Ladd /.•^' ^v,;. ^^M^iy^m: >F \mt htr- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. x^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. PROFESSOR LADD'S V/ORKS. PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. 12mo, 75 cents net. PSYCHOLOGY; Descriptive and Explanatory. A Treatise of the Phenonnena, Laws, and Developnnent of Human Mental Life. 8vo, $4.50. INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry after a Ra- tional Systenn of Scientific Principles in their Relation to Ultimate Reality. 8vo, $3.00. OUTLINES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Text- book on Mental Science for Academies and Colleges. Illus- trated. 8vo, $2.00. ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind, from the Physical and Experimental Point of Vievv/. With numerous illustra- tions. 8vo, $4.50. THE DOCTRINE OF SACRED SCRIPTURE. A Critical, His- torical, and Dogmatic Inquiry into the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments. 2 vols., Bvo, $7.00. THE PRINCIPLES OF CHURCH POLITY. Crown 8vo, $2,50. WHAT IS THE BIBLE? An Inquiry of the Origin and Nature of the Old and New Testaments in the Light of Modern Biblical Study, 12mo, $2.00. PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY BY / GEOEGE TRUMBULL LADD PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN YALE UNIVERSITY (SEP 15 .b:- 'K^^.. cA<^^ NEW YORK CHARLES SORIBNER'S SONS 1894 x^^ x'?^^ ^-v^ Copyright, 1S94, by CHAELES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPAN/ NEW YORK 5 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG DAUGHTER OF MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE WHO HAS BEEN KIND ENOUGH TO READ IT AND TO SAY THAT SHE HAS UNDERSTOOD AND ENJOYED IT PREFACE The writing of this little book was undertaken in part as a recreation between two much more bulky and serious pieces of work. From the personal point of view it may be regarded as the result of a feeling of curiosity — of the author's desire to make the experiment of telling, in a manner to correspond fairly well with its chosen title, the story of the men- tal life. As the dedication shows, a young friend was kind enough to offer herself as both subject for the experiment and judge of its result. I have tried to make my confidence in the intelligence of my youthful critic the measure of my success. But besides the more personal interest in such an endeavor, I have hoped in some degree to supply what I believe to be a real need. For it cannot be doubted that there are many adults, as well as youths, who would find some pleasure and perhaps more profit in reading a very brief and simple treatise on psychology. While adopting the title of " Primer," it has been my aim to avoid both of two extremes. One of these is the extreme of " talking down " to the reader in such manner as to keep unpleasantly be- fore him his own lack of familiarity with the subject Vlll PREFACE — not to say lack of intelligence and of willingness to think for himself while acquiring the information and thoughts furnished by others. It is my experi- ence that intelligent and self-respecting youth re- sent this ; and, certainly, it is offensive to almost all of that maturer audience which any genuine scholar would care to reach. The other extreme is that of dryness and of difficulty due to excessive condensa- tion without dropping the use of technical language and of strictly scientific modes in presenting the re^ suits of previous researches. In a word, this book simply aims to narrate some of the more obvious facts and principles known to modern scientific psychology in plain and familiar English, and in an orderly but wholly untechnical way. Anything like completeness, whether as re- spects the topics touched upon or the treatment given to any one of these topics, must not be ex- pected. I hope and expect that this book will be useful for the instruction of the young in the important subject with which it deals. It would seem not un- reasonable also to think that it will be welcome to many adults who are willing to spend a few (but only Si few) hours on easy lessons in psychology. It is likely, too, that it may prepare the way, with both classes of readers, for the study of larger and more serious works on the same subject. It is worth while only to add that the considerable number of experiments constantly used to illustrate each topic can, with few exceptions, be performed PREFACE IX by any reader. Most of them require little or no apparatus ; and, of course, by following them out for one's self the interest and value of so elementary a study will be g-reatly increased. Finally : this book is not to be regarded as an abridgment of any other existing work, whether by its author or by other writers on psychology. It is what its name best indicates — a " Primer." TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTEE I. PAGES The Mind and its Activities, 1-15 What is Psychology ?— The Point of View.— A Study of Re- lations. — A Study of the Self. — Consciousness and Mind. — Definition of Psychology. — How to Study Psychology. — Self-consciousness or Introspection. — Sources of Psychol- ogy. — Experiment in Psychology. — Method in Psychology. — The Faculties of the Mind. — Benefits of Psychology. OHAPTEE II. Consciousness and Attention, 16-31 Meaning of the Term Consciousness. — State of Conscious- ness. — Field of Consciousness. — Extent of Consciousness. — Intensity of Consciousness. — Speed of Consciousness. — Character of Consciousness. — Conditions of Conscious- ness. — Attention. — Distribution of Attention. — Rise and Fall of Attention. — Conditions of Attention. — Kinds of Attention. — Attention and Discrimination. — Attention and Feeling. — Attention and Will. — Nature of Attention. — Self-consciousness. CHAPTER III. Sensations, 32-51 Nature of Sensation. — Origin of Sensations. — Classes of Sen- sations. — Sensations of Smell. — Sensations of Taste. — Sen- sations of Sound. — Kinds of Sounds. — Pitch of Tones. Xii TABLE OF CONTENTS — Sensations of Light and Color. — Kinds of Visual Sen- sations. — Mixing of Colors. — Sensations of Pressure — Sensations of Temperature. — Muscular Sensations. — Sen- sations of the Joints. — Organic Sensations. — Causes of Difference in Sensations. — Sensations and the Organism. — Quality of Sensations and of Stimulus, — Intensity of Sensations. — Weber's Law. — Limits of Sensation. — Local Signs. — Sensations of Motion and Position. CHAPTEE rV. PAGES Feeling, . 52-67 Nature of Feeling. — Conditions of Feeling — Kinds of Feel- ing. — Sensuous Feelings. — Feelings of Relation. — Feeling as Pleasure-Pain. — Conditions of Pleasure-Pain. — Mixed Pleasure and Pain. — Rhythm of Pleasure and Pain. — Pleasures of Rhythm. — Effect of Repetition. — Diffusion of Feelings. CHAPTER V. Mental Images and Ideas, 68-88 Nature of the Mental Image or Idea. — After-images. — Fad- ing of Mental Images. — Sensations and Mental Images. — Conditions of Mental Images. — Images and Ideas. — Inten- sity of Ideas. — Life-likeness of Ideas. — Accompaniments of Ideas. — Fusion of Ideas. — Spontaneous Recurrence of Ideas. — Series of Ideas. — '' Freeing " of Ideas. — Associa- tion of Ideas. — Laws of Association. — Principle of Con- tiguity. — Special Laws of Association. CHAPTER VI. Smell, Taste, and Touch, " . 89-105 Nature of Perception. — Development of Perception. — Classes of Perceptions. — Perceptions of Smell. — Perceptions of Taste. — Perceptions of Touch. — Earliest Knowledge of TABLE OF CONTENTS Xlll the Body by Touch.— Perceptions of Motion by Touch.— Perceptions of Position on the Skin. — Positions of the Movable Parts.— Development of Perception by Touch.— Distinction of our Body and other Bodies. — Qualities of Bodies by Touch.— Perception of Distant Bodies by Touch. CHAPTER VII. PAGES Hearing and Sight, 106-122 Perceptions of Hearing. — ^Place of Sounds — Qualities of Bodies by Sound. — Perceptions of Sight. — Means for Vis- ual Perception. — Two Principles of Visual Perception. — Formation of a Visual Image. — Effects of Moving the Eye. — Accommodation of the Eye. — The Visual Object. — The Field of Vision. — Images of the Two Eyes. — Movement of the Two Eyes. — Instantaneous Vision. — Secondary Helps to Vision. — Influence of Suggestion on Sight. — Influence of Feeling on Sight.— Influence of Will on Sight.— Illu- sions of Sight. CHAPTER VIII. Memoet and Imagination, 123-140 Difference between Memory and Imaginatioa. — Thought and Memory. — Stages of Memory. — Memory as Retention. — Conditions of Retentive Memory. — Memory as Reproduc- tion, — Memory as Recollection. — Memo;:y as Recognition. — Kinds of Memory. — Art of Remembering. — Nature of Imagination. — Conditions of Imagination. — Reproductive and Productive Imagination. — Creative Imagination. — Kinds of Imagination. CHAPTER IX. Thought and Language, 141-157 Discriminating Consciousness. — Physiological Conditions of Intellect. — Mental Activity in Discrimination. — Conscious- ness of Resemblance. — Consciousness of Diflference. — Com- XIV TABLE OF CONTETTTS parison. — Primary Judgment — Developed Processes of Thought. — Stages or Forms of Thought. — Nature of a Concept. — Kinds and Qualities of Concepts. — Logical Judg- ments. — Forms of Judgment. — Language and Thought. — The Nature of Language. — Words and Thoughts. — Origin of Language. CHAPTEE X. PAGES Beasoning and Knowledge, 158-174 Reasoning in Perception by the Senses. — Nature of True Reasoning. — Nature of the Reason or " Ground." — Kinds of Reasoning — Forms and Figures of Reasoning. — Induc- tion and Deduction. — Principle of All Argument. — Tests of Reasoning. —Nature of Knowledge. — Belief and Knowl- edge. — Development of Knowledge. — Kinds of Knowl- edge CHAPTEE XI. Emotions, Sentiments, and Desires, 175-193 Classes of Feelings. — Nature of an Emotion. — Primary Kinds of Emotions. — Development of an Emotion. — Emo- tions and Thoughts. — Complexity of the Emotions. — Pas- sions and Emotions. — Nature of the Sentiments. — Classes of Sentiments. — The Intellectual Sentiments. — The .^s- thetical Sentiments. — Kinds of the Beautiful. — The Ethi- cal Sentiments. — Nature of Conscience. — Nature of the Desires. — Kinds of the Desires. CHAPTEE XII. WiLii AND Charactee, 194-209 Nature of Conation. — Conditions of Conation. — Kinds of Movement. — Nature of Volition. — Nature of Deliberation. — Resolution of Deliberation. — Faculties Employed in Will. — Nature of Choice. — Formation of Plans and Pur- TABLE OF CONTENTS XV poses. — Execution of Plans and Purposes. — Freedom of Will. — The Conception of Character. — Development of Character. CHAPTEE XIII. PAGES Temperament and Development, 210-224 Doctrine of Temperament. — Kinds of Temperament. — Basis of Temperament. — Difference of the Sexes. — Effect of Age and Race. — General Principles of Mental Life. — The Prin- ciple of Continuity. — Principle of Relativity. — The Prin- ciple of Solidarity. — Principle of Final Purpose. PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTEE I THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES No one can fully understand what Psychology is, or how to study it, who has not already given much attention to this subject. And if we consult those whose business it is to inform us, we shall doubtless find some difference of views in their answers to both these questions. But the same thing is true, to a large extent, of every subject of study; for often the definitions which teachers give earliest to their pupils, or which the writers of books place upon their first pages, are among the last things to re- ceive general agreement from scientific investiga- tors. This is, to some extent, true of all the sciences ; and there are certain reasons why it is especially true of the science we are about to study. What is Psycholog^y? — In spite of all difficulties, however, it is possible to answer this question in a manner that will enable one to begin study with a fairly clear notion of both subject and method. Only it will be necessary to use some words in the definition, the meaning of which must be left to be made clearer as the study of the subject advances. In considering What is Psychology ? we may take 2 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY our start from any of the experiences of the daily life. For it is one advantage, at least, which this study has over all others, that its facts and speci- mens do not have to be sought at a distance or bought with money from those who have collected them — as is the case with botany, geology, physi- ology, etc. We all always carry the facts about with us ; we are ourselves the specimens to be studied. Let, then, any of the most familiar of one's experi- ences be taken as examples. Suppose, for instance7 that while walking on the street the attention is attracted to some person approaching from a dis- tance. At first we cannot see this person clearly ; and so we ask ourselves the question : Who can that be who is coming this way in the distance ? It is likely that interest is now awakened to answer the problem we have thus set ourselves. We look more intently, and in the meantime think diligently whom this is like ; or who it is probable would be coming this way at this particular time. Soon the features and the dress are discerned more perfectly ; but as yet we cannot recognize the person or give to him his name. As might popularly be said : we cannot "imagine" who this can possibly be. All at once, however, recognition takes place; it comes into our minds that this is Mr. X., whom we met at the sea-side last summer, and with whom we remember to have spent some hours in rowing or lawn tennis. Thereupon a feeling of pleased gratification takes tho place of the previous feeling, which was that of being interested and yet puzzled and thoughtful in THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES S the effort to remember. We immediately make plans to invite him to dinner and to show him about the town ; but remembering now that we have an engagement already made which we ought to keep, a change of feeling again occurs. And finally we choose between two possible courses, after a quick process of reasoning, in which we picture to ourselves the probable advantages or disadvantages of either course. The Point of View.^Experiences like those just described happen often enough in the life of every one. But they are not ordinarily regarded from the point of view which psychology takes. Should this particular experience occur with any one of us pre- cisely as it has been narrated, it would not be our own activities, as such, in which we should probably be interested. It would rather be the solution of the questions : Who is the person approaching ? What shall I call him 1 How shall I greet him "? and, What shall I do with him after we have met 1 which would interest us. That is, our problems would be " practical." They would have little or nothing to do with our own thoughts, feelings, and plans, as such ; but everything to do with the objects about which we were thinking, toward which our feelings were excited, or with reference to which we were planning. This ordinary practical point of view is sometimes called objective. Psychology, however, completely changes the point of view from which to regard all events like the foregoing. From its changed point of view 4 PEIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY then let us briefly consider anew the same narrative. And, first of all, we notice that the narrative speaks of " attention " as being attracted and then willingly- fixed upon an object; of "perception," or the "knowl- edge " of what the object is, as being gained by use of the "senses" (in this case, the eyes), and by " thinking " and " remembering " until clear " recog- nition " takes place ; of " feelings " that change their character and tone of "pleasure" or "pain;" and, finally, of " plans " and " choices," and of the carrying of them out in courses of conduct. Now, attention, perception, thinking, rememhering, feeling, whether painful or pleasurctble, and planning and choosing — all of them, as such, and for their own sake — are the facts ivhich psychology studies. A Study of Relations — But let us return again to the narrative, and warm and enliven it by recalling something similar in our own experience. This narrative plainly implies what the examination of all experience proves — namely, that the different forms of experience (such as attention, perceiving, remembering, etc.) depend upon each other. The story, as it was just told, showed how the feeling of interest awakened and fixed the attention ; and how attention influenced the growth of perception. For if we had not been interested and attentive, we should probably have passed the person by without recognizing him. The story also showed how to notice likenesses and unlikenesses, and to imagine, to remember, and to think, are necessary in order to perceive things with a full recognition. It also THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES 5 showed how feelhigs of interest and of expectation, and the like, influence perceptions and thoughts ; and how, in turn, perceptions, memories, and thoug-hts influence the feelings. And, finally, feel- ings were seen to lead to plans and choices. Al- though, if we think of it in the right way, there was a sort of plan, or choice, implied in the very deter- mination to solve for ourselves the question. Who is that person in the distance? as well as in all the effort of attention and memory which finally led to the solution of this question. A Study of the Self.— Only a little more thought upon the meaning of our narrative is necessary to discover another fact which is very important to a correct understanding of the whole matter. If we ask ourselves, Whose was the perception, the think- ing, the feeling, the planning, etc.? we at once an- swer : " They were all Tnine, of course." / looked ; / perceived ; / remembered ; / felt pleased or iduz- zled ; /formed the plans and made the choices. But now if the question be raised, How do you know this ; how do you know that the facts of perceiving, thinking, feeling, and planning, all belonged to your self ? the ordinary person would, probably, only stare in reply. But the stare would amount to saying, " It is quite beyond my power to conceive of such facts as these as belonging to any other being than a Self." Indeed, when I know that they are occurring, or remember that they have occurred, I know them and remember them only as "self-belonging." I am the subject of all the facts thus known or remembered by 6 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY me. This, then, is the point of view taken by psy- chology. It is called the subjective point of view. For psychology is a study of the experiences and doings of a " subject," or " self." We see, then, that psychology regards all the facts which it studies as connected together^ and as belonging to some so-called " subject,^' or person, which each one of tcs ordinarily calls " /," or " myself " Only by studying its facts in this subjective connection can it make any progress as a science. For the facts which it studies are these very thoughts, feelings, and plans, regarded by each subject of them, when- ever he regards them at all, as peculiarly his own. Consciousness and Mind. — Thus far we have spoken of several classes of those facts which psychology studies, such as facts of attention, of perception by the senses, of remembering, thinking, feeling, planning, and the like. But some term is needed which may be applied to them all in common. For certainly all these facts, considered as psychology studies them, really have something in common. We will now call that which belongs to them all in common, by the name " consciousness ; " and will leave the ques- tion as to what is meant by consciousness to be an- swered more id articular ly, if this is possible, later on. Attention, perception, memory, imagination, thought, feeling, and choice, may then all be called " forms of consciousness." Or, better, attending to anything, whatever it may be, perceiving anything, whatever the perceived object may be, remembering anything, whatever the particular thing remembered THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES 7 may be, etc., are all activities or '* states of conscious- ness." But it is we tliat are conscious in all these different forms ; it is we that perform all these different activ- ities, or exist in all these different states. To our- selves, regarded as capable of being- conscious and as actually being conscious in all these different forms, the name " Mind " (or " Soul ") may be given. And then the adjective *' mental " (or *' psychical ") may be applied to all these same facts, activities, and states. All of them taken together may then be spoken of as our mental life, as the life of the Self, or Mind. Definition of Psychology.— What has thus far been said may now be summed up in the following defini- tion: Psychology is the seience of the facts or states of consciousness, as such, and thus of the life of that sub- ject of the states lohich is called the Self or the Mind. As a science, it must not only describe the facts, tell what they are, and how they are distinguished from each other as like or unlike, but it must also explain them by showing under what conditions they occur, what order in occurrence they follow, and how the more complex and later ones depend upon those which are simpler and earlier. Psychology there- fore aims to describe and to explain the growth of mental life. How to Study Psychology — The question of Method in this science, as in any other, is simply the quesr tion how best to find out what the facts are, and then to explain them. But the very nature of the facts 8 PRIMEK OF PSYCHOLOGY with which psychology deals makes its method peculiar. The only way to find out any class of facts, as facts, is, of course, to observe them ; in order to describe them as they actually are, as well as to explain them in the form in which they require to be explained, it is necessary to observe the facts accu- rately. Now, properly speaking, no one can observe the facts of your consciousness but yourself, whose conscious facts they are ; and the same thing is true of me and the facts of my consciousness ; and so of every^ conscious mind. For example, I may know or guess that you have the pain of toothache, or that you are happy in the expectation of a visit from a friend, by the signs upon your face or because you tell me it is so ; but you alone can be immediately aware of the pain or of the pleasure. Twenty persons, or more, may see you blush or turn pale; but no one but you can observe the fact of your own conscious shame or fear or anger. What you think, or imagine, or remem- ber, you may commit to speech or to paper, and thus inform others about the character of your states of consciousness ; but jow. alone of all the people in the world stand face to face with them, as states of your consciousness. Self-consciousness or Introspection — The immediate awareness of one's own states of mind is called " self- consciousness." And no other way of direct observa- tion is possible for those facts with which psychol- ogy deals. It has already been seen (p. 6f.) that these facts are facts of consciousness ; subjective facts they were also called, because they had to be thought THE MIND ATTD ITS ACTIVITIES 9 of as having one subject for them all, the so-called " self," or mind. And it now appears that the only method of direct observation is similar to the facts to be observed ; the method also may then be called subjective. In plain language, this only means that every person knows his own thoughts, feelings, plans, etc., as his own, and in an immediate manner, which is impossible for any one else than the subject of- those same thoughts, feelings, and plans. Or because this seems like the work of a sort of eye that looks directly in upon the conscious life, while all other eyes only see the signs of that life, this kind of observation is sometimes called " introspection " (" looking inward "). Sources of Psychology — To explain the facts of consciousness is a very different thing from simply to observe them. And, indeed, most people give so very little attention to their own mental life that they can scarcely describe clearly what its most obvious facts are. This peculiar kind of observa- tion, which the science of psychology requires, like every other kind of observation, is also a matter that may be cultivated, and in which different peo- ple have very different natural gifts. Nothing is more common than the experience which makes us aware how much better some understand their own thoughts, memories, and plans than others do. This difference is certainly not wholly due to a lack of power in certain minds to use language well ; it is also partly due to deficiency and lack of practice in self-observation. Moreover, practice makes perfect 10 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY here as everywhere else. We all may g-row in self- knowledge as in every other form of knowledge. Thus it comes about that certain individuals ac- quire rare skill in observing-, describing, and untan- gling all the intricacies of their own conscious states. They, too, thus become fit to describe and explain the conscious states of others far better than can the subjects of these states themselves. The next thing to be noticed is that all men con- stantly and inevitably give external signs as to what their own states of consciousness are. Only in this way can men communicate with each other at all. Everything that any man does or says may thus be- come a means by which others know, or guess, his facts of consciousness, the character of the flow of his mental life. Now, all these manifestations of consciousness become sources for the student of psy- chology. For, we repeat, all that any man does and says may be considered as a sign of his mental life. Psychology, then, studies the facts of infant and child life, and even of the life of the lower animals. It observes the behavior of idiots and of insane persons, of criminals and of persons in natural or hypnotic sleep ; just as the physiologist learns about the behavior of the organs of the human body by studying them when they are acting in an unusual or diseased way. All literature, too, is of course the expression of human thought and feeling. And so the student of psychology learns much from ob- serving the pictures of life which great writers of dramas and novels — like the "Antigone" of Sophocles, THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES 11 or the " Hamlet " of Shakespeare, or George Eliot's *' Adam Becle " — have drawn. Some biographies also afford valuable sources of psychological science. Experiment in Psychology.— Some of the facts vdiich psychology studies can be subjected to experiment ; by this it is meant that they can be produced at will, and in such way as the more easily and carefully to observe and minutely to explain them. Among these -experiments a great many can be loerformed by any one upon himself. Thus any one is able, not only to acquire the habit of observing his own mental life as it flows on spontaneously, but also to direct its flow in certain channels for the express puri^ose of observ- ing the conditions that govern it. For example, one can close one's eyes and see whether one can, by will- ing it to be so, make a colored cross or circle appear before one. Or we can assist each other in experi- menting to see, for instance, how far apart the points of a pair of dividers must be in order to be distinguished as two, when we are blindfolded, on the different areas of the skin. Other experiments require very elaborate apparatus, such as will meas- ure time to the one-thousandth of a second. Hence psychological laboratories are being founded, of which there are already twenty or more in this country. Yet, again, the student of psychology, by taking the simpler movable pieces of apparatus around with him, may experiment upon a large number of per- sons ; or by sending out circulars with questions to be answered (although this latter mode of inquiry 12 RIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY g-ives very doubtful results, since it is impossible carefully to guard the conditions of sucli experi- ments). A g-ood example of this sort of experimen- tal study of the mind is to be found in the work, dur- ing- the past year, of a Yale graduate student, who, with simple but skilfully devised apparatus, tested thirteen hundred school-children to see how their powers of discrimination developed in dependence on age and height and sex, etc.; and how the esti- mate of their teachers respecting their brightness or dulness corresponded with his results. But, plainly, much of our mental life cannot be subjected to experiments in this way, or, indeed, in any manag*eable way. How, for example, should one test, with laboratory methods and apparatus, the higher and more complex feelings and choices, the thoughts about duty and God, and the elaborate plans we form, for to- morrow or for our entire lives ? Method in Psychology. — After the facts and simpler conditions of mental life are ascertained in the ways that have been described, the method of building up the science of psychology does not differ greatly from that which the other sciences employ. That is, we use " hypotheses," or shrewd guesses at the most probable explanations ; we derive " laws " from the careful study of great numbers of facts, and then test the laws by experiment, or by trying to explain by them newly discovered facts ; and so gradually we arrive at a more complete picture of the whole de- velopment of mental life and of the conditions on which it depends. THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES 13 The Faculties of the Mind. — When one begins to consider the different facts of mental life in a way seriously to study them, one is at once impressed with their great variety. One class of these facts, however, separates itself pretty readily from the others ; and this is the knowledge obtained through the senses. What belongs to all such knowledge in common seems to be just this, that it all comes through the senses. But how really different are the impressions of the different senses ! And what real likeness has the blueness of the sky to the smell of a rose ; or the redness of the rose, even, to its own soft, velvety feel and delicate perfume? And in the case of the same sense : how is the smell of the rose like that of asafoetida, except that both impressions are received by sniffing in the air through the nose ? Now, however, let it be considered that all these impressions of sense cover only one part of our mental life. There are our thoughts, which are about so many different things, partly about impres- sions of seuse and partly of quite another order. There are also our feelings, which are not all of the bodily kind, or such as go with the use of the senses ; but are some of them of an ideal order, such as occur when we are reading admiringly of the heroes of the past, or are grieving over lost oppor- tunities, or are craving lovingly the friendly pres- ence of some absent companion, or are thinking of the heavenly joy of some one already forever de- parted. How indescribably manifold are our feel- 14 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY iiigs ! It is just this, in part, which makes them so hard to tell to others. The word " faculties " is commonly used for the principal modes of the activity of the mind as they are experienced in adult life. Such are, for example, perception, memory, imagination, thought, and the like. But these are all complex and highly devel- oped forms of the same mental life ; and, as we shall see, they all involve one another in a complicated, way. Thus we cannot have perception without pre- viously having developed and actually using at the time the powers of memory, imagination, and even thought. Again, we cannot think without remem- bering while we think ; neither can we plan or choose without both thinking and remembering. And yet in all these faculties, so called, the mind is one ; it is I that perceive, remember, imagine, think, feel, and choose. So that hy ^^facilities'' ive understand nothing hut the various co^mplex and developed modes of the mind's life. However, if we consider any one of our mental states, our particular modes of being conscious, we shall find that it always presents three sides or " aspects," as it were. In other words, we always find ourselves perceiving or thinking (" intelligizing ") about something, feeling somehow, and doing some- what. It may be said, then, that " intelligizing," feeling, and willing are the three elementary forms of all mental life. Yet here, again, it is we that exist, always as in some state of existence, with these three aspects in which our state may be regarded. And THE MIND AND ITS ACTIVITIES 15 sometimes, as everybody knows, the intellectual aspect is more prominent, sometimes the feeling aspect, sometimes the aspect of willing*. It is this which is properly meant when Intellect, Feeling, and Will are spoken of as the three " Faculties " of the Mind. Benefits of Psychology — With persons who have any intelligent views about the matter, it is needless to argue the benefits of a scientific study of the human mind. Only with the aid of psychology can one to the fullest possible extent reap the benefits of the study of other forms of science. Language cannot be understood, literature cannot be a^Dpreciated, read, and interpreted, art cannot be profoundly compre- hended, and even the natural sciences cannot have their full import revealed, without a knowledge of the mind of man. And, indeed, how could this be otherwise, since all science itself is only the product of the human mind ? The practical benefits of psychology in influencing the science and art of education, the management of child-life, the instruction of idiots, the improvement of the vicious, criminal, and insane, are becoming more clearly recognized with every year of its pres- ent rapid advances. CHAPTEE II CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION In defining psycholog-y (p. 7) it was said that it is " the science of the facts or states of conscious- ness as such." And it had previously been said that the word *' consciousness " may be used so as to cover all the different kinds of facts which belong to the mental life — at least, so far as it is an object of observation and study. Still later we spoke of self-consciousness, or the attentive consideration of our own conscious states, as a mode of