Class __ Book- - f (3 Copightl^i" COFimiGHT DEPOSIT. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/prinierofpsycholoOOtitc J. -^y T ^ => 8 7 A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY BY EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1898 .3 All rights reserved WO ■• :d /f^i-' ^"^ 2606 Copyright, 1898, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PREFACE This volume is intended as a first book in psychol- ogy. My endeavour in writing it has been to satisfy the two main requirements of a scientific primer : to outline, with as little of technical detail as is com- patible with accuracy of statement, the methods and results of modern psychology, and to stimulate the reader, by means of questions and exercises upon the subject-matter of the separate chapters and of refer- ences to more advanced treatises, to further study in the same field. The Primer stands in the closest relation to my previously published OtUline of Psychology. It has, indeed, been written in response to requests, urged from many quarters by correspondents who approved the teaching of the earlier work, that I should pre- pare for use in high schools and normal schools a text-book conceived from the same general stand- point. Nevertheless, the two are distinct books. The exposition of the Primer is simpler, and its range wider. I have here followed current usage in treating of Perception and Idea as different processes, and in restricting the application of the phrase ' asso- ciation of ideas ' ; while I have added chapters on Abnormal Psychology and on the Province and the Relations of Psychology. I have throughout laid greater emphasis upon the fact of mental evolution ; vi Preface and have availed myself of the progress of the sci- ence to improve certain of the Sections that deal with Sensation and Perception. I have, further, made free use of literary illustrations. On points of systematic psychology — in method and order of pre- sentment, in advocacy of the experimental control of introspection, in ascription of the highest value to analysis — the Primer and the Outline are, naturally, in entire agreement. The writing of an Elementary Psychology is, in the present state of our knowledge, no easy matter. One must needs be systematic ; a volume of detached * lessons in psychology ' would be of little value : yet it is difficult to be systematic and to be simple at one and the same time. Again, one may introduce one's readers to psychology either by the way of a general account of scientific method or by the way of brain anatomy and brain physiology. After careful con- sideration, I have myself taken the former course ; but the alternative has much to commend it. Again, there are many authoritative names which do not appear in my list of references. It was necessary to make a choice ; but my choice may not have been the wisest that could be made. I shall be grateful for all concrete criticism on these and other matters, whether the sins rebuked be sins of omission or of commission, and shall do my best to profit by it, — as, in spite of all deficiencies, I have done my present best in writing the book. At the end of the volume will be found a list of the apparatus required for the experiments described in the various chapters. No experiment should be undertaken whose meaning the teacher does not thoroughly understand ; none should be performed in Preface vii class until he has thoroughly tested and familiarised himself with the instruments. So far as time allows, pupils should be encouraged to put their own appa- ratus together : to cut their own colour-discs, calculate their own pendulum-units, etc. They should also be instructed that the object of a psychological experi- ment is not to ^get things right,' to arrive at some prescribed result ; but to get things as they are, to arrive at the truth. All idea of competition should be eliminated from the work. It will probably be found that Chapters VI., IX., and XIII. are some- what more difficult than the rest ; more time should therefore be allotted to their study. Sections "jQ and io8 should be omitted if reaction-experiments cannot be carried out, and carried out in some detail. Sec- tions 121 and 122, and the greater part of § 123, should be omitted from a high-school course. For the benefit of teachers who may desire to extend the brief account of the brain and nervous system given in § 6, I have included brain models in the list of apparatus. It would be well to consult the Index (under Physiology) before determining the form which this extension shall assume. Throughout the book I have referred, where reference seemed useful, to Pro- fessor Huxley's Elementary Lessons in PJiysiology (reprint of 1897 : The Macmillan Co.) and to Pro- fessor Nichols' The Ontlines of Physics {i?>()y \ The Macmillan Co.). These works are cited as H. and A^. respectively. A few citations of F. refer the reader to Professor Foster's Text-book of Physiology (single vol. ed., 1897 : The Macmillan Co.). An- swers to the ' Questions ' appended to the chapters can always be worked out, if not from the text, from the ^ References ' that follow. viii Preface Since psychology is intimately connected, both by tradition and in fact, with the disciplines comprised under the term ' philosophy,' it may be advisable to say a word here upon a subject which I have not dis- cussed in the body of the book, — - the relation of psychology to ontology and epistemology. It is often asserted, on the one hand, that modern psychology leads to a materialistic metaphysics, and, on the other, that it proceeds in flagrant disregard of modern theory of knowledge. I cannot admit that either charge is well founded. I believe that materialism — the on- tology of Kraft und Stoff and of the '' Belfast Ad- dress " — is wholly unpalatable to scientific thinkers of the present day ; and that the chief danger which besets the psychologist, in particular, is that of fall- ing not into a crass materialism but into an equally crude spiritualism. I believe, further, though I have Professor Ward's strictures well in mind, that psy- chology, like every science, has a full right to its own methodological assumptions, no matter whether they agree or disagree with the conclusions of epistemol- ogy, — provided always that the disagreement be recognised as temporary and that the assumptions be not proclaimed as facts beyond the limits of the special science. Thus the difference between § 2 of the Outline and § 5 of the Prhner is due, not to any change of standpoint, but to the conviction that the hypothesis which ^ works ' best in a given context is, so far as that context is concerned, the right hypothe- sis to employ. It is a very pleasant duty to acknowledge the assistance that I have received in the preparation of the book. I have, in the first place, to thank my wife for a revision of manuscript and proof, and for Preface ix drawing the nineteen figures (a few of which are adapted from other works) inserted in the text. Miss M. E. Schallenberger and Miss E. B. Talbot, mem- bers of my Graduate Seminary, have kindly read the book through in manuscript, and have made many valuable suggestions. Professor E. C. Sanford, of Clark University, has most generously allowed me to publish an account of his new reaction-timer before he has himself described the instrument in print. Professor L. Witmer, of the University of Pennsyl- vania, Dr. W. B. Pillsbury, of the University of Michigan, and Professor J. Seth and Mr. I. M. Bent- ley, my colleagues in the Sage School of Philosophy, have given their help upon numerous special points. To all I desire to express my sincere thanks. Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., Christmas, 1897. CONTENTS CHAPTER I Psychology: What it Is and What it Does PAGE § I. The Meaning of ' Psychology ' . . / . . . i § 2. Science .......... I § 3. Mind 4 § 4. Thing and Process ........ 6 § 5. Mental Process ........ 9 § 6. Mind and Body ........ 12 § 7. Psychology and Physiology . . . . . • ^*J § 8. The Divisions of Mind ....... 19 § 9. The Problem of Psychology ...... 22 Additional Questions and Exercises ..... 22 References for Further Reading ..... 23 CHAPTER II The Method of Psychology § 10 . Observation .... 24 §11 Experiment . . . . , . 26 §12 . Psychological Observation • 27 §13 The Psychological Experiment . 29 § 14 The Method of Psychology - 32 §15 General Rules for Introspection Questions and Exercises . References .... ' 35 . 36 XI xu Contents CHAPTER III Sensation § i6. Sensations and their Classification §17. Sensations from the Eye . §18. Sensations from the Ear . §19. Sensations from the Skin . § 20. Sensations from the Mouth and Nose §21. Sensations from Internal Organs § 22. Intensity of Sensations § 23. Weber's Law .... Questions and Exercises . References CHAPTER IV Affection and Feeling § 24. The Two Kinds of Affection § 25. Feeling § 26. The Bodily Signs of Affection . § 27. Affection and Sensation . . . . § 28. Are there More than Two Kinds of Affection? Questions and Exercises .... References ...... § 29. §30. §31. §32. §33. §34. §35. §36. §37. CHAPTER V Attention The Problem of Attention Attention as a State of Consciousness The Three Forms of Attention . Bodily Tendency and Mental Constitution Attention and Affection . The Bodily Attitude in Attention Apperception . . . . . The Working of Attention The Physiological Conditions of Attention Questions and Exercises . References ..... PAGE 38 42 45 46 47 49 50 51 56 57 59 62 64 68 71 7^ 73 74 76 78 81 84 85 ^% 90 91 93 Contents Xlll CHAPTER VI Perception §39 § 40 §41 § 42 §43 § 44 §45 §46 §47 §48 §49 The Formation of Perceptions and Ideas . The Difference between Perception and Idea The Three Classes of Perceptions The Development of Perception Perceptions of Quality : Taste, Resistance, Musical Note Perceptions of Space : Place or Locality upon the Skin Perceptions of Space : Position Perceptions of Space : Bodily Posture Perceptions of Space : Movement Perceptions of Time : Rhythm What Perception Means . Illusions of Perception Questions and Exercises . References . . . PAGE . 94 • 95 . 98 . lOI . 103 . 106 . 107 . 109 . no . 112 . 114 . 115 . 118 . 121 §50 §51 §52 §53 §54 §55 §56 §57 CHAPTER VII Idea and the Association of Ideas The Development of Ideas The Four Chief Memory-types . The Three Verbal Sub-types The Minor Memory-types The Association of Ideas .... Simultaneous Association .... Successive Association .... The Physiological Conditions of Association Questions and Exercises .... References ...... 122 123 126 128 130 132 134 136 138 140 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 Contents PAGE §6i. The Bodily Expression of Emotion : Face . . .146 §62. The Classification of the Emotions . . 150 §63. Qualitative Emotions .... . 150 §64. Temporal Emotions . . . . • 153 §65. Mixed Feelings 155 §66. Temperament . . ... Questions and Exercises • 157 159 References , • . 160 » CHAPTER IX §67 §68 § 69 § 70 §71 §72 §73 §74 §75 §76 The Simpler Forms of Action Movement and Action . . . . . The Conscious Condition of Primitive Action . Impulse : The Idea of Own Movement Impulse : The Idea of Result . Ideomotor Action ...... Reflex Movement ...... Instinctive Action . . ... The Physiology and the Psychology of Movement The Classification of Impulses and Instincts The Simple Reaction Questions and Exercises, . . . ... References 161 163 165 167 170 171 ^n 175 177 179 182 186 §77 §78 §79 §80 §81 §82 §83 §84 CHAPTER X Memory and Imagination The Two Kinds of Memory and Imagination Recognition and Memory : Passive . The Mark of Familiarity .... The Degrees of Recognition and of Memory Recognition and Memory : Active . The Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness The ' Three Stages ' in Remembering Direct Apprehension .... 187 188 189 192 193 195 197 199 Contents XV § 85. What Imagination Means § 86. Passive Imagination § 87. Active Imagination . Questions and Exercises . References . . . §88 §89 §90 §91 §92 §93 §94 §95 §96 §97 §98 §99 § 100 CHAPTER XI Thought and Self-consciousness Language Thought Judgment and Reasoning . ' Aggregate Ideas and Concepts Comparison, Relation and Abstraction The Concept of Self . . . Self-consciousness .... Questions and Exercises References CHAPTER XII Sentiment Sentiment ...... The Forms of Sentiment The Intellectual Sentiments . The Social and the Religious Sentiments The ^Esthetic Sentiments The Practical Utility of y^Lsthetics . Questions and Exercises . . . . References . . . . , CHAPTER XIII The Complex Forms of Action § loi. The Development of Action beyond the Impulse § 102. Selective Action ...... § 103. Volitional Action ...... § 104. Choice and Resolve PAGE 201 203 204 207 210 211 213 215 218 221 224 227 228 229 230 231 234 236 238 240 243 244 245 246 249 251 XVI Contents § 105. The Freedom of the Will § 106. Ideomotor Action and Automatic Movement § 107. The Classification of Action § 108. The Compound Reaction Questions and Exercises . . . ^ References . . * . CHAPTER XIV ■ Abnormal Psychology . § 109. Sleep and Dreams ....... § no. The Origin and Composition of Dreams . §111. The Characteristics of the Dream Consciousness §112. Hypnotism . . -. . . §113. The Conditions. of Hypnosis .... § 114. Some Debated Questions of Hypnosis §115. Insanity and its Conditions .... §116. The Chief Forms of Insanity .... Questions and Exercises ..... References . . . . . PAGE 256 258 262 265 266 267 268 271 272 278 281 284 285 § 117. § 118. § 119- § 120. § 121. § 122. § 123. CHAPTER XV * \ The Province and the Relations of Psychology The Scope of Psychology . . . . . . 286 Child Psychology . . " 288 Animal Psychology ........ 290 Ethnic Psychology ........ 292 The Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic . . 295 The Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy . . . 298 Conclusion . ... . . . ... 300 Questions and Exercises ....... 303 References . . . . . . . . . 304 Appendix: Apparatus and Materials Index of Names and Subjects 305 309 A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY -00>©<0<)r- CHAPTER I Psychology : What it Is and What it Does w § I. The Meaning of ^Psychology.' — The word 'psy- Psychology 11 > r ^1. A. r^ -i J /. 7 is the science chology comes irom the two Greek words psyche^ of mind *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 Science is ' talk about ' a thing and the ' science ' of the thing } and me-^ The sciences can all be put into words ; they are ^^odicai knowledge. 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 -♦ 2 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 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 ac- count 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 some- thing : 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. The science Let US look for a moment at the two sciences mentioned of biology. j^g|. j^Q^ . 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 3 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 har- monise. 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 The science 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 com- pares 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 oolo- gist knows at once, when he sees the eggs of the Enghsh robin and the American robin, that the birds must be quite different : the one is the tgg 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 mat- ter of fact, none of the ' sciences ' is a complete and perfectly har- '^ monious 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. The science is something that we must take for granted here. We con- o^psychol- not 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 4 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 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, per- haps, 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 5 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 psy- chologist 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, thoughts and too, in a sense, that they *go on inside of us. But f^eimgs; 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.' 6 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does as the chair It is a little difficult at first to understand this use of the w, not las, ^ord ^mind'; but it is important that the use should be seat and ^ ^ back, etc. 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. Things and The objects of which science treats are of two dif- processes. ferent kinds. They may be things, or they may be processes. If we were arranging fossil specimens or § 4- Tiling and Process . 7 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 t hings. Things are, for all practical purposes, last- ing and unchanging ; they a7^e 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.^ 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 ob- jects 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 ^ * have, at first, a memory of the printed word ' chair ' which 8 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 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 abdo- men 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.' The percep- (2) Close the book and look steadily at the table in front tion of a Qf yQ^^ 2,nA. 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 press- ures from your chair, sensations from breathing, sensations of strain about the eyes, etc. Here too, therefore, there is a flow of proc.esses ; the picture of the table, the feeling of 'ought,' the resolve, the pressure, the strain, all these are § 5- Mental Process 9 mental processes ; they are, or they make up, your mind durmg 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 decom- position, 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 "i We said just now that mental processes go on Mental 'inside of us.' The process in the test-tube and the onTn^Methe process in the aquarium are, clearly, going on outside ^^^y* 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 pro- cesses are*processes going on inside the body, but not all inside processes are mental. What is the difference between them 1 The characteristics that made talk into science were those of method and 10 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does and can be known by one person only 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, per- haps, 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. (which is not true of other processes) ; 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 circum- stances, 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 pro- cess 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 but they ... ^ . , , . embrace the sentence which, at first sight, seems to contradict whole world. what we have ju&t 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. 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 com- motion in the cells of a certain part of the brain, — a com- motion 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 phys- ^?^^. ^ : ical sound when the air moves, whether we are present to physioiogi- hear it or not. And the commotion in our brain goes on cai, psycho- quite independently of us : the physiologist who has made 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 1 2 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does 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. Nevertheless, we can make the physical and the physio- logical sounds into mental processes. For after all, if we are to have a science of physics, we must have an idea of the physical movements ; physics is simply a statement of the ideas of people who have worked at physical problems. Hence we can say, ^^ Sound is a certain movement of the air-particles" : that is physics. But we can also say, "This., or this is my idea of the movement of the air-particles " : and that is psychology. And similarly with the brain commotion. To make the point quite clear, go to a physical text-book (TV., 337) and read the definition of sound there given. Then ask yourself what idea this definition calls up. Your idea will perhaps be made up, in part, of mental pictures of the words of the definition {cf. above, p. 7) ; but you will also see, probably, in the mind's eye, some picture of the actual movement. Ob- serve this picture carefully, and try to describe it in words. Compare your own idea with those of two or three of your friends. You will find at once how individual it is, how entirely it is your own experience and not that of anybody else. Even if the words in which two of you describe it should, by some acci- dent, be identical, — and this may happen quite easily when you are not used to psychological observation, — each will still feel certain of the fact that the picture described is his picture and his only ; it cannot be transferred from the one to the other, or handed round for inspection. You will find, that is, that the physical sound has become an idea of physical sound, a mental process. In this way anything and everything can be made into a men- tal process. Just now we saw that a chair — which, if we look at it as a physical object, is sufiiciently solid and unchanging — be- comes a process, or rather a group of processes, when we look at it psychologically, i.e.^ look at our idea of it. It would be worth the reader's while to test some other cases : try heat, e.g,^ or light, or animal, or rock. The result will be precisely the same. The brain is § 6. Mind and Body. — Mental processes run their the organ of • 1 • » i • • • 1 1 mind. - coursc ' withm — better, m connection with — the § 6. Mind and Body 13 living body. But they are more closely connected with some parts of the body than with others. Men- tal processes appear only when there is a commotion (or, as it is technically called, an excitation^ in a cer- tain portion of the brain. Hence the brain is some- times spoken of as the 'organ of mind.' The brain (ZT., 290) is a rounded whitish mass of soft tissue lying in the cavity of the skull. It is made up of nerve fibres (delicate strings of tissue; H., 356) and of nerve ceils {H., 359). The cells are found in groups or clusters within the brain mass, and also form a layer or rind covering the whole. This layer is called the cortex (bark or rind) . It is only when certain cells of the cortex are excited that we have a mental process ; the fibres serve simply to join groups of cells together, and so to convey excitations from one part of the brain to another. Nerve fibres {H., 201, 278, 295) are found not only in The nervous the brain itself, however, but also throughout the body, ^y^^^^- Nerves run into the brain from every organ of the body : from eyes, nose, skin, heart, muscles, bones, etc. And nerves run out from the brain to the muscles. In both cases the nerve fibres act merely as telegraph wires, carry- ing messages from cells in the bodily organs to cells in the brain, and from brain-cells out again to muscle-cells. Suppose, e.g., that as you are reading a fly settles on your Physiological forehead, and you raise your hand to drive it away. On the ^^^ psycho- physiological side you have the following processes, (i) The weight and movement of the fly act as ' stimulus ' to certain skin- cells fi'om which nerves run inwards to the brain. ' Stimulus ' is the technical word for the physical object or process that can excite a sense-organ and so give rise to a mental process. (2) The stimulation of these skin-cells sends an ' excitation ' travelling along the nerves. (3) The excitation arrives at a group of cortical brain-cells, and explodes them. (4) A new excitation, due to the explosion, travels along fibres running within the cortex to another group of cells, from which nerves cesses. 14 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does How we know the relation of brain to mind. run to the muscles of hand and arm, and (5) explodes these. Their explosion (6) sends the necessary excitation to hand and arm: hand and arm move. (7) This movement serves as ^ stimulus ' to muscle-cells, from which yet other nerves run in- wards to the brain. (8) The stimulation of these muscle-cells sends an excitation travelling along this second set of in-going nerves. (9) The excitation arrives at a group of cortical cells, and explodes them ; stage (3) is repeated, but at a different part of the cortex. On the psychological side you have : at stage (3) an idea of the fly, and at stage (9) sensations which tell you of the position and movement of your hand and arm. No mental process is present at any of the other stages ; not even at stage (5). It is only when the cortical cells which receive the in- coming excitations are exploded that a mental process arises. {F.^ 1060.) The fact that the brain is the organ of mind has been estabhshed by two Hnes of evidence. In the first place, we find all through the animal kingdom that size and complexity of brain are matched by range and complexity of mental processes. And, secondly, we find that disturbance of certain parts of the brain indicates a certain form of mental dis- turbance, and conversely, that particular forms of mental disturbance indicate disturbance of particu- lar parts of the brain. We cannot go into the details of this evidence here. The following facts, however, may be noted. (i) The brain of man is, by absolute measurement, an organ of great size ; it is heavier than that of any other ani- mal, with the exception of a few of the very largest (elephant, etc.). It is also relatively, i.e., when compared with the weight of the whole body, heavier than the brain of any other animal, with the exception of a few of the most highly developed small mammals (some monkeys, etc.). And we know that the mental life of man is richer than that of any other animal. (Donaldson, Growth of Brain, 121.) § 6. Mind and Body 15 (2) The physician finds from experience that pecuHar disorders of a patient's ideas, as shown, e.g., by forgetfulness of the names of a certain class of things, indicate disorder of a special part of the cortex, — say, the pressure of a blood-clot upon a particular area of the nervous substance. Hence the mental symptoms justify his opening the skull at a certain place. He finds the clot, and removes it ; and with its removal the patient's ideas become normal again. (cy:§ii5.) But how^ do we know anything about the ^ range and How do we complexity of mental processes all through the animal other people kingdom'? How do we know, for that matter, — since ^^^^ minds? we can know only our own mental processes, — that anyone except ourselves has a mind at all 1 Before we attempt to answer this question, let us be quite sure as to what the question is. We can never know any mental processes but our own ; we cannot experience our neighbour's experiences. No one can take his friend's grief out of his friend's mind, and put it into his own. But we can know about the minds of others, because we can form ideas of their minds. ^^ I know just how he felt when he got that letter ! " we say : or ^^ I knew that he would think as I did about it." In other words : it is quite possible to know that other people have minds, al- though it is impossible to experience what they expe- rience, to make their mental processes our mental processes. How do we know, then, that other men, and the animals, have minds 1 In the first place, there can be no doubt of the The argu- '-T'l r ment from matter as regards other men. The whole of our society, common life — family life, social life, civic life, national life — is based upon the assumption that 1 6 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does we all have minds, and would be impossible if the assumption were falsified by the facts. All these forms of life, that is, are the productions of more than one mind. All of them, e.g.^ presuppose Ian- guage. And language is a mental product that requires at least two minds for its making. We should never have made words to talk to ourselves. All of them, again, presuppose laws. Now a single mind may form a habit; but it takes at least two minds to make a law. The argu- But, sccondly, there is other evidence, which leads mentfrom ^^ ^^ asscrt that all the animals, and not men actions. ' only, possess minds. This is evidence drawn from conduct or behaviour. Our conduct indicates the state of our mind, the character of our mental pro- cesses, at a given moment, just as the direction in which the weather-cock points indicates the direction of the wind. If we find, then, that certain outside circumstances set up certain mental processes in us, and that under these same circumstances we act^ in a certain way : and if we find that under similar out- side circumstances an animal acts in a similar way : then we are justified in concluding that the animal has similar mental processes. Thus there can be no doubt that a dog feels grief and anger, recognises his master, dreams in his sleep, etc. ; under fitting cir- cumstances he * shows all the signs ' of feeling and recognising and dreaming. Rudimentary It is not surprising, perhaps, that we should find signs of minds. mind in the higher animals ; animals whose nervous system is built on precisely the same pattern as our own. But we find them quite plainly, too, in the conduct of animals whose § 7- Psychology and Physiology 17 structure is very different from ours, e.g., in that of insects. More than that : we find them persisting in the conduct of the very lowest animals that there are, the one-celled animals whose movements cannot be followed except by help of the microscope. These creatures manifest their * likes' and dislikes/ just as we do. At the same time, while we grant that they have minds, we must guard against sup- posing that the mental processes whose signs we see in their actions are at all like our own. Mental processes grow more and more distinct as the nervous system grows distinct from the rest of the body ; and animals that are ' all of a piece ' — any part of whose body can act as nerve or muscle or stomach or lung — cannot have any but the most confused and vague mental processes. It has been seriously argued by some psychologists that mind appears wherever life appears ; not only in the animal kingdom, but in the vegetable as well. This is a question which we can- not stop to discuss here. At any rate the plant-mind, if there is such a thing, must be so extraordinarily rudimentary and so totally different from our own that it is hopeless to try to form any idea of it. § 7. Psychology and Physiology. — It has some- Mind is not , . , , T - - - 1 ^ function of times been said, on the ground or the tacts stated brain; in the foregoing Section, that psychology is nothing but a branch of physiology. Just as the lachrymal glands secrete tears, it is urged, or the sweat-glands in the skin secrete sweat, or the liver secretes bile, just so does the brain secrete mental processes, thoughts and feelings. As it is the function or office of the stomach to digest food, so it is the function of the brain to think and feel. This argument is not sound. It is important that the psychologist should understand physiology, and especially the physiology of the nervous system ; 1 8 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does but psychology is not a part of physiology. The reason why the psychologist is interested in the body is this : — ^ but body is In cvcry science we try to explain things. Facts the condition a. \^ 4.i_ j* n j j i • i of mind Cannot be methodically arranged and harmonised until they are explained. Now to explain a thing is simply to state the circumstances under which it appears. These circumstances are termed the con- ditions of the thing's appearance. Apply this to psychology. Certain disturbances in the body, be- ginning in a bodily organ and ending in the cortex, are the circumstances under which mental processes appear. Bodily processes, that is, are the conditions of mental processes ; and the statement of them fur- nishes us with the scientific explanation of the mental processes. We can deal with mental processes by themselves ; but to make our psychology complete we should add to our account of mind an explana- / tion of it, that is, an account of its bodily conditions. The prin- That is why the psychologist ought to know |)hysi- paraiieiism * ^^^SY* Wherever a mental process occurs, there must be a bodily process to serve as its condition. But this is not saying that the brain produces mental processes : it is merely saying that the mental runs alongside of the bodily, — that, as a matter of fact, the bodily is the condition of the mental. To say more than this is to leave science for ungrounded speculation. It is important to understand clearly what scientific ex- planation means. Hence it will be well for the reader to test the definition just given by instances taken from vari- ous sciences : to see, e.g., how the physicist explains the § 8. The Divisions of Mind 19 formation of dew, or the geologist the appearance of dif- ferent kinds of rocks. It may seem strange at first sight that an occurrence in one science (physiology) should be called upon to explain an occur- rence in another (psychology). But the process of digestion (physiological) is chemically explained ; the shape of the bones of the skeleton (anatomical) is physically explained (by the law of the lever, etc.) ; and so on. § 8. The Divisions of Mind. — When the zoologist ciassifica- sets to work to classify animals, his material, what he has before him to work with, is simply the separate individual animals found in the world. By putting together the creatures that are more or less alike, he is able to make an orderly arrangement of his material : he groups the separate animals into grades and orders and families and. genera aftd species. So it is with the psychologist. Mind is a stream of processes, going on as long as the body goes on living. The psychologist disentangles these pro- cesses, and puts together into groups those that are more or less alike. In this way he is able to classify his material ; he passes by stages from the total mind to the single processes of which mind is composed. The total mind, the mind that extends over the The three whole lifetime, falls (i) into three parts. We call j^jnd. them the child mind, the adtilt mind and the sejiile mind. Each part has well-marked peculiarities which distinguish it from the others, although we cannot say precisely in what years of life the first two give place to their successors. The change is gradual, and occurs at different times in different lives. (2) Each of these part-minds consists of a series of Conscious- consciousnesses. By conscioitS7iess we mean 'mind ness. 20 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does now '; the mind of the present moment. It is clear that, as you pass through life, you pass through a succession of ^now's': now it is time to get up, now time for breakfast, now time for work, and so on. The mind at every ' now,' whether it be in childhood or in manhood or in old age, is a con- sciousness. You have a getting-up consciousness, a breakfast consciousness, etc. Sometimes conscious- nesses pass into one another by slow degrees, and sometimes very suddenly. States of con- But a group of animals may live under favourable or un- sciousness. favourable conditions : there may be enough or too little rain for them, scarcity of food or abundance of food, etc. The conditions of consciousness may vary in the same way ; the brain may be well-nourished or ill-nourished, etc. So we have different states of consciousness, as they are called. Besides the normal, 7vaking consciousness, we have abnormal states of consciousness, the chief of which are seen in the dreaming and the hypnotic consciousnesses. Within the wak- ing consciousness we have a well-marked difference between the attefttive ^idiie, the state in which we are fully absorbed or interested in something, and the state of inattention. Remember that, just as the same animals may live under different conditions, and be fat or lean, healthy or unhealthy, so the same consciousnesses may appear in different states. That is, the mental processes may be the same in attention that they are in inattention ; it is only their state that differs, — their clearness and definiteness, and (if we may say so) their power to hold their own against other processes. So we may see an accident or dream of it. In the first case it has a great hold over us ; in the second we forget it soon after waking. The state of the accident-processes differs in the two consciousnesses. The concrete (3) Every consciousness is made up of a number process. ^^ concrete processes : ideas, feelings, wishes, resolu- § 8. The Divisions of Mind 21 tions, etc. Each of these, every idea or resolve or feeling that forms part of our conscious experience, is a specific item of that experience, — corresponding to the separate animal, horse or eagle or what not, of the zoologist. (4) Once more: just as histological observation The mental shows that the animal is not made up of a single uniform substance, but that the organism is com- posed of a number of different tissues, so does psychological observation show that no concrete mental process, no idea or feeling that we actually experience as part of a consciousness, is a simple process, but that all alike are made up of a number of really simple processes blended together. These simple processes are called mental elements. They are very numerous : there are probably some 50,000 of them : but they may all be grouped into two great classes, as sensations and affections. Reversing our order, then, we may build up mind as The up- follows. We set out with the two classes of elementary bmidmgof •^ mmd. processes, sensations (red, cold, bitter) and affections (pleasant, unpleasant). These can never be experienced separately : a consciousness is never a single elementary process, but always a group of concrete processes. While the chemist can get H and O as well as H2O, the elements as well as the compound, the psychologist can never know sensations and affections except by abstraction, by directing his attention upon one part of a concrete process and ignor- ing the rest of it. Above the elements stand the simplest forms of real mental experience, the concrete processes (ideas, feelings, etc.). These unite, again, to form consciousnesses, which appear in various states, according as their bodily conditions vary. Finally, a certain series of consciousnesses makes up 22 Psychology : What it Is and What it Does Elements. Laws of connection. Bodily con- ditions. a child or adult or senile mind ; and these three part-minds, taken together, make up the whole mind of the individual man. § 9. The Problem of Psychology. — We are now in a position to say just what the problem is that the psychologist is called upon to solve. He must (i) give an exact account of the elementary processes^ of sensation and affection. He must then (2) state the lazvs which govern the connection of the elements into concrete processes, and the connection of con- crete processes into consciousnesses. He must also declare whether these laws hold alike of the child, adult and senile mind, and of the animal mind as well as of the human, or whether there are different laws for each stage of mental development. Lastly, (3) he must give the bodily conditions under which the elementary processes appear, and those under which a change occurs in the state of consciousness. This threefold problem is a great deal too wide to be solved in a single book. All that we can do here is to sketch briefly the answers to the most important questions involved. But it is well to realise, at the beginning of one's study of mind, how large and how varied a field psychology covers. Additional Questions and Exercises (i) In thinking of the chair as directed in § 4 do you see it in your head, or do you see yourself sitting in it, or is it some- where in space, away from you? If you see it in space, where precisely does it seem to be ? Can you make it move from place to place at will ? Can you see it on your eyelids ? Can you see it as if it were in the room behind you ? (2) When you are thinking of the table, and have iht feeling of 'ought '' and the resolve to hold the table steadily, what are the processes that actually make up your consciousness? Can Questions and Exercises 23 you split up the feeling and the resolve into simpler processes? Think of various things that you ought and mean to do. and see if you can discover what the feelings and resolves are made up of. (3) What difference would it make in the list of processes, psychological and physiological, in § 6, if instead of simply wav- ing my hand to drive the fly away I actually touched my fore- head? Draw a diagram (pattern in James, Textbook^ p. 117). (4) What other products of our common life are there, besides language and law, which compel us to believe that our fellow- men have minds? T-^(5) How would a dog show anger, grief, recognition, dream- ing? How would a one-celled animal show likes and dislikes? (6) Give from memory some of the differences between your mind as a young child and your mind now. How do old people's minds differ from your own ? (7) Write out a list of the chief consciousnesses that have made up your experience to-day. How short a time do you think a consciousness could last? And how long a time ? Give an instance of a sudden change from one consciousness to another of quite a different kind. (8) What is the physiological function of the brain? If it is the function of the stomach to digest, and that of the liver to secrete bile, the brain must have a similar ofifice, as a bodily organ. That office is 7iot to secrete thought and feeling : what is it? {H., 18; F., 7.) (9) What is your earliest notion of your own mind that you can recall ? (10) State definitely what assistance a physiologist would derive from a knowledge of psychology. (11) What is meant by the ^explosion' of a nerve-cell? {H.