Psychological principles

Front matter

4^

THE LIBRARY

Gift of li R MacMiUan

Preface

THERE are certain obvious defects in this book due to the circumstances of its composition. The author trusts that a brief account of those circumstances may therefore be at least condoned.

Just forty years ago, that is in 1878 — when I began lecturing on Psychology — the plan of the book was laid down. As the lectures proceeded, abstracts of some of them were privately printed for discussion at a Moral Sciences Club, in which some other Cambridge books also took their rise. The first two of these abstracts, written in 1880, were afterwards reproduced without revision in the American Journal of Speculative Philosophy for 1882-3, one corresponding to the present chapter ii, and the other, entitled " Objects and their Interaction," to parts of the present chapters iv-vii. - A third on Space and Time, written in 1881, was rejected by the late G. Croom Robertson the editor of J/m<^, as too difficult and revolutionary for publication as it stood. But afterwards he accepted and published what were to have been the two opening chapters of a book bearing the same title as this. Other chapters were to follow, but circumstances diverted them elsewhere. In 1884 Croom Robertson, who had engaged some years previously to write the article " Psychology" for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was prevented by failing health from proceeding further with it. Professor Sully, who was next appealed to, having declined the task, the editor of the Encyclopaedia, at that time T. Spencer Baynes, chancing to have made my acquaintance, offered it to me. I rashly sacrificed my book to the offer and so, as it has turned out, destroyed one of the dreams of my life. The article was begun late in 1884 and completed in 1885; then, in 1902, a supplementary article was prepared for the tenth edition of the Encyclopaedia ; and finally, in 1908, these vi Preface

with omissions and additions were hastily amalgamated into the new article of the present or eleventh edition. For here again circumstances were untoward. I had at first declined to undertake this, pointing out the advisability of an entirely new article, which at the time I was not disposed to attempt, and recommending a younger man well fitted to take my place. Some two years later, however, the obdurate editor with many compliments begged me to reconsider my decision, but telling me plainly that — in default of a revised article from me — he meant just to reprint the old ones as they were. Finding that his threat could be legally upheld, I yielded to his importunit^^ Thus the final article like the first one was done in a hurry.

The article of the ninth edition, published by A. and C. Black, was procurable separately. What circulation it had in this form I have never been able to ascertain ; but once it was out of print and copies fetched a fancy price. With the tenth edition, published by the Times, apparently this separate issue ceased. Since then requests for a reprint or an expansion have been many and continuous both from publishers and booksellers as well as from private people. In view of this demand I stipulated, before at last undertaking the final revision mentioned above, that I should be at liberty to use the articles as the basis for a new book. This permission was readily granted by the proprietors of the copyright; but on the understanding that the book should be about a third longer and not sold below a certain price.

Up to 1894 I had continued working systematically at psychology as far as new duties allowed. A paper in Mind, N.S. vols, ii.-iii. (1893-4), entitled "Assimilation and Association," was one of these essays : portions of this were incorporated in the article as it appeared in 191 1 as well as portions of papers hitherto unpublished. But in 1894 I became engrossed in other subjects and the idea of an entirely new book on psychology was thenceforth abandoned. Accordingly in the spring of 191 3, when arrangements for this book were made, my intention was to meet the general wish for a reissue of the Encyclopaedia article and at the same time to satisfy the demands of the proprietors by enlarging it from material already more or less in shape'. On the prescribed scale some three-quarters of the article were

' The first chapter, for example, had previously served as opening article in the British Journal of Psychology, i . ( 1 904 ) .

Preface vii

expanded within about a year, bringing the book down to the end of chapter xi. Owing to the exigencies of space, the sections of the article dealing with experience at the self-conscious and social level had been unduly compressed. Hence the remaining chapters (xii-xviii), forming almost a third of the book, are, with the exception of a few pages, entirely new; and the last two were no part of the original plan. On the other hand the concluding sections of the article — on the Relation of Body and Mind and on Comparative Psychology — which first appeared in the supplement — are now omitted : perhaps I may have an opportunity of dealing with these topics by and by.

"A belated patchwork, mostly of antiquated rags" — such, then, is the sort of censorious criticism the author may expect to hear and must endeavour to anticipate.