observation that must be employed to reach the facts which psy- chology investigates. But now the question may properly be asked: What is meant by the very words, "consciousness," "self-consciousness," and "attention"? A brief answer to this question will occupy us in the present chapter. Meaning of the Term Consciousness. — Only a mo- ment's thought is necessary to make it clear that, if the word " consciousness " be used to signify what is common to all the facts of mental life, and so to define psychology, this use of the word itself cannot be defined. This is true, for the very good reason that no more general terms exist by which to define this one. Such a result is no fault of the language which the science of mental life employs. For all COI^SCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 17 definitions have to go back to terms that are too general and simple in contents to be themselves defined. What it is to be conscious can be so de- scribed, however, as to make it perfectly clear to every one who will appeal to his own experience. As one sinks gradually down into sleep, one becomes less and less conscious ; as one wakes up gradually from sleep, one becomes more and more conscious. If one dreams in sleep, then one's dream is a form of consciousness ; but if one ever sinks into perfectly dreamless sleep, then one becomes unconscious. When a man receives a severe blow upon the head, or is badly choked, he becomes unconscious. When he " comes to," he becomes conscious again ; it is consciousness " to " which he comes, as we figura- tively say. When one is very much alive mentally — " wide-awake " and in the highest use of one's pow- ers, as is sometimes said — then one is highly con- scious. That which rises and falls thus, that which is partially lost in almost dreamless deep and wholly lost in swooning " quite away'' that is consciousness. We see then, again, that this use of the word makes it a term for any and every fact of mental life, as such — as mere fact of mental life. State of Consciousness. — We must also appeal to ex- perience to make clear what is meant by a " state of consciousness." Actually, there is no part of the mental life that can be separated from the rest, and have an existence apart, as it were ; or that can be made the subject of investigation, as thus separated, even by ourselves, whose state it is. The thoughts, 2 18 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY feelings, and purposes flow on in something like a continuous stream. This is why the mental life is sometimes called "a stream of consciousness." If the attempt is made carefully to observe any of the particular thoughts or feelings, then this very attempt results in changing the character of these thoughts and feelings ; and at once a new and dif- ferent state takes the place of the old. Still we know that we can by our ow^n activity consider a^ portion of our experience as though it were separ- able from the rest ; we can note its characteristics, and observe its relations to the rest of the mental life. Thus, for example, I can know that a moment ago my tooth was aching horribly ; that now the pain is less intense ; and, presently, that it has stopped, and that I am looking out of the window at the pass- ers-by, or thinking of my neglected w^ork, or plan- ning to start on a journey to-morrow. By a " state of consciousness," then, we mean such a portion of the actual coiisdons life as we can, hy our own conscious act of discrhnination, consider as one, both loith respect to lohat it is, and also with respect to its relation to other states of the same mental life. Field of Consciousness. — Other terms may be sug- gested to show the different respects in which the different states of consciousness vary, in a more or less figurative way. Among such terms is the word " field." If we consider attentively any one state of mental life, and compare it with others which are very greatly unlike it, we shall see what this figure of speech really means. Sometimes the mental life CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 19 has a much greater richness or variety than at other times. For example, at one moment I may be " all occupied " in one thing- for a considerable time ; " ab- sorbed in" some one idea, or " overwhelmed" with some pain, or " taken up " with some joy. At another time an unusual variety of objects seems to be so rapidly noted and compared, that the total im- pression of their likeness and unlikeness constitutes one state of varied observation. Such a "field of consciousness " might be said to have a greater extent, or wider circuit, than others. This is, however, a matter of degrees ; for — as will be seen later on — all mental states are complex to a greater or less degree. Again, and especially if we are in a condition of strong feeling, the intensity, or amount of our selves, of our actual mental life, entering into the particular state is much increased. Thus states of predominating pain are more or less intense ; and even our thinking processes and activities of will seem much more vigorous, as it were, at some times than at others. The S2:)eed, too, with which the different states follow each other varies greatly. We seem to get over more ground in thought, or live through more feeling, or do more planning, in some rare moments of our lives than in the whole of ordi- nary hours. And, finally, the character of the differ- ent fields of consciousness varies greatly. Some of our states are chiefly states of knowledge, others of feeling, others of willing. And in each of these three classes we recognize distinctions which lead us to speak of some of them as nobler or higher than others. 20 PEIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY It appears, then, that the fields of consciousness dif- fer among themselves in respect of (1) extent, (2) inten- sity, (3) S2^eed, and (4) specific qucdity or character. Extent of Consciousness — The number of impres- sions which can be " grasped together " and united by the mind into one field of consciousness varies, of course, for different individuals, with different conditions of body and mind, and with different de- grees of the same individual's development. The story is told of one poor stupid soldier, for example, who never could be made to remember together more than two of the three substances out of which gunpowder is made. How different this from the mental grasp of the most gifted and highly trained minds ! This is one of the questions which can best be subjected to experiment. And experiment shows that fifteen or sixteen successive impressions of sound can be so grasped together as to allow of distinguishing the field of consciousness which unites them from another field similarly constituted. If a number of objects are briefly displayed to the eye, it is found that five or six are as many as most persons can clearly distinguish. The same number of impressions, or in some cases even eight, when made by simultaneously pressing different areas of the skin, can be received in one field of conscious- ness. Intensity of Consciousness — If consciousness is con- ceived of as a sort of mental energy, or an amount of mental life, then the different states may be CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 21 spoken of as having- "more" or "less" of it. Pains and pleasures, for example, are commonly regarded as great, or moderate, or small. So men's convic- tions, hopes, fears, and expectations may be consid- ered as varying in intensity. The amount of effort which is put forth in some deeds of will appears far greater than that put forth in other deeds of will. And even different ideas (though this has been dis- puted) plainly vary in vividness. Speed of Consciousness. — Experiment has clearly shown — what observation of our ordinary experience suggests — that it takes time even " to come to con- sciousness," as it is customary to say. There is probably a certain amount of time which is most favorable for every person to reach the highest stage of the activity of the mind; and for some persons this time is markedly shorter than for others. This period is increased when the com- Iplexity of the mental acts to be performed is in- creased. "For example, it will take the average per- son from one-tenth to two-tenths of a second, after an impression has been received upon the eye, to touch a key connected with an electrical current and so record the fact of the impression having been re- ceived. But if it is required to be conscious, whether the impression is that of red, or of blue, or of green, the time required may be twice as long. About three-quarters of a second is with most per- sons the time for "making u-p one's mind" most accurately in a not too complex case of judgment. The rate at which the discernibly different states 92 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY of consciousness follo\\ each other also differs greatly in different individuals and at different times. Some are constitutionally slow, others rapid in mental movement ; but no one can be more than about so slow or about so fast. Character of Consciousness. — The differences in the complex character of our different conscious states have already been referred to sufficiently. It is chiefly this which makes us speak of them as really different states ; as, for example, of perception, mem- ory, imagination, hope, joy, deliberation, etc.; or of knowledge, feeling, or will. Conditions of Consciousness. — There are certain phys- ical conditions on which being conscious at all is known to depend, and which also determine largely the character, intensity, and time-rate of conscious- ness. The most important of these is the character of the blood circulating in the brain. If the pure arterial blood is shut off from the brain, conscious- ness ceases. If only impure blood is brought to the brain, then consciousness is impaired or troubled ; the extent of the mental grasp may be diminished and its intensity and speed of movement lowered. There are also reasons for supposing that all con- sciousness implies the destruction of the tissue of the brain, and then its restoration by nourishment brought to it in the blood. And the more intense the activity of consciousness, the more rsipid the de- composition of the tissues of the brain. Intense emotions are especially exhausting to the brain; and " whipping up " the train of ideas to a more CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 23 rapid than their natural pace is almost equally so. Surely this is something- which we Americans need to keep constantly in mind. " Living* fast " is no un- meaning figure of speech here ; it is only another name for letting death continually get the start of life. And would you know how marvellously compli- cated and delicate is this mechanism of the brain, on whose integrity and continued sound working all the life of consciousness depends? Why, then, believe me, there is something almost incredible about this. All the stars in the universe, so far as modern astron- omy can reveal them, are few in number compared with the nervous elements concerned in the working of a single brain ! And as to the delicacy of this won- derful piece of apparatus : one observer claims that the passage of a cloud over the sun will change the rhythm in breathing and the pulse-rate of a sleeping child ; and if we expose the brain, its whole bulk can be seen to swell when a lamp is approached to the patient's eyes. The incredible delicacy of some of the senses can be accounted for only as it is due to the delicacy in structure of the brain. Attention — What is called *' attention" is the prin- cipal mental condition which determines the entire character of every field of consciousness. For oil OUT conscious ^states are characterized by some degree and kind of attention. Even our '' inattention," so-called, if there is any consciousness of anything left, is really attention to something else than that to which, or, in some less degree, than that in which, we ought to 24 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY be attending-. Tlie idle school -boy is not now at- tending- to Lis lessons, because lie is attending to something- outside the window, or to his plans for trout-fishing next Saturday afternoon. Even when it is a case of being- boxed on the ears, or of having fallen down and bruised our shins, we recognize the effect upon our total condition of consciousness from the attention we are compelled for a time to give. This is what is meant when it is said to children that are crying from similar pains : '' Do not mind it and it will not hurt you so much," Indeed, it often hap- pens that they themselves become so much interested in their own crying as quite to forget the pains which originally caused it. And every skilful nurse or mother knows the effect of drawing off the attention and fixing it upon a lump of sugar or upon the promise of a treat to-morrow. Distribution of Attention — Now, since every field of consciousness is more or less complex, all of the at- tention cannot be given at the same time to any one part of it, or to any one object of the several which are grasped together to make up that very field. Moreover, while the objects remain essentially the same, we may attend, now chiefly to one, and now to another, of the several objects in the same field. And still further, as the stream of consciousness flows on, and one state succeeds another, attention may become fixed upon new objects of sense or upon new states of thought and feeling of our own. This constant variation in the amounts of attention given to the different objects in each state, or to the differ- CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 25 ent states considered as wholes, is called the " dis- tribution of attention." Rise and Fall of Attention. — But the total amount of attention is by no means the same for all the dif- ferent mental states. And as has just been seen, the amount of attention "fixed" upon any one thing- constantly varies. Indeed, it is not possible to hold the attention at a perfectly steady strain for as much as a minute, or for half that time. All attention is more or less inconstant ; often it is rhythmical, ris- ing and falling off with considerable regularity of period. If, for example, we hold a ticking watch at the right distance from the ear, in spite of all our efforts some of the ticks will drop out of consciousness. This is not because the intensity of the sound actu- ally made varies so much ; it is rather because we become relatively inattentive every few seconds. If we look at a gray disk revolving, it will appear to be now somewhat lighter and then darker, for the same reason. Some experimenters have found differ- ent periods for the fluctuations of different kinds of sensation ; for instance, 3 to 3.4 seconds for sensations of the eyes, and 3.5 to 4 seconds for those of the ear. Our memory-images oscillate in the same way ; and so, apparently, does our maximum power of giving attention. At any rate, in learning anything "by heart," in spite of our best endeavors, we learn best " by spurts," as it were. Conditions of Attention — Since attention is the amount of mental energy, or energy of consciousness, 26 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY devoted to all, or to each one, of the objects in the field of consciousness, the condition of the brain is very imi3ortant in determining the attention. At- tention implies work being done in the hrain ; and attention is itself indispensable to all mental worh. The waste of the brain's tissue has been found to correspond in some sort to the amount of mental work done with accompanying- strain of attention. The change in the character of our breathing when we are very attentive, the sigh we sometimes give after we have been " breathless " with attention, all point to the exhaustion of the nervous centres. A person strictly attending to any object will some- times sweat copiously even when sitting still in a cool room. Good blood, abundant sleep, and a sound, well - nourished brain are particularly re- quired by those who wish to be able to " attend to " their work, whatever it may be. Kinds of Attention — There are ordinarily said to be two principal kinds of attention, — the voluntary and the forced or involuntary. In somewhat extreme cases of either kind this distinction is not difficult to observe. Sometimes our experience is that of being forced or compelled to attend; and this hap- pens when strong sensations and highly painful or pleasurable feelings are aroused from without in our own consciousness. Who can help attending — one might ask — to the noise of the piano that goes with a crank, or to the pain of the sting from a bee ? And yet " absent-minded " people have been known to be so absorbed in attention to their own thoughts as to COTTSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION 27 hold a hot poker in their hands and never "mind" the pain of burning. Sometimes, however, ive choose to attend to this rather than to any other thing- ; we consciously and designedly repel solicitations to at- tend to anything else; we bring our mind back again and again from its wanderings and deliber- ately fix it upon the chosen object. In fact, however, this important distinction turns out to be one wholly, or chiefly, of degrees. Even in yielding attention, whether impulsively or more smoothly and quietly, we feel that we are doing something. And there is plainly a passive side to all our states, even when we are most "free" in de- termining to what our attention shall be given. Attention and Discrimination. — The degree of atten- tion we give, whether forced or voluntary, has much to do with our noticing distinctions ; and, indeed, with the very existence of our sensations and ideas in their varied forms. It also determines largely how we shall interpret our sensations. Eepeated acts of attention " clear up " any object. Thus if a disk, having on it differently colored spots or lines or different letters, be displayed a brief time, the utmost attention will on the first trial enable us to discern perhaps only some three or four of these objects. But soon by repeated acts of attention a larger number of the objects is clearly seen after the disk has been displayed for the same length of time. What is called "expectant attention." has also a great influence on our mental states. If one knows about what is going to he seen, or heard, or felt, one 28 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY can in the same amount of time actually discern much more clearly what is seen, or heard, or felt. If I have expectant attention focused to hear some sound, then I am ready to discriminate, by attention, whether the sound is a or aj^, or whether it is the sound of a violin or of a cornet. Expectation will even create sensations ; thus in the laboratory it is easy to make most persons feel a wire to be warm, for example, when its temperature is not actually, raised, if only they are deceived into thinking that a current of electricity is now passing* through the wire. Many illusions are explained in this way; what is expected — especially if it be with fear or hope — that is likely to be actually experienced. Al- most any person seems to be the approaching form of our friend, if we are looking- for him with expec- tant attention. Attention and Feeling — The effect of the feelings on attention is one of the most familiar of all experi- ences ; it is also one of the utmost practile of suggestion. For not only do ideas suggest each other, but actual sights and sounds and tastes and smells suggest ideas. For instance, the smell of some perfume suggests the lady to whose dress the faint odor of it clung when we met her years ago ; or the sight of suffering suggests the idea of a remedy, and we run at once to help the sufferer. Besides, we must not think of ideas as proceeding in this work of suggesting each other like a piece of machinery that runs on by itself, as it were. For within certain limits we can make use of this principle of suggestion to control the ideas ; we can suggest to the ideas that they shall confine themselves within certain limits, and so carry out some plan we have more or less deliberately formed. Various attempts have been made to reduce to the smallest possible number all the so-called laws of association. Thus it has been noticed that means suggest their ends, causes their effects, signs the things they signify, and the reverse. The wood MENTAL IMAGES AND IDEAS 85 lying- by the fireplace suggests building- a fire, and the idea of a fire — itself, suggested by the sen- sations of coolness — suggests the wood to be used. The smell of the smoke suggests the fire as its cause ; and when one sees a bo}^ bringing a lighted match near a saucer of gunpowder, the probable effect is immediately brought up in mind. Any word or gesture suggests certain things or mental states of which it is the sign ; and the thing or feeling suggests its own name when once one has become acquainted with the latter. Principle of Contiguity. — In the attempt to reduce the number of the laws of association to as few as possible, there are two which have been most gener- ally adopted. These are the law of " association by similarity " and the law of " association by contiguity in time and place." By the former it is meant that ideas tend to suggest what is like or similar to them- selves. Thus the idea of this man with the Koman nose suggests the idea of another man with the same kind of a nose ; or the mental picture of this cathedral suggests another cathedral which has been seen or read about in the past. By the latter law it is meant that the parts of any complex experiences which have been had together at any particular place or time tend to suggest each other. Thus the idea of one object in a landscape we have formerly seen suggests the other objects in the same landscape ; or any part of an event suggests the other parts of the same complex event. Sometimes a principle designed to cover the whole ground is proposed and called the 86 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY " law of redintegration." This means that, because the mind works under the principle of habit, the ten- dency always is to reproduce the whole of any past experience. The principle and the tendency are true without doubt, but they do not state in the best manner the one great law of the association of ideas. This one great law we believe to be found in the ''principle of contiguity ; " only it must be remem- bered that ideas are not real existences, but only processes of the mind, and that the " contiguity " here spoken of is figurative, and implies the being parts of one complex mental process taking place in time. Similar ideas, as such, have no particular ten- dency to suggest each other. But — as will be seen more clearly later on — whenever we are gaining a knowledge of anything Ave notice similar points and bind them together, as it were, in the unity of con- sciousness. Thus similar ideas do come to form links of connection in an indefinite number of directions ; and in remembering past experiences we are con- stantly passing from one item of jDast knowledge to others that have similar characters. But the explana- tion of the so-called power of similar ideas to sug- gest each other, as well as of dissimilar ideas to suggest each other (" law of contrast "), or of means to suggest ends, etc., is one and the same. In this meaning of the words, then : Only ideas that have once heen contiguous in consciousness (that is, parts of the same unifying process of the mind) tend to suggest each other. MENTAL IMAGES AND IDEAS 87 Special Laws of Association — Under the general prin- ciple which has just been explained, every person's particular trains of ideas are all "associated" to- gether. But what are the ^particular associations for each person at any one time will depend upon a num- ber of considerations. Among them the following are important : (1) What are called the "natural tendencies " of every individual are yqvj powerful. Some have original aptness in certain directions, and so ease and interest in performing certain mental acts rather than others. (2) Closely connected with this is the influence of temperament, age, and sex. The memory and imagination of youth and of old age are different ; in general the same things suggest something different to women and to men. (3) So the mood, and the passing or more permanent con- dition of body, has a great influence. We are apt to think of gay things when we are gay, and of soher things when we are sober. (4) The intensity and vividness of the original impressions, and the way they happen to fit in with the mental life at the time they occur, are also very effective in determin- ing the association of ideas. In this way things very trivial in themselves get to be a part of the necessary connections of the mental life (see p. 78). (5) Repetition and habit are of the very high- est importance. Everybody knows that ideas which are brought together over and over again tend to suggest each other. If this were not so we could scarcely learn anything or form any fixed habits among our ideas. But (6) our own feelings, desires, 88 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY and will have also a great influence. For, as will appear soon, loe, to a large extent, determine for prac- tical ends what trains of associated ideas shall run, and the point to which all the trains shall be for the time directed. CHAPTER VI There is a wide difference between merely having sensations and knowing the sensible qualities of things. For ideas and thoughts, as well as sensa- tions, are necessary to any knowledge of things ; and the same truth holds with respect to the knowledge of ourselves and of other men. The common use of language illustrates this. For example, when speak- ing of what things are, as known by the senses, we fre- quently refer to our " idea " of them, or even to our *' thought " about them. And when looking at a new and strange object in company, people are heard asking of each other, " Have you any idea what this is ? " or " What do you think that strange object can be ? " Such language recognizes the fact that one has to use one's memory and imagination, and to do some thinking, too, if one is going even to perceive things. It might almost be said that perceiving things is " minding " things ; for are not careless and inattentive observers exhorted to "mind" as they look, or listen, or feel, or taste, if they would really know what the qualities of things are ? Nature of Perception — The word " perception " is very generally used in these days for that knowledge of things which seems to come at once through the 90 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY use of tlie senses. Thus one lias only to open one's eyes and the whole landscape, or the entire side of the room with its pattern of wall-paper and its pict- ures, instantaneously appears " stamped " or " im- pressed" uiDon the mind. In hearing a piece of music, Avhere it is necessary to listen somewhat at- tentivelj^, we seem to ourselves even more passive. But when with shut eyes we are feeling* our way about a room, or are tracing the outlines of a com- plex object (a geometrical solid or a piece of carv- ing), the fact that we are active in perception be- comes more apparent. So, too, when the attention is arrested by something unfamiliar in the food we are eating, wo often change quite abruptly from simply letting ourselves he impressed with certain sen- sations of taste to an active tasting which is to re- sult in telling us, by comparison with some recalled image, what the thing we are tasting is. Both observation and exiDeriment prove that the distinctions just made are only matters of degree. We are active, attentive, are having ideas, and using thought — to a greater or less extent — in all our per- ceptions. The formation of all perceptions, more- over, consumes more or less of time. This is a matter which can be tested by experiment ; and it is actually found that the number of thousandths of a second which it takes to perceive any object, or group of objects, depends on their complexity and on the ac- tivity of the mind in recalling ideas and in thinking out the meaning of sensations. Besides, conscious- ness actually shows how, while studying attentively SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 91 the same object for several seconds, the knowledge of it actually grows, in dependence on the degree and manner of minding it, as it were. It appears, then, that all the elementary processes of conscious mental life are concerned in Perception hy the senses ; hut the other processes are to he regarded as ex- cited, directed, and determined, with respect to the entire state of consciousness, chiefly hy those pecidiar modifica- tions of consciousness which have heen called sensations (see p. 32f.). Development of Perception. — It follows, from what has just been said, that all perceptions by the senses are matters of growth. Babies just born perceive nothing; to them there are no "things," because they have not yet learned how to perceive or "mind" them. In adult life also the perceptions of different persons are very different. One man's eye or hand instantly perceives what another's cannot perceive at all, or can perceive only after the slowest and most laborious effort. On this general truth all students of psychology are agreed. Nothing that the modern study of the science has done is more important than the emphasis and clearing up of this truth. More and more science has traced in detail how it is, and under what conditions, that perception by the senses develops. But no investigation has made perfectly clear — and perhaps it will never be known — just how much, and what, of this many- sided activity of the mind must be called " natural " or " native ; " and just how much, and what, must be assigned to development. More would be known 92 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY about the whole subject if we could penetrate the mysteries of the baby's consciousness, and so dis- cover precisely what the character of his sensuous experience is. Do his sensations of light and color, his feelings of pressure and motion, seem to him to be " out " of his consciousness ; have these sensa- tions any quality of being- " spread out " or extended, at all as ours are ? Have his first sensations of heat and cold, his first sensations connected with thej^lay of the muscles which move the limbs, any " locality " whatever ? Have they any quality other than that which has already been spoken of as belonging to "local signs" (p. 50), that would make it possible to locate them as not " in consciousness ? " Is the distinction between "the inner" and "the outer" possible to the infant's mind at all ? These are all questions to which only a doubtful answer can be given. And so brief and elementary a treatise of the subject as this can scarcely be ex- pected to do more than call attention to them. Classes of Perceptions. — Some kinds of perceptions do most obviously reveal at once the qualities of things as others do not. This distinction between different perceptions all language and all experience makes plain. And here, on the one side, stand the smells, tastes, and sounds of things ; while, on the other side, stand sight and touch — if in the latter be included all the knowledge which comes also through the use of the muscles and joints. For by smell, taste, and hearing (as distinct from the per- ceptions of touch which' accompany and fuse with SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 93 them) no direct knowledge of the qualities of things is gained. We smell, and assign the odor to such an object located in such a spot, because we have before experienced the same sensations in connec- tion with the seen or felt presence of the object ; and because we can know, or guess its direction by cer- tain changeable signs. So, also, if the flavor of the object be considered wholly apart from its "feel" in the mouth as it is being tasted, we are affected ; but through this affection only an indirect knowledge is obtained of the existence and qualities of any thing. On the contrary, what we see and touch is the thing, as known to the mind by the senses, actually there present and spread out in extension before us, as it were. This is true of its color and hardness or softness, its roughness or smoothness, and all its solidity and weight, etc. Thus any particular thing might be described as heiiig what it appears to sight and touch to be ; and then there might be added what also we hioio about the odors and sounds it can "give forth," or the "way" it tastes when taken into the mouth. Hence sight and touch are some- times called the " geometrical senses ; " because they give, as actually present in the thing, its quali- ties of a spatial kind. But smell, taste, and hear- ing are called "non-geometrical;" because they do not directly afford any knowledge of the spatial qualities of things. The different principal forms of perception by the senses may now be considered in particular ; and what has been said as to the nature and g-rowth of all 94 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY perception, and as to the relation of these two classes of sensations, should be kept constantly in mind. For purposes of convenience, however, the different perceptions will not be treated in the precise order which is suggested by these two classes. Perceptions of Smell. — Perceptions of smell afford no direct knowledge of the qualities of things as ex- ternal and spread out in space. If two different smells operate upon the organs at the same time, the stronger of the two drowns out the weaker. Two smells cannot, so to speak, be made to lie " side by side " in space. We know even that the nose is the organ of smell only indirectly through the sensa- tions caused by the muscles in sniffing in the air and by the passage of the air over the skin of the nos- trils. The direction of the object which occasions any smell is also known only indirectly, by the amount and quality of the sensations, as the head is turned toward or away from it, or as the body moves in the direction where it is situated. There is a kind of knowledge which comes from smell that admits of a high degree of cultivation. But it is the lower animals and the lower races of men which usually possess this perception in its most acute form. The negroes of the Antilles are said to distinguish by smell the footsteps of a negro from those of a Frenchman ; so also the Indians of Peru, the race to which an approaching stranger belongs. Some subjects, when in the hypnotic state, can assign the articles belonging to an entire roomfull of per- sons by the peculiar odor of each. It is said that SMELL. TASTE, A^T> TOUCH 95 Caspar Hauser could tell the leaves of different trees by smell. Perceptions of Taste. — As regards the knowledge gained of the qualities of bodies, perceptions of taste resemble those of smell. But in tasting any substance, it is actively rolled about in the mouth ; thus the substance is also known by the skin and muscles, as located ''in the mouth," and as hard or soft, fluid or solid, and also, to some extent, as hav- ing such a size and shape, or as so many in num- ber. The more highly civilized peoples are more dis- criminating in tastes : the very reverse of the ordinary rule for perceptions of smell. They use perfumes mostly for mere pleasure, and not to give them any knowledge of things ; but the case is not the same with the delicacy and acuteness of tastes. Tea-tasters and wine-merchants, for example, be- come exceedingly accurate judges of the " crop " or the " vintage ; " and it is said that certain Koman epicures professed to know by taste where the fish was caught, and on which leg a partridge had slept just before being killed. Men in general are becom- ing more and more " jDarticular " in their tastes. Perceptions of Touch.