^ 287; F., 145; H. H. Donaldson, The Growth of the Brain, 1895, p. 277.) References for Further Reading James, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 1-8, 78-120, 128-133, 151-160. Sully, The Human Mind, vol. I., chs. i., iii. ; vol. H., appendix N. Titchener, Ontli^ie of Psychology, §§ 1-6, 100. Wundt, Lecttires on Hu77ia7i and Animal Psychology, Lecture I., §§ 1,2; Lecture XXX., §§ 2, 3, 4. Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, §§ i, 2, 4, 22. - CHAPTER II The Method of Psychology § 10. Observation. — The first thing which science demands of you is that you learn to observe. Obser- vation, the seeing of things or processes as they really are, is by no means easy. " There is not one person in a hundred," says Huxley, ''who can describe the commonest occurrence with even an approach to accuracy." The diffi- There are four reasons why observation should be observing difficult, (i) In the first place, we are all naturally careless ; we like to take things easily, and dislike making a sustained effort. Observation requires great care. (2) Secondly, we are all biassed or prejudiced. Thus we may expect to see a certain thing, or want to see a certain thing. Under these circumstances, there is every chance of our seeing that thing when it is not there to see. (3) Thirdly, it is not till we have had a good deal of practice in observation that we know what to look for ; in our first attempts we are 'all at sea,' — just as likely to make much of the unimportant as to single out the important things. (4) And lastly, when the object of observation is a process, something that continually changes, we may be confused and baffled by the change. If the process goes on slowly, we may grow tired of observing, and so overlook some of its stages ; if it goes on quickly, we may not have time to notice them all. 24 § 10. Observation 25 (i) and (2) are well illustrated by the game of *hunt- the-thimble.' The thimble is least likely to be found if you put it out in full view upon a central table. This is because the seeker is too careless to note so small an addition to the familiar things already on the table, and because he is prejudiced by the idea that you must have hidden the thimble in some very ' unlikely ' place. (3) is illustrated by the difficulty that we all have of making our companion on a country walk see a bird that has just settled on a tree a little way off. When he has found it, when he knows what he should have looked for, he is surprised that he did not see it at once. (4) may be psychologically illustrated. Go into a dark- ened room, and look straight in front of you. You will see the blackness dotted and sprinkled with all manner of coloured points and flashes and patterns, which pass into one another Hke ' dissolving views.' Try to follow the changes, describing them aloud to yourself. These difficulties may all of them be overcome, and how to however, with patience and practice. The reader ^^^^^^ who has worked in a physical or chemical laboratory will remember how ' hopelessly accurate ' physical measurements and chemical analyses seemed at first, but how in time it became as natural for him to be careful as it had been to be careless. If a man ''keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day," says Professor James, '' he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out." And the sci- entific man would not know so well what his diffi- culties were, if he had not been able to surmount th^m. overcome \ 26 The Method of Psychology What an * experi- ment ' is. § 1 1. Experiment. — Wherever it is possible, science employs experiment in its observations. An experi- ment is simply an observation made under standard conditions. When an event happens in nature, it happens under all sorts of conditions, some of which are its conditions (the circumstances under w^hich it occurs), while others are of no importance for it, but are present accidentally, as it were, — merely because nature is so enormously complicated. In order to sift out the true conditions from their chance accom- paniments we perform experiments. We arrange the conditions under which the event shall occur, in such a way (i) that other investigators can repeat our observation, and (2) that they and we can vary one condition after another, and see how the event is affected by the change. Hence an experiment is both an observation that can be repeated, and an observation that can be explained. These two prop- erties of the experiment are indicated by the words * standard conditions.* In many cases an experiment enables us to reproduce and explain an event that in nature requires long ages for its accomplishment. Thus the geologist finds that certain rocks have been smoothed or hollowed, to all appearances, by the action of sand driven against their surface by the wind. Taking a piece of rock to his laboratory, and driving sand against it at high pressure by the ' sand blast,' he is able to satisfy himself that the wind and sand could produce the observed effects. So the formation of shores and of river beds, which in nature is an exceedingly slow process, can be shown in a few minutes experimentally, by pouring a stream of water upon a mixture of different kinds of earth. / § 12. PsycJiological Observation 27 § 12. Psychological Observation. — Psychological Thediffi- observation has all the difficulties of scientific obser- psychoiogi- vation in s^eneral, and some added difficulties of its ^^^ observa- ^ tion own. Our mental processes are so familiar to us, we think we know ourselves so well, that we are liable to be very careless and very prejudiced in our account of our own mind. Again, even if we take the psychologist's warning to heart, and resolve to look at ourselves carefully and impartially, we are at a loss to know what to look for : what we have always taken most for granted may be altogether imaginary, and quite unlike the reality. And lastly, of all the processes that we could set out to exam- ine, mental processes are the least tangible and the most elusive. Moreover, psychological observation is observation or intro- by each man of his own experience, of mental pro- ^^^^ ^°" cesses which lie open to him but to no one else. Hence while all other scientific observation may be called inspection, the looking at things or processes, psychological observation is introspection, the looking inward into oneself. Now ^ observing ' is a mental process. When we are observing a thing or process in the outside world, we do not thereby interfere with it : the fossils are there, and the tadpole goes on growing, whether or not we have turned them into mental processes, formed ideas of them. But when we are observing a mental process the case is very different. We are now interfering with what we are watching : our consciousness a moment ago, before we began to introspect, was made up of cer- tain processes ; now we have introduced among these 28 The Method of Psychology a new process, — the mental process of observation. Surely, that is a poor method of observation which changes the very thing that we want to observe ! and their To get ovcr this difficulty, you must wait to intro- spect until the processes that you wish to examine have passed by. Let them run their course undis- turbed : then call them back by memory, and look at them. They are now dead, and cannot be changed by your observation. Only take care that you do not wait too long before recalling them If ^ post mortem examination is to be of any use, it must be made soon after death. And decay sets in among mental pro- cesses as well as in dead bodies ; we may * forget ' them entirely, or they may get overrun by all sorts of other and more recent processes, so that we can- not live them over again just as they were. The chief reason for the occurrence of the ' blanks ' in the introspection of § 4 was that you were trying to observe your ideas while they were going on. How fatal this mis- take is you will reaUse at once if you seek to introspect a feeling during its course. Try to observe your enjoyment, while you are enjoying yourself : the observation drives the enjoyment out of mind altogether. You do not drive an idea out of mind in the same way, by the wrong use of introspection ; but you alter it and interfere with it very considerably. Here, as before, the difficulties, formidable as they seem, can be overcome by hard work. Since you carry the material for introspection about with you, you can practise it at all times and in all places ; and practice makes perfect. For some little while you will be baffled ; but presently, very likely when you are least expecting it, you will come face to face with a § 13. The Psychological Experiment 29 concrete process and find yourself observing it, — and then you are on your way to be a psychologist. Many of our most interesting mental processes are very hard to catch, and, unless one seizes upon them promptly, will be gone before there is an opportunity to introspect them. One may, however, cultivate an attitude of alertness towards one's psychological experiences, may learn (as it were) to meet them half-way, — or rather to pounce upon them before they have lapsed from memory as well as from the present consciousness. We are often warned by moralists against ' giving way to a Morbid morbid introspection.' But ' morbid introspection ' is very differ- introspec- ent from the introspection of the psychologist. What the moral- ist condemns is a continual occupation with the affairs of self, to the neglect of the wider interests of family or society or nation, — an exaggerated notion of the importance of one's own acts and motives, and the consequent failure to see oneself in a right social perspective. In other words, he is looking at the practical side of life ; whereas the psychologist's interest is scientific. The psychologist introspects his own mind not because it is worth more than others, but because it is the only mind accessible to him. \ § 13. The Psychological Experiment. — Experiments inpsychoi- are more needed in psychology, perhaps, than in any ments are other science. For the facts of nature are, at any rate, open to all observers alike ; whereas the facts of mind are never open to more than one person. If then the results of introspection are to have any scientific value, — if we are to have any assurance that they hold equally for all minds, — they must evidently be obtained under standard conditions : so that every enquirer may repeat for himself the obser- vations recorded by other enquirers as true in their particular cases. needed 30 The Method of Psychology and can be performed. A psycho- logical ex- periment. The immediate conditions of mental processes are brain processes. Hence it is these that we should record and vary, if we were able to perform a direct psychological experiment. Plainly, however, we cannot get at our brain processes ; the brain is locked up in the skull, and can be affected only in- directly, by way of the external organs of the body which are connected with it by nerve fibres. Still, experiment is possible. The processes that go on in a particular part of the brain are condi- tioned (i) by the excitations coming in along the nerves that lead to it, and (2) by the state of all the rest of the brain. The excitations are dependent, in their turn, upon the stimulation of the external bodily organ from which the nerves start ; so that by varying the sthnuhis in a definite way, we can vary the brain processes in a definite way, — just as well as if we had access to them directly. On the other hand, we try to keep the rest of the brain in the same state throughout an experiment by arranging (i) that disturbing stimuli shall be shut off, and (2) that the observer's ' frame of mind ' shall remain the same. Suppose, e.g,, that we wished to find out by experiment how our idea of a printed word is formed, — whether we read it letter by letter, or take in its form as a whole, or take in the form and certain letters. The immediate conditions of the idea are cortical processes in the back of the head, where the excitations carried in by the optic nerve are received. These are out of our power. But they depend (i) upon the excitations coming in through the eye, and (2) upon the state of the rest of the cortex. (We saw in § 6 that the cell- clusters which receive, and the cell-clusters which send out § 13. The Psychological Experiment 31 excitations are connected by nerve fibres ; the same thing is true of all the different receiving clusters, those connected with the eye, ear, mouth, skin, etc.) Now we can control the excitations, because we can present to the eye any kind of word-stimulus that we care to use, altering or omitting par- ticular letters of the word, etc. ; and we can record the nature of the stimulus in every case, so that other psychologists are able to repeat our experiments. We try, further, to keep the rest of the cortex steady (i) by shutting out other stimuh. Thus we work in a darkened room, and flash the word on a screen, all else remaining dark. And (2) we do all we can to preserve an equable frame of mind ; knowing that if the thoughts are allowed to wander, new processes will be arising in various parts of the cortex, and the equilibrium of the brain will have been upset. It is clear that in most cases two persons are needed for the performance of a psychological experiment. The ' subject ' or ' observer ' introspects ; the ^ experimenter ' arranges the condi- tions. Thus the subject would introspect, in the instance given, to see what contribution the various stimuli made to the forma- tion of the idea under investigation ; the experimenter would arrange the instruments for flashing the stimuli, would do his best to keep the subject in an even frame of mind, and would record the character of the stimuli given and any indications that the observer might show (by incidental remarks, by restlessness, etc.) of steadiness or unsteadiness of thought. In this way, introspection can take place under Community standard conditions ; the psychologist can experi- ^hus^Lsured. ment. The conditions to be repeated and regulated are those of (i) stimulus and (2) frame of mind. If they are properly described, any psychologist can satisfy himself of the correctness or incorrectness of a result obtained by any other psychologist : he can make precisely the same observation under pre- cisely the same circumstances. If a number of psy- chologists, after many experiments, reach the same 32 The Method of Psychology Experimental introspection the psycho- logical method. The first psychologi- cal labora- tory. result, that result is a psychological fact of scientific value. § 14. The Method of Psychology. — It follows, from the two foregoing Sections, that the method of psy- chology is the method of experimental introspection. Only by looking inward can we gain knowledge of mental processes ; only by looking inward under stand- ard conditions can we make our knowledge scientific. Even when we are examining a mind as if it were an object in the outside world, — when we are trying to understand the mental processes of a child or a dog or an insect as shown by conduct and action, the outward signs of mental processes, — we must always fall back upon experimental introspection. For our own mind is our only means of interpreting the mind of another organism ; we cannot imagine processes in another mind that we do not find in our own. Experimental introspection is thus our one reliable method of knowing ourselves ; it is the sole gateway to psychology. / Psychology is a very old science : we have a complete treatise from the hand of Aristotle (b.c. 384-322). But the experimental method has only recently been adopted by psychologists ; the first psychological laboratory was opened by Professor Wundt at Leipsic in 1878-9. It now seems certain that there is no mental process that cannot be observed experimentally. There are many that have not yet been satisfactorily investigated ; but the reason is simply that the use of the experimental method requires training and practice, and that twenty years is too short a time for the re-making of a whole science. Let us take an instance to show that experiment is possible under very unfavourable conditions. We said in § 6 that it is § 15. General Rides for Introspection 33 only when the cortical cells which receive incoming excitations are exploded that a mental process arises. But it is plain that, when once these cells have been exploded by an excitation coming from the outside^ they can be exploded later from the inside. Thus we should never know what greeii was unless a certain stimulus had been presented to the eye and the green- cells of the cortex, if we may use that phrase, had been exploded by the excitation sent inwards along the optic nerve. But when once we have 'seen' green, w^e know what green is: we can remember green, or imagine it, even if we are looking at black or red. The green-cells are, in this case, exploded from within (by change of blood supply, etc.) ; there is no external stimulus. Here, then, the circumstances are as unfavourable for experiment as they can well be ; we seem to have no control over the exci- tation, the bodily condition of the remembered or imagined green. Nevertheless, we can experiment. For we can (i) keep dis- tracting stimuli away, and (2) introspect the memory-green or fancy-green in an even frame of mind. These are standard conditions ; they can be accurately recorded by the psychologist who introspects ; and they can be repeated by other psycholo- gists after him. § 15. General Rules for Introspection. — The rules Special and J-., ,. r. i'i 1 1 general rules for introspection are of two kinds: general and ofintrospec- special. The latter refer to the regulation of stimu- *^°"- lus, and differ in different investigations ; the former refer to the frame of mind, and must be observed in all investigations alike. Suppose, e.g.^ that you were trying to find out how small Special rules a difference you could distinguish in the smell of beeswax ; of mtrospec- that is, how much greater the surface of the stimulus must be made if the sensation of smell is to become noticeably stronger. It would be a special rule that you should work only on dry days ; for beeswax smells much stronger in wet than in fine weather. Or if you were trying to discover how well you could call up the smell of beeswax in your mind, without having the wax under your nose, it would be D 34 The Method of Psychology General rules : attention. a special rule that you should perform the experiment in a perfectly odourless room, so that the excitation set up from inside the brain should not be interfered with by foreign stimulations set up in the smell-cells of the nose. Again, if you were trying to distinguish all possible tints of blue, it would be a special rule that you should work always by the same illumination : always by dull daylight, or always by the same electric light, etc. For a blue seen in sunlight is different from the same blue seen in dull dayhght. The general rules of experimental introspection are as follows : impartiality, (i) Be impartial. Do not form a preconceived idea of what you are going to find by the experiment ; do not hope or expect to find this or that process. Take consciousness as it is. (2) Be attentive. Do not speculate as to what you are doing or why you are doing it, as to its value or uselessness, during the experiment. Take the experi- ment seriously. (3) Be comfortable. Do not begin to introspect till all the conditions are satisfactory ; do not work if you feel nervous or irritated, if the chair is too high or the table too low for you, if you have a cold or a headache. Take the experiment pleasantly. (4) Be perfectly fresh. Stop working the moment that you feel tired or jaded. Take the experiment vigorously. The reasons for these rules should be obvious. Attention to the stimulus makes it clearer, and holds it in mind longer. Moreover, if the attention wanders, other processes than that under investigation come into consciousness, and inter- fere with the experiment. The same thing happens if you are uncomfortable. Discomfort draws your attention from comfort, freshness. Quest io7ts and Exercises 35 the object of the experiment to the source of the uncomfort- able feehngs. And fatigue means that your brain is not in good working order. Summing up, then, we may say that the rule of psychological work is this. Live impartially^ attentively^ comfort ably , freshly ^ the part of your rnental life that you wish to understand. As soon as it is past ^ call it back and describe it. Questions and Exercises [The exercises will be best performed in class, or by several students who are working together, as comparative results are desirable.] (i) Numerous methods may be devised to test accuracy of observation. You may, e.g.^ draw a plan, to scale, of some room familiar to you ; putting doors, windows and furniture in their right positions. Or draw from memory the distortion that an oblong table suffers when you look at it from one corner. Or draw pictures from memory of an oak-leaf and an elm-leaf. Or have some simple geometrical construction, some arrangement of dots and lines and curves, drawn on a blackboard : look at it for 5 sec, and then try to reproduce it on paper. If two or three persons have recently witnessed an accident or a theatrical performance, or have been present at a social gather- ing, let them write out a detailed account of what they experi- enced, and compare notes. Or let a 'number of people walk a certain distance down a country road, or a street, and afterwards write out their experiences, and compare notes. (2) Four newspapers describe the same gown as {a) gold brocade, (J?) white silk, {c) light mauve, and {d) sea-green, with cream or ivory sheen on it. How could this difference of opinion have arisen? (3) Newton is said to have discovered the law of gravitation by observing the fall of an apple from the bough. Was this a simple observation, or could it be said to have anything of the experiment about it ?- (4) How does the psychological experiment resemble, and how does it differ from, the physical or chemical experiment ? (5) Try to introspect an idea while it is going on. Intro- spection is a mental process, or rather a group of mental pro- 36 The Method of Psychology cesses. Hence the consciousness which contained the idea is intruded on by other processes from the moment that you begin to introspect. What are these other processes that make up introspection? In other words: what changes do you find set up in consciousness by your attempt to introspect an idea (say, that of an elephant) while it is still passing through your mind ? (6) You may test the power of bias in this way. Make a series of coloured papers, choosing those that are as nearly as possible of the same brightness, that range from pure red to a pronounced bluish red. Cut a circle, of about 2 cm. diameter, from each sheet. Give the observer a rolled tube of black card- board to look through. Tell him that you are going to show him a series of reds, beginning with pure bright red and passing into very dark red ; and ask him to say when the first really dark red comes. Now lay the circles one by one on the table, in the order from red to bluish red, letting the observer see each in turn for some 2 sec. See how far the series can go before he says : ^' The reds are not getting darker ; theyVe getting bluer ! " Or take a long piece of wire. Let the subject close his eyes, and give him one end to hold. Tell him that you are going to put the other end in a candle flame, and ask him to say when he senses the heat. Take the other end in your hand ; walk up to the table on which the subject knows the candle stands, and strike a match, — but do not light the candle. Notice by the seconds' hand of your watch how long it is before the subject senses the imaginary heat. If the experiment fails, he is already so far an impartial observer ; but probably it will not fail. (7) What are the characteristics of a good ' subject ' ? Of a good experimenter? (8) Can you get from psychological observation and experi- ment any advantages, in the way of mental training, which you cannot get from observation and experiment in the other^ sci- ences ? References James, Textbook, pp. 160-175. Sully, Humaii Mind^ vol. I., ch. ii. Titchener, Outline^ §§ 9, 10, 33. Wundt, Lectures, Lect. I., § 3. Wundt, Outlines, § 3. CHAPTER III Sensation § 1 6. Sensations and their Classification. — A sensa- tion is an elementary mental process. It cannot be^ split up, by the most persistent introspection under the strictest conditions, into any simpler processes. It is a characteristic of sensation that it comes to Definition of consciousness by way of a special bodily organ, a ^^"^^^^°"- sense-organ. Or, in more technical language, its bodily condition is the stimulation of some particular bodily organ. We are accustomed to think that there are five of these sense-organs : eye, ear, nose mouth and skin. Scientific investigation has shown, however, that there are more than twice that num- ber. Remember that a sensation never occurs quite alone in our mind ; consciousness is always made up of more than one pro- cess. We can, however, get an approximately pure sensation by experiment. We shut off distracting stimuli, and focus our attention upon some single process in consciousness {cf. § 8). Remember, too, that the 'particular bodily organ' may mean either (i) the external organ, like eye or ear, or (2) the part of the brain cortex to which the nerves from eye or ear run {cf. §14). As every sensation is set up in some definite The different •L T1 1 11 11 1 T ^' kinds of sen- bodily organ, we shall, naturally, classify sensations sation. by grouping them under the organs through which they come. We shall thus have eye sensations, nose sensations, skin sensations, etc., to describe and dis- 37 38 Sensation cuss. There are, however, some organs that give us * more than one set of sensations : thus the ear, which we think of as giving us only sensations of hearing, really gives us a very different sensation as well, — the sensation of giddiness. And there are different organs that furnish similar sensations : thus not only the skin, but the joints also, furnish the sensation of pressure. The reason is simple. What we call the ear contains two different cell-groups, connected by nerves with different parts of the cortex; while skin and joint contain similar cell-groups, connected with the same or similar parts of the cortex. We shall, of course, take account of these facts in making out our list of sensations. § 17. Sensations from the Eye. — The eye is the most elaborate and the most important of the instru- ments by which we gain knowledge of the outside world. It is a single sense-organ, and all the sensa- tions that come through it are sensations of one kind, — sensations of sight. But the human eye has * evolved ' ; it is the final product of a long course of development, during which the organ has gradually become more and more delicate. Hence we can distinguish two strata of sight sensations ; a lower, primitive layer, which dates as far back as the exist- ence of the organ of sight itself ; and a later, more complicated layer, which has appeared more recently. The primitive sensations -are those of black, white Sensations of and grey. We can distinguish a large number of rig ness. ^^ggg brightness sensations^ as they are called. But there can be no doubt that the general difference §17. Se7isatio7is from the Eye 39 between black and white, light and dark, is sensed even by the eye-specks of the jelly-fish. The later sensations are those of colottr. Colour sensations fall into four series or lines. Sensations of The first runs from red to yellow, through reddish yellow or orange ; the second from yellow to green, through yellowish green ; the third from green to blue, through greenish blue ; the fourth from blue back again to red, through bluish red (violet and purple). All the colours but purple are contained in the rainbow, and in the artificial rainbow, the solar spectrum. In ordinary conversation we speak of black, white and grey as ' colours.' Notice that they belong to a different group of sensations from the true colours, and that they should be called ^brightnesses.' The best way to understand the eye is to think of it as The eye a a photographic camera. It has an automatic diaphragm, photographic 1--/1-11 r 1 ir camera. , the ins (the circle that we refer to when we speak of ^ brown' or ^blue' eyes), which regulates the opening of the pupil according to illumination. Behind the iris, in the pupil, is a lens which focusses automatically, — not by coming forwards or retiring inwards, but by altering its curvature. Behind the lens is a dark chamber. The back wall of this chamber is covered by a sensitive film, the nervous network or retina, upon which visual images are formed. The film is self-renewing, so that images can succeed one another upon it very rapidly. The action of hght upon it sets up processes of chemical decomposition, just as in the real photographic plate. (iZ, Lesson IX. ; iV., ch. xliii.) Even if we knew nothing of the eyes of lower animals, Sensations of we should be forced to believe that the brightness sensa- brightness . are older tions are more primitive than those of colour. Objects may than those of be black or white or grey ; they need not show the faintest colour. 40 Sensation The system of sight sen- sations. trace of colour. But we never see a ' pure ' colour ; every colour that we know is really a mixture of pure colour with brightness. If you look at a spectrum in very faint light, you do not see any colour in it at all ; you see a band of grey. Evidently, then, this grey must be present in the colours when you do see them. Again : people may be perfectly colour-blind, and still see things in the world as black and white and grey. But if people are brightness- blind, if they do not see black and white and grey, they are totally blind and do not see anything. And* again : the retina has a more comphcated structure in the central than in the surrounding parts of its surface. But it is only in the central parts that we see all the colours ; as we move out over the outlying parts we gradually lose the colour sense, until finally, at the edges of the retina, we see nothing but brightness. In order to get an idea of the enormous number of sight sensations, — brightnesses and colours (remember that ' colours ' are really mixtures of pure colour and brightness), — it is worth while to make a diagram. \ Suppose that we have a square surface (a piece of card or paper), which is tinted a neutral gx^y^ — a grey that lies exactly half-way between dead black and brilliant white. Leaving the grey in the centre, we work outwards towards the edge of the square, mixing in more and more colour as we go. At the four corners we put the four principal coXovlXs,, the end-colours of the four colour series (red, yellow, green and blue) ; ^^ along the sides come the intermediate col- ours. When the surface of the square is filled in, we have on it all the possible sen- sations which can be built up from neutral grey, — all those which are of the same brightness-value as that grey ; beginning with the grey itself, and ending with the purest colours that can be got with this grey in them. Thus, passing from green to the centre we have green, slightly grey green, greyer green, still greyer green, . . . grey ; and similarly with the other colours (Fig. i). § I/. Seiisations from the Eye 41 Now we take a second card, tinted a little darker grey, and mix in our colours as before. The corner colours will be differ- ent ; red will be getting a tinge of reddish brown, yellow a tinge of brown, green a touch of olive and blue a touch of indigo. Since we cannot distinguish so many shades between this darker grey and reddish brown, etc., as between the neutral grey and red, etc., our square will be a little smaller than the former square. We take a third square, tinted a little lighter grey, and proceed as before. Red now verges to flesh-colour ; yellow to straw- colour ; green becomes pale green ; blue tends towards sky- blue. Our square is again a little smaller than the first was. So we go on, until our central grey becomes dead black in the one direction and brilliant white in the other : the squares grow f^ smaller and smaller, till at last (at black and white) we have only points, not surfaces at all. Laying the squares together, in the right order, we have a double pyramid (Fig. 2). The line join- ing apex to apex is the black- grey-white line ; the square base is surrounded by the purest colours that we can get ; the out- side surface shows the browns, olives, pinks, pale greens, etc. ; and wherever we cut into the pyramid we have a sensation-line running from a given colour to a given grey.