From the charge of putting forth ' a belated book ' I am at any rate partly absolved by the general demand that has long existed and still exists. Moreover I have done my best in the text and still more in notes to place a studious reader au coiirant with the psychological literature of the present day. But there is a psychology which arrogates to itself the title of 'new\' New it undoubtedly is, and there are signs that in its present form it will not long survive. In any case it is not psychology — save in so far as it occasionally furnishes the psychologist with material of some value. As a method in the hands of psychologists it has done some good : as a pretended science in the hands of tyros whose psychological training has not even begun, it has done infinite harm. This book, however, is not so antiquated as to ignore altogether the character and claims of this 'modern' psychology, as the reader may see.

As to the lack of originality which this charge may covertly imply — perhaps the inaccessibility of a long article in a vast work of general reference will make this charge seem more plausible than it is. For much of this article, I am proud to say, has become the common property of students to whom the original is unknown. A propos of this I may be pardoned for referring to the concluding words of a too laudatory review by the late

^ Concerning this I may perhaps here refer to my " 'Modern' Psychology: a Reflexion," Mind, N.S. ii. (1893), pp. 54 ff.

viii Preface

Alexander Bain — all the more generous as on several points the views put forward by me differed widely from his own^

Finally, as to the charge of ' patchwork ' — this, I have admitted and lament; but the patches are my own and the plan is, I hope, uniform. I have done my best to weld the old and the new together, and I confess that what distress me most are not the 'patches' but the 'holes.' In any case a book on psychological principles — that is, one aiming to be ' explanatory ' — must diff"er from one concerned chiefly in being ' descriptive.' I never contemplated more than an exposition of psychology as a whole: merely subsidiary details, however interesting, were beyond my purview^ But in writing the later chapters I have become painfully aware of more serious gaps. Unfortunately the earlier chapters were by that time printed off. Of course it would have been better at the outset to have scrapped the whole, as was my original intention, but in 191 3 my day was too far spent for that.

An author may be expected to acknowledge his obligations.

Psychology was not taught in Cambridge in my day, and what I owe to others I owe entirely to previous writers and to my pupils. Among the former, besides our English psychologists, I may mention Herbart and some of the Herbartians, Lotze, Wundt, Brentano and his Austrian connexions.

In the actual preparation of the book, I am indebted to friends, too numerous to mention, for their help on special points ; but three, who patiently waded through all the galleyslips, furnishing me with detailed and valuable comments— to say nothing of 'counsels of perfection' beyond my reach — I

1 Cf. " Mr James Ward's Psychology,''' Mind, xii. (1886), p. 477.

' Chapter ix, it must be allowed, hardly conforms to the rule. The substance of it appeared first in the supplementary or tenth edition of the Encyclopaedia. The purpose of that edition was to bring the articles of the ninth 'up to date'; and as the supplementary article "Psychology" began by stating that "psychology since 1885 had entered upon an experimental stage," the experimental work ' relating to memory and association ' was selected as ' probably the most important ' and a brief account inserted later on ' by way cf illustrating the so-called new psychology.' And after all it bears on some problems— the so-called ' regressive ' and ' mediate ' forms of association, for example, among others— that are of fundamental importance. Hence it was retained ; but if there is one chapter more than another in the book that may be ' skipped,' it is this.

Preface ix

must name : they were Mr H. Barker of the University of Edinburgh, Professor G. F. Stout of the University of St Andrews — former students of my own — and Dr G. Dawes Hicks, Professor at University College, London. I shall always feel deeply grateful to them for services that 1 can never repay.

I have also to thank Mr A. R. Waller, the Secretary of the Press Syndicate, and the officials of the Press itself for their kindly cooperation and long forbearance.

JAMES WARD.

Trinity College, Cambridge.

July^ 1 91 8.

Chapter I. The Definition of Psychology §1

§2

§3 §4 §5 §6. §7

PAGE

Aristotle's Psychology of the living organism . . i

Descartes' Psychology of the thinking mind . . . 6

The Cartesian Dualism and the Duality of Experience 12

The Cartesian Dualism and Intellectualism ... 19

Consciousness and Experience 21

The form of Experience and questions of method . 24

The standpoint of Psychology as individualistic . . 26

Chapter VI. Perception Integration: Meanings of Perception

§2.

