Psychology, the study of behaviour

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No. 41

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HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A.
F*OP. GILBERT MURRAY, LiTT.D.,

LL.D., F.B.A.

P«OF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A.
PKOF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.

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will be found at the back of this book.

PSYCHOLOGY

THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR

BY

WILLIAM McDOUGALL, M.B.

READER IN MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE

COPYRIGHT, 191*,

BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

i

/H33

PREFACE

WHAT is psychology? With what is it con-
cerned ? What are the questions it seeks to
answer ? How is it setting about its task? What
are its methods ? What progress has it made ?
Is it a science in an advanced stage of develop-
ment ? Or is it one merely beginning to find its
feet, to take definite shape, and to map out clearly
its programme of work ? Above all, what may
we hope from it in the way of addition to our
power of understanding human nature and of
contributing to the welfare of mankind ?

These are the questions which I shall attempt
to answer in this book as simply as the difficulties
of the subject will permit ; hoping that some at
least of my readers will be led to feel the fascina-
tion of the study and stimulated to pursue it
further in one or more of its several branches,

W. McD.
OXFORD, Feb., 1912.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PACK

I THE PROVINCE or PSYCHOLOGY 9

II THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 39

III THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 71

IV THE METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY If 9
V THE STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR .... 138

VI THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD, AND INDIVIDUAL

PSYCHOLOGY 180

VII ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 193

VIII SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 229

BIBLIOGRAPHY . , 255

Tii

PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER I

THE PROVINCE OP PSYCHOLOGY

To define exactly the province of any one
of the natural sciences is in no case an easy
task. We define them roughly, and suffi-
ciently perhaps for most purposes, by point-
ing to the classes of natural objects which the
several sciences study; for example, we say
that geology is the science of the crust of the
earth. But such a definition is not exact or
exhaustive. Geology overlaps with many
other sciences; with mineralogy, when it
studies mineral formations as part of the
earth's crust; with biology, when it studies
the fossil remains of animals and plants; with
astronomy or cosmogony, when it considers
the conditions of the first formation of the
earth's crust.

The difficulty of marking out the provinces
of the several branches of science is peculiarly
great with those which deal with living
9

10 PSYCHOLOGY

things. Full and accurate definition would
only be possible in the light of complete knowl-
edge. And at present our knowledge of
living things is very imperfect. We can see
already that, as our knowledge grows, new
departments of the science of life have to be
created, and that our conceptions of the
relations between the several branches must
undergo great changes. It seems wiser, then,
to determine the provinces of our sciences in
a provisional manner only, and with reference
to the state of development, the methods of
study, and the practical needs, of each one,
rather than to attempt any final and rigid
definition of them by reference to the classes
of objects with which they are severally
concerned. Further, we ought to define the
province of a science in terms which are as
free as possible from theoretical or specula-
tive implications, and which denote only fa-
miliarly known objects, generally recognized
distinctions, and well-observed facts.

If, in the light of these consideratibns, we
examine the definitions of psychology that
have been most widely accepted, we find
them to be unsatisfactory. The word psy-
chology was formed from the Greek words
for soul and science respectively, and was
designed to mark off the study of the soul or

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 11

of souls as a special department of science.
But what are souls? To mark out the
province of psychology in this way is to accept
a theory of the constitution of human nature
which has come down to us from remote
antiquity and which is still widely held; the
theory, namely, that each human personality
is composed of two very dissimilar parts or
principles, soul and body respectively. The
soul was regarded as capable of existing apart
from the material body and as lending it,
during its temporary union with it, all those
peculiarities which distinguish the living body
from inanimate things. In the earliest times
the soul was generally thought of as consisting
of a very thin or subtle kind of matter, related
to air much as air is related to solid matter.
This subtle fluid or spirit was supposed to
permeate every part of the body; and, though
it was thus extended throughout the body, it
was nevertheless a distinct entity capable of
existing apart from it. After the death of
the body it continued to exist, and might
appear as a dim vapour-like duplicate of it,
or ghost. And even during life, this ghost-
soul might withdraw for a time, as during
sleep or trance, and appear in other places.