^ When all the sensations are counted up, they amount to more than 30,000. The explanation of sight sensations, the statement of their Hering's iDodily conditions, is a difficult matter, and the reader must ^|?^^°Y °^ take it largely on trust. The most satisfactory explanation that we have at present we owe to Professor Hering, now professor of physiology in the University of Leipsic. In its latest form it is briefly as follows : vision. 42 Se7isation (i) There are in the retma three different ^visual sub- stances,' three chemical substances that are differently af- fected by hght (/.^., by ether waves). (2) Each substance is the seat of two chemical processes, ^^t We are already familiar with the idea that sensations have quality and, besides quality, a certain amount of strength or intensity. The fact that they have extent and duration is something that we have not hitherto touched on. Take duration first. Think of any sensation that occurs to you : a red, a sweet, a pressure, a strain, a tone, a scent. Can you think, of it as lasting no time ? No ! However short it is, it must last for a moment. And this character of lasting a Httle while, of having duration, — a character which belongs to all sensations, from whatever organ they 3 lOO Perception come, — is what makes it possible for them to combine in such a way as to form time-perceptions. Extent is rather more difficult. We are accustomed to regard extent as a mark of material things, of solid bodies ; and it seems strange to say that mental processes have it. But think of a colour. Can you think of it in any other way than as a patch of colour, a spread-out colour ? How- ever small you make it in your thought, however much you reduce it to a point of colour, has it not still length and breadth ? So with pressure on the skin. Think of a press- ure which is as point-Hke as you can conceive it, the pressure of a fine needle. Still it is spread out ; you could measure the length and breadth of the needle-point under the micro- scope : and you cannot form an idea of pressure at all except as having some length and breadth, some extent. This character of extent belongs only to sensations of sight and to the sensations of pressure coming from skin and joint. But these sensations never appear in conscious- ness without it ; and through it we get our perceptions of space. — No other sensations possess it : not even sensations of taste or temperature, still less those of sound and smell. It is curious to think, but it is true, that we should not know the world to be a space-world if we had no sensations of colour or brightness or pressure. Instances of Most important of our qualitative perceptions are percepion. -j-j^Qg^ of colour (mixture of brightness and pure colour), of a ^ note ' or chord in music, of taste and smell, and of touch (mixture of skin sensations with those coming from muscle, tendon and joint). Among spatial perceptions we may mention those of place or position, of form, of size, of distance, of direction, of extent of movement ; and among temporal percep- tions, those of place or position in time, of rhythm, of frequency, and of rate of movement. Each of these perceptions has its own psychological history, its own ( \ § 41- The Developme7it of Perception loi mode of formation. We must be content here to touch very briefly upon a few of the most valuable. § 41. The Development of Perception. — Before we Pure percep- go on to deal with special perceptions, however, we must notice the fact that perception, like sensation, shows different strata or levels of development. In the early days of mental evolution, perception was wholly dominated by the object of perception, the material thing perceived. But as experience grew, and the store of ideas increased, the mind became ready to meet the material thing half-way ; a full and complete perception could be touched-off by some single aspect of the thing, and the other aspects supplied by sensations aroused within the brain. The perception now includes not only outside sen- assimilation sations, but in addition to these a large — perhaps an overwhelming — number of inside sensations. And lastly, as language developed, and men came to have more and more thoughts that they wished to com- municate to each other, the thing perceived degen- erated into a mere symbol or sign of the idea, and symbolic the group of central sensations, that its perception p^^^^p^°"- brought into consciousness : the perceived thing was actually attended froin^ and the central sensations that clustered round the outside sensations were attended to. So we have a development in three stages : first the pure perception, made up entirely of outside sensations; then the mixed perception, — or assimilation, as it is technically named, — made up partly of inside and partly of outside sensations ; and lastly the symbolic perception, in which the I02 Perception Instances of the three sorts of perception. only service done by outside sensations is that of arousing the important, inside processes. We have instances of the original form of perception in our own experience, when we are brought into contact with something altogether new and strange to us. Suppose, e,g,^ that a friend shows you a photograph, consisting of a circle, scrawled all over with random zigzag marks, mounted on a cabinet-sized card, and dated. What is it ? You do not know : you have a pure perception, — all that the thing means to you is just that which it is, a circular photograph of scrawls. — Then your friend says: ** What happened on that date? " A light flashes across you : '* The great earth- quake ! " you say. Now the thing is not a photograph of scrawls; it is the record of an earthquake, a seismogram. Your perception has become mixed ; a mass of central sen- sations has been awakened, and gives the photograph a different and a more definite meaning. All our everyday perceptions are of this mixed sort, /.' are sitting or lying or standing. Even when we are in the dark, we call up a mental picture of ourselves to tell us of our position ; and in thinking how our legs are disposed under the table, we call up a like picture of the lower part of the body. At the same time, sensations from skin and joint VISU- no Perception play a very considerable part in this perception of our andtactuaiiy. own position. If the soles of our feet were rendered insensible, we should not walk as confidently as we do with sensations constantly coming in from the skin of ball and heel. If the hips became insensible to the weight of the body, we should make grievous mistakes in estimating our position. Moreover, we have seen (§ i8) that a special sense-organ, the shake-organ in the ear, is set apart to give us warn- ing of any loss of balance or of command of ourselves in space. Suppose that you are lying full-length, your eyes shut, on a board which can be tilted uj-) and down like a seesaw. Your head is lowered, and you are to call out when you are * standing on your head.' You call out much too soon : as soon as the weight of the body begins to tell upon the back of the neck, jamming the vertebrae together, you think that you are vertical. — Now you are brought back to the horizontal; you are to call out when you are lying perfectly flat. You call too late ; not till the weight gets well off the neck, and you ^ feel your feet,' do you think that you are level. Evidently, then, the distribution of the weight of the body, the jamming of some joints and the free play of others, has something to do with our percep- tion of the posture of the body. § 46. Perceptions of Space : Movement. — Movement can be perceived in two ways : by touch (sensations from skin, muscle, tendon and joint) and by sight. (i) If we are carried through space at an even rate, without jar, we have no perception of move- ment. The earth rotates on its axis ; it revolves round the sun ; it rushes forward with the sun into space. We ' feel ' nothing of all this movement, Tactual per- ception of movement. § 46. Perceptions of Space : Movement 1 1 1 because it is quite even and uniform. So you do not know that you are rising in a balloon, until you look over the side of the car and see the trees and houses getting smaller beneath you ; you do not ' feel ' the motion. One may have the same experience, of ignorance of movement, on a sail-boat or in a well- hung and rubber-tired carriage. As soon as the movement slows or quickens, how- ever, wx perceive it. When the brake is put on the carriage, you are thrown forward ; as the speed increases, you are forced back against the cushions. This throwing backward and forward means a shift of the weight of your body, a change in the press- ures upon your skin, a stretching of certain muscles and tendons and a tightening of others, a jamming of this joint and a pulling-apart of that. The mass of sensations thus aroused gives you the percep- tion of movement. We can perceive the movement of a single limb (arm or leg) by the help of joint sensations alone. The turning of the joint in its socket tells us both that the limb is moving and how far it has gone. We might be blind, and have no sensations from skin, muscle or tendon ; and we should still know when, and how far, our limbs moved. The sensations from skin, joint, tendon and muscle that give us the perception of movement are sometimes called, for that reason, uiotor sensations. But we do not sense movement. — there is no peculiar movement organ ; we perceive it. Hence it is best not to use the phrase ' motor sensations.' (2) The earliest perception of movement by the visual per- eye consisted in seeing something ' in two places at Movement once.' Think of the fall of a shooting star down the sky. The star leaves a trail of light behind it as it 112 Perception drops ; so that you see it, so to speak, at the place it started from, and at the place where it disappears, all in the same moment. Seeing it thus, you perceive that it has moved. We do not need now to see the moving object in two places at once ; but we must remember that it was in a different place a little while ago, if we are to perceive its movement. We * see ' that the train moves across the landscape, because we remember that a second ago it was at that tree, and a second before at that other tree, and so on. If the whole landscape moved, trees and train and all, — ourselves and our standing-ground included, — we should not perceive the movement. We said just now that the solar system is rushing on into space. We do not ' feel ' the movement, because it is even and uniform ; we do not see it, because everything is mov- ing : there is no ' tree ' from which the movement starts, no fixed point which we can remember having passed so many seconds or minutes or hours ago. Just as we perceive the movement of the body by touch only when the rate of move- ment changes, so we see movement only when an object changes its position among other, fixed objects. § 47. Perceptions of Time : Rhythm. — All sejasa- tions have the attribute of duration, of lasting a little while ; so that any class of sensations can give rise . to perceptions of time. For the particular time-per- ception that we have chosen for discussion here, however, — for the perception of rhythmy — two sen- sation-groups are of especial importance : the tactual group, made up of sensations from skin, muscle, tendon and joint; and the tactual-auditory group. § 47- Perceptions of Time: Rliythn 113 made up of these sensations and of sensations of hearing. (i) The four limbs are, so to speak, four pendu- Tactual lums, attached to the trunk of the body. As we run ^ ^ "^' or walk, the legs swing alternately, and with each leg swings the arm of the opposite side. Here we have the basis of the idea of rhythm ; a strong sensa- tion-mass from the leg whose foot rests upon the ground, the leg that carries the weight of the body, followed at equal intervals by a weak sensation-mass from the leg that swings through the air before its foot is set down. As the leg swings, the arm swings ; and at the moment that the foot is set down, the arm pulls with its full weight upon the shoulder ; so that the strong leg-sensations are rein- forced by strong arm-sensations, and the weak by weak. The rhythm is thus still further accented. (2) This movement-rhythm, as we may call it, — Tactuai- the alternation of strong and weak sensation-masses rhythm^ from some moving part of the body, arm or hand or foot, — plays a part in every perception of rhythm. But pure movement-rhythm has not been nearly so highly developed as the compound rhythm of move- ment and hearing. The reason is that the limbs are fixed to the body ; they can do no more than oscillate to and fro, up and down ; while sounds are free^ not attached to anything, and so can be divided up into rhythmical groups at pleasure. Movement can give us nothing but one-two rhythms ; sound and move- ment together give us the one-two-three rhythms of music and dancing. We are so accustomed to regard rhythm as something to 114 Perception hear that the reader may never have thought of walking or running as a movement-rhythm (/r^j-^-swing, /r^j-j"- swing), but only as a hearing rhythm {tramp-XxdSii^^ tramp-trsimp) . But close your ears with cotton-wool and walk across the room, letting your arms swing naturally with the movement of the legs. You can easily get into the movement-rhythm : one-3ind one-Sind one. Notice the strong jerk or pull of the heavy arm at each one^ i.e., at each pressure of a foot upon the floor. When next you listen to music, notice that you ^keep time ' not by the ear only, but by some movement (of head, finger, etc.) as well. § 48. What Perception Means. — We cannot here discuss more of the perceptions that fall under the three heads of quality, space and time; the examples chosen must suffice. These few instances, however, are enough to show the reader what the value of per- ception is, and what * perceiving' means to us. Perception Plainly, perception means a breaking-up of the the outside world around us. To the primitive animal and to world. "the human infant the world must be, in Professor James' language, '' one big blooming buzzing Confu- sion." As the sense-organs grow, as the channels through which the world gains entry into mind be- come more numerous and more complicated^^ this Confusion is broken up into parts : quality parts, space parts, time parts. Mind is never fully able to cope with the world : there are stars that our best telescopes cannot find, and animal structures too deli- cate for our finest microscopes to reveal. But the farther perception goes, the more concrete processes we have that mean different parts or aspects of the material universe, the better do we understand the § 49- Illusions of Perception 115 world. With perception comes knowledge : without perception we should be without science. Just as the course of animal evolution runs from creatures made up of a single sort of tissue to creatures of many tissues, — blood and nerves and muscles and bone and the rest, — so does mental evolution run from the confused one-tissue knowledge of the infant to the many-sided, differentiated knowledge of the scientific man. We saw in § 41 that perception itself under- goes transformation and development; but no one of the three steps there mentioned is so important as the first step of all, — the step from the single world of confusion to the ordered world of perception. § 49. Illusions of Perception. — Mind, however, is illusory per- not wholly adequate to the world ; we do not always ^^^ ^°"^' perceive aright. For one thing, the sense-organs are not always equal to the demands laid upon them : a bird may be ^too far off to be seen,' and yet it would be wrong to say that there is no bird in the sky. For another, we are biassed in our outlook over nature ; our nervous tendencies, which lead us to apperceive objects rather than to perceive them, are likely to lead us astray, to make us see what is not there, or to fail in seeing what is. So there arise what are called illnsions^ perceptions in which the world is ' playing with ' us (Lat. btdns^ game) instead of telling us the truth about itself. The most important and most instructive illusions are those of space perception, in its various forms. Illusions oi Form. — Draw a perfect square. Notice that of form, it looks higher than it is broad. The reason is that the - » Il6 Perception muscles around the eyes can move them out and in more easily than they can move them up and down. Since it requires more effort to look up and down the square than to look across it, the distance up and down is taken to be greater. Draw a number of ' squares ' which are a little lower than they are broad. Note which of them looks to be exactly right, a real square. Measure the height and subtract it from the breadth. The result gives you the amount of the illusion, of size, Illusions of Size, — It is a curious fact that, if a thing be estimated by touch (that is, by the skin wnth the assistance of muscle, tendon and joint) it seems to be larger than it does to the eye \ whereas, if it be estimated by the skin alone, it seems smaller than it does to sight. Thus a hollow tooth ' feels ' much larger, both to tongue and finger, than it looks in the mirror. Since we have learned to trust our eyes, we regard the tactual perception as illusory. We read, however, that men born blind, and restored to sight by a surgical operation, are surprised at the largeness of the objects about them. This does not mean, as it might seem to do, that tactual space is smaller than the space of sight. The things seen appear to the patient to press in upon him, he remaining passive ; just as solid bodies press down upon the passive skin. It is skin-space, then, that he compares with the space of sight : and it is this skin-space, not tactual space, that seems to him to be smaller than the sight-space. ^ The facts mean, evidently, that we live in three distinct spaces : skin-space, touch-space and eye-space. The three do not altogether agree : there is^ no real reason why they should, since the organs are different. We have learned always to believe the eye, however, and so look upon the skin-size and touch-size of things as illusory. — An illusion of size is given in Fig. ii. The vertical line looks longer in the upper figure than in the lower. This is because the eyes are tempted to run on, beyond the vertical. § 49' Illusions of Perception 117 Apperceptive illusions. in the one case ; while they are checked, held back, at the ends of the vertical in the other. Illusions of Direction, — The laws of perspective are largely of direction, based upon illusions of direction. Look out along a railway track : the lines seem to meet at the horizon, though you know that they do not. Look at your table, from one corner of the room : it seems to be a trapezoid, though you know that it is a parallelogram. The seen direction of the lines is illusory. These illusions are all illusions of the first class ; due to the inabiHty of the sense-organs to meet the requirements laid upon them. Apperceptive illusions are equally common. Thus if we are walking after a shower on a moonlight evening, we may take the shadow of a tree-trunk for a runnel of water, and step over it. Our mind is full of ideas of wetness. — Or in traversing a lonely spot at night-time we may see a ghost, which proves on nearer examination to be a white birch-trunk or a white post. Our mind is full of ghost-stories. — Cf. H., Lesson X. In all cases of space illusion, the final appeal is to The final the eye. Not to the unassisted eye ; for that is itself ^hf eye. subject to illusion: but to the measitring eye, — the eye armed with a ruler and a pair of compasses. What touch and sight tell us of the world of space may, as we have learned by experience, be very far from right. What sight tells us under the conditions of measurement we believe to be true ; the railway lines are parallel, the table is a parallelogram, the verticals of Fig. 1 1 are equal, the square is equilateral, — in spite of all appearances to the contrary, — because the measuring eye tells us so. Measured or mathematical ' seeing' is always * believing.' Fig. II / 1 1 8 Perception Questions and Exercises (i) Qualitative Perceptions. 1 . The middle c of the piano contains, as overtones, the c and g of the next higher octave, and the c^ e and g of the octave above that. Strike some one of these over- tones softly, by itself. Then strike the middle c loudly, and try to hear in it the overtone which you sounded a moment before. If you think you can, sing the over- tone, and then strike the note to make sure that you have it correctly. 2. Have a number of chords struck on the piano : chords of two, three, four notes, in random order. After a chord has been struck, ask yourself how many notes it con- tained. Continue the practice until you can distinguish accurately a two-chord from a three-chord, etc. 3. Try, by introspection, to find out what sensations are contained in the following perceptions : hardness, wet- ness, roughness, the ^ taste ' of tea, the ^ taste ' of lemon- ade. Make several trials of the perceptions themselves, and then introspect them. (2) Spatial Perceptions. ^^~ 4. Have yourself touched, while your eyes are closed, at various parts of the body. How do you know where you are touched? Introspect very carefully. 5. If you were touched on the wrist and on the chest, and tried (with your eyes shut) to re-touch the places struck, you would get more nearly right on the wrist than you would on the chest. Why? 6. Close your eyes. Let the experimenter take a pair of blunt-pointed drawing compasses, and set the points down evenly upon your wrist, crosswise. If the points are near together, you will ^feel' only one pressure ; if they are a certain distance apart, two pressures. The experimenter must alter the distance between the points, little by little ; in one series beginning with a distance that clearly gives one, and in a second series with a distance that clearly gives two pressures ; until he finds the distance at which oneness passes over into twoness. This distance, averaged from the tw^o series, gives a Questions and Exercises 119 measure of your ability to distinguish places upon the skin. — Compare the wrist distance with similar dis- tances upon the forehead, cheek, and back of the neck. What conclusions do you draw from the difference between the distances? 7. Combine a number of double pictures in the stereoscope. Note carefully how the pict- ures on the two halves of the slide differ. When you have grown used to the in- strument, try to combine simple pictures (the common outline drawings of truncated cones or pyramids) by the unaided eye. Look straight through the slide, towards a point beyond it ; and move the slide back and forth, Fig. 12 until the pictures coalesce. It is a good plan to prac- tise this ^free stereoscopy' with transparent (celluloid) slides ; the drawings you can easily make for your- self in ink. The Stereoscope (Fig. 12). — Light is reflected to the eyes, along the dotted lines, from the two pictures, a, b. The reflected rays are so refracted by the prisms, ^, d^ that they appear to come from a single point, ^, lying on the far side of ^, b. Hence we see at ^ a single picture, formed by the superposition of the two pict- ures, a and b. 8. Put one of the photographic slips in the drum of the stroboscope and twirl it swiftly, so that you can get the illusion of movement. Then begin again, moving the drum at first very slowly, and later on more quickly; so that you build up the illusion in stages. Notice each stage. — Explain the illusion {cf. Experi- ment 5, p. 53 above). The Stroboscope (Fig. 13). — A cardboard drum, a, open above, can be twirled upon the handle,^. The 120 Perception 9- upper half of the wall of the drum is pierced at regular intervals by vertical slits. The lower half is covered, on the inside, by a slip of paper upon which the sepa- rate phases of some movement (the flight of a bird, the gallop of a horse) have been drawn or photographed. As the drum turns, one looks down, through the slits upon the inserted slip. Aristotle suggested the following way of proving that the final appeal in space matters is to the eye. Cross the second over the a Fig. 13 10, first finger of your right hand. Place a pencil between the crossed joints. Since, under natural conditions, the outsides of the first and second fingers never touch the same object, the skin tells you that two objects are now in contact with it. The eye contradicts the skin ; and so strong is the contradic- tion that you do not even ^ feel ' the pencil as two objects while your eyes are open. Now shut your eyes, and let the experimenter put either one thing or two things between your crossed fingers, as he chooses. Not knowing whether you are ' feeling ' one thing or two, you cannot appeal to a mental picture. The result is that the skin has its own way, and you soon ^ feel ' two objects in every experiment, whether one or two be really between your fingers. N. B. — This account of Aristotle's experiment holds only for those to whom the experiment is new. If you have practised it as a child, you will get the twoness of the pencil at once whether your eyes are open or not. Draw two semicircles, of i cm. radius, in the posi- Questions and Exercises 121 tion Q (^. Draw the diameter to the left-hand curve. This seems now to indude less space than the other, open semicircle. Why? 11. It is very important to realise the difference between touch-space and skin-space. Take a piece of stiff card, with a smooth edge of 12 cm. Cut pointed teeth along the edge. Estimate the length of the jagged edge, with closed eyes, (i) by passing the finger along the points (touch), and (2) by having the teeth pressed down upon the skin of your fore- arm (pressure). You will think that the card is longer than it looks to be, in the first case, and shorter than it looks to be, in the second. (3) Temporal Perception. 12. Shut your eyes, and hold a watch to your ear. See how many rhythms you can throw the ticks into. Write down the forms and accents of the rhythms. 13. Close your eyes. Let the experimenter draw a pencil, at an even rate, from your elbow to the tip of the middle finger. The pencil seems to travel more quickly at some places than at others. Draw a fig- ure of the arm, and mark in the places of apparent slowing and quickening. Explain by reference to Exp. II, p. 54. (4) Why is the mixed perception termed an ^assimilation'.? (5) If sensations of taste and of temperature have not the attri- bute of extent, how do you explain their apparent extensity ? (6) It is said above, § 42, that qualitative perceptions have undergone less change than those of space and time. What change have they undergone? How is it that this change has not deprived them of their value? References James, Textbook^ chs. xx., xxi. Sully, HuiTian Mind^ vol. I., ch. viii. Titchener, Outline^ §§ 43-51. Wundt, Lectures^ Lects. VIII. -XIII. Wundt, Outlines^ §§ 8-1 1. See also: Sanford, Course^ Pt. i., 1897; Am. Journ. of Psych. ^ VI., 593 and VII., 412. CHAPTER VII Idea and the Association of Ideas Idea as § 50. The Development of Ideas. — The ideas of the reproduction • •.• • i •. 1 . 1 • of percep- pnmitive mmd are, as it were, photographic copies, tion. Hfe-Hkenesses, of the perceptions which go before them. Thus the idea of a landscape would be in part a picture-idea, the look of stream and hills and trees ; in part a sound-idea, the idea of splashing water and rustling boughs ; in part a tactual idea, the ' feel ' of springing grass and moving wind ; in part a smell-idea, a remembered freshness and fra- grance of air and flowers. The life-likeness is, of course, never perfect : the idea is weaker, passes by more quickly, and is more sketchy, than the percep- tion that corresponds to it : but the qualities of the perception are found again in the idea. Produced in perception, they are rep^'odiLced in idea. Idea as This, howcvcr, is only the first stage in the devel- translation of ^ r . 1 • i '-r>i i • . 1 • i perception opmcnt of the idea. The bram-cortex has m most cases a tendency to work more easily at one part than at another. Or — to speak in terms of mental constitution — minds are so constituted that their processes run more easily along certain channels than along others. Hence it happens that those elements in a perception which do not fit in with our mental constitution are very soon dropped out of the idea; the idea is a copy or life-likeness of only a part of the perception. And further, if the nervous 122 § 51. The Foiw Chief Memory-types 123 tendencies are strongly marked, ideas may cease to be even partial copies of perceptions. Just as we translate words and sentences from one language into another, so may the nervous system translate a perception into more familiar terms, — into an idea which has none of the qualities that were contained in the perception, but replaces them by other and more familiar qualities that mean the same thing. , We describe the differences between minds whose Memory- ideas are still at least partiaL copies of perceptions ^^^^ 'by saying that they show differences of vtemory-type. Such minds have a preference, so to speak, for a par- ticular kind or type of idea : for picture-ideas, sound- ideas, etc. Minds of the second order, those whose ideas are translations out of the language of percep- tion into an entirely different language, belong for the most part to one or other of the verbal sub-types, and sub- For the language into which their perceptions are ^^^^' translated is nearly always a language of words; their ideas are word-ideas, no matter what the per- ceptions may have been. We have now to examine these types and sub- types, in order to see what the ideas are that make up the individual consciousness in each case. § 51. The Four Chief Memory-types. — The two most highly developed senses are those of sight and hearing. It is natural, then, that there should be minds which are almost wholly eye-minds or ear- minds : eye and ear furnish so many differences of sensation quality that they are able of themselves to represent a great many aspects of the physical world, without calling in help from the other sense-organs. A 124 Idea and tJie Association of Ideas Auditory type. Visual type. (i) If the mind is of the visual or eye type, all its thoughts and memories and imaginations will consist of ideas of sight. If, e.g.^ an operatic performance is recalled, the scenes will be pictured, and the dress and movement of the performers seen over again ; but the music will not be remembered. The sound- parts of the perception have dropped out, and only the sight-parts are left. The mind of the inventor is likely to be predominantly of this type : he sees the machine that he is designing, in the mind's eye, before it has been built. (2) If, on the other hand, the mind is of the auditory or ear type, its memories will be memories of things heard, and not of things seen. Stage and performers will be forgotten, and only the music remembered. Friends will be thought of not as pictures, figures of a certain appearance clothed in a certain way, but as sounds, as voices or footsteps. The minds oi^prators and of musical com- posers may be of this type. Every one knows the story of the deaf Beethoven's playing, the tears roll- ing down his cheeks as he heard in idea what he could not hear in outward perception. And it is most useful to the public speaker to be able to hear his coming sentences, with their right ring and em- phasis upon them, before he actually delivers them to his audience. Tactual type. (s) There is another group of perceptions, — not so rich in sensation qualities as the perceptions of sight and hearing, but still of great importance for our knowledge of the external world, — which fur- nishes a third memory-type : the tactical or (as it is less well called : § 46) 7notor type. Tactual percep- § 51- ^/^^ Four Cliief Memory-types 125 tions are made up of the sensation qualities that come to us from skin, muscle, tendon and joint: they are perceptions of hardness and softness, roughness and smoothness, resistance and effort, movement or position of the limbs, etc. It is plain, however, that useful as tactual ideas (life-likenesses of tactual per- ceptions) may be, a mind made up of them and of them alone will be very much at fault in its thoughts and memories. True, it will be useful for the iiivejitor to have the power of ' feeling ' in himself the pulls and stresses and strains to which the various parts of his machine must be subject; but he will hardly be able to design the machine unless he can see it as well as ' feel ' it. And indeed, the pure tactual type is rare. Either it reduces to the verbal sub-type (§ 52), or it is one of the types represented in the mixed type which we now pass to consider. Cooks and confectioners are employing a pure tactual memory when they judge by stirring that a dough or batter has attained the right consistency. But this mode of judg- ment is confined to a few special cases. Even when one picks out chords or airs on the piano by finger-memory, one is always guided, to some extent, by hearing ; the tactual memory is mixed with auditory. This, however, does not detract from the value of the tactual memory ; it is, as every player knows, of great importance to the pianist. (4) The last of the four chief memory-types is the Mixed type, mixed type. When a mind is of this constitution, the sensation tendencies of the nervous system are more or less evenly balanced. The operatic perform- ance is remembered in all three ways, as something seen, as something heard, and as something ^felt' ; 126 Idea and the Association of Ideas stage and performers are visible once more, voice and orchestra are heard again, and the ease or diffi- culty with which the singers reached their high and low notes is sympathetically revived in one's own throat muscles. This is the most useful memory- type, simply because it gives the most complete account of the outside world, because it reproduces the event thought of under the greatest variety of aspects. But an equal balance of tendencies is rare : even when a mind is to be classed as * mixed ' in type, experiment generally shows that some one side of it (the eye-side, ear-side, etc.) is more strongly devel- oped than the others. Importance § 52. The Three Verbal Sub-types. — We said just ideir ' ^^^ ^\\2X words offcr a common language into which all ideas, no matter what their perceptions are com- posed of, may be translateii. Changing the metaphor, we may say that words are the common denominator of all ideas or perceptions, — something in which they may all be expressed. Every adult mind is made up, to a considerable extent, of word-ideas. We are born into an atmo- sphere of words ; we are talked to from our earliest infancy ; we learn to talk in the second year of our life. An intelligent child of two years may have a vocabulary of 300 or 400 words ; it is on record that an intelligent child of six may have a vocabulary of 2,000. And there is no experience, however uncom- mon or overpowering its incidents, which cannot be expressed in words. The word-idea has three forms : visual, auditory § 52. The Three Verbal Sub-types 127 and tactual. It may be the idea of the word seen, in Verbal sub- print or in manuscript ; or the idea of the word auditory, heard, whether in one's own voice or in that of t^^t"^^- another; or the idea of the word 'felt,' whether in speaking (felt in the muscles of the throat) or in writ- ing (felt in the muscles of the hand) . The ideas of an eye-mind will, naturally, pass most readily into the visual word form ; those of an ear-mind into the audi- tory word form ; and those of the tactual mind into one of the tactual word forms.