A primer of psychology

Front matter

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Chapter I Page

§ i. The Meaning of ‘ Psychology ’ .

§ 4. Thing and Process .

§ 5. Mental Process § 6. Mind and Body § 7. Psychology and Physiology § 8. The Divisions of Mind § 9. The Problem of Psychology

Additional Questions and Exercises References for Further Reading

Chapter II § 10

Observation .....

. 24

§ II.

Experiment .....

. . . . 26

§ 12.

Psychological Observation

. 27

The Psychological Experiment .

. 29

§ 14-

• 32

§ 15-

General Rules for Introspection

• 33

Questions and Exercises .

• 35

References . , .

xi xii

Chapter III Page

§ 16.

Sensations and their Classification

• 37

§ 17-

Sensations from the Eye ....

• • • 38

Sensations from the Ear ....

. 42

§ 19-

Sensations from the Skin ....

• 45

§ 20.

Sensations from the Mouth and Nose

. . . 46

§ 21.

Sensations from Internal Organs

. 47

§ 22.

Intensity of Sensations ....

• 49

§ 23.

Weber’s Law ......

. 50

Questions and Exercises ....

. 51

References ......

. 56

CHAPTER IV Affection and Feeling

§ 24. The Two Kinds of Affection ...... 57

§ 25. Feeling 59

§ 26. The Bodily Signs of Affection ...... 62

§ 27. Affection and Sensation ....... 64

§ 28. Are there More than Two Kinds of Affection? ... 68

CHAPTER V Attention § 29

The Problem of Attention ....

• 73

§ 3°-

Attention as a State of Consciousness

. 74

§ 31-

The Three Forms of Attention ....

. . 76

§ 32-

Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution

. . 78

§ 33-

Attention and Affection .....

. 81

§ 34-

The Bodily Attitude in Attention

. . 84

§ 35-

Apperception .......

. . 85

§ 36-

The Working of Attention ....

. 88

§ 37-

The Physiological Conditions of Attention

. 90

Questions and Exercises .....

. 91

References .......

• 93

Contents xiii

CHAPTER VI Perception PAGE

§ 38. The Formation of Perceptions and Ideas .... 94

§ 39. The Difference between Perception and Idea ... 95

§ 40. The Three Classes of Perceptions . . . . .98

§ 41. The Development of Perception ..... 101

§ 42. Perceptions of Quality : Taste, Resistance, Musical Note . 103

§ 43. Perceptions of Space: Place or Locality upon the Skin . 106

§44. Perceptions of Space : Position ..... 107

§45. Perceptions of Space : Bodily Posture .... 109

§46. Perceptions of Space : Movement . . . . .110

§47. Perceptions of Time : Rhythm . . ' . . .112

§48. What Perception Means . . . . . . .114

§49. Illusions of Perception . . . . . . . 1 1 5

Chapter VII

§ 50. The Development of Ideas . . . . . .122

§51. The Four Chief Memory-types . . . . . .123

§52. The Three Verbal Sub-types ...... 126

§ 53. The Minor Memory-types . . . . . .128

§ 54. The Association of Ideas . . . . . . .130

§ 55. Simultaneous Association ....... 132

§ 56. Successive Association . . . ... . .134

§ 57. The Physiological Conditions of Association . . . 136

CHAPTER VIII Emotion

§ 58. Feeling, Emotion and Mood ...... 141

§ 59. How Emotions are Formed . . . . . . 143

§ 60. The Bodily Expression of Emotion : Trunk and Limbs . 144 xiv

PAGE

§61.

The Bodily Expression of Emotion : Face

. . 146

§62.

The Classification of the Emotions .

• 15°

§ 63.

Qualitative Emotions .....

. 150

§ 64.

Temporal Emotions ......

• 153

§65.

Mixed Feelings ......

• 155

§66.

Temperament .......

Questions and Exercises .....

• 159

References .......

. . 160

Chapter IX §67

Movement and Action ......