Plato, the greatest of the philosophers of
ancient Greece, rejected this notion of the

12 PSYCHOLOGY

soul as a vapour-like duplicate of the body.
He regarded the soul as a being of a nature
radically different from that of material
things; as incapable of being perceived by the
senses, and only to be grasped by the intel-
lect. Nevertheless, he taught that this being
exists both before and after its union with the
body, which union is but a minor incident of
its long career. Aristotle, the greatest of
Plato's successors, wrote a celebrated treatise
"On the Soul," which is generally regarded as
the first important work devoted to psychol-
ogy. He rejected the traditional notion of the
soul, and regarded it rather as the sum of the
vital functions: his attention was directed
to the peculiarities which distinguish living
beings from inert things; and to say that a
thing possessed a soul was for him but a
convenient way of saying that it exhibited
some or all of these peculiarities. As to the
question whether these functions are attribu-
table to a being or entity that can in any sense
continue to exist after the dissolution of the
body, he professed himself unable to arrive
at any definite opinion.

Through the Middle Ages philosophers
continued to debate the nature of the soul
and its functions. The most generally ac-
cepted view of the soul was one which com-

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 13

bined the teachings of Aristotle with Plato's
conception of it as an immaterial being that
may continue to exercise its functions apart
from, and after the death of, the body. And
the natural result of the prevalence of this
view was a tendency to concentrate attention
upon the higher or purely intellectual func-
tions of the soul, and to neglect the considera-
tion of the bodily functions, which Aristotle
had regarded as an important part of the ex-
pressions of soul-life; for these implied the
conjunction of soul and body. In the seven-
teenth century, this tendency culminated in
the teaching of Descartes, the founder of
modern philosophy. He boldly asserted that
the bodies of men and annuals differ in no wise
from other material things, but are merely
very complicated machines whose workings
are to be explained by the mechanical princi-
ples which enable us to understand the proc-
esses of other machines. To man alone of
all living beings he assigned a soul, and this
soul exercised only the higher mental func-
tions of thought and volition.

The definite formulation of the strictly
mechanical view of nature had led Descartes
to this position; and the rapid progress of
the physical sciences strengthened men's
belief in the all -sufficiency of this mechanical

14 PSYCHOLOGY

view, and soon led them to ask — Why, if
animals are merely complex machines, should
man be regarded as anything but one of still
greater complexity? What, they asked, is
the soul? And they answered — It is a
wholly fictitious notion, generated by super-
stition and maintained by priests in order to
strengthen their influence and to support the
authority of the Church. In this way Des-
cartes' bold speculations led on to the dog-
matic materialism which became very widely
accepted in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Philosophers, being thus chal-
lenged to provide a scientific foundation for
the notion of the soul, found themselves in a
great difficulty. Some of them, like John
Locke, fell back upon revealed religion as the
only sure ground for the belief in the soul.
Bishop Berkeley attacked materialism by
subtly impugning men's belief in the reality
of material things. But one of the most
influential writers of that time, the great
Scotch sceptic, David Hume, brilliantly
argued that the existence of the soul was
merely a tradition which had been uncriti-
cally accepted, and that no demonstration of
its existence ever had been, or could be,
made.

Thus, towards the close of the eighteenth

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 15

century, materialism and thorough-going
scepticism seemed to be the only alternatives
approved by philosophy. At this juncture
appeared Immanuel Kant, who offered a new
way of escape from this dilemma. He
argued that, in perceiving material objects,
we can know only their appearances, and
that the nature of our conceptions of the
physical world is largely determined by the
nature of our minds. What we call the world
of nature or the physical world is, then, but
the appearance to us of some reality of whose
real nature we can form no idea, because the
nature of these appearances or phenomena is
determined so largely by the constitution of
our own minds: even the laws of physical
nature which we believe we discover, such as
the laws of causation and of mechanical
operation, are laws which express the nature
of our minds rather than of that unknowable
reality which appears to us as the material
world. He argued further that our minds
also are inaccessible to our direct observation,
and that we have direct knowledge only of
mental phenomena or appearances. Never-
theless he maintained that, although we can-
not establish the existence or describe the
nature of the soul by the methods of science,
consideration of our moral nature justifies us

16 PSYCHOLOGY

in believing in its existence as an immortal
super-sensible being.

Later thinkers have for the most part
accepted Kant's demonstration of the phe-
nomenal character of the physical world; but
they have found his argument in support of
the belief in the soul wholly unconvincing;
and subsequent efforts to establish the exist-
ence and define the nature of the soul have
not been generally recognized as successful.

