The elements of psychology

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

THE

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Introduction i

I. Object of Psychology. Definition and Classification OF Psychological Facts .... 23 II. Physical Activity: Movements, Instincts, Habits, 41-

Introduction

REASONS FOR TEACHING PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE METHOD BY WHICH IT SHOULD BE TAUGHT

1. Object of this Introduction. — Before entering upon the subject proper two preliminary questions ought to be settled : —

1. Why has the study of Psychology, hitherto reserved by way of privilege to collegiate instruction of the classical type, been recently introduced into our primary instruction, and into the programme of our normal schools, just as, still more recently, it has been included to a certain extent in the course of study for special schools ?

2. How shall Psychology be taught, and what are the best methods to be employed for acclimating this philosophical science on this new territory, in order that it may produce all its results in minds apparently ill prepared for this class of studies ?

2. General Utility of Psychology. — Though the progress of thought has transformed human knowledge and has created new sciences of marvellous scope, we are still justified in repeating, after the lapse of two thousand years, what Socrates attempted to teach each of his disciples : the first and the most useful of the sciences is that which is summed up in this simple maxim, ''Know thyself."

In fact, the knowledge of one's self is the key to all the moral sciences. To know one's self is at the same time to know all men ; it is to grasp the principles upon which rest all the knowledges relative to the moral nature of humanity.

History would be but an incoherent succession of facts, an enigmatic procession of characters whose parts are not understood, for one who has not learned, in the school of psychology, to disentangle the inner motives, ideas, sentiments, or passions which move humanity, — for one who cannot analyze the characters of the men who, by their preponderant action, are the principal makers of history.

So also, without a knowledge of men, one would never be more than a mediocre statesman ; for, to govern men, the first condition is to know what are the essential instincts, the natural aspirations of humanity. How can we assume to direct forces whose nature is unknown to us ?

3. Psychology and Morals. — But the utility of psychology is made manifest still more strikingly in its relations to ethics and pedagogy.

TJicorctically^ ethics is based on psychology. Liberty, which conditions the existence of morals, and conscience, which is its governing law, — liberty and conscience are psychological facts. The principles of ethics are really intelligible only to those who have traced their origin to psychology and have tested their validity in their own consciousness. On the other hand, the theory of duty is nothing but an induction, an inference from psychological facts. It is what we are that teaches us to determine what we ought to be. It is the knowledge of his own nature that reveals to man his destiny. For the most part, duties are but( natural tendencies moderated and governed by thcj reason.

Practically^ ethics has no less need of psychology. How many faults we might have shunned, how many virtues we might have acquired, had we been able to reflect as psychologists on the efficacy of an effort of a courageous will, on the omnipotence of habit, on the inevitable fatality of a passion which is not controlled by reflection and repressed by the will !

4. Psychology and Pedagogy. — What shall we say of the influence exercised by a well-constructed system of psychology on pedagogy, or the science and art of education t ^

With respect to moral education, it is evident that we shall make a clumsy use of the means of discipline, that we shall be unskilful in correcting the faults and

1 On the relations between pedagogy and psychology consult Compayre's Lectures on Pedagogy^ Chapter I.

in developing the virtues of our pupils, if psychology does not enable us to analyze the feelings and the passions of the child, their origin and their progress. How shall we handle punishments and rewards with tact, if we do not take account of the emotions which they excite in the heart of the pupil, if we do not know what fear and shame, what self-love and emulation are ? How shall we be successful in promoting the development and progress of moral qualities, if we have not reflected on the relations between feelings and ideas, and on the formation of habits ?

If it is a question of intellectual education, the necessity of psychological knowledge is made still more manifest. What more efficient preparation could we devise for a future educator of the mind than a study of the mind itself, of the different faculties of which it is composed and of the laws which govern its organization and determine the relation of its parts ? And when it becomes necessary to select the best methods of teaching, to adapt them to the powers of the child, and to bring them into conformity with the progress of his intelligence, is it enough simply to have a good knowledge of what we teach, say of history or geometry ? Is it not indispensable, in order that the matter taught may be thoroughly appropriated, to know the working of the intellectual faculties, just as the farmer is not satisfied when he has selected his seed, but must also know the nature of the soil on which he sows it ?