. 161

§68.

The Conscious Condition of Primitive Action .

. 163

§69.

Impulse : The Idea of Own Movement

. 165

§ 7°-

Impulse : The Idea of Result .....

. 167

§ 71-

Ideomotor Action .......

. 170

§ 72-

Reflex Movement .......

. 171

§ 73-

Instinctive Action .......

• 173

§ 74-

The Physiology and the Psychology of Movement

• *75

§ 75-

The Classification of Impulses and Instincts

. 177

§ 76-

The Simple Reaction ......

. 179

Questions and Exercises ......

. 182

References ........

. 186

CHAPTER X Memory and Imagination

§77. The Two Kinds of Memory and Imagination . . .187

§ 78. Recognition and Memory: Passive . . . . . 18S

§ 79. The Mark of Familiarity . . . . . . .189

§ 80. The Degrees of Recognition and of Memory . . . 192

§81. Recognition and Memory : Active ..... 193

§82. The Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness . . . 195

§83. The ‘ Three Stages ’ in Remembering .... 197

§ 84. Direct Apprehension 199

XV

PAGE

§85.

What Imagination Means ......

. 201

§86.

Passive Imagination

. 203

§87.

Active Imagination .......

. 204

Questions and Exercises ......

. 207

References ........

Chapter XI . 210

§ 88.

Language ........

. 21 1

§89.

• 213

§ 90.

Judgment and Reasoning .....

• 215

§ 91-

Aggregate Ideas and Concepts ....

§ 92.

Comparison, Relation and Abstraction .

. 221

§ 93-

The Concept of Self ......

. 224

§ 94-

Self-consciousness .......

. 227

Questions and Exercises .....

. 228

References ........

CHAPTER XII Sentiment . 229

§ 95-

Sentiment .

. 230

§96.

The Forms of Sentiment .....

. 231

§ 97-

The Intellectual Sentiments .....

• 234

§98.

The Social and the Religious Sentiments

• 236

§ 99-

The Histhetic Sentiments .....

. 238

§ 100.

The Practical Utility of /Esthetics ....

Questions and Exercises ......

• 243

References ........

. 244

CHAPTER XIJI The Complex Forms of Action

§ 101.

The Development of Action beyond the Impulse .

• 245

§ 102.

Selective Action .......

. 246

Volitional Action .......

. 249

Choice and Resolve

. 251

XVI

PAGE

§ 105. The Freedom of the Will ...... 254

§ 106. Ideomotor Action and Automatic Movement . . . 256

§ 107. The Classification of Action ...... 258

§ 108. The Compound Reaction ...... 258

CHAPTER XIV Abnormal Psychology

§ 1 10. The Origin and Composition of Dreams .... 267

§ in. The Characteristics of the Dream Consciousness . . 268

§ 1 13. The Conditions of Hypnosis ...... 272

§ 1 14. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis .... 275

§ 1 15. Insanity and its Conditions ...... 278

§ 1 16. The Chief Forms of Insanity ...... 2S1

Chapter XV *

The Province and the Relations of Psychology

§ 117-

The Scope of Psychology ......

§ 1 18.

Child Psychology ........

§ 1 19-

Animal Psychology . . . . .

§ 120.

Ethnic Psychology . . . . .

§ 121.

The Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic

§ 122.

The Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy

§ 123.

Conclusion .........

3°°

Questions and Exercises .......

References .........

3°4

ArPENDix: Apparatus and Materials of Names and Subjects

A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY

00^0*

Chapter I

§ i. The Meaning of ‘Psychology.’ — The word ‘psychology ’ comes from the two Greek words psyche , ‘mind,’ and logos , ‘word.’ Psychology therefore means, by derivation, ‘words’ or ‘talk about mind.’ But it is understood among scientific men that when the word logos forms the last part of a compound English word it shall mean not simply ‘talk about’ a subject, but the science of that subject. Hence we sometimes speak of the sciences as the ‘ologies.’ Biology, for instance, which is derived from the Greek bios , ‘life,’ and logos, means the science of life ; and oology, which comes from oon , ‘egg,’ and logos, is the science of birds’ eggs. It would not be quite true to say, then, that psychology means ‘ talk about mind ’ ; it rather means ‘ science of mind ’ or ‘ mental science.’