This very imperfect outline of the history
of thought on the soul will serve to show why
it is no longer possible to define psychology
as the science of the soul; for it shows that
the notion of the soul is a speculative hypoth-
esis, one much too vague and uncertain to
be made the essential notion in the defini-
tion of a large province of natural science.
This being the position in regard to the soul,
many modern writers have preferred to define
psychology as the science of the miiid. But
this also is unsatisfactory. For, in the first
place, to say nothing of other departments of
philosophy, logic claims to be a science of
mind ctistinct from, and more or less inde-
pendent of, psychology; and the definition
thus fails to mark off the province of psy-
chology. Secondly, the definition is stated in
terms of an extremely ill-defined object. For

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 17

who can tell us exactly what mind, or a mind,,
is? When we ask this question, we raise at
once some of the profoundest and most dis-
puted problems of philosophy.

Some modern writers, recognizing these-
objections, propose to improve on this defini-
tion by saying that psychology is the science-
of consciousness; for, they say, each one of us
has immediate, direct and positive knowledge
of consciousness. But to this proposal there
are two very serious objections. First, each
of us has immediate knowledge of his own.
consciousness only; the consciousness of
other persons is only inferred by him from
their behaviour, and imagined after the
analogy of his own consciousness. Yet
psychology certainly aims at arriving at con-
clusions which shall hold good of men in gen-
eral. And when we turn to the animals, thiV
objection appears still more formidable.
Secondly, when we study consciousness, we
realize that the most complete description of
the consciousness of any one person, or even,
the description, in general terms, of the con-
sciousness of men in general, would not con-
stitute a science, certainly not the science
which psychology hopes to become. For such
descriptions would not enable us to under-
stand why any particular consciousness takes

38 PSYCHOLOGY

the form described, nor would it in itself
add anything to our power of controlling the
course of nature.

Some of those who define psychology as the
science of consciousness are content to do so,
•because they hold a certain theory of the na-
ture of man. They agree with Descartes in
regarding the body as merely a complicated
machine, and all its processes as mechanically
determined ; so that every detail of behaviour,
'whether of man or of animal, is hi principle

• explicable in terms of the bodily mechanism,
.and falls within the province of physiology,

which, in turn, is but a special department of
pTiysical science. And the modern exponents

• of this view do not follow Descartes in regard-
ing thought as a manifestation of a soul
informing the machine; they say rather that
consciousness is merely, as it were, a phos-
phorescent glow generated by the working
of certain parts of the machine; or they say
tthat it is certain processes of the machine of
which we become aware in a more immediate
jand intimate way than the indirect way of
.sense-perception.

Now, if this view were established, the task
of psychology might properly be defined as
the description of consciousness; though it
would be a work of very small importance

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 19

and unworthy of the name of a science. But
this view of the nature of living beings is
a speculation of very doubtful value; and we
have agreed to try to define our science in
terms which imply no theories, but rather
familiar and unquestionable facts only.

If, then, we ask — What facts are there
which are actually observed and studied by
the psychologist and which do not fall wholly
within the province of any other science?
the answer must be twofold; namely, (1) hi*
own consciousness, and (2) the behaviour of
men and of animals in general. His ami is to
increase our understanding of, and our power
of guidance and control over, the behaviour
of men and animals; and he uses what knowl-
edge he can gain of consciousness to aid him
in achieving such understanding of behaviour-

We may then define psychology as the
positive science of the behaviour of living
things. To accept this definition is to return,
to the standpoint of Aristotle, and to set out
from generally recognized facts, unprejudiced
by theories. We all recognize broadly that
the things which make up our world of
perceptible objects fall into two great classes,
namely, inert things, whose movements and
changes seem to be strictly determined
according to mechanicaJ laws, and living'

SO PSYCHOLOGY

things, which behave or exhibit behaviour;
and, when we say that they exhibit behaviour,
we mean that they seem to have an intrinsic
power of self-determination, and to pursue
actively or with effort their own welfare and
their own ends or purposes.

The manifestation of purpose or the striving
to achieve an end is, then, the mark of be-
haviour; and behaviour is the characteristic
of living things. This criterion of life is one
of which we all make use; but most of us
have not reflected upon it, and we may dwell
upon it for a moment with advantage. Take
a billiard ball from the pocket and place it
upon the table. It remains at rest, and would
•continue to remain so for an indefinitely long
time, if no force were applied to it, no work
<ione upon it. Push it in any direction, and
its movement in that direction persists until
its momentum is exhausted, or until it is
deflected by the resistance of the cushion and
follows a new path mechanically determined.
"This is the type of mechanical movement.
^Now contrast with this an instance of be-
haviour. Take a timid animal, such as a
.guinea-pig, from its hole or nest, and put it
upon the grass-plot. Instead of remaining
At rest, it runs back to its hole; push it in any
other direction, and, as soon as you withdraw

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 21

your hand, it turns back towards its hole;
place any obstacle in its way, and it seeks to>
circumvent or surmount it, restlessly persist-
ing until it achieves its end or until its energy
is exhausted.