5. Psychology and Primary Instruction. — These considerations are amply sufficient to justify the introduction of psychology into the course of study for normal schools. No doubt this is knowledge which the pupil-teacher will have no occasion to communicate directly to his future pupils. It is not proposed to introduce the study of the human mind into the primary schools, notwithstanding the opinion of certain Spanish teachers who believe they can initiate their pupils into the elements of psychology, without difficulty and even with success, at the earliest period of their school life ; ^ and also notwithstanding the declaration of our French educator, Condillac, who considered the study of psychology as the instrument best adapted to illumine the mind of the child at the beginning of his studies. No ; psychology presupposes a maturity of mind and a power of attention of which the child is incapable.

But these conditions no longer affect the pupil-teacher, who is already an adolescent, accustomed to intellectual toil ; he is surely in a condition to acquire psychological knowledge without special difficulty, and, once acquired, this knowledge will be to him of inestimable value :

I. For his Professional Education. — As a teacher, he will be required to give instruction in morals. How can he do this satisfactorily if psychological reflection

1 We allude to the programme now followed by the professors of the Free Academy of Madrid.

has not prepared him to comprehend the delicate and profound ideas which underh'e a course in ethics, and to assimilate, by a personal effort, the abstract maxims with which he attempts to indoctrinate the mind and heart of his pupils ?

On the other hand, for the other parts of his work, as in civics and especially in history, psychology will afford him general insight and illumination which will vivify and elevate his instruction.

We hear it said over and over again that the mission of teachers is to make men. How can they do this if they are ignorant of what human nature is ?

2. For /its General Editcation. — The normal school is not simply a manufactory of teachers ; it owes to its pupils, in addition to the professional education which fits them for their future vocation, the general education which develops and exalts their faculties. From this point of view, psychological studies are also of the highest importance. They alone reveal to us the dignity of human nature ; they alone assign to man his proper rank, neither too high nor too low, by giving him a clear comprehension of what he is.

6. Method of Teaching Psychology. — But, that the pupil may actually derive these advantages from the study of psychology, the thing which is important above everything else is the manner in which this science is to be taught.

Let us note in the first place that we too often forget the difference which exists between the scientific study of psychology, and elementary study in psychology. Psychology properly so called, psychology considered as a science, the object of profound philosophic research, is one thing ; while the psychology for school use, the psychology that is taught, is quite another. This distinction has long been observed in the case of sciences that are even more readily acquired, as history, for example. We are in no danger of confounding an historian, and a professor of history; a book of scholarly erudition like Henri Martin's Histoire de France^ and books for school use like the manuals which are in the hands of pupils. The authors of treatises on psychology are not always inspired by the same wisdom. Their works are monuments erected in behalf of science, rather than books for popular use and general education.

The teacher of psychology will then recollect, at the very start, that in the science which he teaches there is a choice to be made between discussions that are merely scholarly or knotty, useless facts, trifling details, and really useful questions which are of practical interest and which, at the same time, by their simplicity and clearness, are within easy comprehension of younger minds. Even these questions he will not profess to fathom or to exhaust ; he will not discuss them as a scholar who ventures to the very limits of his researches, but he will make them as light as possible to his pupils.

and will grasp only their substance, their essential parts. In a word, he will recollect that he is not a thinker who is toiling and speculating for the advancement of pure science, but a teacher who selects, who appropriates, who simplifies scientific notions for the instruction of his pupils.

7. Different Aims of a Course in Psychology. — The teaching of psychology takes different forms according to circumstances. It may follow different directions according to the end which is kept in view. If we are to teach psychology to future statesmen, lawyers, and embryo magistrates, it is evident that they must be made to study chiefly the psychology of the mature man, because in the practice of their profession they will have to do only with grown men. But as it is the purpose of the normal school to train future teachers who will have the direction of children, their attention must be called, not only to the adult faculties in their regular and systematic play, in the perfect and unchangeable forms of maturity, but particularly to the psychology of the child, to the laws which regulate the growth, development, and progressive organization of his faculties.

Doubtless psychology is one, and in the normal school, as well as in the college or the university, it always admits the same questions, studied almost in the same order. However, by reason of the nature of his instruction, the normal-school professor must needs give proference to certain subjects, as the laws of habit, for example ; but will pass rapidly over others, such as the origin of ideas. He will adapt the development of his theme to the practical utility of the subjects treated. Finally, to all the questions which he discusses, he will give that particular treatment indicated by the special destination of the pupils to whom he addresses himself.