^ Thus the recollection of the operatic performance, in a word-mind, might be a printed account of the music and acting (verbal- visual ideas) ; or the sound of a voice describing the performance (verbal-auditory ideas) ; or the * feel ' of the same voice in the throat (verbal-tactual or verbal- motor ideas) . We take our own way of thinking so much as a matter of course, that it is difficult for us to realise how many different ways there are of thinking the same thing. Hence while some part, of the two last Sections will come familiarly to every reader, there will doubtless be other parts which, at first sight, seem almost incomprehensible. A Httle cross- questioning of friends, however, will probably bring all the types and sub-types to light. At the same time, it is but rarely that we find a perfectly pure type or sub-type. The verbal-tactual occurs, perhaps, most frequently in pure form. The others are almost always mixed, to some degree. Thus the verbal-auditory is usually verbal- tactual as well ; and the verbal-visual generally has a trace of the verbal-auditory, and so of the verbal-tactual. This complexity of mental constitution is easily understood^ when we remember the great complexity of the nervous system, and the large number of sense-channels through which the outside world gains access to consciousness. 128 Idea and tlie Association of Ideas Reproduc- tion of smells and tastes is rare. Organic type. §53. The Minor Memory-types. — The ideas of taste and smell are very seldom copies of their per- ceptions. In the life of primitive man, taste and smell have an important function to discharge (§ 20); and even to-day their sensations and perceptions affect us strongly (§ 25). But as civilisation advances, we depend less and less upon them and more and more upon verbal knowledge, — upon what we read in books on diet, or upon what our physician tells us. Hence life-likenesses of taste and smell qualities are not included, as a rule, in our stock of ideas. Try to recall the scent of a rose. You have, probably, a picture-idea of the flower, and a tactual idea of the contrac- tion of the nostrils in sniffing. Perhaps you actually do sniff; so that you perceive this contraction, and get sensa- tions of pressure and temperature from the air inhaled. Perhaps, too, the word ' rose ' comes to mind, either alone or combined with some other word that suggests the rose scent, — ^ attar ' or ' essence ' or ' perfume.' But the scent itself is, in all probability, not present in the idea. It is possible that, with continued practice, the power of im- aging scents could be regained. Oftentimes on entering a room we have an ilhision of smell : we say, " Don't I smell sandalwood " or " heliotrope " or what not. This fact seems to show that scents are, even now, occasionally recalled as true smell-ideas, life-likenesses gf perceptions. For the most part, however, the power is unemployed, if not lost. We can hardly speak, then, of a smell-type or a taste-type. On the other hand, the 07'ganic type is of some importance. There are people who, in re- calling an event of their past experience, revive or repeat the internal bodily attitude in which they met the event. It is not that they set to work deliber- ately to reproduce the * sinking of the stomach ' and § 53- ^^^^ Minor Me^nory-types 129 heart-beat and internal tremors and quiverings which accompanied the original experience ; but rather that, when they recall this experience in the form most natural to them, — visual, auditory, etc., — the inter- nal or organic sensations come up *of themselves,' in perception, along with the pictures or sounds that stand for the experience in idea. We saw in § 25 that the organic sensations enter with Signs of quite especial readiness into feelinsfs ; i.e., have an especial ^^^^"^^ ^ r o J J 1 memory. power of attracting the attention. This trait is clearly shown in the memories of the organic type. If a man is greatly moved when he recounts an experience of many years ago, — becoming angry now as he was then, grieving now as he grieved then, etc., — you may be sure that he has an organic memory, whatever his principal type may be. His anger or grief fastens itself to the revived internal sensations. If, on the other hand, he tells you of his past griefs and angers calmly and coolly, you may be sure that there is no revival of the inward stir-up which took place when they were originally felt ; there is no organic memory. Since organic memory shows itself in 2^ feelings it has been 'Affective supposed by some psychologists that the feeling-side of the memory.' original experience is remembered, and that we should speak not of organic, but of affective memory. We have seen, how- ever, that it is impossible to attend to an affection (§ 33) ; and since we are attentive when we are trying to remember, it is plain that we cannot recall an affection. The affection comes with the organic sensations that make up the internal bodily attitude.'' It is not perfectly correct, either, to speak of organic No true memory. For the organic sensations are not recalled in J^^^amc •^ o « memory. idea ; they are revived, actually set up again in the body, when the memory pictures or sounds come to mind. Still, they colour the memory ; it is very different with them from what it would be without them. Hence we may give or- ganic memory rank as a secondary or minor type, though it K 130 Idea and the Association of Ideas cannot be counted with the four chief types of § 51. The organic sensations come up in accordance with the law of the association of ideas, of which we have now to speak. § 54. The Association of Ideas. — Sensations are welded together, at the bidding of nature, to form perceptions ; and the sensations produced by the presence of an object in perception are reproduced in idea. But as the number of perceived objects increases, it must plainly happen that one and the same sensation will be called upon to do duty in more than one perception or idea. The quality of blue, e.g., belongs to water and sky, to certain flowers and birds, to certain earths and rocks, — to say noth- ing of human productions ; it occurs in a vast num- ber of different perceptions. By being used over and over again, in this way, every sensation gets into habits of connection with other sensations ; while these, in their turn, form habits of connection with yet others, and so on. The law of Now it is One of the most important laws of mind that all the connections set tip between sensations, by their welding together into perceptions and ideas, teitd to persist. A sensation which has once formed connections with other sensations cannot shake them off and be its own bare self again, — the bare sensa- tion that it was when it entered for the first time into a perception, — but carries its connections about with it; so that whenever it has a place in a conscious- ness, the connected sensations tend to be dragged in also. This law is the law of the association of ideas. There are various points that we must notice, in regard to this law of association, before we proceed to discuss association. § 54- ^^^^ Association of Ideas 131 the two forms of association, the simultaneous and the successive. (i) Notice that the work of association, the associat/;/!^, is done not by ideas but by sensations contained in ideas. A sen- sation (blue), which is contained in my perception or idea of a lake, is also contained in my idea of M. Bouguereau^s picture, '' Our Lady of the Angels.'' When I see or think of the lake, I think of the picture. The ideas are associated: but it is a sen- sation that does the work. (2) Notice, on the other hand, that although the sensation does the w^ork it is ideas, meanings, that are associated. My idea of the lake does not call up an idea of the blue in the picture, but an idea of the whole picture. The associat^<^, then, is an idea. (3) Putting these two facts together, we get the for inula of association : ab-bc. My lake-idea contains the elements a^ b ; my picture-idea the elements b^ c. The sensation of blue is con- nected both with a and with c. Hence when I have the percep- tion or idea ab^ the connection of b with c tends to persist, and the lake reminds me of the picture. (4) In the older psychologies we read of various ' kinds ' of association: association by contrast (^ giant ' suggests ^ dwarf), by similarity (^ Dickens ' suggests ^ Thackeray '), by contiguity (^sea' suggests ^ ships,' because the two are seen together), by cause and effect (the riven oak-tree suggests the lightning that struck it), by means and end (the idea of keeping our clothes unspoilt suggests the taking of an umbrella with us when we go out), and so on. It is clear, however, from what has just been said, that these are not ' kinds ' of association, — there is only one kind, — but merely forms of it, arranged for convenience under certain heads. Every one of the instances given can be brought under the formula ab-bc ; the working of the law is the same in each case. We may classify photographs as blue prints and carbon prints and silver prints and platinotypes, as helio- types and collotypes and stannotypes ; but the principle of pho- tography, the fundamental law, is the same for all. (5) Notice that the ab of the formula ab-bc may be a perception^ though we always speak of the association of ideas. It may be the perceived, seen lake that suggests the picture-idea. Similarly, some (though not all) of the elements in the be of the Sensations associate ; ideas are associated. Formula of association. Forms of association. Perception and associa- tion. 132 Idea and the Association of Ideas formula may be perceived. When a man whose memory is of the visual and organic types is reminded of a past experience by some present perception, the be of the association consists in part of organic sensations actually set up in the body at the moment of recall, — consists, i.e.j of a perception. § 55. Simultaneous Association. — We saw, in the ■ last chapter, that pure perception is very rare in the adult mind. Most of our perceptions are mixed ; consist partly of outside and partly of inside sensa- tions. To such a length has the mixture of percep- tion and idea been carried that it is scarcely possible, in some cases, to imagine with any vividness what the original process of perceiving was. We can hardly realise now what the perceptions of place on the skin, . of distance in space and of rhythm were in their first formation ; our way of perceiving them is a short cut, a jump at meaning, with most of the steps that our forefathers took left out. Simuitane- The assimilations and symbolic perceptions of our own minds are put together by way of simultaneous association. A material object flashes one of its aspects into consciousness in the shape of a sensation. This sensation has fixed habits of connection with other, central sensations. Hence when it arises, they necessarily arise with it. Doubtless, if we knew the truth, they come some small fraction of a second after it ; but the interval is so short as to be altogether unnoticeable. In practical experience, ivhen the sen- sation comes, it comes with a bevy of inside sensations clustered about it. Suppose that you are strolling along a country road, and suddenly hear a rumbling noise. You know at once that it is coming from behind you, and that it is the noise of a ous associa tion. §55- Simultaneous Association 133 carriage. You do not turn ; but in a few moments, when the noise has reached a certain degree of loudness, you step to the path to make way. Now sounds do not possess the attribute of extent, and The localisa- so cannot give rise, directly, to space perceptions. Never- ^^"^ ^ theless, you seem here to be placing the noise, and placing it accurately, by a direct perception of its distance and direction. What is the explanation? The fact is that, when the noise takes its place among the processes composing your consciousness, it brings with it a number of central supplements. If you are eye-minded, these are visual ; a picture of the carriage, at a particular place upon the road. If you are ear-minded, they are au- ditory; the sound of the words, "There's a carriage just there, so far behind ! " (In this case, the words must have been got from previous visual perceptions ; sight has been translated into hearing, into words heard.) If you are touch-minded, they are tactual ; perhaps the ^ feel ' of the same words in your throat, perhaps that of the shrinking of the whole body from imagined contact with the carriage. In reality, then, the noise is perceived as coming from a particular thing and place only indirectly, by way of simul- taneous association. Notice how the formula of association is followed in this instance. Some aspect, b, of the rumbling noise ab has been present in previous perceptions along with c, the look of the carriage. Having ab now, you necessarily have be also : b is so firmly welded to c that when b comes c comes with it. The commonest and, perhaps, most important of Verbal asso- the inside processes that blend with the outside sen- sation in this form of association are 7£^<9ri • 1 r 1 • • 1 • , • cal impor- The sensorial form, an unchangmg impulsive action, tanceofthe allows the reactor to examine the impulse introspec- reaction experiment. tively, under standard conditions. It also serves as the point of departure for the investigation of motives to action that are more complex than the impulse (see Ch. XIII. ). The muscular form, taken alter- nately with the sensorial, gives practice in the con- trol of attention : the experimenter, noting the duration of the reactions, can tell whether the re- actor is able to shift from the idea of signal to the idea of movement, and vice versa, or whether in each experiment he vacillates between the two : i.e., can determine how much practice is needed for the attention to travel from the active to the sec- ondarily passive stage. Again : if the attention is permitted to lapse from the movement-idea, the reaction comes to be very like a true reflex move- ment ; so that the passage from impulse to reflex can be traced by the experimenter. The central form is interesting as the normal, obvious form of reaction ; the reactor, if left to himself, reacts as a rule with diffused attention. Moreover, if the diffused atten- tion is permitted to lapse, the central reaction passes over into an artificial ideomotor action ; so that the passage can be traced to this from the impulse, — and traced under more natural conditions than would s 1 82 The Simplei' Fo7'ms of Action be the case if attention were permitted to lapse from the object-perception of the sensorial form. The associa- The sensorial reaction has been employed in the study of tion reaction, successive association, of the putting together of the train of ideas (§ 56). The reactor is told that he is to move his finger, not when he has perceived the signal, but when some idea (or series of two or more ideas) has followed that perception by way of successive association. The experimenter, knowing the associated ideas, and knowing the length of time that each association took, obtains an insight into the reactor's mental constitution : sees whether his mind is addicted to abstract thoughts, or moves most easily among concrete things ; whether it is a mind that generalises, rises to more general ideas than that conveyed by the stimulus, or a mind that particularises, descends from the given perception to ideas that come under it as instances, etc., etc. Reaction and The central reaction, again, has been employed in the ^^r°^^' study of memory- type (§ 50), on the theory that its dura- tion will approach that oT the sensorial or muscular form, according as the reactor belongs to one type or another. When he reacts to light, e.g.^ his reaction-time will approach the sensorial, it is said, if his ideas are visual, and the mus- cular, if they are tactual. So far, however, the results obtained on this theory are of doubtful significance. Questions and Exercises — I . The Reaction Experijnent. — The instrument represented in Fig. 16 is Professor Sanford's reaction-timer. It is constructed as follows. Two brass pendulum-bobs, a and a' ^ are suspended by inelastic threads from the bar, b. The threads (the one of which is red, and the other white) are knotted through two holes bored in the bar, pass through similar borings in the bobs, and are held fast by the two set-screws, c and c' . They are prevented from spread- ing by being laid in four grooves cut in the upper right-hand surface of the bar. The pendulums can be lengthened and type. Questions and Exercises 183 Fig. 16 shortened at pleasure, by clamping the set-screws at different parts of the threads. — On the right of the cast-iron base, d, are placed two keys, e and e' . The lips of the keys, on the side towards the bobs, close so far as to grip tightly the shaft of a light brass-wire hook. One of these hooks, f, lies in the Figure upon the base of the instrument. Counter-hooks are fastened to the pendulum-bobs. Pressure upon the buttons of the keys uncloses the lips, so that the brass hooks are released. — It will be noticed that the keys stand at different levels upon the base, and that the pendulums are of correspondingly different lengths. The instrument is tested in this way. See that the bobs hang evenly in the middle of their threads. Place the hooks between the lips of the keys, and hook the bobs into them by the counter-hooks. Now (i) release the nearer, longer pendulum by pressing the button of the lower key. Count the swings of the pendulum (beginning from zero, not from ^ one ') by help of a stop-watch. Note how many full, i.e., back-and-forth swings occur in i min. Divide the time by the number of swings, and you have the duration of one total swing. We will suppose that this is 0.8 sec. ; that the pendulum returns to the position from which it started in 0.8 sec. (2) Release the farther, shorter pen- dulum, by pressing the button of the upper key. Take the time of swing in the same way. We will suppose that it is 0.78 sec. It is clear now that the long pendulum makes 39 full swings while the short one makes 40 ; that the shorter gains a full swing on the longer in every 40 of its swings. The unit of the instru- ment is, therefore, 0.8 sec. -^ 40, or one-fiftieth of a second. That is to say : the long pendulum loses, the short gains, 0.02 sec. in every full swing. (3) Test this result by letting the two pendulums swing together, and counting the number of swings of the long pendulum that elapse between coincidence and coincidence of the four threads, i.e., between the times of their lying in one and the same plane. If your previous counting 184 The Simple}' Forms of Action was correct, the coincidences should come at the 39th, 78th, 117th, etc., swings. (i) We are now in a position to take a reaction-time. Let it be the time of reaction to a sound stimulus. The base of the instrument is clamped firmly to the table. The pendulums are hooked to the keys, and the hooks adjusted till the four threads lie in the same plane. The experimenter places himself squarely before the apparatus, so that he can accurately gauge the position of the threads. The subject sits with closed eyes, the forefinger of the right hand laid lightly upon the button of the higher key. The experimenter says " Now ! '' and, after an interval of 1.5 — 2 sec, raps sharply upon the button of the lower key, thus releasing the long pendulum. On hearing the sound, the subject presses the button of his key, and releases the short pendulum. The experimenter counts the swings of the long pendulum, from the time of'its starting to the time of the first coincidence of the four threads. If the two pendulums are together at the sixth swing, the reaction-time is 6 x 0.02 sec, or 0.12 sec. (muscular reaction) ; if they are together at the eleventh, the time is 0.22 sec. (sensorial reaction). It may sometimes happen that the two pendulums seem to be in exact coincidence during two swings, say, the tenth and the eleventh : in that event the time must be counted as 10.5 x 0.02 sec, or 0.21 sec. But this will not happen after the experimenter has had a little practice in observation of the threads. (2) If the reaction is reaction to pressure stimulus, let the subject lay the forefinger of his right hand upon the upper, and the forefinger of his left hand upon the lower key. The experi- menter then presses upon the latter finger (stimulus is given), and the subject reacts by pressing down his own right-hand finger, as before. — (3) If the reaction is to sight^ the subject keeps his eyes open, and presses the button of the upper key when he sees the experi- menter's finger move in the act of pressing that of the lower. Or the experiment may be made by help of the '- side wire,' fur- nished with the instrument, as follows. A piece of stout wire, bent to the shape shown in Fig. \'] a^ is attached to the upper part of the key, ^ just above the large screw which forms the axis of the key. When the lips of the key are closed, the upper end of the wire inclines inwards, toward the pendulums. When the button is pressed, the wire moves to a Questions and Exercises 185 Fig. 17 vertical position. The wire is slit at its upper end, to take a small disc of white cardboard. Between the keys, e and e\ must be set up a screen of black card, having a circular opening which allows the white cardboard to be seen when the wire stands vertically, but not when the lips of the key I are closed. The opening should be somewhat smaller ot than the white disc. — The subject fixes his eyes upon this opening, before the ex- periment begins, and reacts when he sees the white card appear behind it. This happens, as we said, when the experimenter presses the button of e. To avoid the click produced by the strik- ing of the button of the key upon the platform below, it is well to pad the latter with cotton-wool, and to encase the metal parts and the pad with a piece of rubber tubing (Fig. i"]U). (4) In the association reaction (sound stimulus), the experi- menter calls out the stimulus word as he opens the lower key. Suppose that a ^ whole 'is to be called, and some ^ part 'to be associated to it by the subject. The experimenter calls out " Fish! " — pressing the button of the lower key at the moment he utters the word ; the subject presses his key when he has thought of ^ fin ' or ^ tail.' In such cases it may happen that the long pen- dulum makes a full swing before the short one starts. This must be noted by the experimenter, and the 0.8 sec. added on to the time (taken in 0.02 sec. units) during which the two pendulums are swinging together. — In visual experiments, printed words replace the white disc held by the side wire. The reaction- movement is made after association to the word stimulus. The following points may be noticed : (^) The subject should write out an introspective account of each experiment, stating whether or not he has obeyed orders as regards direction of the attention, whether or not his reaction was disturbed by chance noises, etc., etc. {b) Not more than 15 or 20 experiments should be made at a single sitting. Otherwise the subject becomes fatigued. 1 86 TJie Simpler Fo^^ms of Action (c) Practice is not complete until the average difference between the separate reaction-times and the average time of the series has fallen as low as one-tenth of the average time. Thus the series .255, .275, .290, .265, .300, is a good visual sensorial series. The average time is .277^ and the average difference between this and the separate times .014, — not much more than one-twentieth of .277. On the other hand, the series .200, -'hZ^') .210, .265, .380, is worthless. The average is again .277 ; but the average differ- ence between this and the separate times is .062, — an amount that lies between one-fourth and one-fifth of .277. Practice is here incomplete. 2. Define instinctive action. 3. Give instances of ideomotor action from your own experi- ence. 4. Make a Table, in the form of a genealogical tree, of the various kinds of action discussed in this Chapter. Give an exact account of the composition of the motive in every case. 5. Name some of the principal reflexes. 6. Rudimentary organisms do not possess a ^ brain ' with a * cortex.' How do you reconcile this fact with the statements made above in regard to Fig. 13? References James, Textbook^ chs. xxiii., xxv. ; pp. 415-428, 120-124, 126-128. Sully, Human Mindj vol. ii., ch. xvii. Titchener, Outlme^ §§ 61-67, 92, 93, 98. Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XV., XVIIL, XXVI., XXVII., XXVIII. Wundt, Outlines, § I4» CHAPTER X Memory and Imagination § "J J. The Two Kinds of Memory and Imagination. — Some com- Til GXP S P^ I'P The reader will remember that we drew a distinction, formed in in Chapter V., between passive and active attention, the state of ^ ^ passive, In passive attention, some one idea dominates con- others in .,1 ,. 1 .1 •. • .. that of active sciousness with an unquestioned authority ; m active attention. attention, there is a struggle of several ideas for the supremacy (§§ 31, 32). All the complex processes that we have examined so far — the assimilation, the train of ideas, the emo- tion, the impulsive action — are processes that take shape in the state of passive attention. There are other, and very important processes, which can take shape only in the state of active attention. Thought and creative imagination, the sentiment of beauty or of truth, deliberate and purposed action, — these are wholly foreign to a mind that has not risen above the level of primary passive attention ; they are the crown and flower of mental evolution. It is natural, then, that we devote our final Chapters to their consideration. Our business with the passive side of mind, how- 'Memory' . . and ' imagi- ever, is not quite over. There are certain processes, nation' may composed chiefly of perceptions and ideas, and occur- ^^ ^^^^^^ ■> ^ ^ active or ring in passive as well as in active form, that we passive. have not yet touched upon : the processes which are grouped under the headings of memory and imagina- 187 1 88 Memory and Imagination tion. We could not treat of passive memory and passive imagination in Chapter VII., although both of them are put together by way of simultaneous association, because both are made up in part of a peculiar moody and moods could not be discussed until we reached Chapter VIII. Comprehension of the laws of mental connection would be a much easier matter than it is if one could take in three chapters — sensation, affection, attention ; or associa- tion, emotion, impulsive action — at a single reading. In the present Chapter, then, we shall describe both the passive and the active forms of memory and imagination. § 78. Recognition and Memory : Passive. — Most of our perceptions and ideas are familiar to us. We have seen that they are mental short cuts to know- ledge of the outside ^world (§§ 41, 50), — symbols rather than copies of things, tags of meaning rather than the complex processes that they were in the minds of our remote ancestors ; we have seen, i.e., that they are familiar in the objective sense, in the sense that they have long been employed and are easily handled. But they are also familiar in J:he subjective sense; we realise^ when they enter a con- sciousness, that they are familiar ; they have upon them a mark or sign which, as it were, says to us : **This is your old friend, the perception that you had then^ or the idea that you gained at such and such a time." Passive When a perception or group of perceptions has and memory, this mark of familiarity upon it, we speak of recog- § 79- ^^^^ Mark of Familiarity 189 nising someone or something. When it is an idea or group of ideas that bears the mark, we speak of remembering someone or something. ^^ I've been here before!" '^I'm sure I know that face!" '*Why, who'd have thought of seeing yoitV — these phrases are all expressions of recognition ; the perception is familiar. '' Oh yes ! he came here the year the so-and-so's were married;" ''It was in 1870, in October, — I read about it at the same time that news came of the capitulation of Metz ; " '' No ! it's the male bird that has the yellow ; the female is white" — these are expressions of memory; the idea is familiar. The first thing that we have to do, then, in investi- The mark of , ' . r ^ familiarity. gatmg passive recognition and memory, is to find out what precisely the ' familiarity mark ' is ; of what processes it consists, and how it becomes attached to perceptions and ideas. What we said in § 50 about memory-types may have led No idea is the reader to think that some^ if not all ideas are intrinsi- i^^^i^s^^^i^y ^ a memory- cally memory-ideas ; that when we have an idea, we ipso idea. facto have a memory. This is not the case. No idea is a memory in its own right ; it must have the memory label affixed to it. We speak of ' memory-types ' rather than of ' idea-types ' simply because memory is the use, so to say, for which ideas are intended ; it is in being remembered that ideas get their practical value. But the phrase ' idea- types ' would be really more correct : since a ' memory ' is a marked idea, a mind whose ideas are of a certain type naturally ' remembers ' in ideas of that type. means § 79. The Mark of Familiarity. — When you recog- Familiarity nise a figure in the street, two things happen. In the first place, the perception is supplemented by a 190 Memory and Imagination association and the mood of confidence. number of ideas : perhaps the name of the person comes up, perhaps the circumstances under which you last saw him, perhaps some business that you have or have had with him, perhaps a question that you wish to ask or a story that you have heard about him. There is no before and after in the experience; as soon as you see your acquaintance, these ideas are present in consciousness : it is a case of simultaneous association. True, the simultaneous association may form the starting-point for a successive association, for a train of ideas ; but in the recognition itself the association is simultaneous. In the second place, you are thrown into an agreeable mood, the mood of ease or confidence, of ' at-homeness ' ; you feel familiarly towards the figure. On the other hand, the passers-by whom you do not know, do not recog- nise, are perceived merely ; they have no power, as personalities, to awaken associated ideas in your mind : and you feel indifferently towards them ; they do not affect or ^ concern ' you. Of course, a * striking ' face or costume may compel the passive attention (§ 31); but such perception is not recog- nition. The same thing holds of memory. When ^ou remember something, whether it is a scene of your childhood or the date of Julius Caesar's assassi- nation, the idea of that something is supplemented at once by a crowd of other ideas; and, as. these ideas cluster round it, the at-home feeling comes too. These two groups of processes, then, — the associ- ated ideas and the mood of confidence, — together make up the mark of familiarity. They attach to a § 79- ^^^^ Mark of Familiarity 191 perception, in every case of recognition ; they attach to an idea, in every instance of memory. There are three points to notice, in regard to the famih- arity mark. (i) The mood of at-homeness or confidence is a weakened Recognition form of the emotion of reHef. Fear of strange things and "^eans relief strange people is instinctive with man (§ 75) ; and it is a sur- vival of fear unfulfilled, of relief, that we experience when we recognise. (2) The mood is, however, a very degenerate form (but a greatly of this emotion. The ' body ' of every complete emotion is a weakened vivid and complex feeling (§ 59). In. the mood of at-homeness ^^^^ there is no trace at all of this central feeling, no attention to a * situation ' ; the mood consists solely of a pleasant aifection and of the organic sensations set up by an easy and careless bodily attitude. (3) It follows from (i) that every recognition is in- and is inher- herently pleasant. Oftentimes, it is true, the pleasantness of the ^^^ly pleas- at-home mood is outweighed by the unpleasantness of the associ- ated ideas : we may recognise a person whom we particularly want to avoid. But this does not impair the previous state- ment : in itself, recognition is pleasurable. It is exceedingly important to understand the Psychoiogi- psychology of recognition, for the reason that recog- jng; nition brings out, perhaps even more clearly than perception (§ 38), the part that meaning plays in the shaping of mind. A perception is a group of sensations, and yet is not accurately described when these sensations are accurately described. For it is formed under stress of biological necessity, — at the bidding of external nature ; it must mean some natural object, if it is to hold together; and, unless we state this, its description is incomplete. Recog- nition illustrates the same fact from a different point of view : it shows us that, when a complex process holds together, it has a meaning. For consider. We say that certain associated ideas 192 Memory and Imagination and a certain mood make a * perception ' a * recog- nised perception.' *'Very well," you may reply: ** but how do we recognise the ideas and the mood ? They cannot help us to recognise anything, unless . they are themselves recognised." The answer to the objection is this. The grouping of associated ideas and mood round a perception means that that per- ception has occurred in our experience on some pre- vious occasion. But the * recognition ' of a perception means this, too. * Recognition,' then, simply sums up in a single word 'grouping of associated ideas and presence of mood.' These processes do not them- selves need recognition : they are recognition. They would fall apart, unless they meant something ; and their meaning — a meaning implanted in them by external nature — is : '^ You are safe : this thing has been here before." . Recognitions § 80. The Degrees of Recognition and of Memory. — ries ^fferTn ^^ havc now auswcrcd our first question ; we know definiteness. what the * mark of familiarity' is. But while all re- cognitions and memories are alike in general outline, so to speak, — all being instances of simultaneous association, all containing the same mood, and all having the same practical meaning, — they differ very greatly in definiteness. We said in the last Section, that the perception (in recognition) or the idea (in memory) is supplemented by ^ a number,' * a crowd ' of other ideas. This is true in cases of complete or definite recognition and memory ; it is not true in all cases. We find every degree of definiteness, from a vague and shadowy acquaintance, with perhaps a § 8 1. Recognition and Memory: Active 193 single associated idea, to clear and perfect knowledge, with a whole consciousness-full of associates. Suppose that a number of different people are shown a photo- Instances, graph of the same painting. They would all recognise it as a photograph, and probably, if they looked at all closely at it, as taken from a painting. But beyond this point their recognitions might show all degrees of definiteness. One might say: "I don't know it : it is evidently a sacred picture, but that's all I can say." Another : '^ It must be a Raphael ; but I don't know which." Another : " It's one of the famous Raphael Madonnas ; it seems familiar to me, and I'm sure I've seen an account of it somewhere, but I can't remember now where it was." Another: " Oh yes ! It's the Sistine