That is an example of behaviour from the
middle region of the scale of complexity;
consideration of it reveals very clearly the
great difference between behaviour and me-
chanical process. As an instance higher in
the scale of complexity, consider a dog taken
from its home and shut up at some distant
place. There, no matter how kindly treated,
he remains restless, trying constantly to es-
cape and, perhaps, refusing food and wasting
away; when released, he sets out for home,
and runs many miles across country without
stopping till he reaches it, following perhaps
a direct route if the country is familiar to him,
or perhaps only reaching home after much
wandering hither and thither.

As an example from the upper end of the
scale of behaviour, consider the case of a man
who loves his native land, but who, in
order to earn his daily bread, has accepted a
position in some distant country. There
he faithfully performs the tasks he has under-
taken; but always his dominant purpose i*
to save enough money to enable him to return

£2 PSYCHOLOGY

and to make a home in his native land; this
is the prime motive of all his behaviour, to
which all other motives are subordinated.
We best understand this last behaviour, if the
exile tells us that he constantly pictures to
Mmself his beloved native place and the
•enjoyments that he hopes to find there. For
we know well what it is to foresee an event
and ardently to desire it. Even if the exile
be but a dull-minded peasant, incapable
of explicitly anticipating the delights of his
return, who seems to be affected merely by a
homesickness which he cannot express or
justify in words, we still feel that we can in
some measure understand his state and his
behaviour. We feel this also of the dog in
the foregoing instance, and in a less degree
of the animal of our first example. For we,
too, have experienced a vague and formless
unrest, an impulsion to strive persistently
towards an end which we can neither clearly
formulate nor rationally justify; we, too, have
experienced how obstruction to such activity
does but accentuate our impulse, how success-
ful progress towards the end brings us a
A'ague though profound satisfaction, and how
achievement of the end can alone relieve our
inward unrest.

These, then, are indisputable instances of

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 23?

behaviour. They are only to be understood
or explained after the analogy of our own
experiences of effort or striving. No attempt
to explain such facts mechanically has at
present the least plausibility, or can in any
degree aid us in understanding or control-
ling them. Now the same is true, though
perhaps less obviously true, of still simpler
forms of behaviour. Let us consider a few in.
descending order in the scale of complexity.

The migratory bird, arriving in springy
takes up her abode in a coppice, yields to the
blandishments of her mate, builds a nest,
lays her eggs, and sits upon them, silent and
motionless for many days, until the young are
hatched. Then, with incessant activity, she
cherishes them, feeding them hour by hour
and minute by minute, until they attain to
independence. With the turn of the year,
her great task accomplished, she faces south-
wards again and, with tireless wings, returns
across great tracts of land and sea to her
winter home; there to remain until in the
following spring she comes back, once more
flying thousands of miles to reach the same
hedgerow among all the thousands in our
English counties, and to repeat there the cycle
of her activities. That again is unmistakably
a cycle of behaviour. At every stage the

24 PSYCHOLOGY

actions of the bird may be varied in detail
indefinitely; but always they are dominated
by the same cycle of purposes in which the
great purpose of her life successively manifests
itself — the perpetuation of the life of her race
according to its specific type and kind. If at
any stage her activities are obstructed, her
efforts are redoubled; destroy her nest, and
she builds another; take away one or more
of her eggs, and she lays others to replace
them; attack her young, and she resists you
with all her feeble powers; shut her up, when
the time comes for her flight to Africa, and
she beats against the bars that confine her,
with ceaseless and varied movements, until
she escapes or is exhausted; take away her
mate, the indispensable partner of her labours,
and she. pines, perhaps even to death. How
far the bird foresees the ends of her manifold
activities we cannot say; though we have
good reason to believe that she foresees at
each step no more than the immediate effect
or end of each step. Yet we cannot doubt
that such trains of activity are more closely
allied in nature to our own purposive activities
than to any sequences of inorganic nature,
and that they are therefore properly regarded
as behaviour.