8. Natural Psychology. — But, it will be said, however delicate the discernment of the teacher in the choice of subjects, and in the treatment of his themes, psychological notions are nevertheless obscure notions, difficult to comprehend, and unintelligible to certain minds. '' Psychology," contemporary authorities ^ are fond of saying, "is an abstract and austere science;" and common opinion is in accord with this assertion.

Are not psychologists themselves somewhat at fault if their science is encumbered with these prejudices and with this unenviable reputation ? Have they always made sufficient effort to find, in the very experience of the child, the starting-point for their theories }

A prudent teacher will be able to make his pupils comprehend, at the very beginning of his instruction, that the principles of psychological knowledge are already within their reach. '' Of all the facts of which he speaks to his pupils, there is not one in reality which is not already known to them, which does not come each moment within their experience, and the expres-

1 M. Janet, Conrs dc Morale^ Introduction.

lO INTRODUCTION

sion of which they have not found an hundred times in the authors which they have read. The teaching of philosophy, then, does not begin by throwing the pupil into an unknown world ; on the contrary, it places him on his most familiar soil ; it takes for basis a science which he has already acquired, that natural psychology, common to all, which it merely aims to transform into a truly scientific psychology through exact analyses which end in precision, in classification, and in definition." ^

Let there be a constant appeal, then, to the personal observation of the pupil, who has only to retire into himself to find there, in very fact, the phenomena whose laws his teacher is expounding. Psychological truths do not descend from the clouds of abstract thought ; they proceed, so to speak, from the very heart of man ; each one carries them within himself. There is needed, doubtless, in order to disengage them, an effort of the reflective consciousness ; but the instinctive consciousness which accompanies all the acts of the moral life is the natural starting-point for this scientific observation. " No knowledge of mental science," say American teachers, " is of any value to the teacher, which does not arise from the conscious examination and classification of the phenomena and faculties of his own mind. . . . The study of a text-book on psychology may be as purely an objective process as the examination of a

1 M. Rabier, Discourse pronounced at the distribution of yixiz&s. Journal qfficiel, August 4j 1886.

mineral." ^ In order, then, to make the text -book useful, and the instruction of the teacher fruitful, the pupil must supplement them by subjective observation, and must test them by a personal verification of the facts stated and the laws formulated.

If this is the best means of making clear a course of instruction in psychology, it is also the true way to make it useful ; for it is much more important to inspire pupils with a taste for reflection, and to give them the habit of studying themselves, than to communicate to them the results of a ready-made science ; just as in morals the purpose is much rather to awaken the moral sense and a vivid and profound consciousness of obligation, than to teach a catalogue of duties or a series of subtile distinctions as to good and evil.

9. Intuition in Psychology. — It follows from what precedes, that the intuitive method will find an easy application in the teaching of psychology. In fact, intuition assumes that children are put in the presence of things, and that they are first shown the facts, with which they are the most familiar. Now what is more really present to the mind than the mind itself ? What is nearer us and more familiar to our thoughts than the daily events of our moral life ? It is wrong to represent psychological facts as abstractions. They do not fall under the senses, it is true ; but they are immediately apprehended by the consciousness and gathered up by

1 See the report of the St. Cloud Normal School, for the year 18S6-87.

the memory. In their way, they are real, concrete things, which the pupil may constantly place under his gaze. Memory, attention, reason, will, are facts just as truly as weight, light, and electricity are. Conceived in this spirit, with a constant appeal to the consciousness of the pupil, the lesson in psychology may become a real object lesson.

10. The Socratic Method. — The teacher of psychology will not then depend on the didactic method alone. He will not be satisfied with giving, ex profcsso, precise definitions and exact descriptions. He will interrogate his pupils as much as possible ; he will ever call into play their own powers of observation ; he will demand of them illustrations which they will find in themselves ; by directing their attention he will lead them to discover what he wishes to teach them. It is precisely to questions of the psychological order that Socrates applied the method that bears his name. When history is taught, the teacher, so to speak, is the only one who talks; he has nothing, or almost nothing, to expect from the co-operation of his pupils ; he discovers to them facts of which they previously had no idea. When he teaches psychology, on the contrary, he may, if he knows how to go about it, have his pupils for active coadjutors ; he may make them discover for themselves, for example, the conditions of attention, the principal laws of memory, the advantages and disadvantages of the imao-ination. The consciousness and the memory

INTRODUCTION are for each one of us an inner museum where the different facts which constitute the object of psychological research have been successively accumulated since our infancy, since our entrance into conscious life. The task of the teachers of psychology is merely to classify these facts, to define them, and finally to introduce a scientific order into this confused and disordered collection of inner recollections.