— Under this head may be included all the knowledge of things that comes immediately through the skin, muscles, and joints. Through these organs at least four classes of sensa- tions are derived (comp. p. 41f.). But if the divis- ion is made according to the two principal classes of bodies whose qualities and relations to each other 96 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY are known in this way, it may be said : by toucli one has the perception of one's own body, of its different areas and tlieir conditions, and also of tlie various other bodies which in any way come into contact with it. These two kinds of knowledge (the knowl- edge of OUT own body and the knowledge of other bodies) proceed, to a large extent, as it were, side by side. That is, the child does not first attain a com- plete knowledge of its own body and then make jase of this knowledge to acquire the knowledge of those qualities of other bodies which come by toucli ; nor does it first know all the qualities of other things by touch, and then apply this knowledge to the task of learning to know its own body. But little by little, what is at first all confusion, as it were, clears up ; and so the different members of the body become mentally separated from each other and from the things known in contact with them. How this proc- ess comes about we shall now try briefly to explain. Earliest Knowledge of the Body by Touch. — It is probably crude perceptions of the arms and legs, and perhaps of the abdomen, back, and face (espe- cially around the mouth), which constitute for the infant its first knowledge of its own body. These are the parts that are either most in motion, or else are oftenest pressed upon somewhat heavily or are subjected to changes of temperature. The follow- ing experiment is instructive, as showing how very broken and " scrappy," as it were, is even the more mature knowledge of our own bodies, solely by touch. Let one shut one's eyes and try to divert attention SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 97 from all images of the bodily members that have come by sight ; and now what is one's body to one's own self ? As we let attention wander over the field, so to speak, we fed one limb after the other ; but this only obscurely, unless some part of the limb is be- ing* rather sharply pressed by the chair, or by some other portions of our own body. If now one wants more definitely to perceive any part of one's own body in terms of touch, one has to move it so as to bring out the sensations of the muscles ; or to press it against something, so as to intensify the sensa- tions of the skin. It is not possible all at 07ice, and as a whole, to j^erceive one's own hody hy touch. For one born blind the body always consists only of a system of members, thus interrupted rather than continuous, and that must be felt successively rather than seen simultaneously. And even persons not blind, who have lost a leg, for example, sometimes feel the foot which belonged to that leg as though it stuck out immediately from the stump. It is possible to explain how these perceptions of the body by touch are acquired. It must be remem- bered, however, that the infant's first movements of its limbs are random and impulsive ; or else they are reflex — that is, are due to the effect of some kind of irritation upon the external parts of the body (see p. 50f.). They imply neither any perception of themselves nor of some end to be gained by the movement. They are more of the nature of a living machine that runs partly as stirred up by springs inside itself, and, ])artly, by forces acting upon it 7 98 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY from without. AVe might even say that these move- ments are/or consciousness instead of being hy con- sciousness. We shall now consider, further, the two classes of important perceptions which enter into the earliest knowledge of our own bodies by touch. Perceptions of Motion by Touch. — The movement of any of the limbs occasions a series of complex and blended sensations, which come both from the skin and also from the muscles and joints. The charac- ter of this series depends upon the particular limb which is being moved and upon the direction, inten- sity, and distance of its movement. It can easily be seen that this must be so, if it be considered that the skin is differently stretched over the muscles and joints of each limb, and that it has different degrees of sensitiveness for its different areas ; that the masses of the different muscles and the range and intensity of their movement are different ; and that the sensations due to pressure at the joints vary as the character of the joints and as the amount and direction of the pressure vary. We can even experience the fact that this is so by moving any of our larger limbs and meanwhile carefully watching the changes which take place in the complex quality of all these different classes of sensations. Eor example, if the arm be given a strong, wide swing in any direction, the result is to call out a cer- tain series of complex sensations, which stand in con- sciousness for that partiGular inovetnent of the arm, so far as it is known by touch. If the strength, or range, or direction of the swing of the arm be changed, then SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 99 the series of resulting complex sensations changes. All this, when referred to the arm as known by sight, is the perception of the arm as variously in movement and known to tonch. That is to say, my arm, which I know as a whole chiefly from having seen it, is now known by tonch to be moving in such or such a direction, etc. And what is true of the arm when in movement is true of every other member of the body, and of the body as a whole. In the case of moving the body as a whole, however, a great many obscure indications which come from the internal organs contribute to the complex result. Perceptions of Position on the Skin. — E. H. Weber called attention to the interesting fact that, by using a pair of compasses on the different parts of the skin, the distance apart which the two points must be placed in order to be actually felt as two is found to differ very greatly. For example, on the tip of the finger or the red part of the lip it maj^ require only one-twenty-fifth to one-tenth of an inch, while on some id arts of the back and of the upper arm or leg it may require between two and three inches. More recent experiments have shown that every area of every individual's skin may thus be '' mapped out " with regard to its comparative sensitiveness to touch ; and that every area differs from every other, both in the case of the same individual and in case we compare different individuals. If, again, a pair of compasses be run over the skin of any consider- able area of the body, without actually changing the distance ax)art of the points, then they will seem to 100 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY spread apart or to come together, according to the rehitive sensitiveness of the areas that are crossed. Let this fact now be considered in connection with what was seen (p. 41f.) to be true of the " press- ure-spots" and "heat-spots" and "cold-spots" of the skin. It now appears that the surface of the body- is capable of yielding an indefinite variety of impres- sions due to the complex result of exciting its differ- ent elements, either in succession or closely together. So that anything travelling over the skin marks out the different areas, as it were, in consciousness. Each area has its complex characteristics, which corre- spond to that particular area and to no other. And here, as in the case of the muscles, each series of per- ceptions corresponds to movement over a series of areas related together hy the conscious activity of the mind. Positions of the Movable Parts. — There are very obvious means at the command of the mind for dis- tinguishing the relative positions of the different movable parts of the body. In understanding this subject, two important differences between our per- ceptions of the bodily members at rest and of the same members in motion must be kept in mind. (1) When a limb is at rest it may either be held in posi- tion by the muscles, or it may be supported in posi- tion by some other part of the body or by some external thing. But the complex character of the perceptions is very different in each of these three cases, as any one may see by giving careful atten- tion to his own experience under each of the three cases. And, further (2), our perceptions of the mov- SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 101 able parts, when they are not in motion, are very much less clear and vivid. In order to make them more clear and vivid, one has to make a demand ui3on memory ; and v/hat one tries to remember is, usually, either how they look to sight or how they felt when they were in motion. Thus experience shows that, so far as touch without sight is concerned, the perception of the position of the movable p>arts of our lodies is largely a system of associated ideas due to previous movements. Development of Perception by Touch All increase in the knowledge of one's own body by perceptions of skin, muscles, and joints, proceeds in the main from what is more coarse and confused to what is finer and more clear. It is in " blurred masses," as it were, that the infant first iDerceives parts of his own body ; such as his own lips, mouth, and cheeks, by their being engaged in nursing and their being fondled, or his back and abdomen as pressed upon while being dressed or while lying on the bed or the floor ; or his limbs as being grasped and kept almost con- stantly in motion. At first, then, an infant cannot feel a burn, or the prick from a pin, as definitely in any particular part of its body ; or — as one writer has expressed it — it cannot " place its toe in the pain." It is through attention, excited by interest and leading to finer and finer discriminations, that it comes gradually to clear up the details of its own body. All this development, however, is essentially aided by the use of the eye. And in the same ex- 102 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY periences the infant is also learning- to know other things b}^ touch as separable and different from its own body. The process of acquiring knowledge of other bodies by these perceptions must now be briefly considered. Distinction of our Body and Other Bodies.— The pro- cess of " setting off" other bodies from our own body by touch is the result of mental activity ; it is a devel- opment. Two very important distinctions, however, make such a process possible : (1) Some perceptions of this class are very strongly colored with feelings of pleasure or pain, while others are almost wholly without any tone of feeling. Again (2), some per- ceptions are also dependent upon our own willing, wishing, and striving, as others are not. At first the infant undoubtedly perceives other bodies only in the same vague and incomplete way in which it perceives its own body. But even then the two kinds of marked differences just spoken of are prominent. For example, when the mother or nurse grasps the child and puts it into the bath, or when the bands about its body are tightened or re- moved, or when a fly lights uiDon its skin and then goes away of itself, its experiences are very different from those which have just been described as giving it a perception of its own body. What is perceived as some other hody than its own is connected with its pleasures and pains in a way that it cannot control. When it strikes itself with its own fists, or kicks it- self with its own legs, it gets a sort of double lesson in making- the same distinction. Part of its own SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 103 body thus becomes another body to itself for the time being". The same kind of a distinction is much more finely drawn every time we trace out any id art of our own bodies with the hand — " feel of ourselves," as we say; and then, ag"ain, when we use the same hand to trace out the outlines of some external body. In the first case, one series of perceptions reiDresents ourselves as " touching- '* something, and the other represents ourselves as " being touched." In the second case, one series represents ourselves as " touching," and the other represents a thing that is "not ourselves" as being- touched. The best way to bring- out all these distinctions in consciousness is to experiment and notice carefully how we feel meanwhile. dualities of Bodies by Touch. — It is chiefly through the skin that the suiDerficial qualities of bodies are known to touch. The series of impressions made on this organ is very different, whether the thing being explored is " smooth " or " rough," " hard " or '•soft," "dry" or "moist," "cool" or "warm," " sticky " or not, etc. In x>erceptions of hardness and softness of texture the muscles, whenever the pressure is slightly increased, come into play. The dry and the moist are apt to combine sensa- tions both of pressure and of temperature. It is obviously due to the use of the muscles in pulling and pushing*, in straining or actually lifting-, that bodies are known as "solid" and "real" to touch. The perception of solidity cannot he gained vnthoid the experience of movements, as actucd and 104 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY resisted, hy means of the solid masses of our own body. All knowledge of tlie size, weight, etc., of bodies is comparative, and depends upon a variety of per- ceptions whicli they occasion. Here the way the particular body meets the expectation of the mind has no little influence. Bodies that move more easily than was expected, appear lighter than they are ; bodies that move only after giving ns more than the expected resistance, appear heavier than they are. The rate of movement also is of influence. If a body is raised quickly, it is perceived to be lighter than when it is raised slowly. The princii3le of contrast also comes in to disturb our perceptions. If one stands for a long time with heavy weights in both hands, and then lays them down, one seems to be drawing one's arms up toward the breast or even one's self to be rising from the ground. Perception of Distant Bodies by Touch. — All bodies which are not in contact with our own are known in terms of touch only as their appearance excites the images of past perceptions which have come while touching similar bodies. When, however, we are measuring with the eye the distance to which a stone or ball must be thrown, or the height of a wall or fence we wish to leap, or the probable weight of a body we design soon to lift, our state of conscious- ness is strongly colored with the images of past per- ceptions of the order of skin, muscles, and joint, as well as with sensations arising from the condition of expectant use into which these organs are put. SMELL, TASTE, AND TOUCH 105 We tlius reach one of the many cases where i3er- ceptions of the eye and those of touch penetrate each other, as it were, and greatly assist each other. In this assistance sometimes the eye and sometimes the organs of touch take the lead, in suggesting the appropriate mental images. But this consideration will come before us again after the perceptions of sight have been separately considered. CHAPTEE VII HEARING AND SIGHT Hearing differs from both toucli and sight — be- tween which we have placed it — in that it does jaot afford any direct perception either of the parts of our own bodies or of the qualities of external things. Perceptions of Hearing. — Our own bodies as well as bodies outside of them are known by the ear only in an indirect way. Certain terms used with regard to the sounds perceived do indeed imply that they are themselves more or less extended. Thus men speak of "acute" or ''piercing" sounds, and of sounds more or less " voluminous " and " massive." But the case here does not seem to be different from the per- ception of " heavy " odors or of " sharp " tastes when vinegar or pepper is taken into the mouth. To use the latter example : the taste of pepper is chiefly the IDerception of being pricked at an indefinite number of x3oints on the tongue, while at the same time a certain smell arises in the nostrils. So, when the sound is very " massive," as in the case where a door is slammed or a cannon fired near to the ear, one feels as though the side of the head were struck a blow or the whole jelly-mass of the body set vibrat- ing. Any one who has had his back close to a board behind which a grand organ was iDlaying knows how HEARINa AND SIGHT 107 the whole body, both inside and out, seems envel- oped in sound. Place of Sounds The direction in which, and the place from which, sounds are perceived are matters of judgment and guessing, that are sometimes made, however, with wonderful promx)tness and accuracy. Sometimes, on the contrary, the mistakes made in locating sounds are more than equally astonishing. Certain perceptions of sound are due to causes that lie within the body itself and near to the organ of hearing ; these have already (p. 36) been referred to as " entotic " sounds. Thus one sometimes finds it difficult to tell whether the sounds one perceives are to be placed *' in the ears," as due to a large dose of quinine, or are to be located in a cricket on the window-sill. In hearing a concert, too, one can allow one's self for the time being just to float in the sounds, or to hear them as arising in the very in- terior part of the soul, and so lose all thought of the real, external sources from which they come. But if one looks at the players, then one may perceive the sounds as coming from them. Experiments have been made to determine what means the mind has for placing the direction of sounds and also the degree of accuracy with which they can be located for the different positions. One observer found in this way that the accuracy was very much greater just in front of the head than just behind (as 6° to 1°) ; and also directly opposite each ear, and directly above and below the middle of the head. As to direction, we ordinarily place a sound on 108 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY the side of iis on wliicli it is most intensely heard ; and if both sides are equally intense, then in the middle place. When both ears are used and the head is moved freely about, the direction in which sounds are perceived seems to depend upon the changes caused in the different intensities of the sensations in the two ears. If a current from a telephone is made to pass through both ears, a tone may be per- ceived in the middle of one's head. On the whole, however, all the means which the mind has at its disposal for perceiving the place and direction of sounds are not yet understood. dualities of Bodies by Sound. — All perception of what bodies are, which comes through the ears, is indirect, and has to be interpreted into terms of touch and sight. Thus, one box is called " hollow " and another "full," one substance "solid," like painted marble, and another " light," like wood of the same color as the marble ; because when we rap upon them the sounds perceived resemble those which experience has previously taught us proceed from bodies that have these qualities as known to sight or to touch. So, too, when we say that we " hear " this or that thing approaching or receding, or "hear " somebody uttering such a cry, or "hear " this event happening (like the popping of a cork, or the crackling of glass, or the exploding of gunpow- der), we are really making a very complex appeal to our past experience with things as known by sight and touch. The one principle applying to this class of per- HEAKING AND SIGHT 109 ceptions may be stated as follows : It is hy means of sensations of the muscles and skiii (including, of course, the internal parts of the ear — " semi-circular canals," etc.) that we perceive the place and direction of sounds, in a space already constructed hy the eye, muscles, and skin. Perceptions of Sight. — If the eyes are turned upon a landscape, a little world of objects, all having not only color, but also shape, size, and distance, and standing in various relations of space to each other, is at once made known to us. It has already been said (p. 91f.) that this work of perception is really not instantaneous ; and also that the ability to perform the act of perceiDtion is the result of a development of various powers. But all the more diilicult do these facts make the study of precisely how this wonderful result is brought about. This difficulty does not, however, make any less certain the general principle that pefrception with the eyes, like every form of mental life, is a process in time, and requires mental activity and mental development. Means for Visual Perception. — The means (some- times called " data ") which are at the command of the mind, so to speak, for perceiving by the eyes the qualities and relations of things, are very nu- merous. The science of psychology is not yet sure that it understands them all. Some of them are in- dispensable for any true visual perception what- ever ; and others of them may be regarded as only assisting in the easier and more correct perception of spatial qualities and spatial relations. Among 110 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY such means the following- are probably the most elementary : (1) The sensations of light and color which vary in quality and intensity, and which de- pend, partly, upon the place of the retina where they are excited ; (2) sensations of the skin and mus- cles due to movement of the eyes ; (3) sensations due to what is called " accommodation " of the eye — that is, the adjustment of the lens for nearer or more remote distances : with these always go (4) associated images of past sensations of all tliBse three kinds ; and (5) accompanying- feelings, and perhaps felt activities of will. But the fact that we have two eyes, and make use of both in seeing- single objects, and the fact that various "secondary signs" (to be spoken of later) enter into almost all our vision, complicates further the study of this subject. In order, therefore, to consider it by passing- from what seems simpler to what is more difficult and complex, the whole mat- ter may be taken up in the following way : (1) The conditions for forming a visual image on the single eye when at rest, and the effect upon this image of the eye's movement ; (2) the effect of the action of the two eyes together ; and (3) the effect of other experi- ences which are partly dependent upon the exercise of the mind previously in perceptions of other kinds. If all this seems rather com^Dlicated as a matter of science, the wonderful speed, completeness, and delicacy with which the eye masters its work must be remembered. It is the world of things as we see them, which is so varied and full of interest and of HEARING AND SIGHT 111 different objects, for perception. If the blind man's world of thought and of moral and religious feeling is essentially like ours, how vastly different and poorer is his world of perception! Two Principles of Visual Perception.— In all that is to be said regarding the perceiotion of things by the eye, two principles must constantly be kept in mind. 'Perception hy sight is, like every form of men- tal life, a true process in time, and requires mental ac- tivity. But, i\xYih.GY,percep)tion hy sight is always an in- terpretation of signs, that are very complex and whose meaning often admits of being understood in sev- eral different ways. Under this last principle, as we shall see, things " look " very differently, according to the point of view, the condition of the bodily or- gans, and even according to our feelings, desires, and attitudes of will toward them. Formation of a Visual Imag^e. — It has already been seen (p. 38f.) that the eye is, in important respects, like the instrument which the ijhotographer uses to secure an " image " of the person whose picture he is taking, upon a plate rendered especially sensitive by chemical means. The details of how the physical image is formed upon the human eye will be left for books on physiology to tell. It would be a fatal mistake to all true understanding of the subject, however, to siippose that the mind, in visual percei3- tion, somehow reads off, as it were, this image upon the retina ; or even that some image corresponding to the image on the retina is transmitted to the brain. The mind knows nothing about any image on the re- 112 PKIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY tina ; and there is no imag-e in the brain which is in any respect a copy of the image on the retina. It is the sensations, considered as modijications of our con- sciousness (see p. 32f.), with their different mixtures of quality and intensity, which are produced by the changes in the brain, that constitute the " stiff " — so to speak — of our visual perceptions. These sensa- tions are " fused " with one another, and with the memory images of past sensations, in an almost infi- nite variety of ways. Plainly one can never, now that one has grown up in the use of the organ of vision, put one's self back into an infantile condition, and so experience anew how " things looked " to one then. For, so far as anything can be determined about the matter — properly speaking— things did not look at all to us then. The nearest we can get to a study of such visual perceptions as might be supposed to arise with the use of one eye at rest is to consider the " color-mass " which appears before us, when our eyes are closed in a darkened room. But it can easily be proved that even this color-mass involves the activity of both eyes and the influence of count- less experiences with them* both, when open and when in motion. For, if now we open one of our eyes, with it we can (but only if we move it) seem to look at the color-mass still remaining and be- longing to the closed eye. But even while both eyes are closed, we cannot perceive clearly any particular portion of this color-mass without mov- ing our eyes in the direction of that portion ; and HEARING AND SIGHT 113 we cannot lift the whole color-mass toward the ceiling, or depress it toward the floor, without bending the eyes and even the head in these same directions. Effects of Moving the Eye. — What has just been said shows the influence of moving the eye, and even the head, upon all our visual perceptions. Indeed it may well be doubted — although it is diflicult to prove an opinion — whether any perception by the eye would be possible without its movement. From the earli- est infancy the eye, while open, is almost never for an instant completely at rest. It is moving almost ceaselessly, during life, in all the waking hours. Tlie reasons for this are, in part, the following : It is only when it falls upon a small spot at the cen- ter of the retina that the image of any object is clear. Objects whose images fall outside of this spot are seen only in " indirect vision ; " they are not clearly perceived. There is therefore a nearly irresistible tendency to get the image of any object, which we wish to perceive clearly, to fall ujoon this spot (that is, to " fixate " it) ; and in order to do this the eye must itself move. It is thus that the eyes of even very young children follow every object which " attracts " or " draws " them. This movement is accomplished, in every possible direction, by the pull of six muscles (or three j^airs) that lie in the socket of the eye. The muscular sensations which result in this way have thus, from the very begin- ning of experience, been connected with all our use of the eye. It is found by actual experiment that 114 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY the eye is almost incredibly sensitive to its own movement. Accommodation of the Eye. — It has already been said (p. 38) that the lens of the eye, unlike that which the photographer uses, has the power of altering" it- self so as to be fitted, as is required, for nearer or for more remote distances. This alteration of the lens is accomplished by a rather complicated nervous and muscular apparatus, whose nature is not as yet fully understood. The effect of these chang-es^is to produce a certain feeling- which indicates to the mind, as it were, the position and size of its visual objects. The value of this feeling is greatest for near objects ; for objects that are twenty or more feet distant it amounts to little or nothing. We know by experiment that, when the muscles of ac- commodation are paralyzed, and so we have to make much more effort to accommodate for the same near distance, the object may appear nearer than it really is, and so diminished in size. The Visual Object. — By a great and constantly in- creasing amount of evidence, into the details of which we cannot go, this conclusion is proved : Every ex- tended visual object is perceived, as it is perceived, in dependence, not only upon sensations of light and color ivJiich are due to excitement of the retina, hut also upon sensations of motion and upon memory-images of pant movements, which are fused with the sensations of light and color. The Field of Vision. — ^When the eyes are opened, a larger or smaller number of objects is seen, which HEARING AND SIGHT 115 all at once appear to stand together in certain rela- tions of space to each other ; and each one, in itself considered, to have a certain size, shape, and distance from us. This experience, regarded as a whole, may be called the formation of the " field of vision." In this sense of the words, the field of vision is as varied as all that we see, at all the various times in our use of the organs of sight. It could be shown, however, that in perceiving the details of every such field, we are accustomed to run the eye over it, and thus to master these details. The effects of all this experi- ence of motion in the construction of the different fields of vision in the past make themselves in- stantly felt in every new experience, even when this is gained with a more nearly or quite motionless eye. Thus we seem com^Delled to believe, with re- spect to the whole field of vision, what we have just said seems to be true of every visual object. Every ^\field of vision,'' as well as every object in every fields depends for its j^^^^ceived qualities and relations in space upon past experience of the muscidar and other sensations helonglng to movement of the eye. The truth of both these statements becomes clearer when we consider the use of both eyes. Images of the Two Eyes. — Since there are two eyes, there are, of course, two retinal images formed for every single object — one for each eye. How, then, can the object be perceived as single ? Now, this question really has no such meaning as it at first ap- pears to have, just so soon as it is understood that the mind knows nothing directly of the retinal 116 PRIMER or PSYCHOLOGY images, whether they are one or two, right-side up or wrong-side up ; or whatever their shape and po- sition may be. The fact is that tivo images are help- ful, if not necessary, in order that one solid and real object may be perceived. If, now, seeing with two eyes be called "binocular vision," and. if seeing things solid and extended in the third dimension of space be called " stereoscopic vision," then binocu- lar vision is naturally stereoscopic vision. That there are two visual images, any one may show to one's self. Hold the finger up against the sky and look steadily at the sky beyond it, and. two transparent images of a finger will be seen instead of one solid finger. Look at any not too large ob- ject, and press one eyeball gently aside with the finger ; in this way you can " uncouple " the images of any object. Many persons accustomed to experi- ment with themselves readily acquire the power to see things either single and solid or double and shad- owy, at will ; they can also slip one set of images of an entire section of some small and regular i^attern (as of carpet, or wall-paper, or wire-grating) by its proper " double ; " and can then unite it, with the double of another section, into a solid object. For, of course, the reverse of the process of " un- coupling" the two images is the uniting of them into one object. For this purpose most persons re- quire some help in the shape of a stereoscope. With this instrument any one can study the startling ef- fects of xDutting together two more or less unlike and flat images. Thus all kinds of solids can be formed ; HEARING AND SIGHT 117 one can be made to look into a funnel or to perceive its small end turned toward one ; and by uniting a right-eyed image of some cube in outline which is white, with a left-eyed image of a similar cube in black, one can be made to gaze into the transparent depths of a crystal. Movement of the Two Eyes. — In all natural use of both eyes, they move in certain relations to each other, so as to act as one organ and yet with a great variety of changes in the details of their relations. This movement is called " binocular movement ; " and, under all ordinary circumstances, the two eyes either (1) move parallel, when they turn equally in the same direction ; or (2) they converge, when they rotate on their axes in different directions. Thus they can move right or left