Going a stage lower in the scale of life,

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 25

consider the salmon which, in due season,
having attained a certain stage of develop-
ment in the open sea, enters the mouth of a
river, and ascends the stream to deposit its
eggs in the bed of some remote tributary.
The ascent of a large and swift river contain-
ing many rapids and water-falls involves
ceaseless and varied efforts extending through
a period of many weeks, during which the fish
takes no food, but consumes the latent energy
of the substance of its muscles. This, too, is
an undeniable example of behaviour, which
we can only understand in any degree in the
light of its analogy with our own behaviour,
and which is utterly unlike any phenomenon
of inorganic nature.

In the great world of invertebrate life, the
same great fact of the prevalence of behav-
iour, or of purposive effort to maintain the
life of the species, confronts us on every hand.
The solitary wasp hunts assiduously all day
long for her prey, and having secured, per-
haps, a fat caterpillar considerably heavier
than herself, drags it toilfully over, under, or
around a thousand obstacles to the nest she
has prepared beforehand; there to seal it up
together with her egg, that it may serve as
food to the offspring which she will never see.
The earthworm, coming up from its burrow

26 PSYCHOLOGY

and finding a leaf upon the ground, explores
its boundaries, seizes it by its apex or in
whatever manner and position most facilitates
its entry to the burrow, and drags it down.
And the movements of other worms of even
simpler type exhibit the characteristic marks
of behaviour; namely, persistent striving
with variation of means employed under un-
changed external conditions, when the first
movements fail to achieve the end. The star-
fish, turned over so that it lies upon its back,
makes incessant and varied efforts with its
arms to get a grip upon the ground, and,
having done so, rights itself by a combined
action of all its parts. And even among the
lowliest of all animals, the unicellular and
microscopic Protozoa, behaviour is again the
rule. The Amoeba, a mere speck of formless
jelly, on becoming detached from the sub-
merged surface on which it creeps, throws
out long feelers in all directions, until one of
them comes in contact with a solid object;
to this the whole creature then attaches itself,
in order to resume its normal mode of move-
ment. Or, having come in contact with a
smaller specimen of its own kind, it pursues
its prey persistently, making repeated efforts
to englobe it for its own nourishment. The
slipper animalcule darts hither and thither

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 27

in search of prey, and may be seen to pursue
other and smaller creatures.

Now let us turn to consider a class of facts
of a somewhat different kind, phenomena
which we cannot so confidently describe as
behaviour. The primary task of every
animal species is to produce eggs, and to set
them in the world under such conditions, and
to afford them such protection, as they need
for their development into perfect repre-
sentatives of the species. This feat, to the
accomplishment of which almost all of the
behaviour of animals is either directly or
indirectly devoted, is but the first part of the
cycle of reproduction on which the perpetu-
ation of the species depends. The consumma-
tion of the cycle lies with the egg. The series
of changes through which this consummation
is effected is, in nearly all cases, one of mar-
vellous complexity and marvellous nicety.
Compared with such a series of changes, the
most wonderful processes of our machines,
such as those by which a garment is woven
or a newspaper printed, are relatively coarse
and ridiculously simple. But, immensely
as they exceed in nicety and complexity the
processes of our machines, these processes of
development differ in a much more funda-
mental manner from all purely mechanical

28 PSYCHOLOGY

processes; namely, just like the activities
of the animal seeking for its prey or return-
ing to its nest, the developmental processes
persistently tend towards the end natural or
proper to the species, overcoming obstacles
and adjusting themselves in a number of
alternative ways to peculiarities and changes
in their environment, and even rectifying
themselves or returning to their normal course
after being grossly deflected or disturbed.

These phenomena have been minutely
studied in recent years; and, though our
knowledge in this field is still in its earliest
stages, we know that the embryo or develop-
ing germ of many species may, in spite of
being severely mutilated, cut in halves, or
completely deformed, restore the normal pro-
portions of its parts and the normal course
of development, and may thus achieve its
specific end and complete the cycle of activi-
ties of which a part only was achieved by the
efforts of the parents. In these highly signifi-
cant respects the process of the building up of
the body is very closely analogous to typical
processes of behaviour, for example, to the
building of its nest by a bird, or to the building
of their comb by bees. There is the same
persistent tendency towards the specific type,
which triumphs over obstacles, effects adapta-

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 29

tion to unusual conditions, and restores the nor-
mal course of events after gross mechanical
interferences or distortions. In both classes
of process, even the most extreme interfer-
ences may be rectified by a resolution or
undoing of the stages achieved and a re-start-
ing from the initial stage; the birds rebuild
their nest, or the bees their comb, from the
foundation upwards; the mutilated germ re-
solves itself into a formless mass, within which
the process of gradual organization of specific
structures sets in anew, and so re-establishes
the normal cycle and achieves the normal
end.