11. Inward Observation and the Observation of other Men. — Just as inward observation is the basis of scientific researches into human nature, so it ought to remain the principal instrument for the teaching of psychology. Of all the sciences, psychology is the one which is best adapted to be taught by the same method by which it was discovered, — by a perpetual return of man upon himself. But it is also proper not to neglect the other sources whence may be drawn a more complete knowledge of human nature. The teacher of psychology, while inviting the pupil to observe himself, will also lead him to observe his comrades and men in general. If it is not really possible to penetrate directly into the consciousness of his fellows, he may at least divine their thoughts and emotions through gestures and signs, — the language, in a word, which expresses them.

12. Psychology and the other Sciences. — Psychologists generally make great efforts to prove that theirs is a distinct science, that it has its own proper object irreducible to any other. We do not deny this ; but in the teaching of psychology it would be very dangerous, under pretext of specializing this study, to isolate it from all others and to neglect to profit by the aid that is offered it by other sciences which, after having contributed towards establishing it, may contribute still more towards simplifying and vivifying the teaching of it. Of this number are language, history, and literature.

13. Psychology and Grammar. — It is so far from being true that psychology is a science so entirely distinct from others^, and of a nature to disconcert pupils by its absolute novelty, that, on the contrary, it has intimate relations with the first science which the child undertakes, namely, grammar. A good knowledge of grammar is an excellent preparation for an important part of the course in psychology. Psychology, as we know, studies the laws of thought, and grammar, the laws of language. Now language is but the expression of thought. How then can we take account of the value of words, of their relations, of the rules of syntax which determine their correct use, without at the same time acquiring some idea of the inner processes of thought ? We are studying psychology without knowing it when we make a logical analysis of the sentence, — when we distinguish the subject, the verb and predicate, which are precisely the elements of the judgment. When we state the grammatical theory of the substantive and the

INTRODUCTION adjective, we apply, without suspecting it, one of the rational principles determined by psychology, namely, the principle of substance, which is sometimes enunciated as follows : " There is no quality or mode without substance."

14. Psychology and History. — Complaint is made, and not without reason, of the barrenness of a mere psychological statement which is limited to generalities on human nature. An excellent remedy for this tedious dryness felt by young minds, is to find in historical events and in the biography of illustrious men, examples corresponding to the different faculties which are studied. It is not merely to supply the defects of individual observation, which never presents to us more than an imperfect specimen of man, that we must put history under contribution ; but chiefly that we may cause instruction to be penetrated with interest and life. Make your pupils perceive that in history, Newton represents attention ; Caesar, ambition ; Shakespeare, imagination ; Descartes, reason, and they will listen to you with redoubled curiosity. Make them comprehend what motives Charles IX. obeyed when he ordered the massacre of St. Bartholomew ; Charlotte Corday, when she killed Marat ; and you will have done much to initiate and interest your auditors in the study of the sensibilities. History, so to speak, is nothing but psychology in action. Historical events are to psychology nearly what experiments are to physics. They show l6 INTRODUCTION

US the human faculties acting under particular circumstances, with the relief and scope given them in the case of certain men by exceptional force of mind and character.

15. Psychology and Literature. — We also recommend that the teacher unite psychology and literature as closely as possible. The writings of moralists, the memoirs of literary men, and the works of dramatic poets are psychological documents of incomparable value. They unveil the human soul, some in the disorder of its passions, others in the heroism of its will. " For the study of the laws of the understanding, we must know men of letters ; while in the tragic poets we must make an intimate study of heart, passion, and will." 1 The reading of a page of Descartes to explain the process of reasoning ; of a play of Racine or of Corneille, to analyze the play of the passions ; these will come as a happy relief to didactic instruction in psychology.

16. Comparative Psychology. — Psychology furnishes man with his true titles of nobility by revealing to him the dignity of his nature ; but it should also teach him in what respect he resembles other animals. For the study of the lower faculties of human nature, — instinct, .physical activity, sense-perception, memory, — animal life offers points of comparison to which the teacher of

1 M. Janet, La PsycJiologic dc Racine^ Revue des Deux-Mondes, SeiDtember 15, 1S75.

INTRODUCTION I7

psychology will not fail to have recourse. Children and youth have a particular taste for the observation of lower animals. We should know how to take advantage of this disposition, inasmuch as comparative psychology — the study of the animal — will contribute towards promoting the study of man. *' If there were no animals," said Buffon, "the nature of man would be much more incomprehensible." If the Fables of La Fontaine are often lessons in morals, a given page of natural history may be also a lesson in psychology.