§ 2. Science. — But what is the difference between ‘ talk about ’ a thing and the ‘ science ’ of the thing ? The sciences can all be put into words ; they are written down in books, and courses of lectures are given upon them. After all, therefore, science is talk, is there any real difference between them ?

B I

Psychology is the science of mind.

Science is complete and methodical knowledge.

2 PsycJiology : What it Is and What it Does

The science of biology.

The answer might be put in this way : all science is talk, but not all talk is science. Science is a particular kind of writing or talking. Talk may be random, scrappy, sketchy; we may talk about a thing when we do not know much about it, so that our talk deals only with one side of it or is patched out with guesswork ; or we may talk only for a little time together, so that we do not at all exhaust the subject. Science, on the other hand, is orderly and methodical talk, talk that gives a complete and exhaustive account of the subject, talk in which no details are left out which can help us to explain the things talked about. Hence to say that psychology is the science of mind is very different from saying that it is simply talk about mind. We all talk about mind : we ‘ make up our mind,’ or we ‘ have half a mind ’ to do something : but we are not all psychologists. The science of mind must give a complete account and an orderly, well-arranged account of its subject, keeping the facts steadily in view and never running off into mere speculation.

Let us look for a moment at the two sciences mentioned just now : biology and oology. Biology is one of the largest and widest, oology one of the smallest of the sciences : but in calling each of them a science we mean precisely the same thing. Biology is an orderly and methodical account of life. It has to ask and answer definite questions : how life is distributed over the earth, what animals and plants are found in what places, and why ; how life came to be so different in its forms as it now is, how species of plants and animals arose ; how it is that our own life shows certain characteristics and peculiarities which we have inherited from our parents, as they did from their parents ; etc. All

§ 2. Science these questions are approached carefully and worked upon by accurate methods ; and the answers are all brought together and compared with each other. If they disagree, the questions are tried again : until at last the answers harmonise. When this is the case, when we have a complete account of life (complete, that is, so far as the facts are known) with no contradictions between one part of it and another, we have a ‘ system ’ of knowledge about life, or a ‘ science of biology.’

So it is with oology. Every schoolboy can say something about birds’ eggs. But the science of oology deals with them in an orderly and methodical way. It tries to find out the meaning of all the different colours and markings ; it compares the shapes and sizes of eggs ; it asks whether the colour of the place where the eggs are laid has anything to do with their colour, and whether the nature of the nest or rock or soil has anything to do with their shape. The oologist knows at once, when he sees the eggs of the English robin and the American robin, that the birds must be quite different : the one is the egg of a Sylviine bird, the other that of a thrush ( Turdus ). His knowledge is arranged,

systematic ; not haphazard and scrappy. It is ‘ scientific.’

It should be said, perhaps, that science, as we have defined it, is rather the ideal of knowledge than its actual state As a matter of fact, none of the ‘sciences1 is a complete and perfectly harmonious system ; new facts are constantly being discovered, and new explanations adopted. But the ideal which is aimed at, and which is slowly being realised, is that of the complete system. We may, therefore, rightly give the name of science to any body of knowledge which has been gained by scientific methods and is approximating to the scientific ideal.

That psychology really is a science, as it professes to be, is something that we must take for granted here. We connot prove it until we have found out what psychology has to say about mind. Then, at the end of our enquiry, we shall ' be able to look back over what has been said, and see that psychology, so far as it has gone, makes up an orderly and

The science of oology.

The science of psychology.

What is mind?