together, up or down to- gether ; and they can converge either in a symmet- rical or in a non-symmetrical way. These different movements result in the production of a great vari- ety of sensations of motion, of strain, and of po- sition ; and in connection with the changes of accom- modation which the lenses undergo, as the distance of the objects looked at varies, and with the coupl- ing and uncoupling of the double images, they fur- nish that indescribable multitude of experiences on which the development of perception with the eyes depends. In one word, then, the field of vision in which solid objects appear as related to each other in space is due to an activity ivith both eyes^ in lohich v allying '' local signs'' of the retina (see p. 60) are combined with varia- 118 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY tio7is in tJie muscular and other sensatio7is due to the eyes being moved together. Instantaneous Vision. — When the field of Yision is seen as lig-hted by an electric flash (that is, too briefly for movement of the eyes to take place), or when it is seen with only one eye, whether in rest or in motion, the objects in it appear extended and solid and all in their proper relations in sx)ace. In such cases, however, it would seem that these per- ceptions are possible because of previous experience with both eyes in motion. Such instantaneous vision is ordinarily less perfect; it involves less mental relating- and discriminating ; it is more dependent upon memory-imag-es, and more like that producible by flat surfaces skilfully colored. And, indeed, the means of " deception " and " illusion " which art em- ploys in presenting its objects to the eye enter very largely into this, as they do into all vision. Secondary Helps to Vision There are many con- siderations on which the mind relies in its perception of objects that are not so invariable as those already considered, but that are none th e less, as a rule, present and effective in all ordinary vision. These are some- times, on this account, called by the title " secondary helps." We now mention several of the most impor- tant. (1) The way the lines run which limit the ob- ject often determines how the object shall be seen. Lines that cover other lines must be seen nearer, of course. Hence, when we have a system of lines that admit of more than one interpretation, the object may be perceived in one or more different ways. (2) The HEARING AND SIGHT 119 size of the angle covered by any object influences the distance at which the object shall he perceived. The nearer together the parallel rails of a track appear the more distant they appear. (3) Atmosphere and the size and direction of the shadows are also of influence. Travellers in Colorado know how near objects appear there, on account of the clearness of the atmosphere. Things seen through a fog are perceived very large, because, appearing dim, they are perceived distant ; and then, since they cover a large angle of vision, they are seen both distant and large. (4) The sur- roundings have also much to do with the apparent size and distance of what is seen. Influence of Suggestion on Sight — It might almost be said that all vision is chiefly a matter of sugges- tion. This would be in some respects like saying that all developed sight is a matter of interpretation (see p. 111). Thus the eye often " catches at " a few meagre outlines or blurred color-masses, and uses them to suggest to the mind what it shall perceive. All are familiar with the attitude of expectation with which people watch one drawing a figure on a black- board, to see precisely what it is that he is going to make us see. Is it a bird or a bat, a man or an ape, a maple or an elm, etc. ? Just a stroke or two ap- pears to decide the question and to make the per- ceived reality start out, as it were, in all its fulness before the mind's eye. On the other hand, hasty vis- ion is often inaccurate vision, because the sugges- tion has " run away with us," as it were. In similar fashion persons in the hypnotic state are almost 120 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY sure to see anytliiDg wliicli it is suggested to tliem to see. Influence of Feeling on Sight What one expects to see, dreads to see, or confidently hopes to see, that one is likely to see. Fear can make the shapes of the window- curtain into a human form enveloped in a shroud ; and then, when we have seen the same object with cool after-thought and inspection, it is by no means the same. No ; now we cannot see iJLas we were forced to see it just a moment before. It is the " believers," as a rule, that see the spirits, and the " unbelievers " either see nothing at all or else see something entirely different. Influence of Will on Sight. — Within certain limits — strange as it may seem — one can decide w^hat one will see. By an act of will the man Avho is skilful with the microscope can exclude from the attention the images belonging to one eye ; in the same way one can bring out in consciousness the parts of the retinal field which lie in " indirect " vision. When, in uniting two flat pictures by use of a stereoscope, a conflict of outlines or of colors takes place, some per- sons can decide the conflict by an act of will, and say which outline or color shall triumph. It has very recently been discovered that a considerable number of persons can learn to control the retinal field so as to make some simple figure — like a cross or a circle — appear in it, by willing steadily that it shall do so, for some time (ten to fifteen minutes). A few can make a cross of some chosen color start out almost immedi- ately at will. Some few also can produce in the HEARING AND SIGHT 121 same way such vivid lialluciiiatious — for example, the picture of a deceased or an absent friend — as that the hallucinations are equal in intensity and clearness to real perceptions ; and in rare cases will even cover real objects so that the latter cannot be seen through the object produced by imagination and will. Illusions of Sight — ^What has just been said shows that no fixed line can he drawn hetioeen illusions of sight and perceptions of sight. There is no reason in- deed, on grounds of sight only, to doubt the reality of most of our visual perceptions. The testimony of others, and the testing of the other senses, confirms the conviction that sight has reported truly. But so far as sight goes, our perceptions may be just as clear and strong and yet not correspond to the real- ity. Errors or illusions of a great variety of kinds may be noticed, some of which admit of easy ex- planation and some of which do not. Errors of sight in respect to size and distance are common enough. The size of the sun or moon, for example, is very different for different iDersons, according to the illu- sory place at which they locate the object ; to some these bodies appear no larger than an orange, but to others larger then a cart-wheel. The size of things seen with tired or lamed muscles of the eye is in- creased. The shape of things changes totally as seen from a different point of view. A startling example of this is found when we look down at a human face, standing back of the head when the body is lying flat on the floor; or when we stand 122 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY on the brow of a hill and look at the valley be- low with our own head between the legs. . Many illusions result from the nature of the " environment," either as seen or as suggested. The sides of a triangle seem smaller than the equal sides of a square ; those of a square than those of a five-sided figure, etc. To illustrate further : take four lines of equal length, and then at each of the ends of one line draw an obtuse angle, of another an acute angle, both directed cnvay from the lines ; then treat the other two lines in the same way, only directing the two angles toicard the connecting line. Then notice the effect on the apparent length of the four lines. Illusions of motion of various kinds abound, as any one knows who has travelled by cars and studied his perceptions of sight. Art, too, has innumerable illusions ; indeed, without illusion no art is possible which appeals to the eye. We sometimes complain of this as though we were "deceived" (and so had some right to complain) by art. But the truth is that the "reality" of things, as they are to our visual perceptions, is truly given by art, and not by instantaneous photography or as figured out by mathematics. Thus we see that the explanations of our errors in the use of the senses are precisely the same as the explanations of our successes. For all vision is " inter 2yretation,'' and from partial or mistaken inter- pretation all degi^ees and hinds of illusions and errors result. CHAPTEE VIII MEMOKY AND IMAGINATION Merely having* mental images recur in conscious- ness, under the so-callecl laws of association (see p. 84f.), does not amount to remembering or imagin- ing any particular thing, in the fullest sense of the words, " memory " and " imagination." Especially is this true of the former of these two faculties. For a full act of memory must be expressed in some such way as this : " I remember that I (or he) did so and so, at such a time, etc.;" or "I remember it to have happened thus at such a date." Here it is plain that some particular experience (the action of my own, or the occurrence of the event) is placed in past time, and is affirmed to belong to my experience — ^to me the same person now remembering, who for- merly had the experience. What, indeed, could well be more absurd than to try to conceive of one person as remembering another's internal experience ; or of ourselves as remembering what is still in the future instead of what has been in the past. " Conscious- ness of time," and " consciouness of Self," are there- fore necessary to developed memory. Difference between Memory and Imagination. — No little difficulty is sometimes experienced in deter- mining where genuine memory ends and imagina- 124 PEIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY tion beg-ins. Tims we often ask ourselves or inquire of others : " How much of all this are we remember- ing as something which actuallj^ occurred, and how much merely imagining ? " Even in the case of the most careful and accurate people, it is sometimes impossible to decide such a question. And proba- bly we have all honestly been in doubt about our- selves : " Now, am I really remembering or only half imagining that ? " _^ The science of psychology finds the lines between memory and imagination difficult to draw strictly. And yet, if extreme or even well-established cases of each are selected and compared, it is plain in what, in part at least, this difference consists. The main difference here seems to have to do with a sort of " belief in reality." What we certainly remember is what we once knew really to exist, or actually to occur ; whereas, what we imagine, we somehow ex- empt from any such obligation to reality. But nothing "has really been," or " has really occurred," except in the past — as indeed the very tense of the words signifies. Any number of beings, or of events, can be imagined, however, as possibly having happened in the past, or as possibly now existing or happening, or as going to exist or to happen in the future. For imagination is not bound, as memory is, to the past. Hence there is a peculiar kind of recogyiition which belongs to memory. In imagination this recogni- tion is suppressed, as it were. Thus, for example, when we meet a person who seems somewhat famil- MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 125 iar, but we cannot tell precisely who it is, we say either, " I cannot quite remember you ;" or, " I am not sure that I recognize you." Eecognition there- fore enters into complete memory ; but it is not all there is of memory. For we also say of the friend that passes us by on the street without perceiving who we are (here there is no question of failure of memory) : " You did not recognize me." Eecognition then enters into complete perception also ; and this shows that, often at least, perception involves a cer- tain kind of memory. When, on the contrary, we picture to ourselves some scene in history about which we have been reading, or build our castles in the air, and place ourselves as very rich and quite haiDpy in them, we do not employ recognition in the same way. We cannot recognize the scene in his- tory, because it is not represented as belonging to our past ; we cannot recognize ourselves in the charming pictures of reverie, because they lack the reality of that which is recognized as actually exist- ing in the past. Thought and Memory. — These two faculties are in- deed necessary to complete each other ; but they are not the same activities of mind. So we bid our- selves or others : " Think and see if you cannot re- member ;" " Thiiik and remember more clearly and fully." Thinking is thus used to recall, to clear up and complete, and also to verify the memory picture. And thinking is plainly also necessary to any elab- orate use of the imagination. To be sure, much of the most beautiful work of imag-ination comes, as it 126 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY is said, " without the effort of thought." And little g-ood poetry indeed is produced by trying, as did the old woman in one of the Dutch novels, who sat down with pen and paper, determined to make verses ; and sat there and sweat hard without bring- ing anything to pass. But here it is not, properly speaking, the absence of thought which is empha- sized in the activity of imagination, but the absence of effort to think. Yet this " play " (or work) of imag- ination, although requiring thought, is very different from the " work " (sometimes seeming like play) of the thinker over a hard problem in mathematics or philosophy. All this, however, will be better under- stood later on. Thinking, rememhering, and imagining ai^e then all of them dependent upon reproductive and representative faculty, hut in different ways and different degrees. Stages of Memory — It is customary to say that there are three stages or processes in memory : and these are (1) retention; (2) reproduction; and (3) recognition. The figure of s^Deech which invites such a form of statement is perfectly plain. Past experiences — the objects perceived, or imagined, or thought — are considered as having a sort of exist- ence apart from the conscious activity of the mind, as it were ; and the mind is considered as though it were a sort of receptacle or chamber in which they can be " stored " or retained. Thence are they re- produced or recalled, either by our own choice and with some practical end to be gained ; or else they get " suggested " by some current experience, and MEMORY AT^D IMAGINATION 127 SO arise again involuntaril}^ within the conscious mind. Psychology has been defined as the science of the states of consciousness, as such (p. 7). Now, the only fact of consciousness here immediately con- cerned is this : We eemember. But what we re- member is directly known as belonging to our past ; and why we remember this rather than something else is also indirectly known to depend on the power of the association of ideas. Memory as Retention.— When facts or thoughts are spoken of as " stored " away in the mind, or one person rather than another is said to have " vast stores of memory," a convenient but misleading fig- ure of speech is used. Objects of past perceptions, whether with eye or hand or whatever sense, and ideas produced by imagination and thought in the past, are not real existences. When the mind ceases actually perceiving, imagining, thinking, the percep- tions, images, thoughts cease to be. Neither is the mind to be considered like a chamber or garret in which cast-off garments and disused furniture may be stored for future possible use. Retention, then, as a mental faculty, is a jDure fiction. But reproduction and recognition are actual mental processes, real and living activities of mind. Like all other processes and activities, they have certain conditions which require to be known. And it is this which causes a resort to the fiction of retention. Conditions of Retentive Memory These are partly physiological, and have to do with the condition and action of the tissues of the brain ; and they are partly 128 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY mental, and have to do with the activities involved in acquiring- or recalling or recognizing past experi- ences. No other mental faculty is so obviously deiDcndent upon bodily conditions as the memory. In the first place, it would seem as though the faculty were not well established earlier than from five to seven years of age. Children who become blind earlier than this period have in after years little or no memory of what they saw in infancy. In old age failure of memory is one of the things about ^vhich complaint is most frequently made. The results of loss of memory through the effects of fevers upon the brain are extremely curious. "We hear of one man who, in this way, lost all memory of the letter F. Sound and well-nourished brain-tissues, with a constant supply of pure blood, are plainly to a high degree the necessary physiological conditions of retentive memory. It is in general interested attention tvJiich is the 2n'm- cipal mental condition of retentive memory. What we attend to, that we remember most tenaciously ; that is most apt to "cling" in the memory. Yet, in spite of this rule, there are not a few instances of trivial and worthless things, to which little attention has been given, getting " stuck fast " in memory ; while tilings which one has been interested to learn, and has attended closely to for the iDurpose of learning them, keei3 " slipping " quite away. In many of these cases, however, it appears that such trifles happen at first to strike the mind forcibly because of their connection with things that were interesting ; MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 129 or because tliey occurred when the mind was in a condition of aroused and receptive consciousness. But especially does the way in which any new ex- perience " fits in," as it were, with the whole ai3ti- tude and habit of mind determine whether it will be retained or not. A boy, who cannot jDOSsibly remem- ber over night a short lesson in geography, can re- member for months all the details of a base-ball game. Here both interest and attention, on the one hand, and aptitude and habit, on the other hand, are favorable to retention. Memory as Reproduction. — The principles under which mental images recur in consciousness have al- ready been discussed (p. 79f.). But, plainly, some- thing that is broader and deeper than this is needed to give insight into the working of memory. One writer has said, in a poetical way which suggests much truth : " Every case of memory is a case of sympathy." That is, whatever I remember is my own, not only because I have experienced it, and can remember only my own experience, but also be- cause I recall it at this time in accordance with all my mental characteristics, in full " sympathy " with the mental being that I (and no one else) am. Among the considerations which fix limits to memory and determine what shall be the sugges- tions that guide the thoughts of the past are those belonging to the race, or to the social set, or to the profession, etc. When the memories suggested by the surroundings seem quite out of harmony with the surroundings themselves, the whole mental life 130 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY may be much disturbed. In a foreign land, where everything is so totally different from that to which one has been accustomed (Japan, for example), one may almost doubt whether one is now dreaming or whether what one remembers of one's own past is not mere dreaming. How must the memories of the wealthy and once honored criminal be confused by the surroundings of his felon's cell and his coarse food and prison-garb ! Language, too, which we all find ready-made for us by the developed culture^of the race, marks out certain lines in which suggestions are obliged to operate. Hence much of our mem- ory becomes " word-memory," or memory of sym- bols of some other kind. Bodily and mental health are of the greatest influence here. Sometimes the pace of memory is so rapid that its trusty character is all broken up ; sometimes it is so slow that it will not reproduce in recognizable form our past experience. " Atmosphere," or the tone of our whole present surroundings as in sympathy with our present thoughts and feelings, influences mental reproduction greatly. Memory as Recollection. — The word " recollection " is sometimes employed to describe such acts of men- tal rejDroduction as are voluntary; loe — with some end set as a purpose before us — ^remember. In this case we often seem to ourselves to be trying to " get hold of" the memory-images; we are seeking for " clews " to them. Such a process implies, of course, that some sort of memory has already taken place ; for one cannot try to recollect any particular ex- MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 131 perience without knowing something- about what it is one wishes to recollect. In recollecting, then, one is really trying to reproduce more perfectly what has already been, but only partially and imperfectly re- produced. Sometimes such " trying " is accompa- nied by a painful sense of mental effort and even by marked jDains of body ; and this shows the exhaust- ing work which the nervous system is being called upon to perform. Weariness and the feeling of con- fusion and of anguish are not infrequently produced in this way. At other times, however, in joyful obedience to the will, the memory-images come be- fore us — orderly, clear, and strong, and ready to do our bidding. Memory as Recognition.— It has already been shown (p. 124f.) how necessary recognition is to the fullest and highest use of the faculty of memory. This has sometimes — and very properly — been called the " spiritual " activity in memory. And, indeed, it seems to indicate a behavior of the mind that cannot be accounted for as in any way parallel with the phys- ical conditions of memory, whether considered as re- tentive or as reproductive, /recognize this as mine, as belonging to my past. The past is really gone and never can return ; this exioerience of memory is not like the original experience which it represents, as we say. Tor examjole : I saw my friend, who is now dead, a year or ten years ago ; I remember him distinctly now. I knew him by iDerception then ; I know him by memory now. In some sort, he is the same as known in these two ways ; and I, who now 132 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY remember him, am the same that once saw him. In some sort, then, every act of memory with recognition transcends the present, and connects the pi'esent into a hioion real unity with the past. No wonder that a great philosopher regarded this as one of the pro- foundest of all mysteries ; and yet every man has this experience every day of his life. Kinds of Memory — There are as many sorts of memory as there are mental activities concerned in knowing things to be remembered, or as there are classes of objects that admit of being " committed " to memory. Thus there is a memory of the eye and a memory of the ear, or a good visual and a good musical memory. There is also a good or a poor memory of the skin, muscles, etc. ; and a memory for words, or for abstract thoughts, or for different kinds of facts and principles. A " tenacious " mem- ory is one that forgets relatively little, although it may be either promx^t and rapid, or slow and hesi- tating, in reproducing what is remembered. A " spontaneous " memory is one that works easily and rapidly, with comparatively little excitement or *' prodding," as it were. Some men have "pro- digious " memories ; and this would seem to require both tenacity of memory and promptness in repro- ducing. Such memories may be special, like that of the painter who reproduced from memory the altar- piece of Rubens, or of the mathematical genius who could remember a row of 188 figures after a few glances at them ; or else general, like the memory of Locke and Niebuhr, who were popularly said never MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 133 to forget anything-, whether facts or principles, views or feelings, sights or sounds. Art of Remembering — The really best art of remem- bering is to observe carefully the conditions of memory ; that is, to keep a sound and well-nourished brain; not to overstrain it in any way, and to put the attention earnestly into what it is wished to re- member. Besides this, great art may be exercised in connecting the particular thing to be remem- bered with the whole structure of our experience, as it were. The more " natural " this connection is the better it is. But there are many things, like dates and lists of names, etc., which it is sometimes desirable to have on call, for the mastery of which one may properly resort to some of the so-called *' artificial " systems of memorizing. Good memory requires also that we should, as far as possible, observe certain rules in " committing " to memory. Some of these rules can be determined by experiment, such as : (1) Do not undertake too long tasks of memorizing in one effort ; (2) try to find some meaning in what you attempt to learn ; (3) repeat the early attempts at memorizing as frequent- ly as possible without excessive fatigue. (Here re- call what was said (p. 70f.) about the fading of the memory -image.) Nature of Imagination. — It has been seen that men- tal images associated under the principle of conti- guity (see p. 85f.) are concerned in the faculties both of memory and of imagination. It is the absence of reality (see p. 124), and of recognition, as 134 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY belong-ing- to the past of one's self, which, in part, distinguishes imagination from memory. But the other side of this difference is that imagination is not bound by facts or within actual time past, as memory is. Hence the wonderful impression of " freedom,'' which belongs to the higher activities of the imagination. The man without imagination has been said to be related to the man gifted with it, as "the mussel fastened to its rock, that must wait for what chance may bring it, is related to the animal that moves freely or even has wings." Yet, as we shall now see, imagination gets all its materials from actual past experiences, while it passes far be- yond all possible experience of what is actual, in the form into which it puts its materials ; and it never operates independently of all conditions. Such operation would indeed not be " freedom," but dis- order ; and the result would be the unintelligible. Conditions of Imagination — Since all imagination involves reproduction in the form of mental images, the conditions of mental reproduction belong to all imagination. The most highly " creative genius " creates only as he also reproduces. Let it be supposed that one is asked to imagine a line extended indefi- nitely ; or to imagine what is meant by saying " Par- allel lines do not meet, but are everywhere equally distant ; " or " A point has position but no extension in any dimension." Then one must already have had enough experience which one can reproduce to know" what drawing a line (in imagination) means : what the " meeting " of lines means, etc. Even to imagine MEMOEY AND IMAGINATION 135 a straight line at all, or to imagine any particular line as extended, one must have perceived lines and have experienced what it is to extend them. It would be an interesting inquiry, but far too com- plex for our present purpose, to ask whether any ob- ject can be imagined without setting agoing, at least to some extent, the very machinery, so to speak, of body and mind that would necessarily be employed in first knowing that same object. When, for example, I imagine with the eye a line drawn to the left, do I not slightly move, or tend to move, the eye in that direction ? One writer on psychology has proposed to test this question by such experiments as the fol- lowing : Open the mouth very wide, and then try to imagine a word which (like " bubble " or " toddle ") cannot actually be spoken without bringing the lips or the teeth close together ; and can you do it ? At any rate, a very close connection exists between the imagination of certain performances or of certain conditions, whether of mind or body, and the sup- pressed beginnings of the same performances and conditions. It is hard to imagine what rage is, with jaws dropping down loose ; or what grief is, with head erect and an assumed smile on the face, and a good breath of pure air drawn well down into the lungs. Here the study of the postures of actors, and of the insane, in connection with their voluntary or involuntary play of imagination, is very instructive. Reproductive and Productive Imagination. — It is customary to speak of two main divisions of im- agination : (1) reproductive, and (2) productive or 136 PKIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY creative. These terms are, however, only rela- tive. The dreams of men are usually given as in- stances of reproductive and purely passive imagina- tion. And it is true that most dreams seem to be played off before us (sometimes to our amazement or our amusement), rather than constructed by us ac- cording to an accepted plan. And yet the mind is a great artist in dreams; in sleep it oftentimes con- structs the most wonderful dreams out of very liitle material, whether of sensation or of memory. Some dreams, whether by day or by night, do indeed run helter-skelter ; but then so do some of our " thoughts," as we call them. The real difference, which ought to be emphasized, concerns the amount of conscious recognition as suited to some plan or -ideal end, which is given to the work of the imagination. It may entirely run away with us, in spite of all efforts to restrain it ; or we may let it run away to see what it will do for us ; or we may more deliberately con- trol it for an accepted end. The fact is that every man's so-called " creative " imagination obeys certain limits, some of which are rather arbitrary and whimsical, and some of which belong to the laws of all reality and of all mental life. Thus, no man can imagine anything as taking place without occupying some time ; but it would be difficult for one not acquainted with the telegraph to imagine that distant communication could be made so rapidly as it actually is in this way. Perhaps few can easily imagine water as burning up, until they have actually seen it do so ; and it is said that a cer- MEMORY AND IMAGINATION 137 tain king* of Siam could not imag-ine water becoming- solid enoug-h for elephants to walk upon. We often hear some one saying-, "I cannot imagine it," on being- truthfully told what another person has known actually to occur. Creative Imagination. — Some further explanation seems desirable regarding- this form of the faculty of imagination. The main thing to notice is that it is always constructive and works toward a plan. It therefore implies a certain previous development of exx:)erience with things, with ends to be reached, and with the means of attaining them. It is also regu- larly accompanied by desire to produce something that shall be novel or new — in the sense of combining the results of past experience into some form not hitherto realized. The interests which it serves may be as varied as all life and all art — from those of the little girl who designs patterns for the clothing of her dolls, or the cook who " gets up " a new dressing for a salad, to the lofty imagination of the great musical artist or of the scientific discoverer. In all imaginafioR of wholly neio creations the mind takes its point of starting from one or more memory -im- ages : and then, hy processes of comhining and modify- ing, it pictures the neioly created object. It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that the mind always, or generally, sees its end from the begin- ning. There is uniformly something mysterious, something even that suggests divine inspiration, about all truly great work of the creative imagina- tion. Mozart's father is said to have recognized it 138 PRIMEE OF PSYCHOLOGY as "a gift of God," when his son played, in this way, upon the first grand organ which he had ever seen. Imagination and Other Faculties. — The dependence of imagination upon intellect is suggested by a study of the very nature of imagination itself. The artist or inventor, of every grade and kind, thinks while he also imagines ; by this process of thinking he, in part, reaches the results which are ascribed to imagination ; and, by thinking, he certainly elab- orates and criticises the work of his own imagina- tion. And yet, as has just been seen, imagination in some sort outstrips both perception and thought ; and many of its choicest works flash in upon the mind, all ready-made at once, like inspirations from the divine mind. This does not, however, do away with the necessity for training the intellect in the interests of the imagination ; the truth plainly is that both these so-called '' faculties" work together hand in hand ; and no mind can be " great " which is deficient in either of the two. The influence of feeling upon imagination is also almost incalculable. The actor, for example, plays his part well only as he by a constant activity of im- agination enters into the situations and the inner meaning, as it were, of the part. But it is difiicult, if not impossible, for most persons to do this with- out the feelings becoming involved. How impos- sible must it be to play the part of King Lear with- out the imagination requisite to picture the father and the monarch in circumstances like his ! But MEMOEY AND IMAGINATION 139 how difficult to do this without the heart being* sym- pathetically stirred ! This stirring of feeling, if it does not " run away " with the intellect of the artist, g-reatly helps and warms his imagination. And to say that imagination chooses materials to combine for the attainment of a chosen end is the same thing as to say that imagination is also an affair of will. Kind's of Imagination. — There are as many kinds of imagination as there are distinctive uses of this faculty. A distinction is sometimes made between fancy and imagination ; but it is truer to the facts to say that fancy is a species of imagination. We may then call by the term "fancy " such acts of imagina- tion as have less regard for what is probable or de- termined