These processes of the bodily growth of
animals are, then, closely analogous with
truly purposive activity or behaviour, and
they present features nothing analogous to
which can be found in inorganic nature, the
realm of purely mechanical causation. It is
true that such processes of growth comprise
many details which can be described in terms
of physics and chemistry. But the same is
true of all behaviour; the most clearly con-
ceived and strongly willed ends of human
beings are only achieved by the aid of much
detailed process of mechanical type. What
is characteristic of processes of both classes
is the appearance of effective dominance of

SO PSYCHOLOGY

the mechanical factors by purposive guidance
towards a specific end or goal.

If we make our notion of purposive activity
or behaviour wide enough to include these
phenomena of bodily organization in the
animal kingdom, it must include also the
similar processes of plant growth. And there
are many good reasons for such inclusion.
Biologists are agreed in regarding all plants
and animals as having been evolved from the
same class of primitive organisms which were
neither animals nor plants, or perhaps rather
were both. Most plants have little or no
power of locomotion or of actively moving
their parts. Yet, wherever vegetable organ-
isms have such powers, their movements
exhibit the characteristic marks of behaviour;
as in the cases of the pollen tubes of many
species and the locomotions of some free
swimming plants. But, for the most part, the
mode of life of plants obviates the need of
active movement, and their only opportunity
for the exhibition of behaviour is in their
processes of growth; and in these processes
their marvellous powers of self -direction excel
even those of the animals. Of some plants
an almost microscopic fragment taken from
any part will reproduce the whole plant with
all its specific peculiarities. And most plants

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 31

possess this power of regeneration in a very
high degree. Cut away the leading shoot of
a larch sapling, and the uppermost branch will
slowly turn upwards from its horizontal
position, until it continues the line of the stem
and, by rapid increase of diameter in its lower
part, restores the smoothly tapering form of
the stem. Cut a short length from a willow-
twig and keep it in a moist atmosphere; no
matter what part of the twig be taken or in
what position it may be kept, leaf buds will
grow upwards from its original upper end
and rootlets will grow downwards from the
original lower or proximal end. In these and
numberless similar instances, the botanist
can describe in terms of physics and chemistry
many of the details of the process by which
the specific form and organization is restored,
but the process as a whole completely defies
his utmost efforts at mechanical explanation;
and we cannot but recognize that it is analo-
gous to the purposive activities of men
and higher animals, which are the type of
behaviour.

Let us now compare our conception of
psychology as the science of behaviour with
the more usual definition of it as the science
of mind. It was pointed out on an earlier page
that "mind" is itself a word whose meaning

32 PSYCHOLOGY

Is extremely vague, one incapable of being
clearly defined except in terms of some
questionable and speculative hypothesis. No
one can point to a mind and say — that is
what I mean the word mind shall denote.
And if it is proposed to define mind in terms
of consciousness, we are in no better case, but
rather worse. For each of us the conscious-
ness of any other organism than himself is an
inference; and it is one which is more
speculative and uncertain the greater the
unlikeness of the other organism to himself.
Further, there is abundant evidence that the
behaviour of each of us expresses activities
of a nature essentially similar to our conscious
activities, of which we nevertheless remain
unconscious. If, then, we cannot be content
to define mind in terms of consciousness, the
only alternative is to define it in terms of
behaviour. And nothing is to be gained by
introducing at the outset of our inquiry the
vaguely conceived entity, mind, and placing
it between the facts we have to study and our
reflections upon them. The conception of
behaviour, on the other hand, may be defined
in a way which involves no speculative
inference or hypothesis, namely, in the way
we have attempted to define it above, that is,
by pointing to facts open to the direct obser-

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 33

vation of all men, and saying — This and this
is what we mean by behaviour. And such
pointing to instances is the only satisfactory,
and in strictness the only legitimate, way of
defining any abstract notion.