The popular notion of mind.

systematic body of knowledge. We shall not, indeed, find that it is a finished science : there are yet many problems for the psychologist to solve. But we shall see that it is a science, in the sense in which biology and oology are sciences.

§ 3. Mind. — The subject that psychology treats of is mind. Plainly, then, it is the psychologist who can best answer the question what mind is. We, who are now beginning to study psychology, cannot be expected to know what mind is ; we shall not know it till later on, when we have worked over the field of the science. Still, it would be unwise to begin to read without having any idea of what we are going to read about. It will be worth while, therefore, to try to find out in a general way what mind is, even if we cannot at present give a complete answer to the question. And we can find out most easily, perhaps, if we ask, first, what people say who are not psychologists, and then compare their answer with what the psychologist himself says.

If we ask someone who is not a psychologist, — someone, that is, who has not made a scientific study of mind, — what mind is, he will probably say this : “ Mind is something inside of you which thinks and imagines and remembers. A stone does not know whether it is in one place or another ; that is because it has no mind. A young oak sapling does not feel sorry when we cut down the parent oak : but we feel sorry when our parents die, because our minds can understand what death means. I have never been to Africa ; but I can imagine what an African forest looks like, because my mind has imagination. Just as your body eats and drinks and

§ 3- Mind walks and sleeps, so your mind thinks and feels and imagines and remembers. All these things that go on inside of you are done by your mind ; they are the way in which your mind works.” And then, if we press him further, and ask again what the mind really is that works in these ways, he will say : “We do not know much about that. We can only say that mind is not made up of matter, as the body is ; it is immaterial. It lives inside the body, but does not take up any space: just as a room is full of air, but you can walk through it without knowing that it is not empty. Very possibly it has the same shape as the body, like a sort of ghost. But we do not know much about it; we only know its workings.”

Now there is a part of this answer that the psychologist will be quite ready to accept ; but there is a part of it which he will say is wrong. That is not surprising ; we should not expect a man who had not made a scientific study of a subject to be able to give a description of it that would satisfy others who had done so. Let us see, then, what is right in. the answer and what is wrong.

It is true that thoughts and memories and imagi- Really, mind nations and feelings are parts of mind. It is true, thoughl^and too, in a sense, that they ‘go on inside of’ us. But feelin£s; the psychologist does not think it true that they are ‘done by’ the mind or are the ‘workings’ of the mind, — that the mind is something separate from them. He believes that they are the mind ; that the mind is just the sum of them all: so that when he says ‘ mind ’ he is simply using a sort of short-hand phrase for ‘all my thoughts and feelings.’

as the chair is, not has, seat and back, etc.

Things and processes.

It is a little difficult at first to understand this use of the word ‘mind’; but it is important that the use should be understood. To make it clearer we will take an illustration. Suppose we were asked to describe a chair. We might say : “ A chair is a piece of furniture that has a seat, and four legs, and bars, and a back, and sometimes arms and rockers.” That seems true enough. But if we look at the description closely we find a difficulty. Does the chair ‘ have ’ these parts? Is there any chair there if you take the legs and back and seat and arms away? It is more nearly true to say that the chair is all these things than that it has them. When we speak of the ‘legs of a chair,’ we do not mean that the chair is complete without its legs ; we ought really to say ‘ the legs of the rest of a chair ’ or ‘ the legs of back and seat and arms.’ Now it is precisely the same with mind. We must not say that the mind ‘has’ thoughts and feelings ; but that the mind is thoughts and feelings. Take away the thoughts and feelings and you take away the mind.

“ But we are constantly losing thoughts ; we forget things. Yet the mind remains.” So may the chair-seat lose straws or bits of cloth or parts of its hair-padding ; yet the chair remains. And the mind is renewed as the chair is ; we learn new things, to make up for what we have forgotten. Take away a great group of thoughts, and the mind is an ‘ insane ’ mind, a fragment that is of little use, — like the chair without its legs. Take away thoughts and feelings altogether, and you take away the whole mind.