by known facts and laws ; such as are less likely to be connected with important practical in- terests rather than serving to amuse or to " tickle ; " and as such are less careful of method and less last- ingly pleasing to our feeling of the beautiful. Imagination may also be spoken of as practical, or scientific, or artistic, or philosophical, or ethical and religious. The great inventor is a man of pre- dominatingly practical use of imagination ; he has as an end in view something useful to be done. But it is a serious mistake to suppose that a student of any science can be great without a strong and lofty imagination. Indeed, the meanness and little- ness of a considerable proportion of the so-called " scientists " this very day is due to deficiency in im- agination. Mathematics and philosophy, too, ex- ercise the imagination in the very loftiest way ; they 140 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY are only excelled in their demands upon it by the spheres of morals and religion. And here again, the meanness in conduct of many, and also their nar- rowness in religion, comes largely from lack of im- agination. CHAPTEB IX THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE Many psychologists have treated of thought as though it were a separate faculty that follows wholly after perception, memory, and imagination have act- ed, and so takes the finished products of these facul- ties and subjects them to a wholly new form of treat- ment. It is true, indeed, that strength and grasp of thought proper are a comparatively late develop- ment. The young are often very quick and accu- rate in perception and in memory, while the su- perabundance of imagination in youth is a sort of common -place. But the young are seldom remark- ably thoughtful; and thoughtlessness is excused — perhaps rather too readily so, in these days — by the remark that it cannot be expected in early life. For it is experience that makes men thoughtful. Now, on the other hand, without actually " think- ing " — in the sense of the word which psychology is compelled to recognize — it is impossible even to gain any experience whatever. For activity of the intellect is necessary even in beginning experience. Perceiving tilings is '' minding " things ; and so is re- membering or imaginifig them. This somewhat diffi- cult truth we shall now try to make clear. Discriminating Consciousness Thus far states of 142 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY consciousness have been spoken of chiefly as though they were passive — mere conditions into which the mind is thrown by the stimulus of sensations or by the incoming- of ideas. But there is no state of con- sciousness in which the mind is not also active ; in- deed, this appeared true when attention was spoken of as belonging to every mental state (see p. 23f.) ; and when every state was considered as being also in one of its aspects a state of doing something (p. 14). Let it now be noticed, however, that the very~ex- istence of any state of consciousness, as known by the subject of it to be such a state and no other, im- plies activity in discrimination. This statement is not to be understood as though a faculty called " in- tellect " presided over consciousness, as it were, and observed what was going on in it, and then pro- nounced upon the event as belonging to this or that particular kind of state rather than to some other. The rather must all consciousness, as such, he regarded as having an active side, as heing discriminating con- sciousness. So, too, of course, no object of percep- tion, of memory, or of imagination can be known with- out implying the same activity of the mind in dis- criminating. Indeed, it is chiefly this very thing which makes us speak of the life of consciousness as *' mental." Or, to say the same thing in other words : The working of intellect in this primary sort of way is to be acknowledged in connection with the very beginnings of experience. For this reason such activity may be called " primary intellection." Physiological Conditions of Intellect. — All thinking, THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 143 even of the most rudimentary sort, implies work be- ing- done in the brain, which, in intensity and ex- tent of the areas involved, corresponds in some sort to the amount of the thinking*. It is not then a mere figure of speech when thinking- is called " brain-work." Perceiving, remembering, and im- agining are also brain-work; but thinking is pre- eminently so. Experiment shows that as the amount of intellectual activity, of active discriminating con- sciousness increases, the time required to perform it increases. This time is also a measure in someway of the brain-work. Thus it takes from one-tenth to five-tenths or more of a second longer to perform some simple act of discrimination than simply to react without discrimination. If the number of colors or letters exiDOsed for the quickest possible recognition increases from one to six, then the time required to think enough to recognize them in- creases from about three-tenths to about eight- tenths, or even to eleven-tenths of a second. It is also found that the lower animals — for ex- ample, dogs — may, after losing parts of the higher regions of the brain, be able to see light and to hear sounds, but without thinking any meaning into them. Such animals are called " soul-blind " or " soul-deaf." We not infrequently detect ourselves in a kind of use of the senses, or of memory, which has very little mind in it ; and we know that, other things being at all equal, this is a less fatiguing kind of work. But real mental work in the way of discrimi- nating makes us sweat or makes us tired. 144 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY Mental Activity in Discrimination The word " dis- crimination " has just been used for a lower and yet most general and really rather complex form of mental activity. For when we reflect upon the mat- ter further, it seems as though several different forms of activity were involved in this one. How, it may be asked, can one discriminate without being conscious both of likeness and unlikeness ; since a thing can be distinguished from others only as it is " like " some past experience or object, and so 25~also " unlike " other experiences or objects ? Even so simple a state as a toothache cannot be known as such (a peculiar " ache " that is located in a " tooth "), without being likened to something else ; and also deemed unlike yet a third something. And since all mental states, and all objects known in them, are many-sided and complex, it would appear that the mind must select certain elements or sides and re- late them to its past experience, if it is to think them at all. But this selection would seem to in- volve analysis and synthesis. Apparently, then, a number of subordinate processes enter into that complex mental activity which has just been called " primary intellection." Consciousness of Eesemblance. — Whenever we be- come aware that some state of our own, or some object which we are regarding, "resembles" or is "like" some other state or object, we reach an ex- perience which cannot possibly be described in any simpler terms. One may be able to tell correctly, or not, what any particular thing is like ; but no THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 145 one can tell what it is in g-eneral for one thing to he like another. This impossibility any one may quickly test for one's self. How would you describe " the consciousness of likeness," except by saying-, " Why, it is like, etc." ? But you would thus appeal to the very form of consciousness which you were trying* to describe. Let- it not be forgotten that it is a form of con- sciousness of which we are here speaking — a being conscious of reseinblance. This experience has to be accepted as accounting for itself. Things that are actually like each other might exist in close neigh- borhood forever ; and mental states that are like other mental states might follow each other forever ; and all this, of itself, would not account for the con- sciousness of resemblance. But this form of con- sciousness itself furnishes the account of all our ideas and all our knowledge of particular likenesses, both in things and in mental states. Consciousness of Difference. — Almost or quite equal- ly primary is that mental activity which may be called the being immediately aware of the unlike, or the " consciousness of difference." It is not easy, or perhaps even possible, to say which of these two forms of "discriminating consciousness" — the "con- sciousness of similarity" or the "consciousness of difference" — is the more primary. Both are alike necessary to all development of thought. It is a sort of shock, as produced especially by any sudden and marked change in the stream of consciousness, and often accompanied by surprised and painful 10 146 PRTMER OF PSYCHOLOGY feeling", which originally excites and guides the con- sciousness of difference. The bitter taste that is caused with the design to wean the infant, or the too warm temperature of his customary cup of milk, are instances. Such things occasion a pause, a doubt, a repeated application of the " noticing" " power of the mind. The early years of human life may exhibit a sur- prising power in discriminating differences in the qualities of objects and in the amounts of things. Eecent experiments in the schools of New Haven have shown how this form of consciousness devel- ops, on the whole, from the age of six to the age of seventeen ; and yet with certain variations depend- ent upon age, sex, and obscure individual peculiari- ties. On the whole, boys are somewhat superior to girls, excejot in the nice discrimination of shades of color. Men are known to be superior to women in their power to discriminate sensations produced by the divider's points on different areas of the skin (compare p. 99f.). It is very instructive to notice how sensitive children are to differences of quan- tity, especially where interest is strong. The boy quickly knows when one stick of candy has been abstracted from his hoard of six sticks, at an age long before he can count up to that number. Even crows will sometimes discriminate between four men and five ; while infants of four to six years old may discern correctly the difference, as a gross mass, be- tween seventeen and eighteen objects. On the other hand, the suggestions of sight cause most people to THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 147 go " quite wild " in their guesses at the difference between two weights. Comparison. — The effect of the foregoing two forms of conscious activity is very marked upon the charac- ter of our ideas. In this way the ideas are, more or less vaguely and fitfully at first, and yet consciously and actively, related to each other as like or unlike. Instead of being merely subject to their passive Jloio, ive think the ideas under the terms of thought. In- stead of simply recurring as like or unlike states or objects, they are actively compared, and pronounced like or unlike, and related together by an intellectual activity. Such distinctively " mental assimilation '* is therefore a distinct stage in mental development beyond that mere fusion of ideas to which reference was made (p. 78f.). It is the dawning of intellect ; it is that which is expressed by saying : ''I think " this to belong with that, and the other to be differ- ent from both. With reference to the same activity we say : " Hold on ; let us see ; let us put these two things side by side and notice them attentively, and then judge them to be fitly, in our minds, joined to- gether or classed apart." All this implies compar- ison resulting in what has been called either *' as- similation " or '' differentiation," according as the objects are judged like or judged unlike. Primary Judgment. — It was shown that some sort of judgment is implied in all developed perceptions by the senses (p. 89f.). This conscious relating of states, ideas, objects, as like or unlike in quality and quantity, is an act of judging. Or, to express the 148 PEIMER or PSYCHOLOGY truth in general terms : The conscious affirming of relations of resemhlance and difference between the con- tents of consciousness is the prir^utwe form of judgment. We are judging in this way constantly. For ex- ample, a noise startles us, and we ask ourselves or some one else : " What was that noise ? " The question itself implies an excitement of the mind to thought. The answer — " It was a door slammed," or " was a clap of thunder " — is an act of judging which quiets and satisfies the mind. Or, again^ a noise is heard, and we exclaim to ourselves, " Two o'clock ! " A form appears in the door, and we cry out, " John ! " or " George ! " But equally, with little or no consciousness of excitement, moment by mo- ment we are thinking the objects of the senses, or our own ideas and thoughts ; making them thus to be such and no other objects, ideas, thoughts, that are likened to, or differenced from, one another. Developed Processes of Thought. — It is the custom with writers on logic and psychology to distinguish at least these four conscious activities as involved in all thinking : — (1) comparison, (2) identification, (3) generalization, (4) naming. A few words upon each of these processes is now in place ; since they are all modifications of the work of intellect (or the minding of things), as it operates to organize and develop experience. Something has already been said about (1) comparison. Let it now be noticed, in addition, that all actual objects are very complex. The result is, of course, that each one is like many other objects in some particulars, and in other par- THOUGHT A]^D LANGUAGE 149 ticulars unlike. Suppose, for example, one is stand- ing- in front of a cathedral in Europe somewhere, which one has never seen before. One begins at once to '^ compare " it with other cathedrals. It is larger than the one at X. ; it is more purely Gothic ; it has more steeples or towers ; it is built of a differ- ent kind of stone, etc. One may, however, compare this cathedral with other churches that are not cathe- drals, or with other buildings that are not churches. In all this one would be tkiiiking the object, " mind- ing " it, as it were. But now it is also perfectly plain that in this activity of comparing one is also using (2) identifica- tion. This cathedral is like, or even unlike, other cathedrals, only as we agree with ourselves to con- sider all cathedrals as identical, as being the same in so far as they are cathedrals, and not factories, or mere stones, or flowers, or fish, or stars. So with the architecture, the steeples, the towers, the windows, etc. Even when we recognize a color as red, or a taste as sweet, we identify it by thought with what we have experienced before. This process also involves and leads to (3) gener- alization and classifying. This cathedral is, indeed, a particular cathedral, right here before us now, and the only one exactly like it in all the world. But in its being a " cathedral " to us, it is first generalized under a class by an act of thinking. And so it has sometimes been said : " Thought is the ordering of the manifold into a unity." Further, this class of objects has also (4) a name. It is already, by com- 150 PEIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY mon usag-e, called "cathedral." Whenever one is engaged in the process of mastering any object by thought, one is somehow gratified and assisted by learning its name. Of this, however, more will be said later on. Stag^es or Forms of Thought.— It is also customary to speak of three kinds and products of thought. These are called conception, judgment, and reason- ing. But it has already been shown that it is judg- ing, in this most primary form in which it enters into all the work of the intellect, that is the very essence of all thinking. So that, properly speaking, to frame a conception it is necessary to judge. Keasoning, too, is only a process of judging, con- ducted in such a way that one judgment follows another in a recognized dependence upon it as upon its " reason "or *' ground." The nature of thought will, however, become more clearly apparent only if it be considered in all its three forms. Nature of a Concept — The term idea, oi* mental im- age, was applied to a state of consciousness which is ^'representative" of past experience. For this reason the term representative image was also em- ployed (p. 69). It was further seen that by processes which were called " fusion " (p. 78f.), and " freeing " of the ideas, they may become adapted, as it were, to represent i3ast experience in a way more general, if also less life-like and more vague. It is thinking, however, in the form of judging, which converts the ideas into conceptions. In other words, a conception of any object, or class of objects, is reached by a united THOUGHT AT^D LANGUAGE 151 activity of the image-making and the judging faculty of the mind. Such a statement as that just made can best be tested by taking- it straight to daily experience. Two classes of philosophers — the Nominalists and the Kealists — have held divergent opinions on the nature of conception during a long period of time. Psy- chology, however, is interested to ask : What is it that actually goes on in the mind which corresponds to the name for any class of objects % What do you think, or think about, when you realize the mean- ing of a word like " lion," or " man ; " or even some more abstract word, like " virtue," or " state " ? In every case it will be found that, if any truly mental process is aroused in so-called conception, this proc- ess consists of series of pictures of the imagination (more or less vivid and life-like or dull and " sche- matic "), accompanied by activities in judging. With some persons the picture-making part is more pro- nounced ; with others, thinking in the form of judg- ment (and, perhaps, also talking to one's self). Kinds and dualities of Concepts. — It belongs to logic rather than to psychology to classify concepts as though they were real existences, and to tell how they may be combined into higher and higher forms of judgment. Thus concepts are said to have " con- tent " or " intension," and " extension." By the former is meant the number of common properties which the objects are known to have, that are essen- tial to their being called by the same name. Every lion, for example, must have four legs, or be a " quad- 152 PRIMEK OF PSYCHOLOGY ruped," must be an eater of flesh, or " carnivorous," etc. By the latter term (" extension ") is understood the number of subordinate classes, or of individuals, to which the name can properly be applied. The mis- taken statement is sometimes made that extension and intension vary inversely — that is, as one becomes greater the other becomes less. For further details on all these subjects, books on logic may be con- sulted ; but psychology has little real interest in them. Logical Judgments. — The nature of the mental ac- tivity which takes place in all thinking, even the most elementary, has been seen to involve a kind of judgment. This kind of judgment has been called "primary" (p. 147); it has also just been declared necessary to all forming of conceptions. No concep- tion (or " idea," or " notion," as is popularly said) can be had of a " lion," or of a " man," or a " flower," without picturing and judging it to be like some par- ticular object and unlike some other object. But, on the other hand, these so-called conceptions, or con- densed results of thinking, become, in turn, the terms which are united into more elaborate judgments. To take the same example, if one learns that a lion is a " quadruped " and '' carnivorous," whether by actually counting his legs and seeing him eat flesh, or by being told about him, one is then prepared to pronounce the judgment : "A lion is a ^carnivorous quadruped." This particular judgment thus unites a conception (lion), which is the subject of the sen- tence, with two other conceptions (quadruped and THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 153 carnivorous), which are the predicates. It appears, then, that a logical judgment is a mental act uniting conceptions, or " condensed " results of past acts of judg- ment, which are already familiar to us and which have previously heen fixed hy names. For in this case we know, at least, what it is for an animal to have legs, to eat flesh, etc. Forms of Judgment. — The mental act of uniting (or " synthesis ") may take place under any one or more of several forms. Among these the following are the most important : (1) Resetnblance or difference. This has already been seen (p. 148) to be the form most fa- miliar in the primary judgment. Now, suppose, how- ever, that one sees in a collection of wild animals an unknown kind. "What is it % " is the question which rises to the mind and to the lips. It is like a tiger, because it has stripes and is whitish on the under side of the belly. But it is not a tiger, because the stripes are faint along the sides and brownish-yellow above ; while the tiger has plainly marked black bars on a bright orange-yellow ground. It is an ani- mal ; it is a quadruped ; it looks carnivorous ; it is most like a tiger ; but it not enough like a tiger to be one. What, then, is it ? Its name is " a jaguar ; " one henceforth, then, judges the jaguar to have the resemblances and differences which one has thus marked. (2) Space and time give us forms under which certain logical judgments fall. Thus the inkstand is related to the table as being on it ; and the ink to the stand as being in it, etc. One thing is *'far 154 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY to the right " and another " near by on the left " of us. This day is "after" yesterday, in time, and " before " to-morrow. Judgments of relations in space and of quantity, judgments in geometry and arithmetic, are of this order. But one of the most early and interesting of all the forms of judgment is (3) that which attributes an action to an agent. Yery early in life — it cannot be told how early — the judgment which refers our_ex- perience to what is done by things acting upon us, or upon each other, is framed. When first the infant says " hot," on pointing to his steaming cup of drink, he probably is not simply judging that an attribute belongs to a subject, but rather that a thing will, under certain circumstances, do something to him (namely, burn him). On this effect of our own con- scious activity upon our judgments and our reason- ings we shall remark further in another place. Language and Thought.— It has already been seen that the " naming " of things, and of our own states of mind, our ideas and thoughts, is an important part of thinking itself. This fact has occasioned the inquiry as to " the relation of language to thought." Connected with this main inquiry are many subor- dinate inquiries, such as, why the lower animals cannot invent and use language, how far thought is possible without language, etc. Into these matters we cannot, of course, here enter at length. It should be remembered, however, that it is one thing to say that thinking cannot develop to any extent without the aid of some kind of recognized symbol for its THOUGHT ATTD LANGUAGE 155 products, and quite another thing to affirm that words, as the peculiarly human symbols of thoughts, are indispensable to all thinking. The latter propo- sition certainly is not true. The deaf and dumb can think very elaborately by helping themselves with symbols which appeal to sight. In the novel, " God's Fool," it is shown, in accordance with a true psychology, how conceptions may be elaborated and communicated to one blind as well as deaf and dumb, by tracing symbols on the skin. Probably, however, without some kind of recognized sign to accompany, and, as it were, to sustain thinking, it could not go on ; and without words joined together in the form of judgments the mental processes tend to become a mere succession of acts of image-making. On the other hand, with the use of words, the symbols them- selves are glibly united so as often, with little or no real thinking underneath, to bring the mind to the same practical conclusion as that which would be reached much more slowly by stopping " to think ourselves through," as it is customary to say. The Nature of Language. — It is natural for man, under the influence of any strong feeling, to open his mouth and send forth some peculiar and expressive sound. The lower animals, too, have their natural cries and expressive sounds, as well as other symbols which signify something to other members of the same species. But none of them have anything like the nicely modulated power of hearing and of utter- ance which man readily attains. So that sounds are with man his most easy and appropriate gesture ; 156 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY altliough they are greatly helped out, in tlie case of some races and of individuals of all races, by other forms of exiDression. Thus it has been said : " Speak- ing is the instinct of man ; man builds speech as the bird its nest." But these instinctive and expressive sounds are not, as yet, genuine words. They must themselves come under the influence of the very form of mental life which they are fitted to serve; and this is thought, ending in what has been explained as the forming of conceptions (p. 150f.). Words and Thoughts.— To convert a sound into a genuine word, it must be used as not simply a symbol of some mental state, but as a so-called " movable type." That is, it must be intelligently emioloyed as standing for what we have already seen to be gen- eral in nature, and to belong to a whole class of ob- jects, as made known to thought. Even those stu- dents of the mental life of the lower animals who are most favorably disposed to rank it highly, are pretty well agreed that these animals do not use their vari- ous symbols as " movable types." This is not only because their organs of hearing and of utterance are so inferior to those of man, but also because they are not capable of thinking as man learns to think, and in the highest sense of the word. A pretty story from the French of M. Taine will illustrate this : A little girl of only eighteen months had been accus- tomed to play hide-and-go-seek with her mother, calling out, ''Coucour She had also been told about things hot, *' Ca hrule " (" that will burn "). On seeing for the first time the setting sun disappear sud- THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 157 denly behind the hill, she cried out : "JL Vule coucou" ("The burning' thing- is playing hide-and- go-seek "). This infant had made a grand " gener- alization," as we should say ; and she matched it by using words " as movable types." It seems quite certain that no animal, however intelligent, ever i3er- forms an act of real thinking or uses the symbols of its own mental states in a way to equal this infant of eighteen months. Origin of Language. — The debate has been very long and hot as to how language could have originated. It is a question which the science of mind can answer only in one way. Language origi- nated and has developed as both the expression and the essential aid to the development of mental life. In different races and individuals it marks the char- acter and the amount of mental development as no other sign does. But it also gives conditions to mental development. So that those who are born into the inheritance of a highly organized language — like Greek, German,' or English — are, in that very way, invited and almost compelled to think and to feel in accordance with it. CHAPTEE X REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE When speaking of the stages or forms of thought, (p. 150) reasoning was mentioned as the last and most elaborate of them all. Yet incredibly swift instinctive reasoning enters into all our daily life, even into those mental acts which seem to be the results of immediate perception by the senses. For example, we hear a noise, and say: "The train is coming ;" or we hear a succession of sounds, and at once declare : " There is a fire near the corner of A and J^ streets." Reasoning in Perception by the Senses. — It is plain that a sort of reasoning may be implied in such per- ceptions as are expressed by the sentences : " I hear the train coming ;" or " I see Mr. Smith coming down the street." This fact may be brought out by sup- posing a pause before the judgment which results from perception is pronounced ; and that this pause results from a doubt arising in the mind. To keep the same example : suppose we are not quite sure whether it is the train coming or the rumbling of distant thunder which we hear; or are in doubt whether it is indeed Mr. Smith, or is Mr. Brown, whom we see coming down the street. In such a case we should be disposed to listen or to look more REASOlSriNG AND KT^OWLEDGE 159 intently, so as — note the expressive phrase — to " make up our minds." It is also plain that in this very process of making- up the mind, more or less of reasoning might be done. Careful listening" or looking" might result, without our knowing why, in its being *' borne in upon " the mind that the noise was, after all, thunder, and not the train ; that the person approaching was, after all, Mr. Brown, and not Mr. Smith. But it is not nearly so easy to suppose we could attain the knowledge, that *' there is a fire near the corner of A and B streets," from merely hearing a succession of sounds, and without more or less of conscious reasoning. For let a case like this be ex- amined somewhat more closely. What is really heard is only a succession of sounds of a peculiar quality, intensity, timbre, etc. If they have been associated by past experience in such a way that they are now heard as " the sounds of the fire-bell," there need be no present conscious act of reasoning. But these sounds are also heard in a certain peculiar order and up to a certain number ; let us suppose, at first, five in succession, and then, after a longer in- terval, four more. This signifies to the mind that the fire-bell is striking for Station 54. Here, again, little or no conscious work of reasoning may be done ; although it is likely that the flow of the men- tal life could be expressed in some such succession of judgments as the following : " Fire-bell is strik- ing — five times, four times; that means Station 54." But now shall it be said that there is no added 160 PEIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY reasoning needed to reach tlie jndg-ment — "There is a fire near the corner of A and JB streets " ? Here, too, the actual amount of conscious reasoning would plainly depend upon the character of the previous experience. For to the mind of the chief of the fire- department the alarm 54 is an immediate excitant of the thought of a fire in that locality. But for the stranger in town it might lead simply to an inquiry, which could be answered only by a concluding judg- ment that must be itself reasoned out. '^ Nature of True Reasoning It is now possible to see more clearly what is the real nature of all those mental acts which are entitled to be called " acts of reasoning," in the highest sense of the word. For suppose that, in the foregoing case, or in any simi- lar case, after a thoughtful pause, the conclusion follows as something consciously derived from cer- tain "reasons" or "grounds." How do you know that this succession — five and then four — of peculiar sounds means a fire at the corner of A and £ streets ? JBecause I see that it says so on the card I have taken from my pocket ; or 'because I remember hearing a fireman say so only the other day. Whenever we are conscious of making such a connection between two judgments as that one of them is related by us to one or more other judgments as finding in them its reason or cause, then we are ." reasoning," in the highest sense of the word. In a single sentence : Genuine logical inference, or reasoning, takes place whenever two judgments are mentally related in such manner that one is made the " reason " {or " ground ") of REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 161 the other, with a consciousness of the relation thus estab- lished hetween them,. The mucli-debated question, whether the lower animals are capable of reasoning", must be considered in the light of this definition. There can be no doubt that they often appear exceedingiy ingenious in adapting means to ends. Some of them, which do not appear, as judged by the perfection of their nervous system, to be among the highest in the scale of intellectual life — such as ants, bees, and many kinds of beetles — exhibit signs of wonderful " intel- ligence." Some of the plants also give signs some- what similar. Unlike most plants, however, the high- er animals frequently break the bonds of habit, and thus do things "out of their usual line," as though in adaptation to an emergency. Bright children astonish us by signs of apparent extraordinary intel- ligence of the same kind. Yet, if we question them as to why they concluded that this, rather than some- thing else, was the proper thing to do, they can per- haps give no "reason " or " ground" as having oc- curred to them. It is doubtful whether an animal ever "reasons" in the sense of the word which has just been explained. For example, does the learned dog which has been taught to bring his master an umbrella, if it is raining, but a cane, if it is fair, ever really conclude : " The umbrella is the right thing, because it is raining ; " or, " Since it is fair, therefore the cane only will be needed " ? Nature of the Reason, or "Ground." — It has just been seen that reasoning, properly speaking, involves 11 162 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY conscious recognition of a relation hetween two or more judgments ; such as that one of them is " concluded " from the others as its ^^ reason'''' or "" ground r Tims we often say, " I can see no good reason for that ; " or, " You have absolutely no ground for your con- clusion to stand upon." And now the further inquiry might be raised : What is it, then, for one judgment to stand related to another as to its reason or ground ? What is the essential thing about this very relation of judgments in every act of reasoning ? And here the books on logic point to the nature of the so- called " Middle Term." Let us take an example. Suppose that I see a crocodile, or read a description of one, for the first time. Now, the question arises whether a crocodile is a mammal or not (that is, whether its young are born, and nursed by the mother, or hatched