What, then, is, or should be, the relation of
psychology to physiology? Physiology is
commonly defined as the science of lif e or of
the bodily functions of living things. But
what is life, and what are living things?
Unless we are to define life, in a gratuitously
speculative manner, as some imperceptible
entity that enters into the bodies of living
things, we must say that it is the sum of the
processes peculiar to living things. Now the
processes by the observation of which we
recognize things as living are just those proc-
esses which we have collectively designated
as behaviour, processes which exhibit a
persistent self -direction towards specific ends
that subserve the perpetuation of the indi-
vidual organism or of the species. The prov-
ince of psychology is, then, according to
our definition, co-extensive with the province
of physiology. And this may be raised as an
objection to our definition of psychology; for
physiology is generally regarded as an in-
dependent science having its own programme
and methods and history. In modern times

34 PSYCHOLOGY

the task of physiology has usually been con-
ceived in the way proposed by Descartes,
namely, as the working out of purely mechani-
cal explanations of all the processes of living
organisms. To accept this conception of
physiology is to base the science upon a vast
assumption, the assumption, namely, that all
the processes of living organisms are capable
of being mechanically explained. This is
a gratuitous assumption which finds no
justification in facts. For no single organic
function has yet been found explicable in
purely mechanical terms; even such relatively
simple processes as the secretion of a tear or
the exudation of a drop of sweat continue to
elude all attempts at complete explanation
in terms of physical and chemical science.
And not only is the assumption wholly un-
justified by the demonstration of its truth
in any single instance, but it leads those who
make it to a logically untenable position.
For, when the physiologist has constructed
his imaginary scheme of the bodily mecha-
nism, he finds that he has left over as an irre-
ducible surd the facts of human consciousness.
And he seeks to escape from the difficulty by
ignoring these facts; that is to say, he boldly
asserts the facts of consciousness to be in-
explicable by his methods; he regards them

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 35

as mysterious by-products of the mechanical
operations which he believes to constitute
the life of the organism, and_ in which alone
he himself is interested; and he hands
them over to the psychologist, to whom he
assigns the exclusive task of describing them.

To define the provinces of physiology and
of psychology in this way is just as un-
scientific as to define psychology as the science
of the soul. In both cases it is attempted to
mark out the provinces by the aid of specu-
lative hypotheses or assumptions which,
though they may be true, can only be
shown to be so by great advances of the
sciences in question. Nevertheless, it remains
true that physiology and psychology, as pur-
sued now and perhaps for a long time to
come, are not to be identified. We may
express the relation which actually obtains
between them by saying that physiology
investigates the processes of the parts or
organs of which any organism is composed,
while psychology investigates the activities
of the organism as a whole, that is, those in
which it operates as a whole or unit.

In this way we leave to the wider knowledge
of future generations the decision of funda-
mental questions to which at present we can
return only speculative guesses, instead of

36 -PSYCHOLOGY

making such guesses the foundation stones
of our science. For, in defining psychol-
ogy as the science of behaviour, we neither
affirm nor deny the adequacy of mechanical
principles to the explanation of the activities
of organisms; we assume no hypothetical en-
tities or forces, neither life, nor mind, nor soul.
We start simply from the undeniable fact that
the changes exhibited by material objects
seem to be of two different types; on the one
hand, of the purely mechanical type, of which
the motions of the heavenly bodies provide
the grandest and clearest examples; on the
other hand, of the type of purposive action
or behaviour, with which each of us becomes
familiar by reflection upon his own efforts,
his impulses, his desires, and his volitions. It
may be that, in the distant future, science will
succeed in establishing the truth of the
assumption so widely accepted at the present
time by an act of faith, the assumption,
namely, that all seemingly purposive action
is mechanically explicable. If that time
comes, psychology will be absorbed in phys-
iology, and physiology in physics. On
the other hand, it may be that we shall dis-
cover in the inorganic world indications of
behaviour which hitherto have remained
hidden from us. Or thirdly, it may be that,

THE PROVINCE OF PSYCHOLOGY 37

as a great thinker has lately said, our con-
ceptions both of mechanical process and of
purposive activity are false abstractions
inadequate to the description of real happen-
ings, and that both must be supplanted by
some truer conception. Or lastly, it may
prove possible to show that the realm of mind
is not co-extensive with the realm of life, and
that, within the sphere of behaviour or
seemingly purposive activities, we must dis-
tinguish a higher type which implies conscious
intelligence essentially similar to our own but
of many levels of effectiveness, and a lower
type which, though incapable of mechanical
explanation and analogous to purposive ac-
tivity, yet involves no conscious direction,
and is therefore not truly purposive.

But, whatever the decision the future may
bring, it seems clear that at the present time
we cannot transcend the distinction between
the two modes of change, and that science is
best served by frankly recognizing the dis-
tinction where it forces itself upon us, and
by carefully establishing it where it remains
obscure and doubtful. Physiology, then,
may profitably continue to approach living
beings from below, that is, from the side and
with the methods of physical and chemical
science, and to extend to the utmost the reach

38 PSYCHOLOGY

of mechanical explanations of the processes of
their bodies. But psychology must continue
to deepen our understanding of the behaviour
of all living things by approaching them from
above — by applying to them the understand-
ing of behaviour that we gam from the study
of ourselves.

