Synthesis of contraries: Hughlings Jackson on sensory-motor representation in the brain.

This paper examines the concept of representation in the brain which occurs in the writings of the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911). Jackson was immersed in Victorian physiological psychology, a hybrid of British associationism and a reflex theory of the operation of the nervous system. Furthermore, Jackson was deeply influenced by Herbert Spencer, and I argue that Spencer's progressivist evolutionary ideas are in tension with the more mechanistic approach of the reflex theory. I also discuss Jackson's legacy in the 20th century and the longstanding debate about localisation of function in the brain.