Recognition of Impressions .

§3-

Localisation of Impressions : the factors involved . 144

§4.

Tactual Perception of Space .

§5.

Visual Perception of Space .

§6.

Intuition of Things

§7.

Perception as partly re-presentative

. . . . 167

Chapter VII. Imagination or Ideation §1

Impressions and Ideas distinguished

§2.

Genesis and Development of Ideation

. . . 178

§3-

Association and the Memory-Continuur

§4.

The Formation of an Ideational Contin

§5-

Conflict of Ideas ....

Appendix. § 6. Temporal Signs

Chapter VIII. Reminiscence, Expectation and Temporal Perception §3 §4

§5

Imagination and Memory Expectation — Past, Present and Future Time : Succession and Simultaneity Duration ......

The Continuity of Time

206 209 212 216 219

Chapter IX. Memorising, Rhythmizing and Reading

§ I. Span of Prehension and Repetition

§ 2. Rhythmizing

§ 3. ' Regressive Association '

§ 4. ' Mediate Association ' .

§ 5. Reading

Appendix. § 6. ' Age ' and ' Strength ' of Associations

222 227 230

235 238

Table of Contents xiii Chapter X. Feeling

PAGE

§ I. Introductory 243

§ 2. Inquiry into its Causes 245

§ 3. Summary and Result 261

§ 4. Does Pleasure differ qualitatively ? , . . . 266

Chapter XI. Effects of Feeling : Emotion and Action

§ I. The James-Lange Theory of Emotion .... 270

§ 2. Emotional Expression and Purposive Action . . 276

§ 3. Desire 281

Chapter XII. Intellection

§ I. Acquisition of Language ....

§ 2. Distinction between Sense and Understanding

§ 3. Thought and Language

§ 4. Thought and Ideation .....

§ 5. General Character and Growth of Intellection

§ 6. Thought as analytic

Appendix. § 7. ' Apperception ' : Intellective Systems

Chapter XIII. Forms of Synthesis §1 §2 §3 §4. §5 §6

The Bias towards Formal Logic in Psychology . Objects of Higher Order : their Analysis and Genesis Forms of Intuition .......

Formal Categories : [a) Mathematical .

Formal Categories : {b) Logical ....

Real Categories

313 316 318 320 325 334

Chapter XIV. Belief, Certainty and Faith §1 §2 §3 §4 §5 §6

Psychological Topic defined .

Direct (Objective) Causes of Belief Effect of Belief ....

Indirect (Subjective) Causes of Belief Faith and Moral Certainty The Genesis of Belief and Knowledge

347 348 353 354 358 359

Chapter XVIII. The Concrete Individual and Characterologv

§ I. Questions of Method 430

§ 3. Instinct, Talent and Genius 443

§ 4. Intelligence, Sentiment and Character .... 453 § 5. The Formation of Character as the Development of

Personality 461

Index 471

CORRIGENDA

Page 63, line %for intercept read interrupt.

„ Xvci^ \^, for X.O read izx.

Page 75 «., line i^for 36 read 26.

Page 96, n. zfi'"->fo^ Grove's read Grose's. Page iooyf;?.,y£>r generally read general.

Page 112, n. i,/or 2 read 5, pp. 327 ff.

Page 129, line 24,/or more read most.

„ line 26, for both read the.

„ n. 2, for had r^i^^ helps.

Page 153, Hne 3, r^rt*/ localised, Page 160, «. 4, line 2, for Ixvii r^a^lvii.

Page 262, n. 2, line 10 from bottom, yi?r former read latter. Page 295, n. 3, line 2,/or characterizes read characterize. Page 356, n. 1, line 5,7^r error read errors. Page 359, n. 2,/or only r^a^ entirely.

Page 410, line 18, y^r close r^^i^end.

In the figure, p. 126, a straight line should be drawn from J^ to D.

Chapter I The Definition Of Psychology

Aristotle s Psychology of the living organism.

