Psychology: an Elementary Text-Book

Section 2. Section 4 of the Original Has Been Omitted, Since Its

contents seemed to be sufficiently emphasized in the other sections of the book. The numbers of the following sections differ, therefore, from those of the German text. The translator regards this as insignificant, since his intention is not to aid his brother-psychologists in making themselves acquainted with Ebbinghaus’s views,--for this end they are referred to the German original,--but to furnish an elementary text-book for the English-speaking student. Wherever there was any doubt as to the comprehensibility to the American student of any application or illustration of the laws discussed by the author, the translator has unhesitatingly sacrificed the interest of the professional psychologist to that of the beginner-student. In a few places he has made slight additions to the original; for instance, figures 7, 8, and 9 are his own property. But he has decided to abstain from enumerating all changes, since this would be of interest only to the professional psychologist. In no case are his additions opposed to the author’s views.

The questions added to each section are not exercises to be worked out by the student or puzzles to be solved by the general reader. They are intended to serve as an aid to the intelligent perusal of the book, by directing the reader’s attention to the essential contents of each section.

M. M.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY 3

CHAPTER I. General Psychology

GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

§ 1. BRAIN AND MIND 27

§ 2. THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 30 1. The Elements of the Nervous System 30 2. The Architecture of the Nervous System 34 3. The Anatomy of the Nervous System 38 4. The Nervous System and Consciousness 41

§ 3. EXPLANATION OF THE FUNCTIONAL RELATION BETWEEN BRAIN AND MIND 43 1. The Brain a Tool of the Mind 44 2. The Brain an Objectified Conception of the Mind 47

CHAPTER II. The Special Facts of Consciousness

THE SPECIAL FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

A. The Elements of Mental Life

§ 4. SENSATION 50 1. The Newly Discovered Kinds of Sensation 50 2. The Other Sensations 57 3. Temporal and Spatial Attributes 65 4. Sensation and Stimulus 69

§ 5. IMAGINATION 78

§ 6. FEELING 81

§ 7. WILLING 85

B. The Fundamental Laws of Mental Life

§ 8. ATTENTION 87

§ 9. MEMORY 93

§ 10. PRACTICE 99

§ 11. FATIGUE 102

C. The Expressions of Mental Life

§ 12. PERCEPTION AND MOVEMENT 105

§ 13. THOUGHT AND MOVEMENT 108

CHAPTER III. Complications of Mental Life

COMPLICATIONS OF MENTAL LIFE

A. The Intellect

§ 14. PERCEPTION 114

1. Characteristics of Perception 114 2. Illusions 120

§ 15. IDEATION 123

§ 16. LANGUAGE 128

1. Word Imagery 128 2. The Acquisition of Speech 130 3. The Growth of Language 135 4. The Significance of Language 139

§ 17. JUDGMENT AND REASON 142

1. Coherent Thought 142 2. The Self and the World 145 3. Intelligence 148

§ 18. BELIEF 152

B. Affection and Conduct

§ 19. COMPLICATIONS OF FEELING 162

1. Feeling Dependent on Form and Content 162 2. Feeling Dependent on Association of Ideas 164 3. Irradiation of Feeling 167

§ 20. EMOTIONS 168

§ 21. COMPLICATIONS OF WILLING 173

§ 22. FREEDOM OF CONDUCT 176

CHAPTER IV. Highest Accomplishments of Consciousness

HIGHEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

§ 23. EVILS OF KNOWLEDGE 183

§ 24. RELIGION 189

§ 25. ART 196

§ 26. MORALITY 204

CONCLUSION 210

INDEX 213

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Multipolar Cell Body 30

Pyramidal Cell Body 31

Dendrites of a Nerve Cell of the Cerebellum 31

Various Types of Cell Bodies 32

Longitudinal Section of a Nerve Fiber with Stained Fibrils 32

Terminal Arborization of Optical Nerve Fibers 33

Diagram of Nervous Architecture: Reflex Arches connected by a Low Nerve Center 36

Diagram of Nervous Architecture: Lower Nerve Centers connected by a Higher Center 36

Diagram of Nervous Architecture: Higher Nerve Centers connected by a Still Higher Center 37