from eggs, and not nursed). I inquire to find some "reason" or *' ground" for judging one way or the other — ^that is, for the conclusion which I am to make as the reasonable and well-grounded one. I observe, or am told, that the crocodile is a cold-blooded ani- mal. I remember that all mammals are warm-blooded animals. And at once I draw the conclusion, as the necessary and inevitable thing : '' The crocodile is not a mammal." This act of reasoning may be ex- pressed as follows: Not-a-mammal is affirmed (or predicated) of the subject crocodile, because not- warm-blooded is affirmed of it ; whereas, on the con- trary, warm-blooded must be affirmed of every mam- mal. REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 163 If, now, we throw the statement of this mental proc- ess into general terms, and then express it by the relations of letters, we may choose any one of several forms. We may say, for example ; S is (or is not) P, because it is (or is not) M; or, li S is M, then it is also P(why? hecause MisP); or because JfisP and Sis M, therefore S is P. All the while, however — and in whatever way the case be put — it is our knowledge of JT which determines whether we shall conclude that S is or is not P. In the case just given, being " warm-blooded " is the " middle term," so-called, and it determines that the crocodile cannot be concluded to be a mammal, because all mammals are warm - blooded, but the crocodile is not warm- blooded. It is in view of this relation of the middle term in every act of reasoning, to both parts of the conclud- ing judgment, that reasoning itself is sometimes called " immediate judgment," or Judging through some Qnediating conception, or middle term. Kinds of Reasoning^. — There are, of course, as many principal kinds of reasoning as there are principal kinds of relations which different classes of objects may sustain to each other. And here let us refer at once to the different main kinds of judgments (see p. 153). First, there is reasoning along the line of resemblances and differences. If two things are both sufficiently like a third thing, then they are like each other ; they belong to one class, and deserve a common name. What it is to be " sufficiently like" can never be determined once for all. Hence 164 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY the classifications of the sciences, with their names, are constantly liable to change. New and important differences in things hitherto thought to be " suffi- ciently alike " may be observed ; and this observa- tion will " upset " our previous conclusions regard- ing them. Second : some trains of reasoning — as in mathemathics and measurement — argue about quan- tities and their relations, comparing them with one another through one or more middle terms, and thus drawing conclusions as to equality, or difference; in a great variety of subordinate forms. Yet again, third : some change may be noticed and the conclu- sion drawn that it is due to the action of some par- ticular agent ; for the reason that something which is known as a common sign of that agent is con- nected with that particular change. Forms and Figures of Reasoning. — It is customary in logic to distinguish between those forms of rea- soning in which a single sentence connects the con- cluding judgment immediately with its reason, by the words " therefore " or " because " (the entliymeme ; for example : " The President is fallible, because he is a man "), and the fuller forms in which the grounds of the conclusion are stated in two separate sentences called the " premises " of the argument. As an ex- ample of the latter we may make a "syllogism" out of the reasoning about the crocodile — thus : All mammals are warm-blooded animals : the crocodile is not a warm-blooded animal ; therefore the croco- dile is not a mammal. Since there are different ways of arranging the EEASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 165 subject (S) and the predicate (P) of the concluding- judg-ment, and also the middle term (31) which forms the link in the argument that binds subject and predicate together, different " figures " of the syllogism arise. These three, as expressed in let- ters, are customarily recog-nized : I. II. III Mis P Pis M jr is p Sis M or Sis M Jf is >S' Sis r • .'Sis P •/ S is P Induction and Deduction These two forms of rea- soning- are customarily distinguished in something like the following way : If a number of individual cases are observed to be all alike in one or more par- ticulars, then we leap to the conclusion that they are alike in all essential respects ; that they belong to one class ; and that " all " the individuals of this class have these common characters. This is making an induction. It will be noticed that this argument goes from the particular to the general or universal, from the individual case to the class. If, on the con- trary, the general principle is already known, and we then come across an " individual " which seems, in some respects, to fall under the ]principle, we at once conclude that this individual falls under the principle in all important respects. Here we argue from the general to the particular ; from the rule to the case ; from the class to the individual member of the class. So far as the mental action is concerned^ howeve7\ it is essentially the same in hotJi induction and 166 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY deduction ; in hoth the argument consists in reaching one judgment as a conclusion, hy starting from other judg- ments as its reason or ground. The instance already used may illustrate tliis dif- ference also. Suppose that, on first seeing a croco- dile, I find by actual observation that it is " a cold- blooded animal." The next animal which I observe that has all the other more ^iDparent characters of a crocodile, I expect to find " cold-blooded " alsq^ If several crocodiles have actually been found to have this character, I do not hesitate to say : " All croco- diles are cold-blooded animals ; " and great would be my astonishment to find one that was not so. In affirming this general character of the class, I have made an induction. But now I am still in doubt whether the crocodile is a mammal or not. This question, however, I settle by a deductive argument — that is, by referring it to the principle already es- tablished: '^ JVo cold-blooded animal is a mammal " (comp. p. 162). Principle of all Argument. — But, how — it may be asked — does one venture at all to argue so confi- dently from what one immediately knows, by observ- ing it, to what is still unknown ? Whence comes this assurance that, if several crocodiles are observed to be cold-blooded, we do not need to examine the next one, but may infer that it, too, is so ? Might not that very next crocodile turn out to be warm- blooded? And what should we do then with our confidence in our reasoning powers ? To one of these questions, the answer must undoubtedly be : REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 167 Yes, the next animal, which seemed in all other re- spects like those we had already seen, migJit turn out unlike them even in so important a character as this. Then one of several diffierent things would have to be concluded : Either this animal ought not to be called a crocodile, because it is not cold-blooded ; or some crocodiles only are cold-blooded, and there are, at least, two kinds of crocodiles ; or else, perhaps, here is an astonishing " freak " in old Dame Nature that she should produce a warm-blooded crocodile. In any event, however, we should go right on trusting our reasoning powers in general ; and, in- deed, what choice could we possibly have in such a matter, since we could not even distrust them by arguing against them, except by using them with confidence ? Only we should get more and more cautious in our particular inductions and deductions ; and this would produce the development desired of these same reasoning powers. For example, a child may be at first inclined to drink from any cup of milk brought to it, or to put out its hand to pat every dog it meets. But being burned or bitten once, it might conclude : no milk is safe to drink, no dog is safe to pat. Yet next it learns the signs of difference, and so concludes : some cups of milk (and what ones) are safe to drink ; some dogs (and what ones) do not bite when they are caressed. The principle which is sometimes said to under- lie all reasoning is called " the principle of suffi- cient reason." But, so far as psychology can go, this simply means that the mind actually does keep 168 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY on drawing" conclusions on grounds, or reasons, whicli it deems " sufficient " for that very end. That is, we have now reached an ultimate principle — one beyond which psycholog-y has nothing- to offer in explaining the behavior of the mind. Tests of Reasoning — The reasons which one is practically obliged to take as " sufficient " for one's conclusions are very different indeed under different circumstances and with different classes of subjects. In mathematics they are of an entirely different order from those which one is obliged to follow in life. And this is not because mathematics is so real and the more doubtful practical conclusions so un- real ; but just the contrary. It is " pure " mathe- matics Avhich is totally unreal ; and that is one reason why men can argue about it so confidently. Its conceptions and terms can be considered without regard to real facts, by a process of abstraction. But we cannot deal this way with nature, much less with human conduct. In these spheres we can only reach, by reasoning, what is more or less likely to be true. It is not absolutely certain that the sun will rise to-morrow, or that the man who jumps from a window in the sixth story will get hurt. But those are called " fools " who do not reason and act as though it were so. The physical sciences are constantly being disap- pointed and going wrong, in both their inductions and their deductions. The popular impression that they have arrived at fixed, unchanging, and abso- lutely indubitable laws is quite wrong. But gradu- REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 169 ally they are correcting their past mistakes, verify- ing their correct guesses, and building up a struct- ure of well-reasoned conclusions based on valid grounds. In testing their inductions, or " jumps " to general conclusions, the sciences make use of certain so- called " methods " or " rules." Among these the following three are most important : (1) The method of agreement; (2) the method of differ- ence ; and (3) the method of concomitant variation. By the first rule it is meant that objects or events which are in any way known to have like qualities or conditions may safely be inferred to belong to the same class or to be due to the same causes. By the second rule it is meant that, when objects or events differ in important ways, they must be inferred to belong to different classes or to be due to different causes. And by the third rule it is meant that, where two or more different objects or events vary with proportional intensities, it may safely be in- ferred that they belong to the same class or are due to the same causes Nature of Knowledge — We constantly hear men saying ; " I hnow that this is (or is not) true ; " or, " I know (or do not know) this object (or that person)." Such a saying excites no surprise ; for that knowl- edge should be, in any sense, a mystery, it has prob- ably never occurred to most persons to suspect. Yet, as one of our modern students of mental life has truly said: " The relation ofJcnoioing is the most mysterious thing in the world." In view of what 170 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY has already been sliown as to the nature of percep- tion, judgment, and reasoning", it must be apparent that the popular use of this word " knowledge " is very loose and often inaccurate. Can a man know what is not true % Can he know that yonder object is a cow, when it is indeed a horse ; or that he met Mr. X. upon the street yesterday, because he saw him plainly, when Mr. X. has already proved that he was a hundred miles away at that very h^ur ? How, too, shall one know whether there are or are not ghosts (or black swans or warm-blooded croco- diles) ; or even that, in some other planet, heavy (?) bodies may not tend to fly away from each other rather than to approach ? For if there is any gen- eral truth which may be known, it is this, that men have claimed (and do still claim) to know, beyond a doubt, almost every conceivable absurdity. Shall the word " knowledge," however, be so re- stricted as to apply it only to what is absolutely be- yond all doubt % This would perhaps be found to limit its sphere unduly ; for it might appear that, for each one, only his own present state of mind, as such, is known as " absolutely beyond all doubt." The final answer to such questions, however, does not belong to psychology, but to a department of philosophy which is called "theory of knowledge." Belief and Knowledge.— One important truth is brought to our notice by the way in which the word knowledge is ordinarily used. There is a sort of conviction, certainty, belief, in all knowledge. " Belief " is sometimes opposed to " knowledge," as EEASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 171 though the two were contradictory ; and, indeed, mere belief is not enough to warrant knowledge. But without belief, of a certain sort, there is no such thing as knowledge. It is a curious and interesting illustration of this truth to notice how men bring their fist down hard upon the table, or stamp their foot upon the ground, or " pounce upon " their words with great emphasis, when they are telling what they helieve they know. " It is this, and not that," they say in the warmest possible way. " I tell you I know it is so." This is not a sentence which most men, when contradicted, are apt to say without some evidence of a glow of conviction. In fact, to say, " I feel perfectly sure," is, in popular speech, the same thing as to say, " I hnoiv.'' This belief — as it were — slumbers in all knowledge, but is apt to be aroused as soon as what we consider our knowledge is called in question. It has been called an "emotion of conviction " by one writer. It exists as truly in the man who " coolly " (■?) refuses to discuss his pet theory in science, politics, or religion, as in the man who affirms his theory with the greatest apparent fanaticism. Development of Knowledge — Our past study has shown us that, in no unmeaning use of the words, all knowledge is a developmeiit. That knowledge of things which we call " immediate," and which comes with the use of the senses, is really a matter of growth. The infant had to learn, and actually did learn, to know its own body, with each of its particu- lar members, its own self, and all the things that 172 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY now make up the world of its experience. Yes, since every perception by the senses, and every full act of self-consciousness, is an activity that takes place only as a process in time, it is an important truth that each single " knowledge " is a growth, a de- velopment ; while no one would think of disputing that the body of knowledge which belongs to the in- dividual or to the race is a matter of growth. Another truth to be noticed is that, in the attain- ment and growth of knowledge, all the activities of the mind are involved. That this is true, so far as all the forms of intellectual activities are concerned, is readily apparent. Judgment, memory, imagina- tion, and even reasoning, have all been seen to be employed in attaining a knowledge of things through the senses. Feeling also is undoubtedly involved in the attainment and growth of knowledge. As Goethe says : " All comes at last to feeling ;" and " What you don't feel you'll never catch." This is indeed an exaggerated way of stating the truth. But it has just been seen how one form of feeling— a sort of "emotion or conviction" — is found in all our knowledge. The primary kinds of f aeling, such as surprise, expectation, anger, fear, and hope, enter into and modify all our processes of percejDtion and reasoning. He who expects or dreads to see any particular object will have what he actually does see influenced by his expectation or his dread. Every sound is interpreted as being this rather than some other sound, under the influence of latent or more obvious emotion. And that the will takes REASONING AND KNOWLEDGE 173 part in the production of the state of knowledge is seen to be true as soon as we recall that attention is necessary to knowledge, and that the direction of attention is so largely a matter of will ; as well as that our knowledge of things is so dependent upon all the use and control of the movable parts of the body ; and that this is also so much a matter of will. As to the knowledge of ourselves, we may quote again from Goethe : " How can a man learn to know himself ? By reflection never, only by action." Kinds of Knowledge — All acts of knowledge may be divided into classes according to two or three different principles. Thus all knowledge is either (1) immediate, or (2) inferential. Immediate knowl- edge is such as is got in our use of the senses, or in the observation of our own states when we do no conscious reasoning. Inferential knowledge is such, on the other hand, as is reached by consciously reasoning from premises to conclusion, or from one judgment to another. But if the processes of knowledge are considered according to the classes of objects known, two kinds may also be distinguished. These are : (1) the knowledge of Self, and (2) the knowledge of things. The former might then be said to come by way of self-consciousness (compare p. 30f.) and the latter through perception by the senses. But this would apply only to immediate knowledge ; for knowledge about ourselves and also about things requires for its attainment and growth just the same use of the powers of conception, judgment, and reasoning. 174 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY Finally, it may be said that by knowledge all the individual experiences are related together so as to become parts of a system. Thus we may think of the growth of knowledge as a sort of progressive organ- ization of experience itself CHAPTER XI EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIEES Importai^t changes take place in the character of the feelings as the life of knowledge grows. As we gain experience of ourselves, and of things and our relations to them, this " feeling-aspect " of con- sciousness becomes more and more complex. Many- curious and interesting mixtures and conflicts also take place among the more simple forms of the feel- ings themselves ; this fact, too, increases the variety and complex character of the more highly devel- oped life of feeling. Still further, many of the stronger feelings especially produce very important and almost immediate changes in the conditions of the bodily organs. These changes in turn make themselves felt by the mind ; and this itself pro- duces new modifications of feeling. Once more, there are few or none of the feelings that do not quickly incite the desire to do something. They are themselves either painful or pleasurable (see p. 59f.) ; and they have reference to objects that may possibly be avoided or gained. As one might say — speaking in an abstract way — they tend to move the will ; they are " motives " or forceful influences to some form of action. This effect on the mind also makes itself strongly felt. 176 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY Classes of Feelings — It can scarcely be considered strange, after what has already (p. 56) been said, if it is again found necessary to confess that human feel- ings are too varied and complex to be strictly clas- sified. This is actually the case. There has never been, and there never will be, any wholly satisfactory classification of the feelings. We shall, however, on grounds which will be made more clear later on, distinguish between the ernotions and the sentiments. If, then, those states are also considered, whBre either the emotions or the sentiments begin to oper- ate somewhat strongly to influence the will, to in- duce or move us to do something, a third class, called the desires, may be distinguished. It is of the emotions, the sentiments, and the desires that this chapter treats. Only it should be understood that the last of the three classes (the desires) empha- sizes especially those states in which mere feeling tends to pass over into willing. Nature of an Emotion. — In order that any form of feeling may become an emotion, two things are chiefly necessary. The first of these is that the feel- ing itself should acquire a certain intensity. All know well enough what is meant by the intensity of a feeling, just as directly and undoubtedly as they know what is meant by the intensity of a sensation. On account of its so-called internal and subjective character, however, there are no means of measuring the intensity of feelings as there are of measuring the intensity of sensations. When any consider- able increase in the intensity of any form of feeling EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 177 takes place, this increase soon produces a variety of changes in the condition of the different bodily or- gans — such as the skin, the muscles, the action of the heart and lungs, and so of the parts used in swallowing and of the whole digestive canal, etc. These changes are now themselves felt ; and the feel- ing of them constitutes the second important char- acteristic of an emotion. Considerctble intensity of feel- ing and the " tinge " o?' " suffusion " of consciousness hy the resulting hodily developments (" the bodily reson- ance ") are then the more notable features of every emotion. Primary Kinds of Emotions — Some forms of human feeling, which may be classed among the emotions, are of the most elementary and universal character. Not only are they found among all human beings very early in life, but even the lower animals ex- hibit plain signs of similar forms of feeling. Of these i3erhaps the most important are anger, fear, grief and joy, astonishment, curiosity, jealousy, and sympathy. These involve, of necessity, only a very low development of mind ; but they may be said to be related in the order above named, to the growth of ideas and to the acquirement of experience. For example, if one grasps the hand of a young child, or in any way opposes its free movement, one may arouse physical signs of feeling similar to those exhibited when one sets one's cane in the path of a serpent or a young alligator. Infants also show signs of fear before they can possibly Itnoio anything to be afraid of. One observer noticed fear of cats 178 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY in a girl of only fourteen weeks old ; another beard the cry of fear, at the barking of a dog, in a child of the same age. Astonishment is the emotion of strong surprise, and is closely connected with both fear and joy. Curiosity, too, manifests itself in children, as in certain young animals, by a sort of physical and mental restlessness, long before any real " intellectual curiosity," as an affair of intelli- gent choice of ends, can arise. Even sympathy is originally instinctive, blind, and common to man with the lower animals. Indeed, one may properly use this word for that tendency to " harmonize " our consciousness with that of others, which is quite universal. Children and adults "get mad," and grieve, and fear, and wonder, in company. Development of an Emotion. — Every emotion runs a course, as it were, although it may seem to spring into being at once. Some idea, thought, memory, or it may be merely sensory agitation, arouses a sort of local storm in certain nerve-centres of the brain. This storm spreads from centre to centre, as it were ; it sweeps down the nerve-tracts that lead to the ex- ternal parts of the body, to the skin, muscles, and joints, to the heart, and lungs, and other viscera. Flushes or chills, shiverings and " goose-pimx)les," start out on the skin, and its tension over the under- lying organs is changed. The muscles become more rigid or flabby than usual ; some of them are con- tracted and others relaxed. The jaws fall or become set ; the heart beats faster or slower, or else it flut- ters wildly and stands still. The character of the EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 179 respirafcion and the condition of the glottis and dia- phragm change. Weeping, sobbing, sighing, " catch- ing breath," etc., occur. Strange internal agitations make themselves felt. Taken altogether, this may be called the " bodily resonance," or " somatic reac- tion," awakened by the effect of the intense feeling on the organs through disturbance of the brain. It mixes itself with the more purely ideal feeling and gives it a coarsened and more strictly " emotional character." There is an indefinite variety to these bodily effects of the emotions. Each emotion has its pecul- iar characteristics, and yet individual persons differ in respect of them. Various admixtures of the emo- tions also take place. In anger the jaws are apt to be set and the teeth grind together ; creepings and " goose-pimples " come over the skin. The muscles are tense in those organs needed for offence or de- fence. But some are pale and some flushed when they are angry; and some tend to run away with fright or collapse with internal agitation, while others tend to " brace ujp " and fight (either the ob- ject that angers them or the passion in themselves). In extreme fear, again, the neck is bent, the jaws and cheeks relaxed, the shoulders collapse, the arms hang, the legs drag, the viscera quiver, the heart beats wildly or stops still. The feeling of these bodily changes intensifies the emotion itself. But in the case of all strong emotions a climax is reached, and then the storm begins to abate. What is called a "reaction" comes on. In their highly 180 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY emotional form all the feelings run, as it were, a sort of limited physiological career. Emotions and Thoughts.— It is not, of course, upon the bodily organs alone that all the intenser forms of feeling make themselves felt. Nothing in our ex- perience is any plainer than the fact that the thoughts are *' disturbed " by the emotions. In men of strong character and great self-control, a large amount of feeling may seem to quicken and im- IDrove their thinking powers. They are " at their best " when they are strongly moved by love, or anger, or even by grief and fear. But the effect of much emotional disturbance upon the thoughts, in most cases, leads in either one of two unfavorable directions. Either the mental images and acts of judgment and reasoning are thrown into a sort of wild confusion, rendered " hurly-burly," as it were ; or else they are made stagnant with a kind of paralysis. This " uiDsetting " of the mental train, this disturb- ance of the powers of thought and reasoning, like the bodily changes which accompany it, is itself felt as a profound modification of the original feeling. Almost all know what the feeling is which is so sig- nificantly called " losing one's self." Similar condi- tions of mind may be produced by certain drugs ; they also belong to certain forms of insanity. Some insane persons are almost habitually in the emotional state which belongs to the feeling of a wild confu- sion of the thoughts ; others suffer from the constant depressing feeling of a "drag" and impotency in the mental train. EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 181 Complexity of the Emotions.— All these forms of feeling — themselves more or less complex— may still further combine or follow each other in a great variety of ways. It has long been noticed, and has been told in many forms of literature, how apt the mind is to pass suddenly from one extreme to another. This involves a further extension of the principle which we have already seen (p. 64f.) to con- trol the succession of pleasures and pains. Not in- frequently the most passionate and devoted love follows in reaction upon the most extreme distaste. And few remarks are more common than those which emphasize the proverb — "Love me little, love me long." So also the seemingly opposite emotions may be almost inextricably mixed in the same experience of the soul. Thus Plato describes the " extraordinary state " of mind in which the disciples of Socrates were when they were watching him dying, as " an unaccustomed mixture of delight and sorrow." So sometimes, as we say, we do not know whether we are most grieved or most glad. The modifying effect of one emotion upon the next succeeding is also a matter of great importance. A certain abruptness of change increases the intensity of the emotions. So that griefs which come unexpectedly " upon the top of " joys or of quiet contentment are more than ordi- narily poignant; and no joys are quite like those which bring relief to preceding griefs. Passions and Emotions. — These two words are pop- ularly employed without any very clear and fixed 182 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY distinction between them. Thus the same state of feeling- might be spoken of as either the " emotion " or the "passion" of anger, the "emotion" or the " passion " of jealousy, etc. A very important dis- tinction between the two is, however, possible and oug-ht to be observed. Emotions which have hecome habitual hy frequent repetition and are *'' hacked up " hy determined will are more propei'ly called passions. And this leads a modern writer to say, " Repetition has a different effect upon emotion and upon passion ; it weakens the one and feeds the other." In this use of the words, emotions are the more violent, tempo- rary, and sudden ; they escape control and rage of themselves, if they become very intense. Passions are more concealed and constant ; they are taken up and adopted more by the voluntary man. The one is like a storm of thunder and lightning ; the other is the intense and steady heat of tropical summer. Women are more emotional than men, but men are more passionate than women. Strong emotions are sources of weakness; but strong passions may be sources of strength. Nature of the Sentiments — The forms of developed feeling which are called sentiments differ from the emotions largely in not having what the latter have. They lack the intensity and the strong bodily tinge (the " somatic reaction ") of the emotions. They are more ideal and spiritual, we might say. They are " fuller of ideas ; " and some of them are found to be complex forms of feeling that arise only in the pres- ence of " ideals," or constructions of imagination EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIKES 183 and thought which the mind holds up to itself as types or patterns of what is not, but ought to be. Yet here again the distinction between the emo- tions and the sentiments is not fixed and immovable. Even the artistic and the religious feelings may be- come so intense and may so stir up in characteristic ways the organs of the body as to become, more properly called, emotions or passions. Some stu- dents of nature or of the human mind follow their pursuits with a high degree of mental and bodily disturbance, amounting to an emotional phase of feeling. Moreover, traces of the influence upon feel- ing itself from the resulting condition of the bodily organs are to be noticed in almost all of the most re- fined sentiments. Indeed, this fact accords with the very nature of feeling. We shall see how true this is when we consider, for example, the sentiment for the sublime or the sentiment of moral obligation which corresponds to the words, "I ought," or "I ought not." Classes of Sentiments. — These forms of complex feeling, like all others, do not admit of direct classi- fication. Indirectly, however, and by considering the conditions of their occurrence, or the intellectual processes which accompany them, or the kinds of objects which excite them, they may be divided so as to be treated in a convenient way. Thus three main classes of " sentiments " may be recognized, namely : (1) the intellectual ; (2) the sesthetical ; and (3) the ethical and religious. The Intellectual Sentiments All the processes of 184 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY perception, memory, imagination, and thinking have their peculiar forms of feeling connected with them either as excitants or accompaniments. These " in- tellectual sentiments " may themselves, therefore, be somewhat roughly divided into two classes. They are such as either serve to give impulse and guid- ance to the intellectual activities ; or else they sim- ply accompany them as feelings of the intellectual activities. Among those of the first class is the sentiment of intellectual curiosity, which, when it is regarded as a motive for doing something, becomes a desire of knowledge " for its own sake," as men are accus- tomed to say. This sentiment originates in that almost merely animal restlessness to which reference has already been made (p. 178). As imagination op- erates upon the field of knowledge, it forms an at- tractive picture of the nobility and the advantages of merely knowing ; and this picture may be personi- fied, and even worshipped, as a kind of goddess called *' Science," with a morbid and sentimental de- votion. In considering the intellectual sentiments of the second class, it should be borne in mind that we actually feel the movements of our own intellect- ual life, in a variety of forms of feeling which cor- responds to the actual variety of these movements. For example, the consciousness of similarity, with its pleased sentiment of recognition, differs from the feeling of the slight or intense shock of surprise which goes with the consciousness of difference. EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 185 One feels amazed as well as gratified when one apprehends important new truths. In trying to remember, one feels puzzled ; not quite satisfied un- less the remembrance seems absolutely correct, and relieved and gratified when the act of memory seems complete. Indeed, this latter form of feeling is often more of a guide to memory than is judgment or reasoning. Above all in importance is the senti- ment of fitness, or approbation, with which "the truth" is greeted by a sound and honest mind. And, indeed, it is probably feeling, far inore and far oftener, than any strict logical conclusiveness in our reasonings that settles for the time heing ivhat the truth shall he held to he. It could even be shown that, in all probability, every important relation recognized by the intellect and put into language has its appropriate senti- ment. Thus there is a feeling, as well as a thought, that goes with all the prepositions, such as " upon," " over," " into," etc. Especially do many of the con- junctions serve to mark peculiar changes in feeling as well as transitions in thought. We all agree with the character in Shakespeare, who did not like " But yet." The -ffisthetical Sentiments. — When one is looking at certain objects in nature or in an art gallery, when one is hearing certain successions of sounds at a good concert, when one is reading poetry, or contemplating in memory or imagination a great and heroic deed, one experiences very peculiar feelings of admiration and pleased approval. Such feelings are called "sesthetical sentiments," or the "feel- 186 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOaY ing"" of the beautiful. The psychology of these forms of feeling- is an exceedingly interesting subject of study ; but it has thus far been pursued with only a partial success. Several points may, how- ever, be considered as established. The sesthetical sentiments are forms of agreeable or disagreeable feeling, as indeed almost (if not quite) all of our sentiments are. But they do not ap- pear to be merely agreeable and disagreeable feelings. That is, the satisfaction is not simply sensuous or simply intellectual, as is the satisfaction which is taken in a well-cooked dish or in a sound argument. But aesthetical sentiment may mix in with sensuous feelings ; as in the case of the traveller who, on drinking cool, fresh milk in the Pyrenees, " experi- enced a series of feelings which the word agreeable is insufficient to designate." Or, again, as in the case of one of the author's pupils, who testified that the study of Kant's " Critique of Pure Eeason " gave him the highest sesthetical enjoyment. There is no way, of course, to prove such statements as these but to appeal to the consciousness of those who make them. And it will be forever useless for small-minded psy- chologists, with their petty theories of evolution, to try to make the world's artists and admirers of art think that they do not know themselves well enough to understand the difference between genuine ms- thetical sentiments and merely agreeable feelings. Kinds of the Beautiful — There are various ways of dividing up the kinds of beautiful objects, and of classifying the arts. But the division in which psy- EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 187 chology is interested is based upon the differences in our conscious states when we are contemplating- the different sorts of objects which we call " beauti- ful." Here, of course, the word heautifid is used with a very general significance. For example, one form of the beautiful is the sublime or the grand. A cer- tain largeness or swelling of feeling is characteristic of our mental attitude before the sublime. This char- acteristic extends even to the physiological basis of the feeling. One tends to lift up the head, to stretch one's self in stature, to expand the lungs by deep breathing, when one is contemplating the sublime. The intellectual activities are loose and expansive, rather than marked by fixed attention and careful mastery of minute details. Imagination, taking its point of starting from the object, ranges abroad, magnifies known excellences, and even reaches out toward the incomprehensible and the infinite. Feelings of awe and reverence, that seem to have a kind of moral and religious quality, are aroused. Somewhat thus does the sensitive soul feel the sub- limity of a storm at sea (when all personal fear and discomfort are absent), or of the clouds and light- ning, or the snowy peaks, seen from a mountain's top, or of some heroic charge in a great battle, or an act of religious self-sacrifice. But if it be the merely pretty which one is enjoy- ing, how different is the form of one's aesthetical consciousness ? Here there is little or no expansive physiological feeling ; attention is concentrated on the harmony or pleasing contrast of details ; imagi- 188 PRTMEK OF PSYCTIOLOGY nation seeks little or nothing- beyond ; and there is almost no excitement of will either to worship or to achieve. So that the merely and excessively pretty often comes very near to exciting* feelings of half- contempt. The gracefid, again, is appreciated only as the thoughts and feelings which accompany easy and pleasant movement, whether of body or of mind, are stirred and gratified. But further remarks on this interesting department of psychology are not fitted to so elementary a work as this. The Ethical Sentiments.