§ I. Everybody can tell in a general way what psychology is about : in fact there is perhaps no science the subject-matter of which can be more clearly and promptly set forth in popular language and for practical purposes. For the student of history or of biography, for the physician or the educationist, it is enough to know that psychology will furnish him with a description of normal mental processes — perceiving, believing, reasoning, striving, &c. — and of their normal development, a description incomplete, no doubt, but systematic as far as it goes. The moment, however, that we attempt to pass beyond approximate definitions and determine exactly what the term ^mental process' means or implies, we find ourselves beset with serious difficulties; as the past history of psychology and also its present controversies sufficiently shew. Just for these reasons, then — because a rough and ready characterization of psychology is easy, while any adequate determination of its standpoint and scope would be a tedious and arduous undertaking — this preliminary inquiry is often deliberately ignored even by writers of high repute. And yet the problem is one of central importance, especially for those who have any interest in philosophy. Epistemology and ethics, the theory of knowledge and the theory of conduct, raise questions which depend in large measure for their solution on the conclusions we reach concerning this problem. In the history of British thought,in particular, the influence of the conception of psychology on metaphysical and ethical speculation is unusually striking. We may therefore assume that such introductory discussion is not one that cultured and thoughtful persons will care to leave altogether aside.

w. p. I

2 The Definitio7i of Psychology [cii. i, § i

We shall perhaps start best by means of a brief historical retrospect. It is by knowledge of others that the child advances to consciousness of itself: it is aware of third persons, even of itself as one of these, before it realises its unique position as first person. And when at length this unique position is first realised it is very apt to be unduly predominant, as we frequently notice in the excessive or morbid so-called self-consciousness of youth. A like order and one-sidedness is evident in the growth of psychology : it was first unduly ' objective ' and then unduly 'subjective': it is only now beginning to shew signs of maturity in a due balance of the two : the fundamental concept of the first period was Life, that of the second, Mind, that of the third is Experience. To understand this last then we must consider the other two in turn.

An intelligent person beginning to study de novo the broad facts which here concern us, unaided and unimpeded by traditional or current theories, would almost certainly not do, what according to Tristram Shandy Locke did, that is, write ' a history book of what passes in his own mind.' He would in all probability fail to distinguish sharply between the facts of mind and the facts of life which he observed on all sides : the close connexion, that is to say, of living mind and living body would conceal their duality. At any rate this was the case with primitive thought, as philology and anthropology amply prove. But it is needless to go back further than Aristotle, whose De a7iima marks the birth of Psychology as a separate science. Let us note then that Aristotle — in sharp contrast to Descartes, whom, rather than Locke, we may regard as inaugurating the second period, — began his study of mind from the side of body. He divided natural bodies into those that have, and those that have not, life. The former in all cases consisted of organs mutually adapted to a specific end : they were, as we now say, organisms, or rather potential organisms. The conception of opyavov, tool or instrument, was fundamental with Aristotle. It led him to his famous doctrine of the four causes. An axe, for example, was (i) matter, (2) having a particular form, which (3) set in motion by the woodman realised (4) his end, the felling of timber. If we regarded an axe as an organism, we should say that wood-cutting was its soul, the realisation of the meaning of a body of that kind : in a timberless desert itj'might be called

CH. I, § i] The Psychology of Aristotle 3

an axe, but it could never beoxio.. Still an axe is not an organism, for it does not possess within itself the cause of its movement and rest ; and further, the end it realises is not for itself But in a living body the soul was at once its formal, moving and final cause : the actualisation of the body's mere potentiality was its soul i'^vxv)- The soul however implied a material cause. It must be embodied, just as the body to be anything more than a body in name, a corpse in fact, must be — as the German would say — 'besouled' {e/xyjrvxov).