§ 4. Thing and Process. — Mind, then, is the sum of thoughts, feelings, etc. They are the material, the stuff, so to speak, of which mind is made; and they are accordingly the matters with which psychology deals.

The objects of which science treats are of two different kinds. They may be things , or they may be processes. If we were arranging fossil specimens or

§ 4- Thing and Process shells or minerals, or if we were experimenting in the physical laboratory with the wedge and the inclined plane and falling bodies, we should be handling things. Things are, for all practical purposes, lasting and unchanging ; they are there, on the table before us, and they do not alter as we look at them.

On the other hand, if we were watching the course of a chemical change as it occurred in the test-tube, or observing the growth of a tadpole into a frog, we should be dealing with processes. Processes are always changing ; they are different now from what they were a moment ago and from what they will be a moment later ; they go on there, in the test-tube or the aquarium before us. — Psychology is a science that treats exclusively of matters of the second sort, i.e.y of processes. In psychology we observe events, occurrences, happenings, goings on, processes : never things. There is no part of mind, no thought or feeling or memory or imagination, that we can catch at rest and watch unchanged ; thought and feeling are changing, moving, shifting from instant to instant.

Mind, then, as the sum of thoughts and feelings and Mind is a the rest, is a sum of processes. The objects of the processes.

‘ science of mind ’ are the processes of mind ; the objects of ‘ mental science ’ are mental processes.

To be able to convince oneself of the fact that the objects of psychology are always processes, one must have had some amount of training and practice in psychological observation.

But a rough experiment here will be of some assistance.

(i) As you sit reading, shut your eyes and try to think The idea of steadily of the chair in which you sit. You will probably a chairhave, at first, a memory of the printed word ‘chair’ which . . . .

LrvsM. ‘ Caw

The perception of a table.

you have just read. This you will see in the ‘ mind’s eye.’ Perhaps, too, you will hear the word * chair ’ spoken in the mind’s ear. Then will come a somewhat vague and shadowy picture of the chair, as it looks when your eyes are open, only that it will very likely seem to be inside your head, — as if you turned your eyes inward to see it. All this occurs with great rapidity, the changes coming in less time than it takes to write them down. Now try to hold the idea steadily. Your mind will suddenly ‘ become a blank ’ ; then the idea will crop up again, not just as it was at first, but with some part of the picture more prominent than the rest, or with some new picture of another chair blended in with it ; then comes the blank again ; and so on. Now look at the blank for a moment : you will find that it was not really nothing , no mind at all, but that it was made up of the black field before your eyes, of the pressure from your chair as you sat, of the sensations set up by the movements of the chest and abdomen in breathing, etc. . And the various processes in the blank shift and change as inevitably as the processes in the idea of the chair. Here, then, is a flow, a passage, a going on : not anything like a ‘ thing.’

(2) Close the book and look steadily at the table in front of you, and try to think continuously of that. You will find that steadiness now is even more impossible than it was when the eyes were shut. There is a tendency to let the eyes wander, to let them follow the grain and pattern of the wood, or to travel over the various objects lying on the table. If you withstand this temptation, your mind becomes a blank very soon indeed : the table gets to be quite meaningless to you. Presently the blank ends : you remember that you ‘ ought ’ to have thought of the table, and resolve to do so ; the eyes try to wander again ; and so the whole history is repeated. Now look at the blank : it is filled up with pressures from your chair, sensations from breathing, sensations of strain about the eyes, etc. Here too, therefore, there is a flow of processes ; the picture of the table, the feeling of ' ought,’ the resolve, the pressure, the strain, all these are

§ 5- Mental Process mental processes ; they are, or they make up, your mind during the experiment. Mind ‘ goes on ’ from moment to moment ; it is never still.