Madonna, — Raphael's." Another : " Of course : that's the Sistine, — stands in the little room in the Dresden gallery, where the Holbeins are." Another will know this, and will be able to give in addition the complete colour- scheme of the picture ; and another will be acquainted with its history, — and so on. Here we have various stages of recogni- tion, rising from great indefiniteness to great definiteness. The principle is the same throughout. So with memory. Ask a number of people who read the same book at about the same time what they remember of it. Some will have "forgotten the plot : but it was a good story." Others will tell you, in a sketchy way, what w^ere the chief incidents in the tale. Others will recall it in greater detail, and will give you certain scenes quite vividly. Others, again, will remember ^ali about ' the book : what the story is, and why it was written, and what effect it had on the public, and what the author's life- history was, and so on. The less definite the associates, the less strong is the mood of confidence. But some associate — if it is only the bare thought ''I know!" — and some trace of the mood are present in our dimmest mem- ories and blankest recognitions. §81. Recognition and Memory : Active. — The pro- cesses of remembering and recognising are always the same, and always occur in the state of passive o 194 Memory and Imagination attention. But they may be preceded by a state of active attention ; we may not recognise a thing till after we have actively attended to a number of per- ceptions, — and we may not recollect a name till after we have actively attended to a long series of ideas, w^hatis In other words, the state of passive attention in 'Active '"^ which they occur may be that of secondary passive recognition attention. Cascs of this kind show us recognition and memory. and memory in their ^ active ' forms. « Instances. Suppose that you are trying to find your way along a little-used forest path, which you have travelled only once or twice before. You come to a doubtful place : the tree looks right, but you are not quite sure : there ought to be a big stone a few yards on, and then a swampy patch. If the stone and the bit of marsh show themselves, you^ recognise ' the path : active lapses into passive attention. If they do not, you go back to the tree, and scrutinise the ground again. On a familiar path, the associates and the mood of confidence are present from the beginning. — Recognition is made up of just the same processes in both cases; but in the first case it is preceded by active attention. Or suppose that you are trying to think of the name of someone whose face is familiar to you. You " know his name as well as you know your own " ; but the word obsti- nately refuses to come. You now attend actively to a num- ber of ideas, some one of which you hope may be strongly enough associated to the required name to bring it up : you think of the scenes in which you have met the possessor of the name, of his usual occupations, of his friends' names, — you run through the alphabet, recaUing the names that begin with the different letters, and so on. At last you get the name, or get some idea that brings the name with it : the name is supplemented by all sorts of ideas (instances of its use, times and places), and the mood of confidence arises with a touch of real relief in its composition. — Again, the § 82. Physiology of Memory and Forgetf Illness 195 m memory is precisely like passive memory, except that a stage of active attention has preceded it. The term '- memory ' is sometimes employed in a narrow sense to mean ^ passive memory/ and active memory is expressed by the word ^recollection.' § 82. The Physiology of Memory and Forgetfulness. — Since all our memories are formed by way of simultaneous association, the law of memory will be the same as the law of association : all the connec- tions set up in a consciousness tend to persist (§ 54). Fortunately, however, in memory as in association, only part of these connections do persist in actual fact. In association, it will be remembered, some one sensation in the complex perception or idea suggests another perception or idea ; it is not the whole idea that calls up another, but only some particular side or aspect of it (§ 57). If every sensation in every idea were equally ready to call up associates, con- sciousness would be a mazy tangle of processes, and definite meaning would be impossible. So it is with memory. If we are to remember Forgetfui- usefully, we must forget a great deal. If we remem- Jl^n of Ae bered every incident of every day, — at what time usefulness of memory. we got up, what letters we received, what we had to eat and drink, what exercise we took, what work we did, — we should be lost in the wealth of our own ideas ; we ' should not see the wood for the trees.' The course of association can be explained, as The law of we saw, by the law of habit : the more habitual the co-excitation in the brain, the more certain the asso- ciation in consciousness. Remembering and forget- ting may be explained in precisely the same way. 196 Memory and Imaghiation The different levels of habit. Habit means past atten- tion. Cramming. Habitual associates are remembered; accidental asso- ciates, forgotten. The deepest-seated habits of the brain are its natural and acquired tendencies (§ 57). Hence we remember what fits in with our mental constitution, and forget what does not. Then there are the habits set up by a sudden wrench. We remember vivid, strong, unexpected experiences, and forget the rest. Thirdly, there are the social and profes- sional habits of adult life. We remember the details of our business or of our science, so that the outsider is often surprised at the richness of a technical memory, — not thinking how poor that memory is for other things. Lastly, there are the temporary habits set up by recent events. We remember recent occurrences, for a Httle time, just because they are recent ; every dint in the brain, so to say, remains for a while, till it is obUterated by the multitude of still newer impressions. Putting all this together with what we said in § 57, we cannot resist the conclusion that where habit is, there atten- tion has been. Just as reflex movement arises by way of attentive (impulsive) action, so is the machinery of memory and association set up by way of foregone attention. An idea that fits in with our mental constitution is an idea that we attend to ; a vivid, strong, unexpected idea is also attended to ; the details of our profession are the things that interest us. Though we remember for a few hours the time that we got up in the morning, the time-idea is doomed to forgetfulness when the first flush of newness is past, simply because we did not attend to it. Let us get up unusually early, and we remember the fact for weeks. — This is how it comes about that the idea attended to is more valuable, more suggestive than other ideas (§ 30). The ideas that come to mind in the most fanciful day-dream, in the me- chanical and inattentive flow of consciousness, would not come unless they had, at some time, been attended to. Notice the light that this Section throws on the subject of § 83. The ^Th'ee Stages' in Remembering 197 cramming. The student who crams for an examination trusts to recency of experience to carry him through ; he hopes that a certain amount of his reading will cling to him for just the day or two that he needs it. Hence cramming is bad, if you want to remember, good, if you want to forget, what you have learned. Professor James emphasises the bad side. ^^ Things learned thus in a few hours, on one occasion, for one purpose,^' he says, ^•cannot possibly have formed many associations with other things in the mind. Speedy oblivion is the almost inevitable fate of all that is committed to memory in this simple way." The late Professor Jevons, one of the best known of English logicians, looked at the matter from the other point of view. It is, he says, " a popular but wholly erroneous notion that what boys learn at school and college should be useful knowledge indelibly impressed upon the mind, so as to stay there all their lives." Cramming '* is the rapid acquisition of a series of facts, the vigorous getting up of a case, in order to exhibit well-trained powers of comprehension." And this, he insists, is a fitting for the business of later life. § 83. The * Three Stages' in Remembering. — Psy- chologists often speak of ^ the three stages ' or the * triple process' of memory. The three stages are those of retention, reproduction and recognition. We have a perception : it is retained in the mind, as an idea ; the mind reproduces it, brings it out again for use, when occasion arises ; then, when it is brought out, it is recognised as the old perception. The reader will see that these three terms furnish a description of memory which corresponds, roughly, to the facts. Yet it is a description which differs very considerably from the account of memory given in § 78. The difference illustrates the difference between scientific psychology and the popular psy- chology that we spoke of in § 3. Let us consider the terms in order. (i) It is misleading to say that the mind retains Retention. 198 Memory ajid Imagination Reproduc tion. ideas. If the mind were a creature inside of us, it might do this, and we know nothing about the fact. But if our ideas and feeUngs and so on are the mind, an idea which is not now present in consciousness is not an idea at all. No ! it is not the mind that is retentive, but the brain-cortex ; and even it is reten- tive only in the sense that it acquires habits of func- tioning. The commotion that the perception sets up in the cortex is not bottled away, and kept ready for use ; it persists simply in the form of a tendency of the cortex to fall into the same state of commotion later on. (2) If the mind stored up its ideas, keeping them out of sight till wanted, it would be true to say that they are reproductions of the original perceptions. They would be, in fact, renewed or revived percep- tions. But we saw in § 50 that, while primitive ideas are really weaker copies of perceptions, our own ideas (as a general rule) are not ; the original commotion has been translated, by the tendencies of the nervous system, into the language of that par- ticular system : so that our memory of a sound (a musical air) may be a sight (printed words), etc. There need be no scrap or atom of the perception in the idea that means that perception to us. Recognition. (3) Nor docs the mind stand apart from the revived perception, look at it, and then go through a peculiar performance, the act of recognition. Whenever con- sciousness is made up of a central idea, of associates to that idea, and of the mood of confidence, memory is going on. All these words — retention, reproduction, recogni- § 84. Direct Apprehension 199 tion, recollection, memory, etc. — have come down to The old and us from a psychology which did conceive of the mind psychology. as a living creature of some kind, residing in the body. They were the names given to powers or faculties or capacities of this creature. It laid up its perceptions, as the careful husbandman lays up a stock of grain ; it brought them out, in time of need, as he brings out his store of wheat ; it gathered up again any that it had let slip, as he gathers up (re-collects) the seeds scattered on the granary floor ; etc., etc. We have out- grown these views. But words which have been used as long as these cannot be simply thrown away, and replaced by new terms ; they have become a part of the science. We must take them ; but we must also reinterpret them. In modern psychology, a memory is an idea accompanied by associated ideas and the mood of at-homeness. Memory in the abstract — tenacious memory, logical memory, poor memory — is one phase or feature of mental constitution. j § 84. Direct Apprehension. — Some perceptions and Recognition, ideas become so familiar, by constant repetition, that direct^app^re- * we do not recognise or remember them, but simply tension, take them for granted. We are then said to * cognise ' them, or to have a ^ direct apprehension ' of them. Think of the first watch that you possessed. For a while you ' recognised ' it every time that you pulled it out of your pocket ; the sight of it called up a flood of ideas — who gave it you, what a good one it is, which of your friends have one and which have not, etc. — and a strong mood of relief: you ' made sure ' that you had it, and were not dreaming. The relief alternated, perhaps, with satisfaction, hope fulfilled. Very soon, however, the satisfaction passed 200 Memory and Imagination What ' tak- ing things for granted means. The of- course mood. over into equableness, and the recognition into direct appre- hension. You took the watch for granted ; of course you had one. So for the first few times that you apply an algebraical rule, you ' remember ' the rule. It comes up in mind with many associates, and you set about your work with relief and confidence. But as you got)n, solving more and more prob- lems by its aid, you apprehend it directly : of course you use it, — it is the rule to use. In direct apprehension, all the associated ideas that help us to recognise and remember have fallen away. The perception or idea is so familiar that they v^ould now be useless or worse than useless, encumbrances rather than aids. And the mood of confidence, though it has not wholly disappeared, is greatly weakened. It persists dimly, as a sort of fringe or halo, telling us that the perception or idea is a matter of course. The * at-homeness ' has degenerated into an ^ of-course- ness ' which tinges all the very familiar things of life : our friends' faces, the furniture of our rooms, our own tricks of expression, the round of ideas that carries us through our day's work, and so forth. This of-courseness is a real mood, a pleasurable state, and not a state of indifference. Its psychological nature is best brought out by contrast. Just as we do not realise the blessings of health till we have passed through a time of ill- health, so we do not know how really necessary to our com- fort the existing order of things is until it has been disturbed. Think of the misery of the weekly ^ turn out ' of your special room ! You come home after the morning's work, and find everything looking strangely and uncomfortably new ; books and papers are neatly arranged, chairs symmetrically placed, and an unhomely dampness is over all. Gradually things begin to take on their accustomed aspect ; you pass from § 85. What Imagination Means 201 relief to at-homeness, and from that to the of-course mood of direct apprehension. § 85. What Imagination Means. — Imagination is imagination A 1 • • ,1 • • .1 • 1 • r 'a ' is imaging imaging. And imaging a thing is thinking 01 it m kind : a tree is imaged by a visual idea, a piano note by an idea of hearing, running to catch a train by a tactual idea : the ideas are the same in kind as the perceptions which they represent. In this sense, a mind is more or less * imaginative ' according as it is better or worse constituted to think of things in kind : and the primitive mind — the mind whose ideas are photographic copies of perceptions (§ 50) — is the most imaginative of all. But visical images are to images in general very and, more much what words are to ideas. That is to say, if a visual imag- man thinks at all in ideas of kind, it is probable that ^"^• those ideas are mainly visual, that the sound and touch parts of his perceptions are translated by the nervous system into visual terms. Hence when we say that so-and-so is 'imaginative,' we mean as a general rule that he can picture things and events distinctly in his mind's eye. A man may have the most vivid tactual ' pictures,' lifelike tactual images, — but still, if he lacks visual imagination, he will be classed by most of his friends as unimaginative. In strictness, then, the memory-types of Ch. VII. might The danger equally well be termed 'imagination types' {cf. § 77). We ° "^agma- keep the word imagination, in the sense of visualisation, partly because it has come down to us in that sense from the older psychology and is current in the same sense in popular thinking ; but partly, too, because it is useful to distinguish the ' imaginative ' mind from minds of unimagi- 202 Memo7y and Imagination Children's lies. Three ways of imagining. native constitution. We are apt to think of imaginative people as unreliable people, people who cannot describe an incident without embellishing it. And indeed, this tendency to depart from facts is the besetting danger of the imagi- native mind. For suppose that, as you tell a story, every word that you utter is supplemented at once by some pict- ure. The picture comes up by association ; and, since the verbal idea has a whole host of associates, there will almost certainly be elements in the picture that were not in the original experience. You naturally describe these, as well as the true features of the picture. And the process is repeated, till the facts are buried under a mass of fictitious details. A large proportion of the hes told by young children are of this character. They are not due to any moral defect ; it is simply that imagination colours the story in the telling. And as all imagination has upon it the of-course mark (the very fact that we imagine shows that image-ideas are those most famihar to us), the children are unable to distinguish between fact and fancy. They must be taught the distinc- tion, in the course of education, if what begins as a normal feature of mental constitution is not to end as a habit of exaggeration and disregard of truth. Rightly schooled, imagination is of the greatest service in after life (see above, § 50- There are three different ways of imagining*. Some people see the visual images as if they were out in space, — at about the same distance from the body that the objects would be which they represent. Others can imagine only when they shut their eyes ; the images are seen upon the closed eyelids. And others see the pictures 'inside their heads,' * some- where between the ears.' It seems to be the rule that images of this latter sort are deeper in colour and more transparent, so to speak, than the others : the first two kinds are more definite in outline, but harder § 86. Passive Imagitiation 203 and cruder in colour. The psychology of the three sets of images has not yet been worked out. § 86. Passive Imagination. — Passive imagination is Passive , . , r • • imagination. imagmg that goes on m the state 01 primary passive attention. It is best illustrated by the reading of fiction. The words of a warm, living story are the exact translations of imagined, pictured scenes ; and if the reader is to reconstruct the pictures thus transcribed, he must himself be not destitute of imagination. The writer, having elaborated his plot, photographs it in words ; the imaginative reader ab- sorbed in the words, reimagines the writer's images. Another instance of the same kind is afforded by the illus- ^oo^ trations to novels. If they are good, the reader's imagination is assisted, guided, encouraged ; if they are poor, it is choked. Cruikshank's and Seymour's and Browne's illus- trations of Dickens are of the former kind : the pictures of Fagin and Mr. Pickwick and Ralph Nickleby help us to imagine the men. Oftentimes, however, a picture shows a lack of imagination on the artist's part. In that case, the reader's imagination is suppressed, because he is held down to the picture, — whenever he begins to imagine a scene, the remembrance of the picture cuts across his images, and by its greater strength thrusts them out of consciousness. The reading of Robinson Crusoe may wholly fail of its due effect upon a child by reason of unimaginative cuts. Lytton's Last Days of Ponipeii may be cited as a book which shows imagination on the side of the author, and demands it on the side of the reader. Thackeray speaks of the " wonderful ingenuity '' with which Lytton ^^illustrated the place by his text, as if the houses were so many pictures to which he had appended a story." A good part of Mr. Kipling's strength lies in his power to make the reader see, as if with the eye of outward per- ception, the scenes depicted in his stories. 204 Memory and Imagination What was said above of book illustrations applies equally well to the picture-jokes that abound in the comic papers, — the series of pictures which trace the course of some humorous incident. Sometimes the artist leaves much to the reader's imagination ; oftener, however, the incident is portrayed in so many stages, with so much detail, that one almost hears him say: '^Vou have no imagination ; I must come down to your matter-of-fact level." The consequence is that what should have provoked laughter calls forth resentment. Active or § 8/. Activc Imagination. — Active imagination is imagination, imaging which has been preceded by a state of ac- tive attention. When a sculptor resolves to chisel a Siegfried, e.g.^ he reviews attentively the whole of the Siegfried legend, picking out a feature here and a feature there, and finally combines the traits se- lected into an * ideal ' image. This actively formed image is expressed in the statue. So when an actor wishes to render the part of Hamlet, he scrutinises every word and action that is set down in the play, and actively ' lives himself into ' the character. The natural, easy, ' of-course ' presentation that he gives when his study is over is the expression of the total Hamlet-image that has been taking shape during the state of active attention. Once more : when a writer of romance sets to work upon a tale, he labours at every detail of his plot as if it were a mathematical problem to be solved. The story, which flows so easily as we read from event to event, — all the threads of incident converging of themselves, as it seems, towards the supreme incident of all, — this story is the verbal translation of the images resulting from all the antecedent drudgery. In short : wher- ever there is * creation,' whether it be in painting or § 8/. Active Imagination 205 sculpture, in music or in literature, in the mechanic arts or in science, the creation is the image-product of a long term of active attention. Walter Pater, the greatest master of polished English Style. prose that the century has seen, laid it down as a rule of good writing that one should acquire 'an instinctive feeling for the metaphors contained in words. That is, one should steadily keep in mind the literal meaning of words Hke ' in- volved/ * insipid,' ' essay,' ^ exasperate,' etc., until the writ- ing of the word came to be always and invariably connected with the arousal in consciousness of an image, picturing its root meaning. When we want to copy a diagram, he said, we lay tissue-paper over it, and trace its outline through the paper. Words should be tissue-paper tracings of the writer's images ; and should be so true to those images that, when the reader lays the paper over his images, they correspond just as truly to these. — Notice that this is a matter of secondary passive attention with the writer, while it may be a matter either of primary or of secondary passive atten- tion with the reader. The word ^ creation ' points to a characteristic difference The differ- between imasfination and memory. Memory, whether it is ^^^e between ° J J ^ ^ imagination visual or not, is always bound down to the representation and memory. of actual past events. The representation may not be cor- rect : we may have forgotten parts of the event, and features may have been added to our idea of it, by association, which are really imagined features : but none the less reference to the past is implicit in the very notion of memory, and the mark of famiharity inclines us to trust what memory tells us. Imagination,- on the other hand, has a certain freedom about it ; we need not image a past experience, but may put things together ' out of our own heads ' and not as they have ever occurred. The difference has its root in the nature of passive imagi- nation. As you read, e,g., an author's description of his heroine, you read about her hair, eyes, hands, etc., succes- j 2o6 Memory and Imagination ' sively ; and you consequently image her beauties successively. The hair is seen by itself, the eyes by themselves, the hands by themselves ; and each of these separate images is now at your disposal for future associations. Had you seen the heroine, you would have remembered her by a single, total image. — Having your total images thus broken up into detached part-images, you can imagine centaurs and satyrs and mermaids. And when you go from passive to active imagination, — when you are working over a mass of mate- rial for some artistic purpose, — the part-images that you select naturally fall into connections of their own ; the re- sult is something new, something which does not copy expe- rience. The limits of Notice, however, the limits of imaginative creation. imagination. ^^^ ^]^^ \^y^ q^ imaginative connection is the law of memory and association over again; there is no new ^ power' or ^faculty' of putting images together. (2) The images themselves are the images used in memory : there is no intrinsic difference between the memory-idea and the imagination-idea. You cannot imagine a colour, over and above the colours that you know : the most you can do is to think of the known colours as mixed in unfamiliar ways. All that happens in imagination is that part-images are asso- ciated, with or without effort, to make a total image which does not correspond, as total image, to any definite event of previous experience. • Hawthorne's Preface to The House of the Seven Gables gives the reader an idea of the mechanics of active imagination ; and, if read together with Mr. Lathrop's Introduction, shows the interaction of passive and active attention in the construction of a story. Poe's paper on "The Philosophy of Composition," whether it be wholly or only partly sincere, contains a great deal of sound psychology. In illustration of the effort of attention that must precede ac- tive imagination one may cite the story told of Michael Angelo. The painter was to decorate the walls and ceiling of a room in fresco. Before setting to work, he spent several days in earnest ■ Qiccstions and Exercises 207 contemplation of the bare surfaces. When remonstrated with for this 'waste of time' he rephed : '' I have to see my picture before I can paint it." — When Sir Henry Irving is rehearsing a new part, the stage becomes gradually strewn with crumpled fragments of paper, on each of which some 'point' of action or emphasis has been jotted down, — material evidences of the labour in art which the same art when perfected conceals. The perception or idea which starts the series of Affective 1 , . . • . • /.I • . 1 processes in images m passive and active imagination (the printed imagination. pages of the novel, a photograph of the Bayreuth stage, or what not) ciay be wholly or partly unfa- miliar. The images would, of themselves, always bring the at-home mood with them, and in active imagination a specific form of it, the mood of intel- lectual ease (§ 97). Sometimes, however, the arousal of this mood is prevented : in passive imagination by the novelty, alarming nature, etc., of the central per- ception or idea ; in active imagination by the carry- ing over of active attention from the materials of imagination to the finished product (dissatisfaction in failure to realise one's ideal). Thus our visual idea of a coming examination (passive imagination) is made up of familiar images. But other associates of the word ' examination * may be so disquieting that the mood of at-homeness gives place to that of anxiety. Again : if the sculptor has failed to image his Siegfried dis- tinctly (active imagination) after his active analysis of the Siegfried tale, he will realise that he ' might have done better ' with the theme, and be discontented with himself and his work. — Cf. what was said of recognition : § 79. Questions and Exercises I. The process of recognition can be studied in various ways, (i) Prepare a series of some 20 of the commoner scents. They can be procured from any chemist, and should be placed in small 2o8 Memory and Imagination phials, securely corked, and wrapped with paper so that the sub- stance cannot be recognised by sight. Let the subjects smell them, one by one, and give an introspective account of the men- tal processes aroused by each. Within the series you will prob- ably obtain recognitions of very different degrees of definiteness ; from the puzzled "I know, but can't remember" to a clear-cut set of memory-ideas. This experiment can be made to throw light upon mental con- stitution. Prepare a longer series of, say, 50 scents ; and get as many different orders of scents as you can : flower perfumes, resins, fruit extracts, chemicals, etc. Experiment as before : but note what kind of scent appeals most definitely, and what most indefinitely, to each subject. (2) The following experiment shows the importance of the word-idea, the name, in recognition. Have a photographer pre- pare for you a series of 7 papers, ranging from black to white through five greys. Pick out of the 7 a series of 5 : black, dark grey, grey, light grey, white. Show these to the subject ; and after 10 minutes' interval show one of the 3 greys, and ask what its place was in the original series. Mistakes will be very rare, for the reason that the paper is recognised not as a visual quality but by the name ^dark grey,' etc. — Now form a series of the 5 grey papers. As the possibility of naming has grown less, the accuracy of recognition will also decrease. (3) The effect of lapse of time upon recognition may be tested as follows. Strike 4 notes at random from any octave of the piano. After 10 sec. strike some one of the 4 alone, and let the subject write down his recognition of it as the first, second, third or fourth note of the original series. — Strike 4 others, from a different octave, and wait 20 sec. ; then another 4, and wait 30 sec. ; and so on. Note the point at which mistakes begin to be made, and the point at which recognition ceases to be possible. The subject should be cautioned to attend to the notes as sounds^ and not to name them. 2. Memory, too, can be approached from various sides, (i) To test the accuracy of memory one may have recourse to two methods. The first is the method of description. Let a num- ber of persons write out from memory a description of a scene familiar to them all. Then let the descriptions be compared, as if they were examination papers, and marks assigned for each of the points remembered. — The second is the method of com- Qicestions and Exercises 209 parison. The subjects are shown a picture of a landscape, a group of pieces of pottery, a furnished room, etc., or listen to a piece of music which contains a number of movements, changes of expression, etc. They are told, in each case, to attend care- fully. After the lapse of, say, an hour, they are asked to recall the prominent features of the sight or sound complex. That done, the perception is repeated, and the memory compared with it. Notice that the memory in this second case need not be a memory in kind : the picture may be remembered in words, e.g. The aim of the experiment is to discover how accurately a per- ception is remembered in the practical sense of ' remembering,' — how far it is available for use, in the idea-form that the par- ticular nervous system most favours. (2) The formation of a brain-habit may be roughly tested as follows. Learn a stanza of poetry by heart, reading it straight through again and again till you can just repeat it. Note the number of readings required. Wait till the stanza has been partly forgotten, — say, two days. Then relearn, in the same way. Note the number of readings required for accurate repe- tition. Let the memory lapse again : wait, say, four days. Then renew the readings, — and so on. You will find that the number of readings necessary for accurate repetition steadily decreases with the number of experiments made. For instance : though you may be very uncertain of the stanza on the seventh day, you will learn it in a less number of readings than you did on the third; and though you may have ^ quite forgotten' it on the thirteenth, you will relearn it still more easily ; and so on. This advancing easiness of learning is the mental side of the forming of a brain-habit. 3. To test your imagination, (i) read through a scene of some play which you have not seen -upon the stage. Having read it, write out a commentary, saying where the characters are standing from moment to n^oment, how they group themselves, how they should be dressed, what the general colour-scheme of the scene should be, etc. Or (2) take a theme like Hhe founder- ing of a passenger steamer,' or ' an alarm in the Turkish outposts,' or ^ the exploration of a pyramid,' and make a word-picture of it, choosing your words as the equivalents of what your mind sees. Or (3) choose someone whom you know to be of imaginative turn, and describe to him a house or street or room with which 210 Memory and Imagination he is unfamiliar. When he has formed his mental picture, take him to the spot, and let him compare his idea with the reality. Your words, the translation of your images, are thus tested by retranslation into his images. 4. What are the literal meanings of the words insipid, in- volved, essay, exasperate? 5. Should maps be the sole visual aids allowed to the student of geography? Give reasons for your answer. 6. Are there any statements in this Chapter that seem to ex- plain (i) the general conservatism of human society, and (2) the fact that old people are more conservative than young? 7. One sometimes hears it affirmed that we never really forget anything ; that everything is remembered when the time comes for remembering it. How would you account for this opinion? References James, Textbook, chs. xviii., xix. Sully, Human Mind, vol. i., chs. ix., x. Titchener, Outline, §§ 70-80. Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XIX., XX. Wundt, Outlines, §§ 16, 17 B. CHAPTER XI Thought and Self-consciousness § 88. Language. — Among the bodily disturbances Emotion that express emotion are certain movements of Hmbs wj^uiTive ^ and features (§§ 60, 61). And among these, again, actions, we noted the presence of gesture movements. Re- membering the close relation that emotion bears to impulse in the developed mind (§ 70), we are forced to believe that all these expressive movements are, in their origin, of the nature of impulsive actions. They are now more or less decayed, more or less weakened by having outlived their usefulness, more or less modified by the concurrence of the other forms of affective expression. But, in themselves, the wince and start and clenching of the fist are either impulsive actions or the direct descendants of impulsive actions (§ 74). Most important of all the impulsive expressions andespe- of emotion, however, are movements that we have articuiale so far taken for granted, — the movements of the speech, larynx which, in man, produce articulate speech. The spoken word is the medium of thought, as the visual idea is the medium of imagination. Hence the problem of the origin and development of lan- guage is one of prime importance for psychology. Gesture movements are of two kinds. The one The two kind serves principally to express the feel-side of gesture, the emotion (subjective gesture); the other to ex- 211 212 ThoitgJit ajid Self-consciousness press its situation-side (objective gesture). The ' sour look ' upon the face is a gesture of the former sort ; the pointing of the finger in fear, the threatening with the fist in anger, and the drawing of an object in rough outHne by hand movements through the air, are objective gestures. Vocal sounds — cries, calls, exclamations — were as- sociated from the first with both these classes of gesture ; but their development in the two direc- tions has been very far from uniform. Subjective speech to-day is inarticulate, or at most merely interjectory ; objective speech, the speech whose function it is to communicate ideas, has attained an extraordinary degree of complexity in the va- rious languages of the civilised world. The uttering of a cry under stress of emotion is not pecu- liar to man ; it can be observed in very many of the lower animals, and especially in the social or gregarious animals. Moreover, when any one member of herd or flock sounds the ^ danger note,' the whole company is alarmed. The sound is understood ; it carries a nieanmg with it. Hence it is perfectly natural that the first attempts at the distinc- tively human language, at articulate speech, should have been understood. The utterance of one tribesman must have meant something to his fellow-tribesmen, — all the more as it was eked out by objective gesture. This mutual understanding within a herd or tribe is possible only bj-QUsht about, at the biddinsf of nature, by way of simul- in society. ° . . r^y ? . •, , ^ taneous association. The whole company has been sub- ject at some time, let us suppose, to the emotion of fear. Every one is thus made familiar with the expression of fear in his neighbour. If, therefore, any individual ' shows ' fear on a later occasion, his companions will catch the emotion from him, without themselves facing the situation which The origin of language is the warn- ing-note. Language § 89. Tho2ight 213 he is confronting. — Our understanding of a friend's con- versation, then, is the outcome of a lesson learned lower down in the scale of life at the stern command of nature, a lesson in which failure to understand meant death. We shall never know what were the first words that our The earliest ancestors pronounced ; but it is highly probable that they words, were imitative, descriptive words ; words which supple- mented the gesture-drawing in the air by adding the sound which the object made. On the other hand, we are able to explain the fact that articulate speech has so far outrun its primitive associate, objective gesture, in use- fulness. In the first place, sounds are ' free,' while the The develop- limbs are tied to the body. Hence more variation can 1^^^^ °^ •" language. be obtained from words than from gestures {cf, the superi- ority of auditory to tactual rhythm: § 47). Secondly, words are heard more easily than gestures are seen : they are clearer-cut, less ambiguous, can be better apprehended from a distance, etc. Thirdly, there is less individuality about words than about gestures ; it is more difficult for two people to make exactly the same gesture than to give the same sound. Hence the word is the better symbol. Notice how the first beginnings of language illustrate Pro- fessor Wundt's statement (§ 70) that the general animal im- pulses are the earliest forms of emotion. The danger note may be regarded either as an expression of the emotion of fear, or as 'an impulsive action. § 89. Thought. — The word ' thought ' is used in various uses various senses. We say, *^ I can't think what his ° ^ ^^^ ^' name is !" when we should say, in strictness, '^I can't remember." And we say, *' I can't think how you could have done it ! " when we should say, *^ I can't imagine." Accurately defined, however, thought is the verbal counterpart of active imagination. Active imagination is thinking in images ; thinking is active imagination carried on in words. 214 Thought and Self-consciousness Thought the analogue of active imagi- nation. An account of the mechanism of thought will be nothing more, therefore, than the account of § 87, with ' words ' substituted for ^ images ' in every case. The thinker comes to his subject-matter in the state of active attention; works over it, feature by feature; and finally reaches a verbal * conclusion ' as the result of the term of effort, — precisely as the painter faces his mass of image material, and produces his picture after a period of strenuous endeavour. And there is a further likeness. Thought, which in psychology is only one process amongst others, forms the sole subject of a special science, logic ; and imagination, also one psychological process amongst many, is the sole subject of the science of aesthetics. Logic has reached a far higher level of development, however, than aesthetics ; so that we have in this Chapter a good number of technical thought-terms to define and explain. The farther a science advances, the more complicated does its word-machinery become. Words and images. Changes of sound and meaning in words. The difference between the word and the image is that the latter is photographic, a copy of reality, while the for-j\ mer is symbolic (§ 41), a sign of a reality which is wholly unlike itself. There is a close resemblance between the inventor's mental forecast of a machine and the actual machine ; there is none between the word ^ telephone^ and the actual telephone. We must remember, however, that the earliest words were, in all probability, photographic, — sound-images : it was only by slow degrees that the word acquired its symbolic character. On the one hand, the sound of the word became modified by frequent use, by climatic conditions, by growing ease of articulation, etc. ; on the other, the meaning became modified, as the idea which was originally expressed grew more definite § 9^- Jitdgmciit and Reasoning 215 and accurate, or was altogether ousted by a newer idea. Change of sound and change of meaning have deprived words of their primitive naturalness, of their life-likeness to the ideas which are expressed by them. And as the sound- images gradually ceased to be sound-images, and became symbolic, other words came into use, which could never have been sound-images, — words, e.g,^ which symbolised visual or tactual, not auditory impressions. These facts help us to answer a very common question : Can we the question whether we can ' think ' without words. If we ' ^^^"^ ^^^^" out words? go back to the beginnings of thought, to the time when active imagination and thought Were identical, we must answer yes, — active imaging can be done without words, and active imaging is the earhest kind of thought. If we take ^ thought ' in the narrower sense, the answer will be negative. § 90. Judgment and Reasoning. — The simplest The judg- thought-process, the unit of thinking, is the judg- ment. Certain material is presented, and worked over in the state of active attention. Some one feat- ure, or some group of features, is selected, drawn out from the mass ; is supplemented by associated ideas ; and so forms a new total idea. Henceforth, in place of the original, undifferentiated material, we have a jiidgme7it ; there are two complexes instead of one. We have, on the one hand, the original mass, in the state in which its working-over by the attention has left it, and on the other the supplemented aspect or feature of the mass. The first of these is expressed by a word which we call the 'subject,' the second by what is called the * predicate ' of the judgment. The holding together of the crude material, and the hold- ing together of subject and predicate, are both alike matters of association. 2l6 Thought and Self-conscioitsness Reasoning. Instance of judgment. It is but seldom, however, that the material is exhausted by a single judgment. As a rule, the forming of one judgment suggests the forming of another; so that we have a train of judgments, or reasoning. The train of judgments, like the train of ideas, is held together by successive association. The splitting up of the material in judgment must not be understood as a simple halving, to be followed by an equally simple rejoining. In the first place, the feature seized upon by the attention is not taken bodily out of the material : it persists as part of the subject. In the second, the predicate is not merely the feature of the mass that the attention seized upon ; it is that feature supplemented by other, connected ideas. — Let us take an instance. Suppose that flints, which appear to have upon them the marks of human workmanship, are found in a Pliocene bed, which has apparently remained undisturbed. The archaeologist is called upon to decide whether this is reliable evidence of the existence of man in Tertiary times. First of all he forms a series of judgments as to the disturbance or non-disturbance of the bed : feature after feature is attended to, and each in its turn supplemented by ideas derived from previous knowledge. The outcome of the judgment-series, of the reasoning, is a final judg- ment : "This bed has not been disturbed." The original total idea of ' Pliocene-bed-undisturbedness ' has been worked over ; the ' undisturbedness ' drawn out from it and supplemented ; and the two ideas put together again as subject and predicate of a judgment. _^ The same course is taken with regard to the flints. The investigator starts with the total idea of ' humanly worked flints,' and transforms it into the judgment : " These flints are of human workmanship." Then the two final judgments are united, and the conclusion is reached that man existed on the earth in the Tertiary period. This instance may seem to be unnecessarily complicated. The reader may know nothing of geological periods or the problems of archaeology. Why should one choose such an § 90- Judgment and Reasonijtg 217 illustration, instead of taking a simple sentence like : " The grass is green? " The reason is that judging, thinking, is a process of rare Judgment a occurrence in consciousness. Man has dubbed himself ^^^^ process. homo sapiens, and defined himself as ^ rational animal ' ; but he rarely thinks. For we are, all of us, born into a society where judgments await us ready-made ; every gen- eration receives a heritage of judgments from the preceding generations. Hence facts that cost our ancestors immense pains to work out come to us as matters of course. Society is already organised : then we need not trouble ourselves to make judgments about social organisation. A form of re- ligion is established : we need not judge for ourselves in religious matters. A code of conduct has been laid down : we need not judge in matters of conduct. The apphcations of scientific principle are to be seen all about us : we need not understand the principles, — we may take the steam- engine and the telegraph for granted. Life is made smooth for us by the accumulated work of past generations. And even if we wish to judge for ourselves, there are so many past judgments on record in books, and so many others to be had for the asking from our elders, that independent thought is difficult. — It follows from all this that propo- sitions Hke "The grass is green " are not judgments at all; they do not express results which we have gained labori- ously by active attention. That they have the form of judgment may be due either to the fact that they w^ere judgments once, generations ago, or merely to the fact that we cannot utter more than one word at a time, and must therefore give the parts of our idea successively. It is only when (as in the instance given) a total idea is actively divided up that true judgment occurs. It must not be supposed, however, that we think less than But man our forefathers did. They did not sit down, in any particu- ^^"^•'^ ^^' lar century, and actively discuss forms of social organisation and codes of conduct, thus arriving at a judgment which we sluggishly accept. Their thinking was done as ours is, httle 2l8 TlioiLgJit mid Self-consciousness and this raises him high above the animals. bit by bit. But this is the point : that thinking is confined for most of us, as it always has been for the majority of mankind, to some one corner of the field of knowledge, and to a few years of our life. Outside of our ' special subject ' we accept what other people tell us ; and when we have passed beyond early manhood, our thought moves but lazily even there, — we are slaves of the brain-habits set up in youth. When the channels of such acquired tendencies are supplied by numerous tributaries, when the train of habitual ideas is richly supplemented by associates, we have talent ; when active thought continues into mature life, genius. Again : we must not lose sight of the advantage that even a little thinking gives man over the animals. There is evi- dence that the higher animals are, at times, actively imagi- native (§§ 31, 32). But it is highly significant that, although many of them have the physical means of speech, man alone has developed an articulate language, the vehicle of sym- bolic imagination or thought. The very fact that he can accept judgments ready made, that he can be passively attentive to groups of word-ideas, is a clear indication of his mental superiority. ^^^ The material which calls for a judg- ment to set it in order is termed an aggregate idea. § 91. Aggregate Ideas and Concepts. — The 'material ' which is worked over and divided up by the attention in judgment or active imagination consists of per- ceptions, ideas, tags of meaning and what not, — a mixed medley of the processes derived from sensation. It is not an idea, in the strict sense of the word^ sometimes, it is not even a complex of simultaneous associates ; idea may follow idea within it, by suc- cessive association. Nevertheless, it has a peculiar singleness of character, due to the fact that the meaning of the central idea in the total complex remains the same throughout. It is therefore given a special name, aggregate idea. §91- Aggregate Ideas a7id Concepts 219 Instances of aggregate ideas that we have had so far are those of Siegfried and his adventures, the playing of Hamlet, the plot of The Hoicse of the Seven Gables^ Pliocene-bed - undisturbedness, humanly-worked-flintness. In each case the dominant idea of the aggregate, the ' topic ' of thought, remains unchanged through all the changes of associated ideas. — A good illustration is afforded by the idea of the coming sentence that you have in mind before you speak. There must be some total idea already formed, or you could not carry your sentence to its end grammatically ; but it is a /(^/(^/idea, a mass which has not yet taken on the judgment form. It cannot but happen, when one considers the con- The concept. stancy of man's physical surroundings, the routine character of daily life, that one and the same feature will attract the attention in a large number of aggre- gate ideas. In other words : there will be many judgments in which the subjects are different, but the predicates the same. A predicate which is common to several judgments is termed a concept. The aggregate idea may be made up of images or of The abstract words. The concept is always a word : when we speak of ^ ^^* the corresponding image-process, we term it not concept but abstract idea. Thus the word ^ horse * is a concept ; it may be predicated of a vast number of animals. But the animal-picture in my mind which stands for the typical, standard horse is an abstract idea. The abstract idea, then, is made up of images which have attracted the attention in a long series of aggregate ideas. There has been much dispute, in the history of psychology, The contro- with regard to the nature of abstract ideas. John Locke (1632- ^^^^^3^ ^°^" 1704), the founder of modern empirical psychology, speaks in his abstract Essay concerning Human Understanding of the abstract idea of ideas. a triangle as an imagined figure which is " neither oblique nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon, but all 220 ThoiigJit and Self -consciousness and none of these at once." George Berkeley (i 685-1 753), who ranks only after Hume in the subtlety of his metaphysical thought, criticises Locke in these terms : " If any man has the faculty of framing in his mind such an idea of a triangle as is here described, it is in vain to pretend to dispute him out of it, nor would I go about it. All I desire is that the reader would fully and certainly inform himself whether he has such an idea or no. . . . The idea of ' man ' that I frame to myself must be either of a white or a black or a tawny, a straight or a crooked, a tall or a low or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described.'^ What are the facts? (i) In many cases, there certainly may be an abstract idea of the kind that Locke describes. Take, e.g.^ the abstract idea of ^ horse.' If real horses are so much alike that I can at once recognise every separate specimen as a horse, there will evidently be distinct marks of ^ horsiness ' that can be represented in the abstract idea : a peculiar wavy outline, a peculiar posture, a mane, etc. My idea will not be the picture of any special horse, but a picture of average horsiness. (2) Where the individuals differ so much as the individual tri- angles do, no such idea is possible at any given moment. But an idea is a process : it need not all be present at the given moment. Hence I may have an abstract idea of a triangle in the sense that equilateral and scalene and isosceles triangles melt into one another, in quick succession, like dissolving views. The group of processes would mean ^ triangle,' and not ' tri- angles ' ; and so might be fairly termed an idea. (3) As a rule, however, the abstract idea (while it still remains abstract so far as meaning is concerned) takes the form of the memory-idea of a particular object. When we learned geometry at school, we found in our text-books little equilateral figures which stood for the word ^triangle.' It is probable, then, that when we think of ^triangle' in the abstract we see one of these little figures. Our abstract triangle is not a triangle of all sorts, but an equi- lateral triangle. So our abstract horse will probably have a good deal of some particular (favourite or dreaded) horse about it. (4) Since we are born into a world of words, we learn concept- words long before we learn to think, and associate them hap- hazard to the .objects first called by their names. In after life, the picture of this hap-hazard object often serves as the abstract idea corresponding to the concept. Thus the author's abstract § 92. Comparison^ Relation and Abstraction 221 idea of ^ hour ' consists of the picture of a small outline square drawn on a white background ; and this square is one of the squares of the daily report-cards upon which the marks for every hour^s work were entered at the first school that he attended. In a case known to him, the abstract idea of ' squareness ' is a mental picture of one of the wood-squares in which honey-comb is sold. § 92. Comparison, Relation and Abstraction. — In the The logic of logical treatment of thought we find frequent mention the pV- of the processes of comparison or discrimination, of choiogy of relation and of abstraction. The terms serve a use- ful purpose in logic, since they enable the logician to divide up his subject into parts, and to discuss it part by part. On the other hand, they have been the source of much confusion in psychology. Psycholo- gists have been incUned to think that, as they stand for different processes in logic, they must also stand for distinct processes in psychology; so that the mind must be regarded as endowed with a peculiar power of discrimination, with another power of relating, etc., — or at least that thought or judgment must be ranked as a fundamental psychological process alongside of sensation and affection. Plainly, however, psychology cannot allow logic to settle a question of this sort. We must find out, for ourselves, what the words mean when they are trans- lated into psychological processes ; and then we must decide for ourselves (by an appeal to introspection) whether or not the psychological processes are of a new kind, or of a kind already familiar to us. There is no difficulty in discovering what goes on Comparison, in our own minds when we compare and relate and abstract, (i) When we compare, we look at two ob- 222 Thought and Self-consciottsness jects or two ideas attentively, the one after the other, and presently find in consciousness the word * like ' or * different.' That is all. Sometimes the comparison is passive : the word arises without thought, by way of successive association. Sometimes it is active ; the word arises as the predicate of a judgment. relation, (2) The Same thing is true of relation. When one idea succeeds another in the train of ideas, the two are by that very fact brought into relation with each other : this is passive relating. And when the feat- ure drawn out of the aggregate idea by the attention has been supplemented, and the new complex is predicated of the old, the two are, again, brought abstraction, into relation : this is active relating. (3) Lastly : when the attention has drawn the predicate-feature out of the aggregate idea, the process of abstraction has taken place. We have * abstracted ' the feature, * abstracted from ' (neglected) the rest of the idea. The reader will recall the parallel discussion in the case of recognition (§ 79). When a perception has the mark of famili- arity, there is a ^ recognition ' before us : we find no peculiar process of recognising, over and above the addition of the famili- arity mark. So when two ideas associate, there is a relation be- fore us : we find no peculiar process of relating, over and above the associative connection. — One is tempted to suggest that Lewis Carroll has satirised this juggling with words, out of psychology into logic and back again, in the various names of the White Knight^s Song {Through the Looking Glass ^ ch. viii.). and their The processcs themsclvcs, then, are all old friends. ing^concepts. Nevertheless, they offer a new problem for solution. How do we come to name them } The names ' com- parison,' * relation,' etc., are evidently concepts ; but, as evidently, they are concepts of a different order § 92. Comparison^ Relation and Abstraction 223 from those mentioned in § 91. The concept ^ horse' has an abstract idea corresponding to it, an idea made up from many perceived horses. But ' rela- tion' and * abstraction ' are just words; there is nothing in perception, nothing in visual idea, that corresponds to them. Granted that two associated ideas are related, how did we ever come to attend to the fact of their relation as something quite apart and distinct from them and their meaning t The question is one that psychology is, undoubt- edly, called upon to answer. And it can be answered only by following out the history of mental develop- ment, and more especially of mental development as borne witness to by language. This history shows {cf. § 61) that all concepts were originally of the ^ horse ' kind, words that stood for definite abstract ideas. As thought advanced, however, words were used more freely, with less and less of reference to any corresponding abstract idea : objects of thought took their place alongside of objects of perception. Now, we have a large stock of verbal ideas, all with clear-cut and valuable meanings, which stand not for things or processes of the outside world, but simply for our own interpretations of these things and pro- cesses, for thought-objects ; and among them are to be counted the concept-ideas of relation and com- parison and abstraction with which logic, the science of thought, has to deal. To trace out the development of concepts in detail would be to write a Chapter, and that not a short one, in the psy- chology of language (see § 120). We can no more do that here than we can write Chapters in the psychology of custom 224 TIioiLght and Self-conscioitsness The history of a con- cept-word. The per- ceived self. or art or law : it would take us too far afield. A single instance must suffice. If a logician were speaking of the relation which the concept ^ whiteness ' bears to the substance ' snow/ he would call it an attribute of that substance. An attribute is a characteristic or property or mark of a substance. How has the concept been formed ? We find in English, German and Latin the words thorps Dorf and tribiis^ which are all, philologically, the same word. Tribics means ^ tribe ^ ; and thorp and Dorf mean ^village.'' The origi- nal meaning of the three, then, is that of a community, a society of men. — In Latin we find the verb tribuo, ' to assign ' or ^give ' ; and the past participle of this is kept in the English tribute. ^ Tribute ' means ^ what is done by the tribe ' ; and ' what is done by the tribe ' is to pay for protection, to give or bestow some- thing upon a chieftain or a more powerful tribe in return for favours received. The special meaning retained in ^ tribute' has become a general meaning (^ to give,' simply) in the verb tribuo. — Finally, from tribuo comes ' attribute,' that which is assigned or granted to something. It is a long road that leads from the village community through the assessment of the community tO' the logical characteristic ; but it is without doubt the road that this concept travelled. ^^^~ § 93. The Concept of Self. — We have in the con- cept of self an exceedingly good instance of concepts in general. For on the image side we have various stages, from the perception of self to its abstract idea ; and on the word side similar stages, from the concept corresponding to the abstract idea up to ar- concept that has been refined to the utmost limits of logical subtlety. It will be worth while, therefore, to find out as definitely as we can what comes into consciousness along with the words * I ' and * me ' and ^ my.' (i) The primitive, perceptual self is made up chiefly of a mass of cutaneous and organic sensations, partly § 93- ^^^^ Concept of Self 225 of visual sensations,- — the whole overlaid with an af- fection. Your 'self,' the self that you perceive at this moment, is probably composed of pressures, tempera- tures, strains, breaths, etc. ; that is, a certain total effort or comfortableness or headachiness : together with the visual perception of hands and clothes. That is yoiL^ as you perceive yourself. Perhaps you were not thinking of yourself at all until you began to read this Section ; but now that your attention is called to yourself, the perceived self comes out plainly : you realise that your glasses need adjust- ing, that your position must be shifted, that your forehead had better be relaxed, that your collar is sitting too tightly, that you have set about reading too soon after dinner, and so on. All this mass of felt sensations is yourself. Dr. Charles Mercier, writing of the perceived self from the medical standpoint, emphasises the part played by sensations from the alimentary canal. "Self means stomach,'' he says. "The function of assimilating food is the most fundamental of all the functions ; it is antecedent even to locomotion and propa- gation. Hence anything which directly affects the organism as a whole affects the stomach," — and it is the alimentary organic sensations that loom largest in the perception of self. (2) The idea of self consists principally of a visual The idea of self, picture of one's body and its usual surroundings. You see yourself seated in your accustomed chair, clothed in your usual way, busied about your usual occupations. This self-figure is seen upon a dim and shifting background made up of memory-images of past experiences. It is not often, however, that the self comes to mind so definitely as this description would imply. Q 226 ThotigJit and Self-conscioitsness The abstract The idea is for the most part an abstract idea : the idea of self. ^ . , , i . i i i i i figure IS more shadowy, and the background clearer. What precisely the background is will depend upon the direction of thought at the time : it may be a professional or a social or a moral or a national or a religious background. In other words : the self- consciousness is made up of the verbal idea ' I ' (the concept), of a vague picture of the clothed figure, and of a mass of images of professional experiences, social incidents, etc., How shadowy the figure-self may become is amusingly illus- trated by a story that Professor Mach, of Vienna, tells in his book on the Analysis of Sensations. ^^ I got into an omnibus one morning," he writes, " after a tiring night on the train, just as some one else was entering from the far end. ' Some broken- down schoolmaster,' I thought. It was myself: there was a large mirror opposite the omnibus door." The professional figure was recognised before the personal figure. (3) Finally we have^the logical self, the bare con- cept of the * I ' or the *ego.' This has been gained by abstraction from the social, professional, moral, etc., self-concepts; it is a sort of short-hand term for them all. Its meaning differs very considerably in different philosophical systems. Psychologically regarded, it stands on the same level with the con- cepts of relation, etc. : it does not correspond to a«^y thing or process of the outside world, — the self-con- cept which does that is the concept discussed above under (2), — but stands simply for the philosopher's special interpretation of selfhood, i.e.^ for a thought- object. The difference between this ' I ' and the preceding ' I ' may not be quite clear, at first. It becomes clear, when The logical self. § 94' Self -consciousness 227 once the two I-experiences have been compared. How- ever far the first I-concept is removed from the perceived self, it is still the concept of oneself, — you ^ feel ' that it is you that are meant. As you read about the other ^ 1/ you are left quite cold ; it does not strike you that the author means yoic : the * I ' is just an indifferent word with an indif- ferent meaning, like ^reality' or any other philosophical term. § 94. Self-consciousness. — A self-consciousness is a The seif- , . , ^, ^ . , r 1 r conscious- consciousness m which the concept or idea of self, or ^ess. some phase or part of it, is present in the state of at- tention, and thus serves as a centre of association for other ideas. Thus the introspective consciousness is a self-consciousness : the psychologist attends to some mental process which belongs to himself, which forms part of his experience and can never form part of that of another man (§ 5). In everyday life, the self-con- sciousness is usually a highly affective consciousness; when we think of ourselves, it is with marked self- satisfaction or with equally marked humiliation. These processes, * sentiments ' as they are called, will occupy us in the following Chapter. The discussion of self-consciousness filled a large place The problem in the older psycholo2fy, in which the mind was supposed <^^seif-con- ^ -> ^J ' i i sciousness in somehow to turn inwards upon itself and observe itself, — the old being endowed with a pecuhar ' inner sense ' which enabled it to do this. Modern psychology makes no mention of an inner sense : for it, introspection means simply attentive experiencing, attentive remembering and attentive trans- lation into words (Ch. II.). For us, therefore, the problem of self-consciousness re- and in the solves itself into the question how the idea and concept ^^^ psychol- of self are formed. We have seen that the earliest idea of self is the idea of the bodily self; and the body, whether it be our own body or another, is an object of perception, 228 Thought and Self -consciousness an object of the outside world (Ch. VI. ; cf, § 58). The idea of self is therefore formed at the bidding of nature, as all ideas are. On the other hand, the question how the concept of I-ness, of selfhood, came to be formed is much more difficult. The answer to it involves an elaborate en- quiry into the conditions of primitive life and the growth of language {cf, the concept of * attribute '). There can be no doubt that the social form of life and (what is a result of this) the giving oi proper names to individuals are among the principal conditions under which the concept took shape. ^Self-consciousness' in the popular sense of nervousness, awkwardness, bashfulness, etc., is one of the instinctive fears (see § 75). A good account of it is given by Professor Mosso, in the Introduction of his work on Fear. Questions and Exercises 1. What animals do you know to be capable of articulate speech? Have you ever observed an animal signal to another by sound? What did the signal mean? How many different signal-sounds have you known an animal to employ? 2. Can you give instances of ^suggestion] — of the catching of an idea or emotion by a number of individuals, as if by infec- tion — in human society? 3. We said that " articulate speech has far outrun its primi- tive associate, objective gesture, in usefulness,'' and gave reasons. But we saw in § 61 that the sour look (subjective gesture) per- sists after the word-metaphor has disappeared : the development has proceeded in just the opposite direction. Why should this be? - 4. It is said that the letters of the alphabet are derived from hieroglyphics, i.e.j pictures of actual objects in the external world, and have only by very slow degrees become sound-symbols. What psychological process would this evolution illustrate? 5. Can animals reason? 6. Suppose that you ask someone a question, and receive an answer. The answer will have the form of a judgment. Can you tell, by the way in which the answer is given, whether it is a true judgment or a mere hearsay answer? — How, in your own Questions and Exercises 229 experience, does a judgment that you have formed by effort of attention differ from a statement taken ^on trust \^ 7. What was the aggregate idea in the author's mind when he set to work to write the first Section of this chapter? 8. What method would you use, if you were enquiring into the psychological development of the concepts of Mikeness ' and ^ difference ' ? 9. Write out a careful introspective description of (i) the perception, (2) the idea and (3) the abstract idea that you have of yourself. 10. Whenever the abstract self of § 93 (2) comes clearly to consciousness, the idea is accompanied by a special group of sen- sations. These are at times so vivid as almost to change the idea of self to a perception of self. What are they? 11. Animals maybe actively attentive, actively imaginative. Man stands above them, in this sphere, because he thinks, i.e.^ uses words to symbolise the images actively attended to. Man, also, has passed beyond active to secondary passive attention ; the animals have not. — What biological reasons can you offer for this progress from active imaging to active symbolising, and from this again to secondary passive attention? References James, Textbook^ chs. xii., xiv., xv., xxii. Sully, Human Mind^ vol. I., chs. xi., xii. Titchener, Outline^ §§ 81-85. Wundt, LectiireSy pp. 250, 251 ; Lects. XXL, XXIV. Wundt, Outlines^ § I7- Consult also: A. H. Sayce, Introdtiction to the Science of Lang2iage^ 1S83 ; W. D. Whitney, Life and Growth of Lan- guage^ 1880; Language and the Study of Language^ 1S91 ; and pt. i. of the art. Philology in the Encyc, Brit., 9th. ed. CHAPTER XII Sentiment Sentiment § 95, Sentiment. — The emotion bears precisely the same relation to the sentiment that the assimilation bears to the judgment, or passive to active attention. In emotion we are brought face to face with an inci- dent or situation, which overwhelms us, takes posses- sion of us, — in other words, is passively attended to. A very strong and very complex feeling is formed, and rendered still stronger and still more complex by the organic sensations that come with our bodily atti- tude towards the situation. In sentiment, we are also Formation brought f acc to f acc with an incident or situation ; * - but it is of a kind tha,t demands active attention, effortful attention now to this part and now to that. We take possession of it, so to speak, in place of its taking possession of us. Otherwise, the sentiment re- sembles the emotion. A strong and complex feeling is formed, and reinforced by organic sensations. The bodily expression of sentiment is of the same kind as that of emotion. ^ The core of an emotion, then, is a simultaneous as- sociation of ideas; the core of a sentiment is a judg- ment or an active imaging. The sentiment stands upon a higher level of mental development. There is no other difference. We find the same difficulty in investigating sentiment that we found in investigating thought. Just as there are many ap- 230 § 96. The Fonns of Senthnent 231 parent judgments that are not really thought at all, but mere associations, so there are many apparent sentiments that are based not on a true judgment-process but on assimilation. And again just as active attention lapses into secondary passive attention, so does an affective state that begins as sentiment lapse into emotion. Hence in describing and identifying the sentiments we must be constantly on our guard against confusing them with emotions based upon ready-made judgments, and with emotions based upon judgments which were once really judgments, but have now become matters of habitual association. For instance : my ' sentiment ' of honour may never have Tradition cost me a moment's effort of attention. A definition of ^?-^.