Body and soul were then inseparable correlatives, like the matter and form in the concrete whole we call a seal. What its function was to a particular organ — vision to the eye, for example — that the soul was to the organism as a whole : it was 'the cause and principle' of its life\ "by which is meant," says Grote, " not an independent and pre-existing something that brings the body into existence, but an immanent or indwelling influence which sustains the unity and guides the functions of the organism-." Of souls Aristotle recognised an ascending series of kinds, falling into three chief classes — plant-souls, animal-souls, and human souls, each higher kind possessing all the functions of the lower in addition to its own. Now in the case of plants and animals — and of man, so far as he shares their characteristics — these functions could be inferred from the corresponding organs. Thus the souls of plants were nutritive and generative, those of animals were, besides, sensitive, appetitive, and — usually — locomotive. Plants did not need sensation, but all animals had to have the sense of touch (and taste, which is a sort of touch) in order to avoid obstacles and secure their appropriate nutriment. The other senses, however, as directed to higher ends than mere existence, belonged only to particular classes of animals^

So far Aristotle's point of view resembles that of modern biologists. His conception of * soul ' has few of its present-day associations, while it is closely related to the physiological conception of function. Like this it implies not only the organism — as vision, e.g., implies the eye — but it implies also the environment, as actual vision implies light. Like this, again, it knows nothing of the dualism of life and mind : mental processes have

^ £>e Atiirna, ii. iv. §§ 3 ff. ^ Aristotle, p. 460.

* De Anima, ni. xii. § 8.

I TJie Definition of Psychology [ch. i, § i

an organic basis as truly as vegetative, and where they exist they are simply higher functions of the same soul that realises these. But Aristotle differs from most modern biologistsS first, in making the concept or category of final cause fundamental. " All natural bodies," he says, "are instruments of the soul : and just as it is with the bodies of animals so it is also with those of plants, all being there simply for the sake of the soul." The self-preservation and well-being of the living individual and its kind are the end of all organic processes, that is of all interaction between the organism and its environment. Aristotle differs again from most modern biologists in regarding the soul as the ■ primary source of local movement,' that is to say as the directive principle in this interaction I For these reasons it would be inexact — in spite of the resemblance — to describe Aristotle's De Anima as biological. For the present we shall do better to call it objective psychology : it contemplates psychical facts inferentially from without, rather than introspectively from within. As a result of this attitude, organic life and psychical life may appear at first to be too much identified. But from the opposite standpoint, the exclusively subjective, to which we must presently turn, perhaps we may find their complete separation to be equally extreme.

When however we reach Aristotle's treatment of the human soul as intellectual, we come upon a certain discontinuity. For Aristotle found no organ of intellect : he even speaks of intellect (i/oO?) as ' separate, impassive, and uncompounded [with material conditions]^.' But if intellect have no bodily organ, in what sense is the soul of man the actualisation of his body, and how can Aristotle compare the unity of soul and body in man to that of the wax and the figure impressed upon it, or to that of the axe and the material of which it is made .'' Before attempting to deal with this difficulty we must take account of two very different senses in which Aristotle speaks of reason or intellect. His doctrine of active intellect {yov<i 7rot?7Ti/f09), the first of these, is rather theological than psychological : it is in the main his philosophical version of the widely held belief of man's participation in the divine. This creative reason comes from without; it is impersonal and immortal ; comparable to the sunlight by

^ The rising school of Neo-vitalists is, however, an exception. " De Aninia, ii. iv. § 6. '^ De Anima, ill. v. § 2,

CH. I, § i] The Psychology of AiHstotle 5

which we see and through which alone things become visible. It is this phase of reason that ' is separate, impassive, and uncompounded.' The receptive or passive reason {yov<i TradrjTiKo^;) on the other hand is a personal endowment and varies greatly from individual to individual : this ' is perishable and can really think nothing apart from the creative reason ^' Here at any rate we should find no breach of psycJwlogical continuity if we were to follow in detail Aristotle's exposition of this individual reason. The popular summary of it is perhaps sufficiently exact : Nihil est in intellect u qnod non prins ftierit in sensn ; through sensation, phantasy, memory we advance to recollection, conception, and intellection-. The higher processes presuppose the lower, and these — sensation, imagination and memory (or retentiveness) — depend directly on the organism. And but for certain physiological errors into which he fell^ Aristotle would doubtless have found the connexion between the organism and the soul as intellectual more direct and more definite than he supposed ; though, even as it was, he made the intellectual part of soul primarily dependent on the organism. For in man, the active intellect operates only under the stimulus, as it were, of the passive, and this again receives all its material from the senses. In any case it was inevitable that in advancing to these higher functions he should approach nearer to the subjective standpoint. Even with our present knowledge we could learn little more about intellectual processes if we attempted to begin by studying the brain than if we began by studying the heart. There is still however a wide difference between Aristotle's exposition of these processes and the exposition of an introspective psychologist. It is not thinking as a process in the individual mind so much as thought as a universal product that i\ristotle mainly considers; but when — upon occasion — the individual,

^ De Anima, ill. v. § 2.