— As has just been seen, some of the-9esthetical sentiments are very closely akin to moral and religious sentiments. Especially is this true of the sentiments of awe and reverence, and of the mysterious and infinite, which those ob- jects excite that are called sublime. The various emotions — such as anger, fear, grief, joy, and sym- pathy — may all become moral or immoral, according to the degree and manner of their prevalence in the life of the mind. Thus natural anger may be culti- vated by experience and rational reflection so as to take the form of a holy sentiment against injustice, such as is rightly attributed even to God himself. Fear may be developed into the sentiment of rever- ence for what is true, beautiful, and good. To be false or to speak lies becomes for some men the most to be dreaded of all things conceivable. *' The fear of God," we are told, " is the beginning of wis- dom." Crude animal sj^mpathy is also developed in- to the refined sentiment of unselfish love for others, love of friends, love of country, love of humanity. EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 189 There are, however, certain sentiments, or forms of feeling-, developed, in the course of the natural life of the mind, that are distinctly ethical. It is the possession of these which seems to make man a moral being-, on the side of feeling, as none of the lower animals are. Among these we note, first, the sentiment of moral ohligation, or the feeling which is expressed by the words " I ought," " he ought," etc. Begging pardon for the expression, we will call this the " feeling of oughtness." This is a perfectly- unique sentiment, is not like any other, and cannot be understood as a development or modification of any other. Its unique character is undoubted, how- ever the sentiment may seem to have arisen. So far as is known, the lower animals have no corre- sponding form of consciousness. Second : the seiiti- ment of moral approbation or disapprol)ation seems also to be a distinctive and unique ethical sentiment. The words " approve " and " disapprove " are indeed used with a variety of meanings. The animals — as, for example, a dog that has failed to retrieve or that has been caught stealing a bit of meat — show certain signs of shame for what fhey have done or have failed to do. A defeated foot-ball team, even when it has *' done its duty," may have a similar feel- ing of shame. But that distinctively moral feeling which arises when, in spite, it may be, of threatened pain and loss, one has done what sound judgment decides ought to be done, is apparently the posses- sion of man alone. Nature of Conscience. — Few words are used with 190 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY more indefiniteness and variety of meaning tlian the word " conscience." In none of its meanings, how- ever, can the claim to regard conscience as a special faculty of the mind be made good. If the word be employed to comprehend the judgments of men as to what is right and what is wrong in character or conduct, then conscience is certainly no special fac- ulty. Judgment about matters of right and wrong, as judgment, is precisely similar to judgment about all other matters. In all matters men take sonre of their judgments from others, quite unthinkingly; other judgments they make up after more or less re- flection ; still others they grasp at, as it were, in a way to hit right, perhaps, but so that they cannot justify to reason the conclusion, either before their own intellect or the intellect of other men. In all matters judgment springs very largely out of blind feeling. It has already been seen that most of the so-called ethical sentiments (conscience as feeling) are not originally ethical, in the stricter sense of the word. But two forms at least— the feeling of moral obliga- tion and the feeling of moral approbation — are dis- tinctive and unique. How these feelings come to be attached to certain particular forms of conduct, how it is that you feel that " you ought," and I feel that " I ought," in such very different ways, is a matter of education, personal history, etc. But both you and I and all men agree in having certain distinc- tively human and moral sentiments aroused; we agree also in having these sentiments so largely at- EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 191 tached to the same courses of conduct or to the same deeds, because there is so much in common, not only in human nature, but also in the circumstances and teachings under which it was developed. Hence it comes about that from the point of view of individual consciousness, the " ought-feeling " and the feeling of moral approbation are generally attached, luithout any conscious process of reasoning, to a so- called moral judgment ; hut in making up the judg- ment any amount of reasoning is admissible, for it is a matter of evidence more or less. Nature of the Desires. — Those states of conscious- ness which we have called " the desires " lie nearer to the will than do the emotions and sentiments, con- sidered merely as such. Indeed, in order to under- stand the origin and nature of the desires, it is necessary to take our point of starting chiefly from "the impulses." Here we may begin by noticing that the various forms of natural emotion have their characteristic impulses toward certain forms of movement. For example, the impulse of the angry child is to strike or kick ; or to bite some object ; or, in case fear restrains from this, to beat his heels or his head on the floor. The impulse of love is to fondle, to defend, to embrace. Feelings like those of curiosity, expectation, and doubt also act as im- pulses. The impulse of the curious mind is to look " pryingly," and that of the doubtful mind to look " suspiciously." But plainly each of these im- pulses involves acts of will, the doing of something that has its end in the gratification or relief of feeling. 192 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY Genuine desires, however, as distinguished from impulses, require a considerable development of in- tellect, an acquirement of experience as to the re- sults of what is done and of the ways to reach the ends toward which feeling- impels the mind. Some end of which we have a mental picture, and about the effects of which upon our well-being- we have knowl- edg-e acquired in the past, must be the object of de- sire. Desires, therefore, involve the development and use of all the faculties of mind in a rather compli- cated way. It is the stress of feeling ready to hreak over — as it were — into a definite act of will toward some particular end., which is the peculiar character- istic of the desires. Kinds of Desires — It is as difficult to classify the desires satisfactorily as it is to classify the senti- ments. For purposes of convenience, however, four classes of desires may be distinguished : (1) Sen- suous, or those which arise out of bodily cravings, and find their satisfaction in the possession and use of some object ; (2) Intellectual desires, or those cravings that arise from the mental faculties and find their satisfaction in mental exercises, or states, regarded as objects or ends to be gained ; (3) Sen- timental desires, or those which arise in the con- templation of some form of the beautiful or of the morally good in conduct and character ; and (4) Pathological, where things which seem repulsive, and the possession and use of which are painful to the person himself, are still desired in a sort of dis- eased and irrational way. EMOTIONS, SENTIMENTS, AND DESIRES 193 It has already been noticed that desires, as com- pared with all other states of consciousness, stand closest to the act of will. It is usually only a step from " I want very badly " to " I will have." " I want ; " "I will to have ; " "I strive to get ; " — these follow each other in this order, unless "self-con- trol " intervenes. It is to the nature of willing, then, as to the highest and most complex activity of mind, that attention is now directed. 13 CHAPTEK Xn WILL AND CHAEACTER It has been seen (p. 14f.) that all states of con- sciousness may be regarded as having an active side or aspect ; that one must consider one's self~ as always doing something, as well as thinking about somewhat and feeling somehow. This active aspect of the self, this always doing something which we detect in all our conscious states, needs a name for it as a most general form of mental life. To " will," in any proper sense of the word, involves all the facul- ties of intellect and of feeling ; willing and choos- ing are, therefore, terms too complex to signify the most simple and elementary form of active experi- ence. The word conation has been suggested for this purpose, and has been employed by several writers on psychology. Nature of Conation. — Inquiry into the characteris- tics of this fundamental aspect of all mental life, for which the word " conation " has just been se- lected, reveals little or nothing to be said. We can- not define what it is to be active or to do ; for there are no simpler terms than these same words — " to be active" and "to do " — by which to describe such experience. This is not especially strange ; for it is equally true that one cannot define what it is to WILL AND CHARACTER 195 have a sensation, or what it is to feel, whether a pleasure or a pain, etc. It is possible, however, to describe in some sort the different kinds of sensa- tion and the different kinds of feeling. But there seems to be only one kind of conation. A great va- riety of effects in the way of bodily movements and of different directions given to the mental train follows, indeed, from the different acts of conation. But the character of all conation, as such, seems to be alike. Two classes of effects, however, are uniformly con- nected with conation considered as the very simplest and most elementary mental activity. These are (1) movements of the bodily members, so far as our mental doing affects them directly ; and (2) the de- termination of the direction and amount of attention — the fixing and distribution of mental energy in the so-called field of consciousness (compare p. 23f.). Thus it is that when we conceive of ourselves as " doing something," it is always either in the way of moving some of the bodily members so as to ac- complish a certain end, or else in the way of volun- tarily controlling the ideas, thoughts, feelings, and other forms of mental life. These two classes of effects are connected with the phenomena of choos- ing, iDlanning, and all the higher forms of the mani- festation of will. In general it may be said that all mental life mani- fests itself to the subject of that life as being, in one of its fundamental aspects, its oion spontaneous activity. Conditions of Conation.— The physiological condi- tions of that self-doing, or active aspect of mental 196 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY life, wliich lias been called conation, are very ob- scure. So far as they can be discovered, they be- long to what has been called the " antomatism " of the central nervous system. Every minute animal, like an amoeba, for example, exhibits this peculiar power ; some of the changes of form or position which it goes through seem to originate from within rather than from any kind of external stimulation which can be detected. Thus, if one watches an amoeba under the microscoiDC, one may sometimes see it pushing out its border here and drawing it in there, for reasons that seem to have nothing to do with the action upon its surfaces of the fluid in which it is placed. As the complexity of the animal structure in- creases, the central organs of the nervous system take on themselves, to the highest degree, this power of " automatic " (or seemingly self -originat- ing) action. In man's case it is the brain, and espe- cially the higher regions of the brain, that rule over the lower organs, in part by the possession of this power. If we sever the spinal cord of a frog from its brain, then the cord alone will move the limbs in vari- ous purposeful ways under the action of the electri- cal current. If some of the lower parts of the brain are also left attached to the cord, then this piece of nervous mechanism will jump ; it will also croak, when stroked, with the regularity of a music-box. But the full-brained frog will only leap or croak, if it wills ; it cannot be depended upon for the same kind of regularity as the brainless frog. WILL AND CHARACTER 197 Kinds of Movement. — In understanding the origin of the various movements of the body and its mem- bers, one iDrinciple is of chief importance. Every hind of excitement in the brain — lokether connected with sensations, emotions^ or ideas — te7ids to "overjlotv"' the centres and areas in which it originates, a7id tofloio down the nerve-tracts to the tmiscles and other connected or- gans ; and thus to set in movement the different connected parts of the external motor apparatus. Under this one general principle a variety of kinds of movement arise, which, so far as they originate in conscious states, may be divided as follows : (1) Random movements, such as new-born infants make, and which seem to originate chiefly in " conation " as a blind action of will, without any conscious end to be reached. In this way infants are constantly striking and kicking, with a perfect indifference as to what — even their own sensitive parts — they hit in their blind efforts. (2) Sensory-motor movements are those which arise chiefly in the excitement of some form of sensation. Thus every smell naturally stirs us up to sniff in the air, every taste provokes the tongue to motion ; and a moving object or bright light, in any direction, causes an almost irresistible tendency to turn the head. (3) ^sthetico -motor is a term that might be used for those movements which originate chiefly in the feelings as having a tone of pleasure or of pain. But (4) various impulsive and instinctive movements arise which involve a low amount, at least, of feeling and of the idea of some end to be reached, but which are not of a strictly vol- 198 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY untary or thoughtful character. Where these be- long to the human species, and are developed upon a basis of inherited characteristics, and tend to pre- serve the life and the interests of the species, they may be called " instinctive." (5) T^/eo-mo^o/' movements are those that are excited by ideas arising in consciousness. In all our waking- states, if the idea of doing anything in particular is suggested to the mind, unless some check is fur- nished, the tendency at once arises to carry the idea out in the appropriate form of movement. Thus in various sports, or other complicated forms of mus- cular activity, in connection with trained habits of bodily movement, every idea is quickly folloAved by some corresponding deed. Very interesting also are (6) the imitative movements which occur so early in the life of the infant. One observer, for example, tells how a child of only fifteen weeks old was seen trying to " purse up " his lips Avhen this was done by some one else " close in front of him." And, finally, there are (7) voluntary movements, where we, with a fuller consciousness of what we wish to do, will that the movements shall occur (sometimes after no lit- tle deliberation, and sometimes in spite of certain strong considerations to the contrary, and with much feeling of effort). It should be borne in mind, however, that all these various kinds of movement are, as a matter of fact, more or less mingled together. Perfectly " pure " cases of either kind occur only, for the most part, in early life. For example, the same imitative move- WILL AND CHAEACTER 199 ments which are seen in infants, when performed by adults, are apt also to have behind them much of sympathetic ideas and feelings to account, in part, for their origin. Nature of Volition. — Those so-called " blind acts of will," or " mere conations," which account for many of the movements already described, become more and more displaced by acts of will that show intelli- gence and foresight. Such an act of will may then be called a "volition." A volition thus implies a certain development of will, and not of will alone (as though this were possible), but of all the connected conscious iDOwers of the mind. It may be defined as a definite conation (or conscious doing) directed toward realizing some end that is pictured before the mind, preceded or accompanied by a condition of desire, and usually accompanied or followed by a feeling of effort. All the different elements which enter into a voli- tion may vary somewhat indefinitely. For example, the mental picture of the end to be willed may be more or less definite ; and it may itself be held by an act of will for a longer or shorter time before the mind. More or less clearly, however, every volition is an act of will ichich knows what it wants. The period and the stress of desire may also vary greatly in dif- ferent volitions. Sometimes one wills a certain thing very coolly, and sometimes as springing from very warm wishes or intense wants. Nature of Deliberation One very peculiar and in- teresting feature varies greatly with different acts of 200 PKIMEE OF PSYCHOLOGY will. This is the amount of what is called " delib- eration." But deliberation is itself a mixture of intellect and will. For when one deliberates, one thinks over the consequences which past experience teaches are likely to follow from one's action ; and meantime one holds the decision in suspense, as it were. This very "holding in suspense" is itself, however, a volition ; or, rather, it is often a series of volitions that all have what is sometimes called an " inhibitory " character. Different persons habitually differ to no small degree in respect to the amount of deliberation which precedes their volitions. Hence we hear of reckless will, hasty will, excited will, cool will, reluctant will, etc. Hence, also, the will to delib- erate is itself a very important and influential form of will. Strong and reasonable will depends large- ly upon the character and issue of the deliberation which precedes the decision. Weakness of will may consist in " getting stuck fast " in one's feelings and emotions, and so deliberating indefinitely without any power to decide " for one's sell" In this con- nection, too, it may be noted that the will determines the ideas, feelings, and desires just as truly as they in- fluence the loill. Resolution of Deliberation. — The period of so-called deliberation must, of course, at some time come to an end. Its issue may be reached in any one of several different ways. Sometimes the volition seems to be the mere result of exhaustion ; we feel that we cannot keejD on deliberating any longer — we must do something, and the volition takes the WILL AND CHARACTER 201 line of least resistance at that very moment. We will to "let g-o," to "yield up," to "cease to try" finding out by deliberation what it is best to will. Sometimes, on the contrary, all our powers seem suddenly to rally and to break over the barriers ; then all at once we find, to our relief and joy, that we have already willed what only a short time ago seemed so impossible to us. Faculties Employed in Will. — Much confusion has been introduced into psychology by speaking as though "the will" were a sort of separate faculty that could be considered apart from the rest of men- tal life. On the contrary, some have insisted that it should be regarded as merely the expression of the stronger sensations, feelings, or desires. These states have been regarded as " inotives'' Avhich, by a sort of strength inherent in them and independent of our control, determine the will. Still other writers have seemed to hold that the will can be raised to a sort of god-like independence of all the other fac- ulties, and so can bend them to itself. The fact is that what is ordinarily called " willing " is an exceed- ingly complex affair, and involves no little develop- ment of all the faculties of the mind. In the higher sense of the words "to will," no one can will with- out employing intellect, memory, imagination, and thought — without setting before the conscious Self the particular end to be willed, or without the feeling being aroused to some extent in view of this pictured end. But it does not follow from this that what we indicate by " I will " is not a unique sort of thing in 202 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY the conscious life. On the contrary, it is plainly a different kind of phenomenon in consciousness from what is indicated by any terms which apply to the merely intellectual and emotional life. W/iat we loill is not only dependent upon what we think and vahat we wish, hut also what v^e think on what we wish and ivill. And that willing determines largely our feelings and desires has already been said. Nature of Choice.— The highest expression oi^will is reached when a choice is made. In order that all the mental factors which enter into a " mature" choice may be understood, it is necessary to separate in thought what is often very closely "huddled to- gether " in the actual life of the mind. In such a choice the following factors may be recognized : There is (1) the mental representation, or picturing before the mind, of two or more ends which are re- garded as dependent upon our action, and, generally, also of the means which will be necessary to realize these ends. (2) This is accompanied by some excite- ment of the feelings — the emotions, sentiments, and desires — as the " good " of these ends is considered by the mind. And since such processes of mental representation and feeling cannot all occur together in the conscious life, there is (3) deliberation, which involves some estimating of the relative value of the two or more ends, of the risks and pains or pleasures connected with their attainment ; and perhaps a sort of conflict of desires. Then, somehow, there follows (4) decision, or that adoption of an end as mine which corresponds to the words ''Zwill." And, finally, in WILL AND CHARACTER 203 case something" is to be done about it, there is the " letting go," or the " gripping on " of attention, to move the muscular apparatus and to conduct the train of thoughts and ideas. It is, however, in No. 4, in decision, or the " cutting slioH " of the process of delib- eration hy adoption of one of the several ends to he " mine,'' that the will expresses itself as the faculty dis- tinctive in all making of choices. Formation of Plans and Purposes. — Properly speak- ing, every volition, and especially every choice, is planf al or purposeful. Suppose, for example, that the pitcher of a base-ball wills to pitch it with the only one curve which he can make effective ; or he chooses, of two or three of his curves, the particular one which he thinks hardest for that particular bat- ter to hit. He accordingly uses his eyes and his muscles in a planful way — in a manner that is to carry out the purpose he has formed. His choice is the adoption of a plan. The same thing is true when I take a peach instead of an apple, to eat, from a plate of fruit ; or when I make up my mind to walk down street rather than to run for the street-car to the next corner. Indeed, all our waking life we are constantly forming and executing — generally with a fair meas- ure of success— a series of plans. The only thing for us, if we do not do this, is to " go it wild," and get no benefit from past experience. Indeed, it might with much truth be said that one cannot avoid acting in a planful way ; for many of these plans are bedded into the nervous and muscular 204 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY organism and into all the habits of thought and feeling ; so that it would be far more trouble to avoid following them than to adopt them. Execution of Plans and Purposes. — Different plans differ in the relations which they sustain to the will, with respect to their being " carried out," almost immeasurably. Some of them, as has just been in- dicated, are no sooner framed than they proceed to carry themselves out in an almost purely impul- sive way ; or by laying hold, as it were, on past hab- its of conduct. Thus it would be with a savage's plan to hit a particular one of the enemy with his poisoned arrow. Others have to be "backed up " through days and even years of waiting and working by continually repeated action of the will. Such are the plans, more or less intelligently adopted, which steady life and give it some sort of unity and dignity ; without which, indeed, life is carried and driven in contradictory directions by im- pulse and caprice, and so is made more animal than really human. Without such plans, no matter how choice and refined some of the sentiments may seem to be, there is no best living possible, and no really worthy character to be attained. Here again we see how will enters into all our experience ; instead of being merely the dependent result of the emotions, sentiments, and desires, it rather also shapes and gives character to the emotions, sentiments, and de- sires. To have some relatively low and unworthy plan in living is, indeed, better than to have all our consciousness and conduct ruled by impulse and ca- WILL AND CHARACTEK 205 price. There is always a certain dignity belonging to one who can declare, with a character of Brown- ing's : " I have subdued my life to the one purpose Whereto I ordained it ; " or, again : " I have made my life consist of one idea." Freedom of Will. — It by no means belongs to the science of psychology thoroughly to discuss the question whether the will is free or not. The thor- ough discussion of this question belongs to philos- ophy, and is connected with a number of the most abstruse philosophical problems. But without doubt the whole problem of " free will " arises in certain conscious states, which psychology must take ac- count of, since this science describes and, as far as possible, explains all states of consciousness, as such. Certain peculiar states, when looked at from the point of view of the " / will " that is in them, may be called the " consciousness of freedom." In such states the following particulars are to be noticed : (1) In willing, in the highest form of deliberate choice or planning, the consciousness of self-activity is most pronounced. Such deeds of will I regard as, in a peculiar sense of the words, " my own." I can, in some sort, deny or reject my emotions and de- sires as having surprised and overcome me ; the stronger they are, the more passive /appear before them. So, too, the clearer and more complete my 206 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY ideas and thoughts become, the more do they seem to have the character which fits them to be consid- ered as thoughts necessary to others also. But it is /, and / alone, that will ; and on my deliberate choices and plans my Self stamps itself with a pe- culiar signature. (2) That consciousness which is fitly expressed by such words as " I can " accompanies all genuine deeds of will, in their highest form. When I stand before the choice and contemplate it as about^to be made, my conviction Avith reference to it is irresist- ible: '' I know I cany And when I stand and look behind upon the choice as already made, and feel moral approbation or moral shame, I have the con- viction *'I could have not," although I did ; or "I could have," although I did not. The conviction of ability, or power in choosing is a part of the " con- sciousness of freedom ; " and about its existence and immense significance there can be no manner of doubt. (3) The two preceding phases of conscious- ness may go with every form of mental life. Thus I T[idi.j freely remember, freely imagine, freely think, freely feel either joy or suffering, love or hate, and every form of sentiment from bodily fear to rever- ence for God. For, to a certain extent. Will may enter into them all and make them my ovm — mani- festations of my power of self-control. In con- nection with such conscious states arise (4) the thought and feeling of '' imputability " or " respon- sibility." And here the ethical sentiments, to which reference has already been made, come strongly WILL AT^D CHARACTER 207 into play. Since I " impute " the deed of will to myself, feel that 7, and I only, am " responsible " for it, my moral self - approbation or disapprobation seems to me " reasonable ; " whereas, otherwise, it would not. It is interesting" to notice that all attempts, made by those who deny the freedom of the will, to break the force of these undoubted facts of consciousness, really have no meaning themselves unless we admit the force of the facts. It is sometimes argued as though ignorance of the motives which determine the will were the source of the conviction, " I can," or " I could." But, on the contrary, no arg'ument would ever arise as to Jiovj this conviction were caused, were it not for the positive and unique char- acter of the conviction itself. To try to explain the consciousness " I can " by ignorance as to why " I do " is simply absurd. Dogs do not think of them- selves as not free ; because the whole consciousness out of which the conception arises of being free and not being- free is quite foreign to them. So, too, whenever we " excuse " ourselves for some form of conduct because of the suddenness of our emotion or the stress of our desires, the very excuse is meaning- less unless we admit the consciousness of freedom as something with which this experience is partly, or wholly, in contrast. The Conception of Character. — The word " character " is very frequently used in both a wider and also a narrower meaning". Sometimes it stands for the sum-total of all the peculiarities belonging to an in- 208 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY dividual, includinsf all that comes — more strictly- speaking — under "disposition," " temperament," etc., as well as the habits formed by exercise of self-con- trol. But, in the narrower and more precise mean- ing" of the word, character may be defined as being the self-formed habits of will. It is the " stamp " that we give to ourselves by habitually choosing and holding fast to certain ends. Of course, it is practically impossible to separate wholly between a person's "nature" or "natural disposition,"'~as Ave say, and the same person's " character." For from the very first, and more and more as the acquiring of experience and the development of mental life goes on, this natural disposition is moulded, not only by circumstances, but also by the way in which we take, seize, appropriate, and use the circumstances by responsive choices, plans, and, in general, deeds of will. All the while, then, we are both "being stamped," and " stamioing " ourselves ; and the stamp of character which results is, therefore, due to a ceaseless mixture of the two. Development of Character.