^'^^\ their effect honourable conduct has come down to me, by tradition, and upon senti- I accept it without thought. Conduct-situations take pos- "^^^*- session of me : I face them by an emotion. Or again : my ' sentiment ' of beauty may have once been a real sentiment. I may have laboriously studied art-canons, and studiously dissected art-forms by active attention. Now, twenty years after this labour, I have nothing but an emotion of beauty ; I am instinctively pleased or displeased by works of art, without making the least effort to analyse them. — In form, / then, I have a moral and an aesthetic sentiment ; in reahty, I have two emotions. Here as everywhere in mental life the lapse of active into passive may be very good or very bad for us. If we pass on to new activity, as soon as the once-active has become pas- sive, — using the old material as the foundation of new judg- ments, and so rising higher and higher in knowledge the more of this passive material we accumulate, — then we are turning human endowment to its full and proper account. If we are content with the passive, resting on the founda- tion built for us by our ancestors, we are no better than the animals. § 96. The Forms of Sentiment. — There are four groups or classes of sentiments : the intellectual or 232 Sentiment Intellectual, social, religious and aesthetic sentiments. logical, the moral or social, the religious and the aesthetic. (i) The situation which calls forth the intellectual sentiments is made up, not of coexistent objects and concurrent processes of the outside world, but of thought-objects, of our own interpretative processes. We never look at a scientific ' fact ' except through the eyes of a theory. It is the theory, the thought- situation, the group of concepts, that calls out the intellectual sentiment. And the central judgment, round which the affective processes gather, is the judgment *This is true' or *This is untrue.' (2) We have our ideals of social conduct, as we have our scientific theories. The situation that evokes a social sentiment is a behaviour-situation, the agree- ment or disagreement of actual conduct with our ideal of conduct. A man's actions as member of a family or profession, as citizen of a town or nation, etc., give rise to the judgment ^ This is good' or *This is bad behaviour.' This judgment forms the core of the social sentiments. (3) The situation in the religious sentiment, like those in the intellectual and social sentiments, is an ideal situation, made up of thought-objects and inter- pretations. The central judgment differs very con- siderably in different religions, and in the same religion at different levels of development. In general terms it runs * This is right ' or * This is wrong in the eyes of God.' (4) The judgment that underlies the aesthetic sen- timents is *This is beautiful' or 'ugly.' The situation which calls out the judgment may be wholly ideal § 96. The Forms of Sentiment 233 (a * pretty ' theory, a ^ neat ' argument), or may be partly perceptual and partly ideal (a beautiful land- scape, symphony, etc.). Two points call for notice here, (i) Notice that there Practical is an obvious reason for the existence of the first three kinds ii^po^t,^"^^ of senti- of sentiment. It is of great practical importance for us to ments. know whether theories are true or untrue, whether our con- duct will be approved or disapproved by our friends and acquaintances, and whether we are living our whole life rightly or wrongly. If our theory is untrue, if it has out- run or neglected the facts of the world, we shall not be able to adjust ourselves to these facts ; our inventions will not work, our crops will not come up, etc. If we act badly, life will be made unpleasant for us, by imprisonment, by withdrawal of friendship, etc. If we believe in a divine retribution, and yet direct our whole life amiss, run counter to the divine will, we must expect to suffer for it. — On the other hand, there seems to be no such reason for the exist- ence of the aesthetic sentiments. We cannot say, offhand, what their practical value is ; we must make a special inves- tigation (§ 100) to discover it. (2) Notice that the sentiments, like the feelings and Affective emotions, fall into two sets : a pleasurable and an unpleasur- ^^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ sentiments. able set. They give evidence of the two affective quahties, pleasantness and unpleasantness, but not of any others. Not very much is known about the sentiments. More work has been done upon the aesthetic group than upon the social, intellectual or religious ; but even there our knowledge is uncertain. The sentiments are sometimes spoken of as the ^higher' feel- Higher and ings, in contradistinction to the emotions and the feelings proper, Jo^'^r feel- which are Mower' feelings. We may accept the words Miigher' ^ ' and Mower,' if we interpret them to mean simply Mnore complex' and ^ less complex.' On the other hand, we may not use them in the sense of ^ more commendable' and Mess commendable' : such an interpretation takes us out of the sphere of psychology into that of ethics (§ 121). 234 Sentiment Intellectual sentiments : qualitative, temporal and oscilla- tory. § 97. The Intellectual Sentiments. — These senti- ments show very clearly how nearly related senti- ment in general is to emotion. We have qualitative and temporal sentiments, as we had qualitative and temporal emotions. More than that, we have a dis- tinction of objective and subjective forms among the qualitative sentiments, just as we had among the qualitative emotions. At the same time, the difference between senti- ment and emotion is brought out with equal clear- ness. There can be no 7nidway emotion : an emotion is either joy or sorrow, either hope or fear; there is no new emotion that is something between the two, but is neither the one nor the other. This is a neces- sary consequence of the fact that the emotions are formed in the state of passive attention ; we are ab- sorbed, overwhelmed by the situation. But suppose that we face the situation by a judgment, by active attention. It is clear that, as the various incidents are attended to, different predicates may suggest themselves. Here is a theory : is it true or untrue 1 Facts a^ b, c speak for it ; facts ;r, j/, z against it. The attention oscillates, uncertainly, between the two predicates ; and the result is an oscillatory senti- ment. __ The following are the principal qualitative intellectual sentiments, so far as they have been worked out. The names of the pleasurable sentiments are printed in capitals ; the oscillatory forms in italics. (i) Objective Sentiments : (a) Objective forms : agreement, obscurity^ contradiction. (p) Subjective forms : ease, confusion^ difficulty. (2) Subjective Sentiments : § 97- T^^^ Intellectttal Sentiments 235 (a) Subjective forms : belief, doubt^ disbelief. (^) Objective forms : truth, ambiguity^ falsehood. The series belief, doubt, disbelief is perhaps that of the greatest practical importance. The corresponding moods have all received names : acquiescence, indecision, incredulity. Chief among the temporal intellectual sentiments is that of curiosity. It is resolved upon qualitative sentiments as follows : Curiosity (fulfilled) (deferred) (unfulfilled) Successful thought Baffled thouglit Failure of thought Curiosity, the desire to know for the sheer sake of knowing, is a human offshoot of the instinct of inquisitiveness. This latter is one of the universal animal instincts ; life depends upon having a full knowledge of one's surroundings. The intellectual attitude has grown to be so habitual with civilised man that, unless we have a thorough grasp of the way in which active attention passes over into secondary passive attention, we may be tempted to look upon it as something primi- tive and original, rather than as the final product of the accumu- lated judgments of generations. Take the case of belief, ^.^. The psy- What could be simpler, at first sight, than the consciousness ecology of belief which finds expression in the phrase '^ I feel sure " ? ' Feeling 'sure ' seems as natural as ' feeling cold.' So we find Hume say- ing that belief is nothing else than the having of a clear idea : when we have a clear idea, then we are believing. " Belief," he declares, ''is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object than the imagination alone is ever able to attain." And Professor James, making out a list of the char- acteristics that an idea must have if it is to be believed, puts down in the first place " coerciveness over attention, or the mere power to possess consciousness." Now it is true that we, to-day, may ' believe ' without judging, and ^ feel sure ' without having the sentiment of belief. We approach every fact with centuries of belief and disbelief upon us ; we fall, instinctively, into a believing or disbelieving or doubting attitude. Nevertheless, there was a time when there was no belief. Animals do not believe or disbelieve ; they have 236 Sentiment not advanced far enough in mental development. They just accept things : pleasantly, if the things are familiar, unpleasantly, if they are unfamiliar. Belief arises much later, and falls back into the ' feel-sure ^ attitude much later still. As reflex movement developes out of impulsive action, so does the reflex feel-sure attitude develope out of numberless true beliefs, the sentiments of our dead ancestors. Social senti- § 98. The Social and the Religious Sentiments. — The "^^" ^' social sentiments also fall into subjective and objective groups : the former including the various forms of self- approval and self-disapproval, the latter indicating differences of attitude towards the behaviour of others. They are, however, exceedingly difficult of classifica- tion, for the reason that they are exceedingly liable to lapse into emotions. The duties that every member of a society owes to its other members are so drilled into us, in early life, that later on we take social situ- ations for granted, and react upon them by passive attention. It would be impossible, in most cases, to find a difference, e.g., between guilt (sentiment) and fear (emotion), or between shame (sentiment) and chagrin (emotion). We may distinguish the follovi^ing social sentiments : (i) Subjective: (a) subjective : pride, modesty ; objective : power, im- potence. ~^ (J?) subjective : innocence, guilt ; objective : justice, in- justice. (c) subjective : dutifulness, undutifulness ; objective : honour, dishonour. {d) subjective : vanity, shame ; objective : emulation, self-effacement. (2) Objective : {a) objective : trust, distrust ; subjective : security, in- security. § 9^. Social and Religious Sentiments 237 (J?) objective : patronage, indebtedness ; subjective, free- dom, restraint. (c) objective : magnanimity, jealousy ; subjective : dis- interested PLEASURE, envy. {d) objective : forgiveness, revenge ; subjective : com- passion, hard-heartedness. There are, doubtless, many others. But the very fact that sympathy and antipathy are emotions — that certain social situations appeal by rights only to the passive attention — makes it difficult to draw any hard and fast line of division between social senti- ment and emotion. It is still a matter of debate whether the close con- Religious nection that obtains between religion and morals in modern society is a recent development, or has persisted from the earliest forms of human com- munity to the present day. In all probability, how- ever, the roots of religion and of morals are planted in different soil, and the growing together of the two is a matter of comparatively recent occurrence (see § 120). Theoretically, therefore, we must distinguish the religious from the moral sentiments, however closely they may be interwoven in our everyday experience. The following are some of the religious sentiments : (i) Objective. Obj. form. Subj. form. Awe Humility Reverence Unwortbiness Rebellion Disobedience Faith Exaltation. (2) Subjective. Subj. form. Obj. form. Sinfulness Remorse Spiritual Pride Self-righteousness Contrition Repentance. 238 Sentiment Symmetry and the golden sec- tion. Esthetic § 99. The ^Esthetic Sentiments. — There are two sentiments : . , , . . - . - beauty. pure or Simple aesthetic sentiments, those of beauty and of ugHness. And the aesthetic judgment may be passed in two perceptual fields, those of sight and of hearing. We find beauty in visual form (architec- ture, statuary, natural scenery), in colour (painting, stage grouping, landscape), and in visual movement (dancing); as well as in musical form (rhythm, etc.), harmony and melody. A good deal of work has been done in psychological laboratories upon what is called ^ the aesthetics of simple forms.' Series of figures are prepared (crosses, ovals, rec- tangles, etc.), the proportions varying slightly from figure to figure, and the subject is required to say which figure in the series is the most pleasing. It is found that the proportions chosen are (a) those of i : i, i.e.^ those of sym- metry, and (^) those of (approximately) 5 : 8, those of the ' golden section,' as it is termed. Taste, that is, is by no means so variable as i§ commonly supposed. The precise explanation of these facts is uncertain : we are not even quite sure whether the judgments are really aesthetic judgments, or whether they depend upon such things as ease of eye-movement. The history of music, however, gives us a parallel. The harmony that was judged to be most beautiful in the primitive stage of har- monic music was that of the octave. Nowadays, the octave seems thin and poor : the most beautiful har^ mony to us is that of the major third {^c-e). It may be, then, that the equal division of symmetry represents the primitive standard of beauty, and that we have grown to see the beauty of the golden section, as we have to hear that of the major third. Sublimity, There is a third sentiment, that of sublimity, which tragedy and . . i • n • i comedy. IS partly aesthctic and partly intellectual, social or § 99- '^^^^ Esthetic Sentiments 239 religious. A fourth, that of tragedy, is part aesthetic and part social ; and a fifth, that of comedy, is part aesthetic and part intellectual. When we say that a scene or an action is ^ sublime/ we usually mean that our sentiment of beauty is mixed with the religious sentiment of awe. Sometimes, however, it is mingled with the sentiment of truth or of power. In no case is sublimity a pure aesthetic sentiment. The tragic sentiment has as its central judgments ' This is beautiful ' and ^ This is unmerited.' Tragedy is therefore a mixture of beauty and injustice (social sentiment). The sentiment of the comic or the ludicrous appears to be of the oscillatory character (§ 97). We have the judgments ' This is pretty ' and ' This is contradictory ' in quick suc- cession. Psychologists have always found it easier to give illustrations of these sentiments than to explain them. As a matter of fact, full explanation is at present impossible. We must wait (i) till the experimental method has finally decided for us how many qualities of affection there are, and (2) till the historical develop- ment of art, in all its branches, has been more thoroughly worked out. In the meantime, we may look at some instances of aesthetic Instances, sentiment in literature. The figures of Hamlet and of Lear in Shakespeare, and of Antigone in Sophocles, are eminently tragic. Even at moments when we are most fully appreciating the beauty of the presentation, the sentiment of injustice crops up : why should these people suffer so ? we ask ; what have they done to deserve their fate? Dogberry and Verges, the ^two foolish offi- cers ' in Mjich Ado about Nothings are unsurpassably coinic. There is an aesthetic fitness or rightness about what they say ; but when we consider the sense, all is contradiction, — we have what Professor Sully calls a ^' delicious incongruity of ideas." To take one case : ^'Dogb. (to the Watch). You are to bid any man stand, in the prince's name. Watch. How, if a' will not stand? Dogb. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go." S 240 Sentiment For instances of the sentiment of sublimity, the reader must search his own experience. The author has felt it most keenly, in its form of awesome beauty, when hearing Beethoven^s Ninth Symphony or Wagner's Gdtterddmmer7mg ; when standing on a mountain-top, watching a thunder-storm pass beneath him ; when at sea, on a calm starlight night ; when passing through a deeply cleft ravine, etc. There is a solemnity pervading the beauty in all such experiences. — An instance of sublimity, in the sense of mingled truth and beauty, which will appeal to all who have the artistic temper, is afforded by the Venus of Milo. The figure is so perfectly beautiful that we should feel awed by it, were there not with • all the stateliness a womanly touch, a winningness, that puts us at our ease in its presence. The Dorian Girl (the ' Diana of Gabii ') is beautiful, graceful ; but we do not feel her beauty in the same way as we do that of the Venus. The same sentiment arises when one stands before a Velasquez. ^' Everything Velasquez does," says Mr. Ruskin, '' may be taken as absolutely right by the student." We have perfect beauty, then, as in the Milo ; and, as with her too, it is not awe, but rather a friendliness towards the artist, confi- dence in his utter truthfulness, that suggests itself to the spec- tator. — Lastly, we experience the sublimity that is compounded of the sentiments of power and beauty when we look down from a mountain-top upon a landscape that shows the marks of man's dominion over nature, or when we ride a stormy sea in a stout ship, or when we read of heroic deeds and feel a personal eleva- tion that reflects their heroism. Is aesthetics of practical value? § 100. The Practical Utility of ^Esthetics. — At first sight, nothing appears to be more useless, a greater mental superfluity, than the aesthetic sentimentv^ People of aesthetic temperament enjoy certain things more than others do ; but they suffer more, also, and their enjoyment does not seem to bring them any practical advantage. What is it, then, that has kept the aesthetic sentiment alive .-^ Why has it not simply died out, — disappearing as, e.g.^ the power to move the ears has disappeared ? § lOO. Practical Utility of Esthetics 241 Perhaps we should not assume that the sentiment is useless. Movement of the ears was useful once : we see that it is so still to some animals. Esthetics too, then, may have been useful once. And indeed, the very fact that it has not died out, while ear- movement has, should make us hesitate to take its uselessness as a matter of course. Let us look at its development historically. In primitive times, the body was decorated with Primitive art. a view to attracting a mate. Just as the male bird comes out in gorgeous plumage in the pairing sea- son, so the savage decked himself with ochre and shells and feathers to make his person attractive. Then, by slow degrees, decoration travelled from person to surroundings : first, from the body to the clothes, and then again from clothes to house. But as the primitive house is a rude structure, and its owner poor, not much can be done by way of indi- vidual house-adornment ; and so we find the members of a tribe clubbing together, so to speak, to decorate the common house, the temple. Esthetics now enters into the service of religion. Again : as the tribes settled down to agricultural The art of , . . . T civilisation. pursuits, man became a labourer ; systematic and regu- lar work grew to be a necessity. But work means play ; if we labour, we must have recreation. What games, though, shall grown-up people play } They have lost their pleasure in children's games. Es- thetics comes to the rescue : art is the play, the proper recreation, of grown-up workers. We speak, and rightly speak, of the ' plays ' of Shakespeare, and of ' playing ' the violin. Esthetics has now lost R 242 Sentiment its religious meaning, and has been turned to secular purposes, — purposes of the very highest utility. In no less than three ways, then, has the aesthetic sentiment proved itself of practical importance. It has been useful in courtship ; it has been useful as enhancing the impressiveness of religious ceremo- nies ; it is still eminently useful as the play of adults. Esthetics It may seem strange that a form of judgment, i.e., of as play. effortful attention, should serve as recreation. Esthetics would appear to be rather a kind of work than of play. But we must remember (i) that primitive aesthetic judgments were inseparably connected with social and religious judg- ments, and that these latter judgments had to be passed ; men were forced to take thought of their neighbours and to propitiate their gods. Hence the aesthetic attitude became a natural one at a very early stage of human development, and is a traditional * of course ' attitude with ourselves. And (2) we know that that play is most effectual, most recreative, which consists in a less serious copy of work. By repeating our work in lighter form, we get the maximum of refreshment with the minimum of mental wrench. Hence for the intellectual man, the man whose work is the work of judging, aesthetics, judging in play, is the very best sort of holiday-taking. Moreover, the aesthetic sentiment, like all the sentiments, is liable to lapse into emotion, and the aesthetic judgment to lapse into a simultaneous association of ideas. We c'an enjoy now as the result of past judgments : the hearing of Tannhduser, the sight of a Velasquez or of the Venus of Milo, may give us a perfectly effortless pleasure. Indeed, art owes a good deal of its vogue in modern times to the fact that we have, up to a certain extent, an inherited capacity for enjoying it without judging it at all. A sym- phony can be enjoyed only after judgment passed ; but a waltz takes possession of us at once, Paderewski's playing Questions and Exercises 243 can be appreciated only by a few : but thousands will pay large prices to ^ see his fingers move/ just as they will to see trapeze-work at a circus. All this, of course, helps to keep art alive, — gives it a real usefulness, if not that higher usefulness which it has for those who use it aright. Questions and Exercises (i) Can you name any moods that correspond to the social sentiments mentioned in § 98 ? Describe a typical situation in which each of the sentiments of the list might arise. (2) Give six instances of ugliness — three of ugly sights and three of ugly sounds — from your usual surroundings. Why are they ugly ? (3) Have some argumentative passage (§ 100 of this book, e.g.^ read aloud to you. Notice how the intellectual sentiments arise and disappear, as the argument proceeds. Write out the names of the sentiments that you feel, and mark the sentences which call them forth. (4) Compare the list of intellectual sentiments with the list of emotions given in §§ 63 and 64. Pick out the emotion into which each of the sentiments might pass, if active attention lapsed into passive. (5) Draw two series of crosses, varying (i) the length of the cross-bar, and (2) its position upon the stem of the cross. Lay the series in turn before a class, and let each member pick out the most pleasing cross. See how closely the chosen proportions approach those of the golden section or of symmetry. — Are there any objects in constant use whose proportions seem to have been arbitrarily decided, but which when measured give the proportion 5:8? (6) Can you recall any characters, in history or fiction, who might stand as embodiments of some social or religious senti- ment? (7) Why does a man cough, when embarrassed ; and rub his eyes, pass his hand over his forehead, or scratch his head, when perplexed? Name some of the other characteristic expressions of sentiment. (8) How does ^curiosity' differ from ^inquisitiveness'? 244 Sentiment (9) It is said above that aesthetics '- has been ' useful in court- ship and rehgion. Is it still useful in either? If so, how does its present differ from its primitive usefulness ? (10) If my artistic sentiments have once become emotions, how am I to rise to new activity, — to move forward to new senti- ments on the basis of my emotion material ? » References James, Textbook^ pp. 160-163, 384, 385. G. Santayana, The Sense of Beauty^ 1 896. Sully, Hitjnan Mind, vol. II., ch. xvi. Titchener, Outline, §§ 86-91. Wundt, Ethics, vol. I., 1897, ch. iii. Wundt, Lectures, pp. 378-380. Wundt, Outlines, pp. 163, 189, 217, 241, 265. CHAPTER XIII The Complex Forms of Action § I o I . The Development of Action beyond the Impulse. Action with — The most complicated action that we discussed in act^ive at^en- Chapter IX. was the full-formed hnptdsive action, — ^^^^• an action whose motive, given in the state of passive attention, contained the idea of own movement, the perception or idea of the object moved to or from, and the idea of the result of movement. We have now to see what actions are performed in the states of active and of secondary passive attention. Active attention occurs when there are at one and the same time two or more claimants for the foremost place in consciousness (§ 32). One idea fits in with one aspect of the mental constitution or disposition of the moment, and another with another; one exci- tation runs into certain open tendency-channels, and another into others. There is thus a conflict of exci- tations in the cortex, and a conflict of ideas in con- sciousness. We have a see-saw of attention for a while, and then, at last, some one of the contestants wins the day. The conflicting processes need not be ideas : they Selective T . • •! . • r action. may be perceptions or assimilations or groups 01 ideas of any degree of complexity. Suppose, now, that we have at the same time two rival impulses^ two impulses which cannot both be acted out because their movements are antagonistic. There will be a 245 246 The Complex Forms of Action Volitional action. Secondary ideomotor action. Automatic movement. conflict, an effortful see-saw of attention, until the one or the other wins. Action which is motived in this way is termed selective action. Suppose, again, that the claimants for the attention are one of them an impulse and one of them an idea (or group of ideas) that has never formed part of a motive, that does not * prompt to action ' at all. In this case, too, there may be a conflict : we may move, or we may remain inactive and attend to the second claimant. If we move, we perform what is called a volitional action. Selective and volitional actions are the highest, the most complex, that we know ; they are the only forms that appear in the state of active attention. Both alike are simplified by the lapse of active into secondary passive attention. And the simplifica- tion that they undergo is merely a repetition of the simplification of the impulse itself. We have, first, the change into ideo-^notor action, and then a final descent into secondary reflex or (as it is better named) antomatic movement. It is with these four types that we are concerned, therefore, in the present Chapter. The conflict of impulses. § 102. Selective Action. — Selective action has its root in alternating impulsive actions. When a young child suddenly comes face to face with a strange dog, the impulse towards {cf, the instinct of inquisitive- ness) and the impulse away from {cf. the instinctive fear of the unknown) are realised in quick succession. The child goes up to the dog, runs back to its father, approaches the dog again, and so on. Later in life, § I02. Selective Action 247 when active attention has become habitual, there is but one movement : the conflict of impulses is out- wardly manifested only in the slowness with which movement follows upon the presentation of the motive, and (perhaps) in a puzzled and perplexed expression of face. In other words, we have in the conduct of adults selective action, and not alternate impulsive actions. Sometimes, however, the alternation of impulsive actions takes place even in adult life. Thus it has^ happened to the author, in face of the two impulses (i) to shut a door on the right hand and (2) to seat himself at his typewriter-table on the left, actually to begin a right-hand movement towards the door, and then all at once to slue round to the typewriter, without having closed it. — In hi«> story of '^ Dite Deuchars '' Mr. Barrie has drawn a vivid picture of conduct permanently arrested at this half-way house between impulsive and selective action. The impulses whose conflict ends in selective Complex ,• T 1 1 1 impulses. action may, however, be very much more complex than the impulses which we have described hitherto. We have assumed that the 'object' of the impulse is quite simple ; something that can be grasped by a perception or idea or assimilation. Suppose that the object is a situation, of the kind that gives rise to emotion, — that the impulse consists of idea of own movement, of ideas of a situation (idea of object), and of idea of result of movement : the consciousness that is made up of rival impulses will then be a very complicated affair. And again : suppose that the 'object ' of the impulse is a situation of the kind that gives rise not to an emotion, but to a sentiment, a situation that has to be dissected by active attention before it can be grasped as a whole : consciousness 248 The Complex Forms of Action The most becoines Still more complicated. We are actively complex ,..• . r-i . ri«i/i typeofseiec- attentive to a mass oi ideas, parts or which (the tive action, situations) themselves demand active attention if they are to be adequately met. In such a case, selective action is a most momentous matter ; the drain upon the organism's strength is very great, and the choice exceedingly fatiguing. This is selective action at its highest point of development. It is rarely performed. The reader will remember what we said in § 90 of the rarity of judgment, and of the facility with which we all of us take judgments ^ on trust ' from those who have already done the work of thinking. Remembering this, he will understand how tangled a set of processes the various forms of selective action are, and how difficult it is, in any given instance, to say whether active attention has been involved or not. Thus many choices in the sphere of moral conduct, which wear the look of extremely complex selective actions, may have resulted in actual fact from the conflict of simple impulses. Take the case of a rivalry of duties ; of impulses, /. ^ ^ ^ sentiment. been made to serve (courtship, rehgion, play). It has been suggested that that is beautiful, to primitive man, which he regards as expressing a pleasurable emotion. We must / remember that anything (a tree, a weapon) might be thus regarded ; for everything was interpreted after the human pattern. The beautiful woman was, then, the woman who expressed pleasure in the man's bodily adornment, the woman in whose face he read the reflection of his own pride ; the beautiful landscape was the ' smiling' landscape ; the beautiful jar or bow was that in whose look or action the mechanic refound his own self-satisfied pleasure ; and so on. The theory is plausible : it is as yet very far from proved. § 121. The Relation of Psychology to Ethics and Logic. — Ethics is the science of conduct. Its problem is stated by Herbert Spencer in the following words : " I conceive it to be the business of Moral Science to deduce, 296 Province and Relatio7is of Psycliology The problem from the laws of life and the conditions of existence, what kinds of ethics. Qf action necessarily tend to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its deductions are to be recognised as laws of conduct.'' Now it is clear that we cannot know * the laws of life and the conditions of existence ' in any other way than by a historical study of human society, by careful observation of the course of human evolution. The laws of life must be generalisations from the facts of life ; the conditions of existence must be ascertained from the actual ups and downs of exist- ence at different periods. Or, to put the same thing in another way : rules of conduct can be laid down only after conduct itself, in all its phases and stages, has been described and explained. The necessary preliminary to ethics, then, is the study of society: as Professor Wundt writes, ^*the straight road to ethics lies through ethnic psychol- ogy." Ethnic psychology is the connecting link between the sciences of mind and of morals. On the one hand, its facts must be interpreted in the light of individual psychology (§ 117); on the other, the facts as thus interpreted are the material from which the moralist abstracts those general principles of living whose consequences are to be taken as rules or norms of conduct. Psychology is the foundation^ of ethics ; and not a few old-time ethical controver- sies are settled, once and for all, by appeal to it. Theprovince Logic is sometimes defined as the * science of ogic. thought.' A better definition would be * science of the meaning or validity (soundness, justness, well- groundedness) of thought.' Ethics and ethnic psy- chology. § 121. Relation of PsycJiology to Etliics and Logic 2(^J We have seen that every perception and idea means something. The elementary processes are put together at the bidding of nature (§ 38); and to say that nature lays constraint upon mind is to give the biological account of the fact v^hich the psycholo- gist expresses by saying that mental processes ^mean.' What is 'meaning' in psychology is simply * forma- tion under stress of natural environment ' in biology. Psychology has to do, of course, with all the aspects of mind : the concrete mental processes which form the objects of psychological enquiry are groups-of-ele- mentary-processes-that-mean. Logic, now, abstracts Psychology from the processes that compose the perception or ^"^ °^^^* idea or judgment, and looks exclusively at the mean- ing-side of the complex. It does not care whether thought go on in terms of sight or hearing or touch ; it is concerned only to discover whether the thought is valid, justified under all sorts and kinds of environ- mental conditions. It thus proceeds * formally ' or symbolically, like a sort of algebra ; and, when it has gone so far as to formulate the laws of valid think- ing, deduces from them rules or norms of scientific thought and procedure, — as ethics deduces norms of conduct from the Maws of life.' The relation of psychology to logic, then, is two- fold. On the one hand, logic arises by way of abstraction from psychology ; a single aspect of the total psychological fact is made the basis of a special science. On the other hand, psychological investigation falls under the sway of logic ; unless the method of psychology is logical, its results will be invalid. 