§ 5. Mental Process. — We must now ask how it is that a mental process differs from the other processes that we have mentioned. If the mental process were in all respects the same as the chemical and the biological process, we should not be able to put the three into three different sciences: chemical decomposition, and the growth of the frog, and the course of an idea would all have to be treated by some one science. What, then, does the word ‘ mental ’ mean ?

We said just now that mental processes go on ‘inside of us.’ The process in the test-tube and the process in the aquarium are, clearly, going on outside of us. Here, then, is one difference between the mental and the other processes. Still, it does not take us very far. For there are chemical processes also going on inside of us : processes of digestion, e.g. And biological processes of growth and decay are also going on inside of us ; yet we do not speak of them as mental. The difference cannot, therefore, be merely a difference of inside and outside.

What we have to do is to distinguish somehow between the inside processes which are mental and the inside processes which are not mental. We had a similar task in § 2 : all science is talk, we found, but not all talk is science. So here : all mental processes are processes going on inside the body, but not all inside processes are mental. What is the difference between them ? The characteristics that made talk into science were those of method and

Mental

processes go on inside the body, and can be known by one person only

(which is not true of other processes) ;

completeness. What are the characteristics that make a process within the body a mental process ?

This is a question that has been answered in a great many ways. The simplest answer to it, perhaps, is this. A mental process is a process which can form part of the experience of one person only ; the processes dealt with by other sciences can form part of everybody’s experience. Not only does the mental process go on inside of you ; it is so entirely inside of you that you are the only person who can ever get at it and observe it.

Illustrations will help us again. And as we have settled the point that psychology deals always with processes, and always too with processes within the body, we will take two of these processes as our illustrations.

We said that the process of digestion, going on inside the living body, is a chemical process. Under ordinary circumstances, no one, neither yourself nor anyone else, can watch your digestive processes. But cases are known in which the wall of the stomach has been torn through, say, by a gunshot wound ; so that digestion could be followed by the eye, just as the reaction in a test-tube can be followed. Now it is plain that, in such a case, other people could trace the process as well as you could : better, indeed, for you could watch your own digestion only by means of a mirror, whereas the onlooker could watch it directly. The mental processes, on the other hand, — the pain of the wound, the feelings of hunger and of satiety, — form part of your experience only ; they can never enter into the experience of the onlooker.

The same thing holds of the process of growth. The growth of a bone or of a tumour within the body could be followed from day to day by means of x-ray photographs. But this growth would evidently lie open to your physician, or to anyone else to whom he should show the photographs,

§ 5- Mental Process

1 1 just as well as to yourself. The mental processes, the pains and pressures coming from the growth, would be yours and yours only.

We can put this answer in a different way : in a sentence which, at first sight, seems to contradict what we have just said, but which really throws light on it. We may say that every object dealt with by any science whatsoever, — whether it be thing or process, whether it be inside of the body or outside, — can be transformed into a mental process. For everything can be looked at in two ways. It can be looked at as it is in the world, where one man can see it as well as his neighbour : or it can be looked at as it is in someone’s personal experience. Looked at in the first way it is a physical thing or a chemical process or a physiological process or what not ; looked at in the second way it is always a mental process.

Q

but they embrace the whole world.

Think of sound , for instance. The physicist says that sound is a certain kind of movement of the particles of the air we breathe. The physiologist says that sound is a commotion in the cells of a certain part of the brain, — a commotion first set up by the action of the air particles on the ear, and then carried inwards to the brain along the nerve of hearing. The psychologist says that sound is a sensation, a mental process.

The three sounds seem to be very different. The air The three movements go on quite independently of us ; there is physical sound when the air moves, whether we are present to physioio’gihear it or not. And the commotion in our brain goes on cal. psychoquite independently of us : the physiologist who has made loglcal‘ models of the ear and performed experiments on animals tells us what happens, and we believe him ; but we do not know more than anyone else about the processes in our ear and brain. But the hearing, the sensation of rap or thud or tone, is a particular experience : everyone hears for himself, and no one can have any sensation but his own. This last sound, therefore, is a mental process.