Psychology Core

EBOOK THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) *** THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY BY WILLIAM JAMES PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1918 TO MY DEAR FRIEND FRANÇOIS PILLON. AS A TOKEN OF AFFECTION, AND AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF WHAT I OWE TO THE CRITIQUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. PREFACE. The treatise which follows has in the main grown up in connection with the author's class-room instruction in Psychology, although it is true that some of the chapters are more 'metaphysical,' and others fuller of detail, than is suitable for students who are going over the subject for the first time. The consequence of this is that, in spite of the exclusion of the important subjects of pleasure and pain, and moral and æsthetic feelings and judgments, the work has grown to a length which no one can regret more than the writer himself. The man must indeed be sanguine who, in this crowded age, can hope to have many readers for fourteen hundred continuous pages from his pen. But _wer Vieles bringt wird Manchem etwas bringen_; and, by judiciously skipping according to their several needs, I am sure that many sorts of readers, even those who are just beginning the study of the subject, will find my book of use.

Volkmann von Volkmar's Lehrbuch der Psychologie (1875) is so complete, up to its date, that there is no need of an inferior duplicate. And for more recent references, Sully's Outlines, Dewey's Psychology, and Baldwin's Handbook of Psychology may be advantageously used. Finally, where one owes to so many, it seems absurd to single out particular creditors; yet I cannot resist the temptation at the end of my first literary venture to record my gratitude for the inspiration I have got from the writings of J. S. Mill, Lotze, Renouvier, Hodgson, and Wundt, and from the intellectual companionship (to name only five names) of Chauncey Wright and Charles Peirce in old times, and more recently of Stanley Hall, James Putnam, and Josiah Royce. HARVARD UNIVERSITY, August 1890. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY, Mental Manifestations depend on Cerebral Conditions, 1. Pursuit of ends and choice are the marks of Mind's presence. CHAPTER II. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN Reflex, semi-reflex, and voluntary acts. The Frog's nerve-centres. General notion of the hemispheres. Their Education--the Meynert scheme. The phrenological contrasted with the physiological conception. The localization of function in the hemispheres. The motor zone. Motor Aphasia. The sight-centre. Mental blindness. The hearing-centre. Sensory Aphasia. Centres for smell and taste. The touch-centre. Man's Consciousness limited to the hemispheres. The restitution of function.

I cannot help thinking that Mr. Spencer's data, under a great show of precision, conceal vagueness and improbability, and even self-contradiction. [142] 'Mental Physiology' (1874) pp. 339-345. [143] [See, later, Masius in Van Benedens' and Van Bambeke's 'Archives de Biologie,' vol. i (Liège, 1880).--W. J.] [144] G. H. Schneider: 'Der menschliche Wille' (1882), pp. 417-419 (freely translated). For the drain-simile, see also Spencer's 'Psychology,' part v, chap. viii. [145] Physiology of Mind, p. 155. [146] Carpenter's 'Mental Physiology' (1874), pp. 217, 218. [147] Von Hartmann devotes a chapter of his 'Philosophy of the Unconscious' (English translation, vol. i, p. 72) to proving that they must be both _ideas_ and _unconscious_. [148] 'Mental Physiology,' p. 20. [149] 'Der menschliche Wille,' pp. 447, 448. [150] 'Der menschliche Wille,' p. 439. The last sentence is rather freely translated--the sense is unaltered. [151] Huxley's 'Elementary Lessons in Physiology,' lesson xii. [152] See the admirable passage about success at the outset, in his Handbuch der Moral (1878), pp. 38-43. [153] J. Bahnsen: 'Beiträge zu Charakterologie' (1867), vol i, p. 209. [154] See for remarks on this subject a readable article by Miss V. Scudder on 'Musical Devotees and Morals,' in the Andover Review for January. 1887. CHAPTER V. THE AUTOMATON-THEORY.

And it seems to me that the theories both of a spiritual agent and of associated 'ideas' are, as they figure in the psychology-books, just such metaphysics as this. Even if their results be true, it would be as well to keep them, _as thus presented_, out of psychology as it is to keep the results of idealism out of physics. I have therefore treated our passing thoughts as integers, and regarded the mere laws of their coexistence with brain-states as the ultimate laws for our science. The reader will in vain seek for any closed system in the book. It is mainly a mass of descriptive details, running out into queries which only a metaphysics alive to the weight of her task can hope successfully to deal with. That will perhaps be centuries hence; and meanwhile the best mark of health that a science can show is this unfinished-seeming front. The completion of the book has been so slow that several chapters have been published successively in Mind, the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the Popular Science Monthly, and Scribner's Magazine. Acknowledgment is made in the proper places. The bibliography, I regret to say, is quite unsystematic. I have habitually given my authority for special experimental facts; but beyond that I have aimed mainly to cite books that would probably be actually used by the ordinary American college-student in his collateral reading. The bibliography in W.

Mill's Analysis; Lipps, Grundtatsachen, 97. [493] See, for farther details, Hamilton's Reid, Appendices D** and D***; and L. Ferri, La Psychologie de l'Association (Paris, 1883). Also Robertson, art. Association in Encyclop. Britannica. [494] Treatise of Human nature, part i,. § iv. [495] Observations on Man (London, 1749). [496] Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (1829). [497] Hartley's Theory, 2d ed. (1790) p. xxvii. [498] [Current, that is, in France.--W. J.] [499] La Psychologie Angloise, p. 242. [500] Priestley, _op. cit._ p. xxx. [501] Review of Bains's Psychology, by J.S. Mill, in Edinb. Review, Oct. 1, 1859, p. 293. [502] Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, J.S. Mill's edition, vol. i, p. 111. [503] On the Associability of Relations between Feelings, in Principles of Psychology, vol. i, p. 259. It is impossible to regard the "cohering of each feeling with previously-experienced feelings of the same class, order, genus, species, and, so far as may be, the same variety," which Spencer calls (p. 257) 'the sole process of association of feelings,' as any equivalent for what is commonly known as Association by similarity. [504] The Senses and the Intellect, pp. 491-3. [505] See his Time and Space, chapter v, and his Theory of Practice, §§ 53 to 57. [506] Psychologie als Wissenschaft (1824), 2. [507] Prof.