles Darwin for membership of the Plinian Society. On the same evening, Browne announced a paper which he presented in December 1826, contesting Charles Bell's Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression. Bell, an enormously influential neurologist, claimed, in line with the principles of natural theology, that the Creator had endowed human beings with a unique facial musculature which enabled them to express their higher moral nature in a way which was impossible in animals. Bell's aphorism on the subject was:

Browne argued that these anatomical differences were lacking and that such essential differences between human beings and animals did not exist. Forty-five years later, Darwin pursued an identical argument in his The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872), confiding in Alfred Russel Wallace that one of his main wishes was to upset the slippery arguments of Sir Charles Bell.

Later, at a Plinian meeting on 27th March 1827, Browne followed Darwin's presentation of a paper on marine invertebrates and Dr Robert Edmund Grant's exposition on sea-mats by presenting the argument that mind and consciousness were simply aspects of brain activity. This carefully arranged programme of three papers presented an ascending view of life's complexities from the marine invertebrates beloved of Grant to the ultimate mysteries of human consciousness, all on a scientific platform of evolutionary development. In addition, Browne appeared to present a view of the world which was politically and morally at odds with the opinions of the religious establishment. A furious debate ensued, and subsequently someone (probably the crypto-Lamarckian Robert Jameson, Regius Professor of Natural History) took the extraordinary step of deleting the minutes of this heretical part of the discussion. The extreme impact of these discussions is indicated by the fact that John Coldstream suffered a psychiatric illness which his doctor attributed to his being

After graduating at Edinburgh, Browne travelled to Paris and studied psychiatry with Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol.

"One is tempted to believe phrenologists are right about habitual exercise of the mind altering form of head, and thus these qualities become hereditary...." Charles Darwin (1838) The M Notebook.

"I have been making immense use almost every day of your manuscript - the book ought to be called by Darwin and Browne...." Charles Darwin to James Crichton Browne, concerning the composition of The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).