298 Provmce and Relations of PsycJwlogy The problem of pedagogy. ' Normative ' disciplines. Child psy- chology and pedagogy. § 122. The Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy. — The problem of pedagogy is to lay down rules or norms of education. Such rules may be derived from two sources : from the history of education and from child study. The history of education shows what rules have been successfully, and what unsuccessfully followed, at different periods and under various con- ditions ; child study should show, in general outline, the relation that the child mind bears to the adult mind, and should therefore assist the adult educator to deal with child pupils. Logic, ethics and pedagogy have, then, this much in com- mon, that all three are 7iormative disciplines ; their task is to lay down rules, to prescribe norms of action. Logic has made most progress ; ethics is still denied the name of science by some authors ; pedagogy is only gradually approximating to scientific accuracy. Pedagogy is sometimes defined, in round terms, as an * applied child psychology.' The definition is incomplete, since it makes no reference to the his- torical study of education. Even when this omission is supplied, however, it is liable to misunderstanding. In the first place, the abstract * child ' of psychology does not exist for education : the teacher has to face, not *the child,' but real children, Katie Jone^ and Tommy Smith. Psychology cannot deal with Jones-ness and Smith-ness, but only with child-ness. Science, indeed, can never be * applied' offhand: inventors tell us that no machine, however careful its theoretical planning may have been, will 'work' upon its first construction ; all sorts of unforeseen disturbances occur when the theory is translated into § 122. Relation of Psychology to Pedagogy 299 bits of metal. And if this is true of the inorganic world, it is doubly true of the world of mind. The author of a recent psychological text-book, arguing from the fact that attention is intermittent (§ 36), declares that " in learning anything by heart, we learn best *by spurts.'" Yet experiment has shown that we learn best by reading the passage through steadily, again and again, from end to end, as if the attention were continuous! So complex are the conditions that determine a particular result, and so difficult is it to travel from theory to application, even within the limits of a single science. In the second place, the teacher has to deal with a number of children together, with a class. Now the * abstract ' child of psychology is an individual child, — just as the abstract adult mind that we have dis- cussed in this book is an individual mind. And it is impossible to pass, at one step, from the individual child of psychology to the class-room child — the ' average ' or social child — of pedagogy. We may, perhaps, say that child psychology stands to education as analytical mechanics stands to carpentering. The more mechanics the carpenter knows, the more intelli- gently will he work, and the readier w411 he be w^hen emer- gencies arise and he is called upon to travel outside of his routine employments. But he has to translate his mechanics into terms of wood (the abstract becomes the real child) ; and his wood- work is limited by the needs of house building and furnishing (the child must be taught in class). More- over, he learns in the workshop tricks of his trade (history of education) which on ordinary occasions are of more direct service to him than his theoretical study. We conclude, then, that child study, when it has From theory become a science, when, i.e.^ it stands as the counter- part of adult psychology, and its conclusions tally throughout with the results of experimental intro- 300 Province and Relations of PsycJiology spection, will constitute one of the two sources from which the teacher may derive his norms of educa- tion ; and the more gifted the teacher, the greater will be the benefit obtained. The road that leads from theory to practice must always be long and arduous. But those who are seeking to further the cause of education by the way of child study may hold fast to this hope : that just because the road is difficult, and just because the end is reached only by the chosen few, the reformation when it does come will be a reformation worth the accomplishing, a reformation whose effects will more than compensate for the misdirection of energy that marks a period of unschooled enthusiasm. § 123. Conclusion. — We took it for granted, at the outset, that psychology is a science. " At the end of our enquiry," we said (§ 2), *'we shall be able to look back . . . and see that psychology, so far as it has gone, makes up an orderly and systematic body of know- ledge." The enquiry is now ended, and the reader must judge whether or not this introductory state- ment was well founded. So much, at any rate, he will grant : that, if the foregoing Chapters have dealt adequately with mental problems, there is no fact oT mind, be it mental process or state of consciousness, that cannot be given its place by the side of other facts, with which it forms a coherent and self-consist- ent whole, — from which it derives and to which it imparts a significance that could not otherwise be attained. On the other hand, our enquiry has been brief, § 123. Co7iclitsion 301 and has covered a wide field. While we have indi- cated that psychology is not *^ a finished science ; that there are yet many problems for the psycholo- gist to solve," w^e have not been able to enter upon any detailed discussion of controverted issues. The reader must turn for fuller treatment to larger and more comprehensive works : only after an extended study of these will he be able to pass a valid judg- ment upon the position that psychology holds among the sciences. He will find, ^ no doubt, plenty of * gossip and wrangle about opinions ' ; he will regret the time and labour wasted in 'contentions and bark- ing disputations.' But he will find, too, that the foundations of psychology are based upon the solid rock of fact ; that, while m.uch remains to be done, much has been accomplished which will never require to be done over again. A word of caution may be added here. Students of psychology are oftentimes puzzled and discouraged by the differences that they find between what appear to be equally authoritative text-books. One psychologist speaks of the method of experimental introspection; another discusses experiment, with but scant reference to introspection ; a third emphasises introspection, while he says but little of experiment. One book makes great use of the logical terms ' discrimination,' ' integration,' ' comparison,' ' gen- eralisation,' etc. ; another, as far as possible, avoids them. One author is never tired of insisting on the * activity ' of mind ; another will hear nothing of activity. And so on. Now it must be remembered, in the first place, that doubtful matters are, in the nature of things, more dis- cussed than are matters of fact. If we are all agreed about something, we need spend no words upon it ; if we dis- agree, we must give reasons for our own belief and hear the 302 Province and Relatio7is of Psychology reasons offered by others for the adoption of a contrary- view. Hence, in many cases, there is an appearance of divergent opinion, although the contestants are in complete harmony upon fundamental points. The student must learn to distinguish between surface-differences and differences of principle. Secondly, no science is finished, complete. Psychologists differ as regards method : so do physiologists. Psycholo- gists fall into two schools, according as they do or do not recognise a mental ' activity ' : so do physiologists, accord- ing as they do or do not account for the phenomena of life in terms of physical and chemical laws. But physiology is a science, whether an .individual physiologist be a vivisec- tionist or an anti-vivisectionist, a ' mechanist' or a ^vitalist.' And psychology may be a science, despite the similar dif- ferences of psychological schools. To appreciate a psy- chological text-book, you must try to think yourself into the standpoint of the writer, to see how he conceived of the task before him, in what guise the separate problems presented themselves for solution. Reading in this spirit you are able (i) to estimate the internal coherence of the writer's system, to decide whether he is self-consistent or self-contradictory, and (2) to judge of its total value as a system, to compare the new method and the new point of view with your own, and decide which of the two is the more fruitful and the more scientific. There are very few books from which something may not be learned ; there are none which need confuse you, if you approach them in this way. Thirdly, however, there is a much more substantial agree- ment in questions of psychology than appears from the psy- chological text-books. Psychology has but very recently shaken itself free of philosophy, of metaphysics ; and many psychologists still think it necessary to treat of metaphysical and psychological problems together. Thus the difference of opinion with regard to mental activity is a difference of philosophical, not of psychological belief ; it is a difference Qicestions a^td Exercises 303 that can never be resolved by psychological methods. When, therefore, you find disagreement among psychologists, you must ask yourself whether the point at issue is psychological or philosophical. If it is philosophical, its discussion is irrelevant, and may be ignored in your appreciation of the psychological work of the writer. Questions and Exercises (i) Suppose that, wishing to trace the development of a child's mind, you kept records of its use of words and of its progress in drawing. What precautions would you take, to have the records clear of error ? (2) Are there, in customs and usages of the present day, any survivals of the anthropomorphic mythology of primitive man ? (3) How can it be that one ^ learns by heart ' better by reading the passage through, again and again, — i.e.^ by distributing widely the repetitions of each part of it, — than by committing to memory a few lines or words at a time? (4) Make a Table, in the form of a genealogical tree, showing the interrelation of the various psychologies, and the relation of psychology as a whole to ethics, logic and pedagogy. (5) Compare (i) the senile with the child mind, (2) the mind of the adult savage with that of the civilised child, and (3) the mind of the adult savage with that of the civilised man. Com- pare your present answer to (i) with your answer to Question (6), p. 23. Are you now more capable of introspection than you were when you began the book? (6) What is the original meaning of the phrase ' law of nature ' ? How has that meaning been modified? (7) Can psychology ever become a normative science? (8) What stages can you distinguish in a child's acquisition of language? Does it, eg.^ use substantives before it uses verbs, or vice versa ? What is the psychological importance of a know^- ledge of these stages ? (9) Explain the following actions in the simplest possible way : {a) '^ When a small object is thrown on the ground beyond the reach of the elephant, he blows through his trunk on the ground beyond the object, so that the current reflected on all sides may drive the object within his reach.''' 304 Province and Relations of Psychology {b) '' Hearing a loud knock at the front door, I was told not to heed it, as it was only the kitten asking admittance. I watched for myselfj^and very soon saw the kitten jump on to the door, hang on by one leg, and put the other fore paw right through the knocker and rap twice. ^' {c) '' I knew a large dog that was very fond of grapes, and at night used to slip his collar in order to satisfy his propensity. It was not for some time that the thief was suspected, owing to his returning before daylight and appearing innocently chained up in his kennel." (^) " Some of the old bucks get the berries from the thorn- trees in this way. They will raise themselves on their hind legs, give a spring, entangle their horns in the lower branches of the tree, give them one or two shakes, and then quietly pick the berries up." 10. What evidence can you bring from language that makes for the theory of the origin of the aesthetic sentiment given in § 120? References James, Textbook^ pp. 327-329, 367-369, Epilogue. Sully, Hitman Mind^ vol. I., pp. 10-13, 18-22 ; vol. II., ch. xix., App. G, H, K, L. See also Index, references to ^ child,' ' animals,' etc. Titchener, Outline, §§ 5, 6, 99-101. Wundt, Ethics^ vol. I. Wundt, Lectures, Lects. XXIII., XXIV., XXVII., XXVIII., XXX. Wundt, Outlines, §§2, 19-21, 22-24. Consult further the works of J. M. Baldwin, E. Barnes {Studies in Education, Stanford Univ.), G. S. Hall {Pedagogical Seminary and Ainer. Journ. of Psych.), G. Le Bon, T. W. Mills {Trans. R. S. Canada), K. C. Moore {Psych. Rev., Supplement), C. L. Morgan, B. Perez, W. Preyer, G. J. Romanes, M. W. Shinn (Univ. of California Studies), D. Spalding {Macmillan^s Mag., 1873), J- Sully, F. Tracy. APPENDIX APPARATUS AND MATERIALS [Pieces of apparatus not expressly mentioned in the Questions and Exer- cises are printed here in square brackets.] PAGE Air-hydrogen bubble apparatus 54 E. G. Willyoung & Co., Philadelphia, Pa. $ 12.00. [Apparatus for passive movement at the elbow . 55, in Willyoung. $8.00.] [Association and memory apparatus 139 Garden City Model Works, 124 Clark Street, Chicago, 111. ^12.00.] Beeswax . . » 55 Blackboard 35? S 2, 139 Black cardboard tube (obtain from bookbinder) . 2>^ Black straws 52 Bottles, for tones 53 [Brain models vii A useful set of five pieces can be obtained from E. Deyrolle, 46 Rue du Bac, Paris. Price of set, fr. 200; each piece separately, fr. 50. Imported models can be had from R. Kny & Co., 17 Park Place, N. Y., or from J. W. Queen & Co., loio Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa. An album and a case of stereo- scopic slides of the nervous centres, by C. Debierre and E. Doumer, are sold by F. Alcan, 108 Boulevard St. Germain, Paris, for fr. 20.] Camel's-hair brushes 55 Candle and matches 36 Cardboard, black and white 51, 121, 243, 263 Chamois leather. 56 Coarse shot 56 Colour top 51 For class work, Bradley small colour-mixers. ^0.50 per dozen. For demonstration, Willyoung's colour- v^^heel. $8.00. X 305 3o6 Appendix PAGE Compasses, aesthesiometric . . . . « . « . ii8 Willyoung. $ 2.00. Compasses, drawing 52, 120 Cork or pith points 54 Home-made; or Willyoung, ^0.40. Cotton wool 55 Cross-section paper 54 Fall chronometer (home-made) 92 Glass funnels, or funnel-shaped wooden boxes . . 56 Gutta-percha tubing 53 Eimer & Amend, 205 Third Avenue, N. Y. Hand-dynamometer 71 Collin, 6 Rue de I'Ecole-de-Medecine, Paris. Fr. 25. Or E. Zimmermann, 21 Emilienstrasse, Leipzig. Mk. 27.50. India-rubber 55 Letters, printed . 92, 139 Dennison Mfg. Co., 198 Broadway, N. Y. Metal tubes or rods 54 Made by any tinsmith ; or Willyoung. $ 2.00. Metre scale .... ._^ . . 54,71,118,120,121,243 Bradley, ^o.oi; postage, ^o.oi. Paper, coloured '1^6^ 5^? 71 Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Mass.; or Prang Edu- cational Co., 7 Park St., Boston, Mass. Apply for samples and priced catalogue. Hering's papers are procurable from R. Rothe, 16 Liebigstrasse, Leipzig. Paper, white tissue 52 Paper, series of black, grey, white 52, 71, 208 Bradley; or better, have made by a photographer. — Phials, for qualities of noise 54 Piano 118, 208 [^ Pseudoptics ' 51, 117 ff. A set of materials for experiments in visual sensation and perception, prepared by Professor Miinsterberg. Bradley. ^5.00.] Quincke's tubes (set of 13) 53 Ziegler Electric Co., 141 Franklin Street, Boston, Mass. $ 2.00. Appendix 307 PAGE Reaction-timer, with side wire 183, 185, 262 L. N. Wilson, Clark University, Worcester, Mass. Reaction-timer, colour-disc for .- 264 Wilson. About $ 2.50. Scents, in phials 71, 207 Soap, for soap-bubbles 54 Stereoscope , 119 VVillyoung. $ i.oo. Stereoscopic slides 119 Willyoung; or Max Kohl, 51 Poststrasse, Chemnitz i. S. See catalogue, p. 132. — Cf. Brain Models, above. Stereoscopic slides, celluloid for 119 Stop-watch, or watch with seconds' hand 36, 51? 92, 121, 139, 208 Obtain from watchmaker. About % 6.00. Stroboscope 119 Obtain from toy-dealer; or Kohl, cat., p. 133. Mk. 6 (with picture strips). Taste solutions 55, 118 [Tilt table no Willyoung. ^25.00.] Wire, fine 53 Wire, piece of piano 2)^ The teacher will do well to procure in addition the cata- logues of the following firms : A. Appunn, 12 Niirnbergerstrasse, Hanau a. M. (Acoustic instr.) Cambridge Instrument Co., St. Tibb's Row, Cambridge, England. (General.) Chicago Laboratory Supply Co., Chicago, 111. (General.) R. Jung, Heidelberg. (Optical instr.) R. Koenig, 27 Quai d'Anjou, Paris. (Acoustic instr.) W. Petzold, 13 Bayersche Strasse, Leipzig. (General.) C. Verdin, 7 Rue Linne, Paris. (General.) INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS Abstraction, process of, 222; concept of, 223; see Idea, abstract. Action, as index of mind, 16 ; and movement, 161 ; definition of, 162 ; attention the prime condition of, 163, 169; and motive, 165; impul- sive, 165, 167, 178, 180, 181, 211 ; ideomotor, 170, 181; instinctive, 173; simple reaction, 179; devel- opment of, beyond impulse, 245 ; selective, 246, 261 ; volitional, 246, 249,261 ; secondary ideomotor, 246, 256, 262; choice and resolve, 251 ; classification of, 258 ; compound reaction, 258. Esthetic sentiment, of beauty, 232, 238 ; of sublimity, tragedy and comedy, 238 ; origin of, 295. Esthetics, subject of, 214; practical utility of, 240 ; primitive and civil- ised art, 241 ; as play, 241, 242, 295- Affection, qualities of, 57, 68 ; physio- logical basis of, 58, 68, 91 ; defini- tion of, 58; bodily signs of, 62; and sensation, 64, 83 ; and atten- tion, 68, 81, 83, 91 ; in feeling, 59; in emotion, 150 ; in sentiment, 233. Animal psychology, the old and the new, 290 ; materials of, 291 ; method of, 292. Aphasia, 283. Apperception, as selective percep- tion, 85, 88 ; explanation of, 86, 87 ; illusions of, 52, 117, 128. Aristotle, 32. Art, in ethnic psychology, 295 ; see Esthetics. Assimilation, loi, 141; in emotion, 143 ; in recognition, 190. Association of ideas, law of, 130 ; forms of, 131, 132, 134; formula of, 131, 133; sensation and idea, 131 ; and perception, 131 ; simul- taneous, 132 ; successive, 134 ; ^ physiological conditions of, 136 ; law of, in dreaming, 269. Attention, a state of consciousness, 20,74; necessary in introspection, 34, 74 ; and affection, 68, 81, 83, 91 ; problem of, 73 ; two sides of, 74, 84; to and from ideas, 75, loi ; passive, 76, 79, 187, 203, 205, 250, 251; active, 76, 80, 187, 204, 231, 245, 248, 251; secondary passive, 77, 80, 81, 194, 205, 231, 248, 252: and bodily tendency, 79 ; bodily attitude in, 84 ; duration of, 88 ; range of, 89; physiological con- ditions of, 90; as condition of, action, 163, 169 : neglected by the older psychology, 164; in reaction experiments, 179 ; direction of, in reaction, 181; and habit, 196; ab- sent in dreaming, 269, 271 ; in hypnosis, 273. Autosuggestion, 274. Bate^nan, F., 283. Belief, analysis of, 235. Berkeley, G., 2.2.0. Binet, A., 176. Bodily posture, perception of, 109 ; in emotion, 143 ; in attention, 84. Bodily tendency, and mental consti- tution, 78 ; natural and acquired, 79 ; and the forms of attention, 79 ; and apperception, 88. Body, and mind, 12, 18, 22; and the idea of self, 225 ; see Physi- ology. Braid, J., 272. 309 3IO Index Brain, the organ of mind, 13, 14, 17; of man and animals, 14 ; state of, in mental derangement, 15, 279; see Physiology. Brightness, sensations of, 38 ; their relation to colour sensations, 39 ; system of sensations, 40; theory of, 42; extent of sensation, 100. Burnett, Mrs. F. i7., 83. Catalepsy, 272. Cataplexy, 274. Child psychology, two branches of, 288 ; investigation of fatigue in school hours, 289 ; two desiderata in, 289 ; and adult psychology, 290 ; and pedagogy, 298. Children's lies, 202. Choice, definition of, 252; analysis of, 252 ; in everyday life, 253. Clang, perception of, 104. Cognition, 199. Colour, series of, 39 ; relation of, to brightness, 39; system of sensa- tions, 40; theory of, 42; extent of sensation, 100. Comfort, necessary in introspection, 34- Comparison, analysis of, 221 ; con- cept of, 222. Concept, definition of, 219 ; develop- ment of, 223 ; of attribute, 224 ; of self, 224, 226. Consciousness, definition of, 19 ; states of, 20, 73 ; complete and incomplete, 163, 165; double, 276. Contrast, visual, 52. Cooper, y. F.,Ss, 146. Cramming, 196. Custom, in ethnic psychology, 294; law, morality, and religion, 294. Darwin, C, 145, 288. Deliberation, 251. Dementia, 282. Dickens, C, 63, 65, 203. Direct apprehension, recognition and memory, 199 ; analysis of, 200. Distance, perception of, 109 ; assimi- lation of, 133. Dreaming, a state of consciousness, 20; abnormal, 266; peripherally aroused, 267, 268 ; generally visual. 267, 268 ; fantastic arrangement of ideas in, 269, 276 ; incidents taken for granted in, 270 ; bodily condi- tions of, 271; and sleepwalking, 271 ; and hypnosis, 273 ; and in- sanity, 278. Duration, of sensation, 99; of atten- tion, 88 ; of emotion and mood, 142; of reaction, 180, 261. Ear, organ of hearing, 43 ; organ of equilibrium, 44; a piano, 44; primitive, 43, 45 ; time value of hearing sensations, 113, 213. Education, problem of, 79 ; intel- lectual progress, 81 ; of imagina- tion, 202. Effort, in active attention, 85; in impulse, 170. Elements, mental, 21, 22; not to be separately experienced, 21 ; laws of connection of, 22, 130, 188 ; sensations, 37; affections, 57. Emotion, expression of, 62, 144, 146, 149, 211; instances of, 70, 143; formation of, 141, 143; and mood, 141, 142; and feeling, 141, 144, 145 ; classification of, 150, 152 ; qualitative, 150; temporal, 150, 153; cardinal, 151, 154; develop- ment of, 154 ; mixed, 155 ; and impulse, 169, 211; and instinct, 175 ; and sentiment, 230. Ethics, and psychology, 233, 296; normative, 298. Ethnic psychology, definition of, 292; problem of, 293 ; and ethics, 296. Excitation, nervous, 13, 30. Experiment, definition of, 26 ; in psychology, 30; instance of psy- chological, 30, 32; requires sub- ject and experimenter, 31 ; see Questions and exercises. Extent, of sensation, 100; range of attention, 89; affection as 'wide' as consciousness, 65, 83, 155. Eye, sensations from, 38 ; a photo- graphic camera, 39 ; physiological theory of, 42 ; as space organ, 106, 107, 109, III, 117. Familiarity, analysis of, 190, 192. Index 3" Fatigue, hostile to introspection, 34; see Child psychology. Feeling, definition of, 59 ; place of sensations in, 59, 66, 70; various meanings of word, 61, 142; of drowsiness, analysed, 61 ; and emotion, 141, 144, 145 ; and mood, 141, 142; higher and lower, 153, 233 ; mixed, 155. Forgetfulness, 195. Fusion, of sensations, 103, 146. Galen, 158. General paresis, 282. Genius, 218. Gesture, and primitive language, 148, 213; two kinds of, 211. Giddiness, sensation of, 44, no. Habit, law of, 136, 195, 198 ; levels of, 196; and attention, 196. Hawthorne^ N., 206. Hering, E., 41, 52. Hesitation, 251. Hippocrates, 158. Hobbes, T., 135. Hume, D., 156, 157, 235. Huxley, T. H.' 24. Hypnotism, as state of conscious- ness, 20; definition of, 271; three stages of hypnosis, 271 ; physiology and psychology of, 272 ; and dream- ing, 273 ; always self-hypnotism, 273; all sane persons hypnotisable, 274 ; of animals, 274 ; rapport, 275 ; double consciousness, 276 ; post- hypnotic suggestion, 277 ; therapeu- tic value of, 277 ; and insanity, 278. Idea, observation of an, 7 ; in state of attention, 75 ; formation of, 94 ; how different from perception, 95 ; as reproduction and translation of perception, 122 ; train of ideas, 135, 141 ; of own movement, in impulse, 165, 170 ; of result of movement, in impulse, 167, 171 ; and memory, 189, 206; and imagination, 201, 206; aggregate, 218 ; abstract, 219 ; of self, 225 ; in dreams, 267, 270 ; see Association of Ideas, Memory type. Ideomotor action, formation of, 170; secondary, 256. Idiocy, 281. Illusion, of form, 115; of size, 116; of direction, 117; apperceptive, 52, 117, 128. Imagination, active, 187, 204, 215; passive, 187, 203 ; definition of, 201 ; as visualisation, 201 ; dangers of, 201 ; three forms of, 202 ; and mem- ory, 205 ; limits of, 206 ; affective processes in, 202, 207 ; and thought, 214. Imbecility, 281. Impartiality, necessary in introspec- tion, 34. Impulse, typical motive, 165, 178; and idea of own movement, 165, 170; and idea of result, 167, 171; definition of, 169 ; and emotion, 169, 211; and ideomotor action, 170; and reflex movement, 171; and instinct, 174 ; earlier than re- flex and instinct, 176 ; classifi- cation of human, 177; rivalry of complex, in selective action, 247; rivalry of, with idea, 249 ; and secondary ideomotor action, 256; and automatic movement, 257 ; see Reaction. Incentive, 165, 167, 169, 174. Inducement, 165, 167, 168, 174. Insanity, dreaming and hypnosis, 278 ; physiological conditions of, 279; forms of, 281; study of, 282. Instinct, as motive, 174; impulse and emotion, 175; classification of hu- man, 177 ; in animal psychology, 292. Intellectual sentiment, 232, 234, 239 ; oscillatory, 234, 251 ; analysis of belief, 235. Intensity of sensation, 49. Interest, 82. Introspection, vs. inspection, 27; must he post77zortet?z, 28 ; * morbid,' 29 ; experimental, the method of psychology, 32, 287 ; special rules foi", 33 ; general rules for, 34. ya7nes, W., 25, 114, 171, 173, 175. ^97, 235- Jevons, W. S., igj. Judgment, formation of, 215 ; of rare 312 Index occurrence, 217, 248 ; peculiar to man, 218. Laboratory, the Leipzig, 32. Language, as index of mind, 16; metaphors in primitive, 147 ; as expressive of emotion, 211 ; origin of, 212 ; possible only in society, 16, 212; development of, 213, 293 ; see Gesture, Word. Law, in society, as index of mind, 16, 294 ; of connection of mental elements, 22, 103, 130. Lehmann^ A., 169, 175. Locke, y., 219. Logic, subject of, 214; and psychol- ogy of thought, 221 ; and psychol- ogy, 297 ; a normative science, 298. Lytton, E. B., 203. Mack, E., 226. Mania, 281. Meaning, attaches to concrete pro- cesses, 95, 104, 114, 134, 212; psy- chological basis of, 95, 191 ; ab- stracted by logic, 297. Melancholia, 282. Memory, affective, 129 ; active, 187, 193; passive, 187, 189, 190; and idea, 189, 206; definition of, 189, 199 ; degrees of, 192 ; physiology of, 195 ; as retention, reproduction, and recognition, 197 ; and imagina- tion, 205 Memory type, definition of, 123; visual, 124, 127 ; auditory, 124, 127 ; tactual or motor, 124, 127 ; mixed, 125, 127; verbal, 12,6; taste and smell, 128; organic, 128. Mental constitution, definition of, 78 ; indications of, 78 ; and the forms of attention, 79 ; natural and ac- quired, 79; j-ff^? Bodily tendency. Mental processes, mind is sum of, 7 ; instances of, 7, 12; definition of, 10, 15 ; and the facts of science, II ; classification of, 19, 37 ; con- crete, 20, 70, 94 ; elementary, 21, 22, 37, 69. Mercier, C, 225, 280, 281. Mind, the subject of psychology, i, 4 ; popular notion of, 4 ; psychological definition of, 5, 6 ; composition of, 7 ; and brain, 13 ; possessed by man and animals, 15 ; rudiment- ary, 16 ; not a function of brain, 17; conditioned by body, 18, 22, 30; divisions of, 19; child, adult and senile, 19; and consciousness, 19 ; logical reconstruction of, 21 ; and nature, 95, 163 ; animal, jj, 79, 81, 218, 292; child, 'j'j, 79, 81, 290; pathology of, 278 ; collective, 292. Mood, feeling and emotion, 141, 142; and train of ideas, 141 ; qualitative, 151 ; of indifference, 152; temporal, 154; of recognition, 190, 191; of direct apprehension, 200. Motive, composition of, 165, 166; as impulse, 165 ; instances of, 167, 168. Movement, perception of, no; as psychological phenomenon, 161, 162, 172; definition of, 163; ex- pressive, 144, 146, 170 ; refiex, 171, 176, 180; involuntary, 172, 258; in- stinctive, 173, 176; physiology and psychology of, 175, 177 ; automatic or secondary refiex, 246, 256, 262. Muscle and tendon, independent functions of, 48. Muscular strength, index of affection, 63. Music, 43, 44, 105. Myth, in ethnic psychology, 293, 295 ; anthropomorphism of, 294. Nervous system, 13, 90, 95, 98, 164, 177. Noise, sensation of, 43. Objective and subjective, applied to sensation and affection, 66 ; in emotion and sentiment, 151, 154, _ 234, 236, 237. Observation, in all science, 24; in psychology, 27. Organic sensations, 47 ; and Wundt's affective qualities, 70 ; in emotion, 143 ; and memory type, 128. Pain, sensation of, 45, 46, 47. Parallelism, principle of, 18. Paranoia, 282. Pater, W., 205. Pedagogy, normative, 298 ; and his- Index 313 tory of education, 298 ; and child study, 298. Perception, observation of a, 8 ; and affection, 60 ; range of attention to, 89; formation of, 94; how different from idea, 95 ; three classes of, 98 ; quaHtative,99, 100, 103; spatial, 99, 100, 106, 107, 109, no, 115; tem- poral, 99, 100, 112; pure and sym- bolic, loi ; differentiates the world, 114 ; illusory, 115 ; and association, 131 : of self, 224. Physiology, brain and nervous sys- tem, 13, 14, 17, 30, 33, 42, 90, 95, 98, 164, 177, 279 ; importance of, in psychology, 18; of sensation, 39. 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48; of affection, 58, 63, 68, 91, 144, 146, 149; of bodily tendency, 79 ; of attention. 84,90; of association, 136; of habit, 137, 195, 198 ; of movement, 172, 175,177; of memory, 195; of reten- tion, 198 ; of sleep, 266 ; of dream- ing, 271 ; of hypnosis, 272. Pleasantness and unpleasantness, the two affective qualities, 58, 70, 150; biological significance of, 58. Poe, E. A., 136, 206. Position, perception of, 107. Pressure, from skin, 45 : from mu- cous membrane, 46 ; from muscles. 47 ; from joint, 47 ; in drowsiness, 61 ; as extended, 100; space value of, 108, 109, no. III; time value of, 113. Process, compared with thing, 6 ; physiological and psychological, 10, 13; see Mental process, Mind. Psychology, meaning of word, i ; is a science, 3, 287, 300 ; subject of, 4, 7; and physiology, 17 ; problem of, 22; method of, 24 ff., 32, 35, 287; and logic, 221, 297 ; abnormal, 266, 287; scope of, 286 ; standard, 286, 288 ; child, 287, 288 ; animal, 287, 290; ethnic, 287, 292; ethics and logic, 295 ; and pedagogy, 298 ; difference of opinion in, 301. Pulse, index of affection, 63. Questions and exercises, 22, 35, 51, 71, 91. 118, 138, 159, 182, 207, 228, 243, 262, 284, 303. Rapport, hypnotic, 275. Reaction, simple, 179 ; sensorial, 179, 181, 182; muscular, 180, 181; cen- tral, 180, 181, 182; association, 182; discrimination, 260 ; cognition, 260 ; choice, 261 ; automatic, 262. Reasoning, 216. Recognition, passive, 188, 190; pleas- urable, 191 ; illustrates ' meaning,' 191; degrees of, 192; active, 193 ; m the older psychology, 198. Recollection, 195. References, 23, 36, 51, 72, 93, 121, 140, 160, 186, 210, 229, 244, 265, 285, 304. Reflex movement, development of, 171, 175 ; secondary, 257. Relation, instance of, 222; concept of, 223. Religious sentiment, 232, 237, 239; relation of, to social, 237. Reproduction, 122, 198. Resistance, perception of. 104. Resolve, definition of, 252 ; instance of, 254. Respiration, sensations of, 47; index of affection, 63. Retention, 197. Rhythm, perception of, 112. Science, definition of, 2 ; instances of, 2; psychology is a, 3, 287, 300. Self, perception of, 224 ; idea of, 225 : abstract idea of, 226 ; concept of, 226. Self-consciousness, definition of, 227; in old and new psychology, 227 ; as nervousness, 228. Selective action, definition of, 245; progressive development of, 246 ; of daily life, 248. Sensation, definition of, 37; not ob- tainable singly, 21, 37; central and peripheral, 33, 37, 95 ; classification of, 37 ; from eye, 38 ; from ear, 42 ; from skin, 45 ; from mouth and nose, 46 ; from internal organs, 47 ; quality of, 37 ff., 49 ; intensity of, 49 ; in feeling, 59, 66, 77 ; and affec- tion, 64, 83 ; extent and duration of, 99 ; motor, in, 124: and asso- ciation, 131. Sentiment and emotion, 230; forma- 314 Index tion of, 230, 252 ; forms of, 231 ; intellectual, 232, 234; social, 232, 236; religious, 232, 236; aesthetic, 232, 238 ; practical importance of, 233. 240. Shakespeare, 65, 68, 143, 147, 155, 157, 239, 250, 254. Skin, function of, 45 ; perception of locality on, 106. Sleep, physiology and psychology of, 266. Smell, sensations of, 46 ; organs of, 46. Social sentiments, 232, 236, 239; re- lation of, to religious, 237. Solidity, perception of, 109. Somnambulism, 272. Sound, localisation of, 132. Specific character of concrete pro- cesses, 69. Spencer, //., 295. Stimulus, definition of, 13 ; function of, in experiment, 30. Suggestion, 36, 212, 228, 275, 277. Sully, J., 157, 169, 239. Talent, 218. Taste, sensations of, 46 ; relation of, to smell, 46; organs of, 46; per- ception of, 104. ^ Temperament, 157 ; see Mental con- stitution. Temperature, sensations of, 45, 46 ; in tickling, 48 ; in drowsiness, 61. Tennyson, A,, 253. Thackeray, W. M., 159, 203. Thought, various uses of word, 213 ; definition of, 214 ; and active imagi- nation, 214; judgment and reason- ing, 215; logic and psychology of, 221. Tickling, 48. Time, present, and consciousness, 19 ; duration of attention, 88 ; of sensa- tion, 99 ; temporal perception, 99, 100, 112; temporal emotion, 150, 153; duration of simple reaction, 180; of cognition reaction, 261. Tone, sensation of, 43 ; system of, 43. Tradition, influence of, on sentiment, 231 ; on selective action, 249. Volitional action, definition of, 246, 249 ; degeneration of, 249, Volume of body, index of affection, 63. Weber, E, H., 51. Weber's law, 49, 50; usefulness of, 50; explanation of, 51. Will, definition of, 254; psychologi- cal arguments for freedom of, 254 ; against, 255. Word, importance of idea, 123 ; ver- bal association, 133; the earliest words, 213 ; vs. gesture, 213 ; and image, 214 ; development of, 214 ; thought and, 215. Wundt, W., 32, 68, 69, 70, 169, 213, 296. MENTAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE CHILD AND THE RACE. BY JAMES MARK BALDWIN, M.A., Ph.D., With Seventeen Figures and Ten Tables. 8vo. pp. xvi, 496. Cloth. Price, $2.60. FROM THE PRESS. *' It is of the greatest value and importance." — The Outlook, "A most valuable contribution to biological psychology." — The Critic. " Thorough, candid, and suggestive : in thorough touch with the researches of the day." — The Week (Toronto, Canada). " Professor Baldwin has treated in this book a subject that is new and full of absorbing interest. . . . Many will find Professor Baldwin's book stimulating." — The American Journal of Psychology. " An exceedingly valuable book, and will be read with great interest by teachers, cultured parents, and psychologists." — Popular Science News. " This summary sketch can give no idea of the variety of topics which Professor Baldwin handles, or of the originality with which his central thesis is worked out. No psychologist can afford to neglect the book." — The Dial. '' The first real successful effort at a presentation of the psychological process from the genetic point of view — the central idea of the growing, developing being." — The Child-Study Monthly. " A book . . . treating of a subject fraught with significant revelations for every branch of educational science is Professor J. Mark Baldwin's treatise on Mental De- velopment in ' The Child and the Race.' Professor Baldwin's work is comparatively untechnical in character and written in a terse and vigorous style, so that it will commend itself to unprofessional readers. The educational, social, and ethical implications, in which the subject abounds, the author has reserved for a second volume, which is well under way ; the present treats of methods and processes. Having been led by his studies and experiments with his two little daughters to a profound appreciation of the genetic function of imitation, he has sought to work out a theory of mental development in the child incorporating this new insight. A clear understanding of the mental development of the individual child necessitates a doctrine of the race development of consciousness — the great problem of the evolution of mind. Accordingly Professor Baldwin has endeavored to link to- gether the current biological theory of organic adaptation with the doctrine of the infant's development as that has been fashioned by his own wide, special researches. Readers familiar with the articles of Professor Haeckel now running in The Open CoUf't will understand the import of a theory which seeks to unite and explain one by the other the psychological aspects of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. As Pro- fessor Baldwin says, it is the problem of Spencer and Romanes attacked from a new and fruitful point of view. There is no one but can be interested in the numerous and valuable results which Professor Baldwin has recorded ; teachers, parents, and psychologists alike will find in his work a wealth of suggestive matter." — The Open Court. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. A COURSE OF LECTURES ON THE GROWTH AND MEANS OF TRAINING THE MENTAL FACULTY. DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. BY FRANCIS WARNER, M.D. (Lond.), F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. 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(The Child in Primitive Culture.) rStudies of the Activities and Influences of the Child among" Primitive Peoples, their Analogues and Survivals in the Civilization of To-day. BY . ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN, MA., Ph.D., Lecturer on Anthropology in Clark University, Worcester, Mass. ; etc., etc 8vo. Cloth. $3.00, net. " It is an exhaustive study of " child thought " in all ages, and will fully interest every class of students in child study. . . . The teacher of kindergarten will find texts of value upon every page of the book." — CJiicago Inter-Ocean. '' It is, of course, keenly interesting. One can turn to the copious index and select a topic here, topic there, turn to pages indicated, and find a wonderful amount of information drawn from authentic sources by patient scientific investigation. 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