— It is plainly impossible to live and to avoid the formation of character. As we shall see in the next chapter, the great ruling principles under which all mental life falls tend constantly to settle and solidify the whole. Even unreasoning caprice and impulse, constantly in- dulged in, work themselves into the structure of character. And so we come to use that strange and yet most impressive term, a " capricious character " — a " stamped " form of the individual mental life. WILL AND CHARACTER 209 that bears the stamp of being- (contrary to the very conception of a " stamp ") not settled or fixed or to be depended upon in any particular. Yet this is really not inconsistent with the old Stoic conception, that settled character is " always to will the same and nil the same ; " or the other saying, that " char- acter is a habit of doin^, not which has the Self, but which the Self is'' For the develo2wient of mental life into some fixed and settled form of character neces- sarily residts from the continued existence of this life. We cannot live luithout acquiring character, 14 CHAPTEE XIII TEMPEEAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT Childken sometimes amuse themselves in the vain effort to find two individual things which are pre- cisely alike ; such as, for example, two blades of striped grass or two leaves of clover. But no two precisely similar individuals in nature are ever to be found. And what is true of such comparatively in- significant natural objects is even more true of the bodies of individual men. Strangers frequently have great difficulty in telling twins apart, and the mem- bers of other races are apt to seem to travellers in foreign countries much more nearly alike than are the members of their own race. But, certainly, two adult human bodies never existed in which careful observation would not reveal many differences. What is true of the developed human body is also true of the human mind. Every " stream of con- sciousness " runs its own course ; and the character of the individual states which compose the stream, as well as the order of their succession, differs from the character and order of every other. No two minds ever developed precisely alike. While all this is true, however, it is also true that some individuals are in mental disposition and char- acter much more alike than are individuals taken at TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 211 random from the wliole community. To say the same thing in another way, individual minds may be g-rouped together into classes, so that those well within each class are more alike than are those be- longing to any two different classes. And the basis of the classification may be differently chosen ; it may be age, or sex, or what we are accustomed to call " temperament." Doctrine of Temperament By a temperament we understand any marhed type of mental constitution and development which seems due to inherited character- istics of the hodily organism. The doctrine of tem- peraments is very old indeed, very vague, in spite of all efforts to render it definite and scientific, and yet very firmly fixed, not only in the popular belief, but also in the opinion of competent observers. There are certain somewhat plainly marked types of minds. In the speed and sensitiveness of mental reaction to sensory stimulus ; in the speed and com- pleteness with which the ideas are reproduced, and in the rapidity of their combination as well as the man- ner in which they tend to combine ; in insight into situations and quickness of decision ; in various forms of artistic, moral, and religious susceptibility — dif- ferent individuals vary greatly. Such variation can- not all be accounted for as due to circumstances or to education. Some of it plainly belongs to what comes over from the parentage and belongs to the child at the beginning ; that is, some of it is hereditary. That part of it which is hereditary must of course depend upon the character of that which is actually in- 212 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY lierited; and tliis is tlie constitution of the bodily organism. In understanding the doctrine of temperaments, however, it should be remembered that perfectly plain and pure " types " corresponding to any par- ticular temperament are comparatively rare. Most individuals are "mixtures" of different types. It may also be explained that age, sex, and acquired character so blend with temperament as to make the whole matter more complicated. A " sentimeHtal " woman differs from a sentimental man ; a " choleric " child from a choleric man ; and a " phlegmatic " good man may scarcely seem at all like a phleg- matic criminal. Different races, too, while they comprise, each one, all the temperaments, may have a sort of predominating temperament belonging to the race. The Japanese people, for example, are un- doubtedly of a prevailing sentimental temperament. Kinds of Temperament. — Curiously enough, wit^ all the difference of view about temperaments, four kinds have been pretty generally recognized. Of these the three most clearly established are the san- guine, the choleric, and the phlegmatic. There is still another kind of temperament, the characteris- tics of which are not quite so clearly marked and for which different names have been chosen. We shall call it by the term which Lotze gave to it ; and we have already spoken of it as the " sentimental tem- perament." A largely similar type of mental consti- tution has sometimes been called the " melancholic temperament ; " but this name is less fitting. TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 213 A man or woman of a marked sanguine tempera- ment is subject to lively and varied excitability and rapid change ; but, in general, without much depth or stability. This is the temperament of child- hood and of childish men and women. It has many but short-lived friendships, quick but easily disap- pointed hopes and other forms of emotion. The ideas and thoughts run and sparkle and change ; but are not so apt to be bedded in well-considered reasons or adopted by the action of a steadfast will. The cJioleric person may be less quick and varied in reactions ; but the reactions are more enduring, passionate, and determined, and the conduct as well as the states of consciousness less subject to change. This is the man's temperament : the one that belongs to strength and to middle life and to the successful in life's hardest battles. The phleginatic tempera- ment is comparatively sluggish in mental changes and bodily movements ; it is the opposite of lively and versatile, although it may be either tenacious or weak in respect of will. We have all also noticed certain persons who are perhaps among the most interesting, who are lively in imagination, susceptible to very delicate impres- sions of sense and to every form of feeling. But they are moody in feeling, indifferent to present practical issues, and uncertain in conduct. They get stuck fast in their own sentiments and cannot act ; or else they act impulsively, and then suffer a collapse of will. They have the poetic or artistic — the so-called sentimental— ieTd^QYO^mQini. But with- 214 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY out a mixture of some other form of temperament, or without very favorable circumstances and associa- tions to stimulate and support them, they seldom accomplish much in j)oetry or in any form of art ; while in practical affairs they are likely to be quite unsuccessful. Basis of Temperament. — The words used for the different main temperaments show what was for- merly thought as to the physical causes of the tem- peraments. Thus the " choleric " temperament was supposed to be due to excess of " bile," the " san- guine" to fulness of "blood," the "phlegmatic" to a large amount of " phlegm," and the " melancholic " to " black bile." We know now that these particular views are whimsical and quite without warrant, but we do not know what are the precise characteristics of the constitution of the body in which the causes for these differences of temperament are really to be found. The sensitiveness to stimulus of the different organs of sense, the composition of the blood, the character of the processes of digestion and secretion, etc., are probably among the principal of these bodily causes. Difference of the Sexes. — The doctrine of the dif- ferences which exist between males and females of the human species, so far as any such doctrine can be formed, is very similar to that of the tem- peraments. Here, too, it is quite impossible in many cases to tell how much is, strictly speaking, natural and unchangeable ; how much is due to so- cial habits and changeable products of civilization. TEMPEEAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 215 Moreover, the whole question is just now being discussed with such an amount of heat and preju- dice that the scientific spirit is difficult indeed to find among- the disputants. The physical differences of the average male and female, at the various ages of life, have been some- what carefully measured in a large number of in- stances. They show that the curve which indicates the growth of the two differs, and that the relative proportion of the different members of the body is not the same. The length of the arms and legs, for example, in the male is greater ; the centre of gravity is higher, the step is longer. In the nervous and muscular systems there are even more marked .dif- ferences. The average weight of the brain of the adult male is to that of the female as about 1.424 to 1.272. There appears also to be a difference in the very earliest development of the convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres, and of the balance of the parts — the growth of the male's brain in front of the central fissure being proiDortionately greater. The pulse of the female is quicker ; the blood is less in quantity, of lighter specific gravity, and contains fewer red corpuscles. She is more inclined to spas- modic and cramping action of the muscles, to sud- den and incalculable secretions, to wide-spreading and somewhat chaotic excitements of the nervous system. There is just as little doubt that mental — and more particularly emotional — differences correspond to the physical differences which have just been pointed 216 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY out. This may almost be said to follow as a matter of course when we consider that the muscles are the organ of will ; that the bodily feelings enter so largely into our very consciousness of Self ; that discrimination, judgment, and all the more elaborate processes of thought are so inevitably influenced by the emotions and practical activities ; and that the points of view and the feelings peculiar to sex enter into and influence the entire social and even the moral and religious life. Effect of Age and Race.— It has already been said (p. 214), that the influence of temperament is modi- fied by the age of the individual and that, conversely, each age has a sort of temperament peculiar to it. Thus the sanguine and sentimental temperaments belong to childhood and youth, the choleric to middle life — especially to manhood — and the phleg- matic to old age. In the development of mental life, the acquirement of a use of the senses, and of the knowledge which comes more immediately through them, is first in order. But these, as there has been abundant reason to recognize (comiDare pp. 142ff.), involve a certain amount of discrimination, of judg- ment, and even of making quick and almost instinct- ive inferences. Certain primary forms of feeling also accompany the earliest use of the senses and of the intellect in gaining an acquaintance with the infant's own body and with surrounding things. Meanwhile, will is being constantly aroused and developed in the direction of attention for the control of the muscular apparatus and of the " field of consciousness." TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 217 It is highly probable that the start and first growth of human mental life, as a matter of sen- sations chiefly, come before the birth of the infant. Sensations of pressure, of motion, and of tempera- ture may very likely arise at this period. AVith in- fants born prematurely there is evidence to show that they taste sugar or quinine when it is put into the' mouth, and that certain odors produce agreeable or disagreeable sensations. All newly born children are deaf, because of a mass of tissue which fills the middle ear. The eyes of the infant very early begin to move in an associated and coordinated way ; al- though probably not until several days after birth, in most cases. The skin has at first little or no per- ceptive power, and the muscles are undeveloped ; but the brain and the organs of sense ajppear to be far in advance of the mental development which would seem to be needed to correspond. The psychology of the different races of men (" eth- nic psychology ") is an exceedingly interesting field of research. It will have, hoAvever, to be cultivated more by trained psychologists rather than by mere biologists, in order to yield any fruits of much value. On the other hand, the student already familiar with general psychology, as studied in the modern method, finds in the examination of the conscious- ness of men of different races a large amount of illustrative material that is instructive. What is called " anthropology," as studied without this care- ful preparation of acquaintance with modern scien- tific psychology, is of little value in throwing light 218 PRIMEIl OF PSYCHOLOGY on the real development of man's mental life. It is rather a miscellaneous collection of statistics and antiquarian relics, from which few or no principles can safely be derived. General Principles of Mental Life. — We certainly cannot talk of known " laws " controlling the action and life of the mind, as the " law of gravity " con- trols the behavior of masses of matter toward each other in space, or the " law of equivalency " controls the chemical union of the atoms of the different material elements known to modern chemistry. All pretence of such knowledge in psychology is mere pretence; and if 52icA knowledge is necessary, in order to a " science " of the mental life, then no science of psychology exists. For ourselves, we are quite willing to go further, and to affirm that no such laws will ever be discovered ; and that no science of mind comparable to mathematical astronomy or to mathe- matical chemistry will ever exist. This we believe to be true for the very good reason that we cannot speak correctly of " laws controlling " in the realm of mind with the same meaning which we are war- ranted in applying to the term when speaking of material masses and atoms. The discussion of this question, however, would take us quite beyond our present purpose, over into the fields of philosophy. Certain general principles of all mental life may, however, be announced in the sense th^t all the ac- tion and growth of the so-called faculties suggests and confirms generalizations which have to do with all men — vague types of behavior, to which the TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 219 mental life of every individual conforms, because it is indeed a human mental life. If it were our in- tention to enter upon this subject thoroughly, it would be necessary to point out what these uni- versal forms of behavior are, and how they may be recog-nized and proved as actually belonging- to the life of the mind. And here the question might be discussed: what is meant by saying, for example, that all things exist in " space " and in " time ; " but that space is not to be affirmed of the existence of 7nind ; while time most certainly belongs, in the forms of " duration " and " succession," to all men- tal life. Then the question might also be raised as to the origin and nature of what is customarily' called " casual influence " — whence is got the conceiDtion of cause, and what the word " cause " really means. Still further, if the activity of the intellect in rea- soning were searched to the bottom, then the effort might be made to know more about the origin and meaning of the " principle of sufficient reason " (al- ready s]3oken of), and of the " principle of identity ; " and, possibly, also of the fundamental logical prin- ciples. To perform this work, however, we shall not at- tempt. Our very brief surface explorations in the region of mental phenomena will be concluded by calling attention to the following four principles which must be recognized as present in all the de- velopment of mind. The Principle of Continuity.— A review of what has been seen to be true at every stage of our investi- 220 PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY gation shows that, when the mental life is regarded as a lohole, no breaks or sudden leaps are found, whether as hetween its faculties or their elements ; or as hetween the successive different states and stages of its develop- ment. To say this is almost the same thing as to say that the mental life is a true " development." For some kind of pretty strict " continuity" is necessary to all development ; although in organic growth, as in the growth of the mind, certain epochs and pe- riods of marked and relatively sudden change are to be observed. The principle of continuity applies, however, to the mind with peculiar force. Because what are called "elements," "faculties," "states," " stage's," etc., have no existence whatever apart from that continuously flowing life-movement, whose sub- ject is called "the Mind." To illustrate this principle, one might refer to nearly everything which has thus far been said regarding the mental activities. For example, it was found that the almost infinite variety of sensa- tions belonging to some of the senses — such as col- ors, sensations of musical sound, of temperature, and of pressure — can be arranged in continuous series or scales where shades of quality and de- grees of intensity merge into each other. The so- called sensations are, in all actual experience, " woven together " into a sort of continuous texture. This is true, for instance, of tastes and smells, of sensations of touch and muscular sensations, and even of sensations of color and muscular sensations. The same principle applies to the so-called faculties ; TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 221 for many sensations cannot be distinguished from mental imag'es or ideas ; and among ideas those which belong to memory and those which belong to imagination often cannot be distinguished. Just where mental images become conceptions and where the lines are drawn between the recognition of per- ception and true acts of reasoning cannot easily be discerned. And although we cannot shade into each other, by a continuous gradation, the different activ- ities belonging to the three faculties of intellect, feeling, and will, we do find that they are always continuously joined and blended ; and that it is by no means easy always to know to which of these three faculties certain particular states of conscious- ness should be assigned. Principle of Relativity.— This principle is very closely connected with the principle of continuity. No element, or state, or faculty of the mental life can be considered, in a way to correspond to the facts and to the reality of that life, without taking other elements, states, and faculties into the account. Or, every individual element^ or state, or form of ^mental life is what it is only as relative to other elements, states, and forms of mental life. This principle, too, admits of almost indefinite illustration. Sensations, for example, have no absolute quality or amount, in- dependent of the preceding expectation, of the con- ditions of attention under which they arise in con- sciousness, and of the quality and amount of preced- ing and simultaneous sensations of the same sense or of other senses. A most curious illustration of the 222 PBIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY force of this principle was obtained in the experi- ments to which reference has already been made (p. 146). No one, child or adult, was able io feel the weight of a certain small cylinder to be equal to a certain larger cylinder, although the two were exactly the same. In many instances the former was felt to be twice (or even more) as heavy as the latter ; the reason plainly being that the feeling of the weight was relative to the influence of expectation first in- duced by sight, and then so corrected by experience as to throw the judgment over to the other extreme. The Principle of Solidarity — The development of the mental life tends, in a very unique and impressive way, toward a sort of consolidation, or self-organ- izing, as it were. For it is a principle of this life, that every activity, whether partial or more general, influences the entire development ; and that thus this develop'tnent tends toward some unification of residt. Here it is that the formation of habits becomes of such immense importance. The principle of habit belongs both to body and to mind ; it also belongs to every organ, and even to every tissue of the body, and to every faculty of the mind. Especially are the nervous system and the brain brought under the in- fluence of this principle. A person with a sensitive brain can scarcely wake up two nights in succession at the same hour without finding a tendency de- veloping to wake again and again at the same hour. Let a man be lamed for some time so that he cannot without pain bring his foot down squarely when as- cending a pair of stairs, and the chances are that the TEMPERAMENT AND DEVELOPMENT 223 habitual swing of that leg in ascending a pair of stairs will remain changed during the remainder of his life. In infancy and youth both body and mind are relatively very impressible and susceptible to the formation of new habits. This fact is connected with the entire character of the tissues and of their rate of repair and destruction. But with advancing age an actual physical consolidation takes place. The tissues become less mouldable, less impressible to new influences, etc. Something similar is un- doubtedly a principle of the mental life. In those persons also where susceptibility to change, caprice, and perversity of thought, of feeling, and of conduct rule most, the principle still holds. Here, too, the very capriciousness, the action that is without recog- nized rational motive and intelligent control of the will, "solidifies itself." For every mind's life inust tend toward some kind of unity ; and this is what was seen to be true when the formation of character was discussed (p. 208f.). Principle of Final Purpose — Finally, activity to some purpose, or end, is a principle of mental development. In the bodily structure and development the prin- ciple of final purpose is recognizable throughout. The behavior of the spinal cord of a frog, when it has been severed from the brain, illustrates this principle. And although the newly born infant puts forth many movements which appear, at first sight, to serve no purpose (" random automatic move- ments "), still a profounder view shows how even 224 PRIMEE OF PSYCHOLOGY these serve tlie end of giving- it the intelligent mas- tery of its own mechanism for the subsequent attain- ment of ends consciously recog-nized and adopted. But this principle is no less powerful and universal in the development of the mind. On the occurrence of every sensation the tendency is to put the motor apparatus to working in a manner directed to some appropriate end. Ideas have a sort of structure, so to speak, and thereby serve the pur^Doses of being guides to thought and conduct, as the sensations from which they originate could not possibly be. Every process of reasoning is a movement of the stream of consciousness in a direction toward some end. The concluding judgment is " drawn " on " account of " some other judgment, and so as itself to serve for a guide to conduct or to some still further process of reasoning. This i3rinciple works, as do indeed all the other principles of mental life, largely below the con- sciousness, as it were. The work is much of it — so it would seem — done for us rather than hy us with an intelligent and conscious adoption of the end to be reached. But tfie true and higher development is attained only as matters are more thoroughly put into our own hands. He who knows himself, who plans his own life, who takes himself in hand to carry out that plan, and who selects such a plan as will worthily dominate and control all the mental facul- ties — he it is who is most entitled to be called a true Soul, or Mind. A planless mental life is scarcely worthy to be called a genuine mental life. THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS OF George Trumbull Ladd Professor of Philosophy in Yale University Primer of Psychology. By GEORGE TRUHBULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. i2nio, 75 cents net. This work is in no sense a condensation of any larger work, but has been prepared by the author expressly for the use of elementary classes in schools and colleges. The need for such a book has been great, and coming as it does from the mas- terly hand of this eminent author, its value will be at once recognized. Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory. A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Development of Human Mental Life. By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD, Professor of Phil= osophy in Yale University. 8vo, $4.50. The book is designed to cover the entire ground of descrip- tive and explanatory psychology in a summary way, reserving speculative discussion and the philosophy of mind for another volume. It is carefully adapted to the needs of pupils and teachers, while not exclusively prepared for them. The point of view taken leads the author into an analysis of all the mental processes, but especially into the endeavor to trace the development of mental life, the formation and growth of so-called "faculty," and the attainment of knowledge and of character. " I know of no other work that gives so good a critical survey of the whole field as this."— Prof. B. P. Bowne, Boston University. " Any writing of his is a matter to be grateful for. This book will largely increase our debt," — Prof. G. H. Palmer, Harvard University. Elements of Physiological Psychology. A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind from the Physical and Experimental Point of View. By GEORGE TRUM= BULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo, $4.50. This is the first treatise that has attempted to present to English readers a discussion of the whole subject brought down to the most recent times. It includes the latest discoveries, and by numerous and excellent illustrations and tables and by- gathering material from scores and even hundreds of separate treatises inaccessible to most persons it brings before the reader in a compact and yet lucid form the entire subject. The work has three principal divisions of which th^first consists of a description of the structure and functions of the Nervous System considered simply under the conception of mechanism without reference to the phenomena of conscious- ness. The second part describes the various classes of corre- lations which exist between the phenomena of the nervous mechanism and mental phenomena, with an attempt to state what is known of the laws which maintain themselves over these various classes. The third part introduces, at the close of these researches, the presentation of such conclusions as may be legitimately gathered or more speculatively inferred concerning the nature of the human mind, " Professor Ladd deserves warm thanks for undertaking the preparation of such a work." — Mind. " He writes at once as a scientist bent on gaining the fullest and clearest insight into the phenomena of mind, and as a metaphysician deeply concerned with the sublime question of the nature of the spiritual substance." — Jamks Sully in The Academy. "Well written, in excellent tone and temper, in clear, even style, free from needless technicalities, and with due regard to the necessary difference be- tween mere speculation or surmises and established facts." — New York Times. " This admirable work by Professor Ladd deserves a hearty welcome from the English public as the first book of sufficient extent of subject matter and depth of thought to take the place in American and English literature that has been held since 1874 in both Germany and France by Wundt's ' Griindszuge der Physiologischen Psychologic.' " — Westminster Review. "His erudition and his broad-mindedness are on a par with each other; and his volume will probably, for many years to come, be the standard work of reference on the subject." — Prof. William James in The Nation. Outlines of Physiological Psychology. A Text=book of flental Science for Academies and Colleges. By GEORGE TRUHBULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. Crown 8vo, $2.00. The volume is not an abridgment or revision of the larger book, Elements of Physiological Psychology, which is still to be preferred for mature students, but, like it, surveys the entire field, though with less details and references that might embar- rass beginners. Briefer discussions of the nervous mechanism, and of the nature of the mind as related to the body, will be found in the " Outlines " ; while the treatment of relations existing between excited organs and mental phenomena offers much new material, especially on "Consciousness," " Memory," and "Will." Later chapters, considering mind and body as dependent upon differences of age, sex, race, etc., and giving conclusions as to the nature of the mind and as to its connection with the bodily organism, reward the student who masters this book. The author aims to furnish a complete yet correct text-book for the brief study of mental phenomena from the experimental and physiological point of view. Both pupil and teacher have been considered, that the book may be readily learned and successfully taught. " I think it an honor to American science and scholarship that the best English books on physiological psychology should come from an American university." — ^J. McK. Cattell, University of Pennsylvania. " As an introduction to the study of physiological psychology it is abso- lutely without a rival." — H. N. Gardiner, Smith College. " For its purpose there is not a better text-book in the language." — The Nation. " The account he gives is a succinct and clear digest of the subject, and the illustrations leave nothing to be desired." — The British Medical Journal. " An important contribution to the experimental and physiological study of mental phenomena." — Glasgow Herald. " Professor Ladd, in giving to the world his ' Outlines of Physiological Psychology,' has reared a monument that marks a decided advance in the American literature of physiological philosophy. It will be a standard work." — Boston Times. "For lucidity of statement and comprehensiveness of treatment within moderate limits, Professor Ladd's 'Outlines' is, we believe, unsurpassed." — Educational Journal of Canada. Introduction to Philosophy. An Inquiry after a Rational System of Scientific Principles in their Relation to Ultimate Reality. By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo, $3.00. The hope of the author, as expressed in the Preface and incorporated in the title, is that this book may serve to "introduce" some of its readers to the study of philosophy. Among those for whom it is intended may be first men- tioned the young in the later years of our higher educational institutions. It is, however, not a technical book for instruc- tion, such being, in the opinion of the author, unbecoming a study of problems which invite reflection and end in opinion. But there are others who share in the general pursuit after a knowledge of philosophical questions. None who are thought- ful escape the mysteries of which life itself is made up, and to all earnest inquirers the book appeals especially. The language has been simplified to the utmost, though the questions are of such nature that new terms and unfamiliar language sometimes occur of necessity, yet all is found to be intelligible and clearly stated. Finally it may be said that the author has not left himself entirely concealed in the treatment of the subject. He modestly makes the confession that his own views, to an extent positive as well as critical, appear in the pages, and to the public this makes the book of double value and interest. CONTENTS: The Source of Philosophy and its Problems — Relation of Philosophy to the Particular Sciences — Psychology and Philosophy — The Spirit and the Method of Philosophy— Dogmatism, Skepticism, and Criticism — The Divisions of Philosophy— The Theory of Knowledge — Metaphysics — Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind — Ethics — Esthetics — Philosophy of Religion — Tendencies and Schools in Philosophy. " The study of his book will be a discipline in shrewd and portrayed rea- soning, and open up a world of ideas that will add scope and enjoyment to the student's mind. We give it our unqualified endorsement." — The Quarterly Review. " In all its aspects we are sure Professor Ladd's work will be welcomed." — Herald and Presbyter. "The entire discussion is fresh, candid, and able. It is not only an intro- duction, it is also a contribution to philosophy." — Post-Graduate Wooster Quarterly^ CHARLPS SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 153=157 Fifth Avenue, New York. 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