- No doubt Aristotle would concur in Leibniz's addition of nisi intellectiis ipse, meaning thereby the universal and creative reason that illumines and interprets the data of experience. But this is a metaphysical tenet which carries us altogether beyond psychological bounds. However by recognising the social environment, as we may see later (cf. cli. xii), it is possible to advance much further than Aristotle did without having recourse to such philosophical speculations.

^ Unlike Plato, Aristotle held the heart, not the brain, to be the central organ or seat of the soul. The fact that the cerebral hemispheres were insensitive to stimulation confirmed him in this view.

6 The Definition of Psychology [ch. i, § i

as distinct from the universal, aspect of thought is foremost with him, then biological or physical analogies are apt to obtrude. " The plant assimilates the material in a material manner, sense assimilates the material in an immaterial manner and thought assimilates the immaterial in an immaterial manner^" What we miss in Aristotle is a clear recognition of what we now call consciousness as the central feature of all psychical facts. Regarding these facts as he did from the outside rather than from within, from the circumference rather than from the centre, he failed to find an adequate unity for the diverse functions which he described ; he had to rest content with the biological conception of an organism, into which, however, he infused a strong teleological colouring.

Descartes' Psychology of the tJiinking mind.

§ 2. When we pass to the psychology of Descartes we are at the opposite extreme. The connexion of body and mind, the corner-stone of Aristotle's construction, was the chief stumblingblock in the way of Descartes' advance, and has remained as a perplexing problem even to our own day. The hazy materialism, into which the Aristotelian psychology had developed in mediaeval times, Descartes banished once for all by the new definitions which he gave of matter and mind. Both were substances and therefore essentially distinct : the essence of matter was extension or the occupation of space, that of mind was consciousness ; and between these there was no common term and there was no natural connexion.

Cogito, ergo sum, Descartes began : ' I think, therefore I am.' This was for him the primal certainty, the starting-point alike of his philosophy and of his psychology. "By the word thought {cogitatio)" he tells us, " I understand all that which so takes place in us that we of ourselves immediately apperceive it ; and that is why, accordingly, not only understanding, willing, imagining, but also sensing {sentire, sentir) are here the same thing as thinking {cogitare, penser). For if I say, I see or I walk, and therefrom infer that I am; and if I understand by seeing or walking the action of my eyes or my legs, which is the work of

' Baumker, Des Aristoteles Lehre u.s.w., quoted by Wallace, Aristotle's Psychology, p. Ivi.

CH. I, § 2] The Psychology of Descartes 7

the body, the conclusion is not absolutely certain.,.. Whereas if I mean only the action of my consciousness or sensation itself, that conclusion is so absolutely certain as to exclude all doubt, because it is then referred to the mind, which alone has the faculty of being conscious or sensing that I see or walk\"

Here then we are unmistakably inside the circle which Aristotle regarded mainly from without, and the central unity which we missed in his exposition is now clearly indicated. Subjective psychology deals with whatever we are immediately conscious of as something taking place within us : with the biological aspects, the physical occasions, or the epistemological interpretation of this something, it has no concern. All that it essentially implies is a conscious individual (a res cogitans) and the various actions and passions of which it is conscious — 'its diverse modes of thinking,' or 'the contents of its consciousness,' as some would say. So far from a body being necessary to the existence of a conscious mind, as Aristotle from his objective standpoint assumed — and naturally, for it was with the living body that he began — the distinctness and independence of the two are, Descartes maintained, at once evident so soon as we reflect on the nature of consciousness. We then " perceive clearly that neither