Frontal Section of the Right Cerebral Hemisphere 39

Sections of the Cerebral Cortex 40

Localization of Peripheral Functions in the Cerebral Cortex 41

Color Pyramid 59

“A Burnt Child fears the Fire” 111

Two Possibilities of Perception 120

Varieties of Perception 121

Visual and Kinesthetic Control of Voluntary Action: the Former

Intact, the Latter Lost 175

PSYCHOLOGY

AN ELEMENTARY TEXT-BOOK

PSYCHOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology has a long past, yet its real history is short. For thousands of years it has existed and has been growing older; but in the earlier part of this period it cannot boast of any continuous progress toward a riper and richer development. In the fourth century before our era that giant thinker, Aristotle, built it up into an edifice comparing very favorably with any other science of that time. But this edifice stood without undergoing any noteworthy changes or extensions, well into the eighteenth or even the nineteenth century. Only in recent times do we find an advance, at first slow but later increasing in rapidity, in the development of psychology.

The general causes which checked the progress of this science and thus made it fall behind the others can readily be stated:--

“The boundaries of the Soul you cannot find, though you pace off all its streets, so deep a foundation has it,” runs a sentence of Heraclitus, and it hits the truth more fully than its author could ever have expected. The structures and functions of our mental life present the greatest difficulties to scientific investigation, greater even than those presented by the phenomena, in many respects similar, of the bodily life of the higher organisms. These structures and processes change so unceasingly, are so fleeting, so enormously complex, and dependent on so many factors hidden yet undoubtedly influential, that it is difficult even to seize upon them and describe their true substance, still more difficult to gain an insight into their causal connections and to understand their significance. We are just now beginning to recognize the full force of these difficulties. Wherever in recent years research in any of the many branches of psychology has made any considerable advance,--as in vision, audition, memory, judgment,--the first conclusion reached by all investigators has been, that matters are incomparably finer and richer and fuller of meaning than even a keen fancy would previously have been able to imagine.

There is, besides, a second obstacle. However difficult it may be to investigate the nature and causal connections of mental phenomena, everybody has a superficial knowledge of their external manifestations. Long before these phenomena were considered scientifically, it was necessary for practical human intercourse and for the understanding of human character, that language should give names to the most important mental complexes occurring in the various situations of daily life, such as judgment, attention, imagination, passion, conscience, and so forth; and we are constantly using these names as if everybody understood them perfectly. What is customary and commonplace comes to be self-evident to us and is quietly accepted; it arouses no wonder at its strangeness, no curiosity which might lead us to examine it more closely. Popular psychology remains unconscious of the fact that there are mysteries and problems in these complexes. It loses sight of the complications because of the simplicity of the names. When it has arranged the mental phenomena in any particular case under the familiar designations, and has perhaps said that some one has “paid attention,” or has “given free rein to his imagination,” it considers the whole matter explained and the subject closed.

Still a third condition has retarded the advance of psychology, and will probably long continue to do so. Toward some of its weightiest problems it is almost impossible for us to be open-minded; we take too much practical interest in arriving at one answer rather than the other. King Frederick William I was not the only person who could be persuaded of the danger of the doctrine that every mental condition is governed by fixed law, and that in consequence all of our actions are fully determined--a doctrine fundamental to serious psychological research. He believed that such a teaching undermined the foundations of order in state and army, and that according to it he would no longer be justified in punishing deserters from his tall grenadiers. There are even to-day numerous thinkers who brand such a doctrine dangerous. They believe that it destroys all possibility of punishment and reward, makes all education, admonition, and advice meaningless, paralyzes our action, and must because of all these consequences be rejected.

In a similar way the discussion of other fundamental questions, such as the real nature of mind, the relation of mind and body in life and death, becomes prejudiced and confused on account of their connection with the deepest-rooted sentiments and longings of the human race. In recent years this has been the case especially in connection with the question of the evolution of mental life from its lower forms in the animals to its higher in man. What ought to be taught and investigated on its own merits as pure scientific theory, as the probable meaning of experienced facts, comes to be a matter of belief and good character, or is considered a sign of courageous independence of spirit and superiority to superstition and traditional prejudice. All of this is quite comprehensible when we consider the enormous practical importance of the questions at issue. Yet such an attitude will scarcely be of much help in finding answers most correct from a purely objective standpoint; it rather discourages the advance of research along definite lines.

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