17. Psychology of the Child. — The study of a child, even more than the observation of animals, will furnish the psychologist with useful and interesting information. Anecdotes borrowed from the acts and pranks of children will come in play to embellish the somewhat monotonous ground-work of psychological theory. Moreover, the psychology of the child forms an integral part of a course in psychology, if it is true, as we have said elsewhere, that psychology is not a geometry of invariable theorems, but a history which relates the progressive evolution of the soul. However, a start has been made in this direction ; books on childhood are multiplying ; ^ and now what we have to fear in this direction is abuse and excess, rather than negligence or oversight. We have read, not without some solicitude, the dissertation of a teacher on the development of the intelligence, in

1 The reader will consult with profit the books so suggestive and so rich in facts, which Perez has devoted to the study of childhood.

which he speaks for several pages of the first sensations of the child before its birth !

18. Practical Advice. — We have attempted to define the general method of teaching psychology ; but, after all, it must be remembered that the best method will never supply the place of talent and learning on the part of the teacher. The lessons most in accord with the plans which we have sketched will still amount to nothing if the teacher does not know how to animate them by exactness and vivacity of exposition, and by the accent of personal conviction. However, each lesson in psychology must provide for definitions and descriptions, or rather analyses, which are but more exact descriptions. Psychology does not deserve the reproach of not being able to escape vagueness and uncertainty ; this is true only of rational psychology, which raises the metaphysical questions of substance and of the spirituality of the soul. But elementary psychology, which contents itself with stating facts and defining their relations, — empirical psychology, which does not pass the limits of observation, — is a science as solid and as exact as physics or chemistry, with only ^ this difference, that it cannot apply numerical formulae to the phenomena which it studies. We must endeavor, therefore, to adopt a rigor of treatment which it is not impossible to attain, while shunning, as much as possible, technical terms, and taking care, every time that we employ them, to show that they have equivalents in

INTRODUCTION common language, — that sensibility and understanding, for example, are called in every-day language, heart and intellect. The examples borrowed from history, and the literary comparisons, will come into play only to complete and illustrate the didactic part of the exposition, like illustrations in the text.

19. Written Reviews. — But besides paying due regard to precision and exactness of exposition, the teacher must assure himself by frequent interrogations that the pupil has comprehended and retained what has been taught him, and must be made to add to this, from his own resources, something coming from personal reflection.. In order to fix the oral instruction, it will also be well to employ the process of written review ; on condition that no abuse is made of it, and that the long task of reproducing each lesson is not imposed on every pupil. It is sufBcient that pupils take turns in restating the teacher's exposition. This unique recitation, in which the pupil will be able, on certain points at least, to do original work, and which will not be merely a servile and mechanical reproduction of what has been said in class, — this written review, once revised and corrected by the teacher, will become for every pupil the exact incmento of each part of the course.

20. Use of the Text-Book. — Under these conditions, it would seem that the text-book is not useless ; and it certainly is not. Of all the sciences, philosophy perhaps is the one which can be the least content with an oral exposition, even when excellently made ; it demands, in addition, the toil of meditation and of reflective reading. Hence the necessity of a book which is a commentary on the teacher's lessons, and which, having more precision and briefer developments than an oral exposition, fixes and holds under the pupil's eyes the fundamental notions of the science.

21. General Characteristics of Psychology. — When thus taught, we do not hesitate to say that psychology may be made for young people a study relatively easy and interesting. It is with this hope that we have written the modest treatise which we now offer to our readers. May they acquire by studying it the taste for psychological studies, and the sense of the moral life, which the rising generation is in danger of losing through the development of the physical sciences ! We hope at least that they will learn to esteem psychology and to comprehend its scope. The moral world, like the physical world, is subject to law ; so that while studying himself a man studies all men, just as by studying one mineral or one plant, he studies all minerals and all plants. Whatever may be said of it, psychology is a positive science which, on valid grounds, aspires to certitude. It reveals to us one part of the universal order, — the order which presides over the development of our moral nature. We are not prepared to believe that it loses its value and its interest because it has waived, after the example of the physical sciences, the insoluble problems with which the human reason will always come into collision, and which fall within the domain of metaphysics, — because it has reduced its pretensions to the classification and analysis of facts which serve as the bases for moral rules and educational methods.