The definition of psychology as the positive
science of behaviour seems, then, preferable
to any other, because it leaves unprejudiced
and open for decision in the future the issue of
certain fundamental problems which at pres-
ent we cannot solve, and because it makes use
of no ill-defined and problematical notions,
such as mind, or soul, or consciousness, but
only of familiar facts of observation. And it
carries with it also two important advantages.
First, it lays stress on the truth that the facts
of observation with which we have to deal in
psychology are always processes or activities
rather than fixed enduring things. Secondly,
it prepares us to attempt to understand these
activities in a way very different from that
in which we aim at understanding physical
or mechanical processes; it makes clear from
the outset that we must explain and under-
stand in terms of the end or purpose of the
activity, rather than in terms only of the
antecedent events. The adoption of this

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 39

attitude is one of the chief difficulties of the
student of psychology, especially if he has
been trained in the physical sciences. For
our intellect and our language, the chief
instrument of our intellect, are adapted
primarily and chiefly for enabling us to
appreciate and control the movements of
solid objects in space, or, in other words, for
dealing with the mechanical processes of the
physical world; most of us, therefore, feel
intellectually at home in dealing with purely
mechanical processes, and we are more fully
satisfied with explanations stated in terms of
mechanism than with those given in terms
of end and purpose; yet in both cases our ex-
planation of any concrete event can never be
more than the exhibition of it as a particular
instance of a class of events already familiar
to us.

CHAPTER H

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

WE see a child sitting idly on a lawn.
Suddenly he springs to his feet and dashes
into the house, leaving us to wonder why he
behaved in that fashion. If we were near
enough closely to observe his movements
and the expression of his face, we may be able

40 PSYCHOLOGY

to guess the reason of his behaviour; but we
shall not be sure that we have the correct
explanation, until we can hear his own ac-
count of the incident. Then, perhaps, he tells
us that he went to get a drink, or that he
heard "such a funny noise" in the house,
that he saw approaching a savage dog or some
person whom he dislikes, or that he was stung
by a wasp, that he suddenly remembered it
was time for school, that he heard his mother
calling, or that he had just thought out a plan
for making a kite. Any one of these state-
ments would probably satisfy our curiosity;
and we should feel that we understood this
particular piece of behaviour. For under
similar circumstances we have behaved in
similar fashion, and we have observed other
persons so behave. But it is clear that any
such explanation is only proximate and super-
ficial, and that our understanding of the
behaviour is only very partial. Such super-
ficial explanation and such partial under-
standing are all that we can achieve without
bringing psychology to our aid, that is to say,
without applying to this particular instance
the general principles of behaviour which
systematic study has established.

Note first that the boy's- explanation of his
behaviour is given in words which partially

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 41

describe his state of consciousness and which
enable us to achieve by sympathetic under-
standing, in the light of our own experience
of similar situations, a fuller description of
that state than his words actually convey.
If he, for example, mentions the drink, the
"-funny" noise, or the savage dog, we know
that he felt thirst, or curiosity, or fear. Such
reconstruction hi imagination of the state of
consciousness of the individual is always the
first step towards that completer under-
standing of behaviour of any kind which will
enable us to control or modify either our own
behaviour or that of others.

And this is true not only of human be-
haviour, but of all behaviour. If we see a
mouse or other small animal dart back into
its hole, we achieve a partial explanation
and understanding of its behaviour, when
we are able to infer that it felt frightened,
or that it heard the cry of its little ones.
Although, then, understanding of this kind
is more incomplete and problematic the more
unlike ourselves is the creature whose be-
haviour we observe, the explanation of the
behaviour of any creature must always in-
volve the description of its consciousness at the
time. Now in order to describe any event or
process, we are compelled by the nature of

42 PSYCHOLOGY

our intellect to analyse it into parts, each of
which we conceive as an example of a class
which we mentally fix or grasp by the use of a
name. Thus, even such a simple process as
the flight of a stone thrown from the hand can
only be described by analysing its path into a
series of positions occupied by it at succes-
sive moments of time, and then stating that
its flight consists in its successively occupy-
ing these positions. And our observation of
any event will be more complete and ade-
quate, the more adequate are the notions of
its several components that we form by the
aid of language.

Now, when we come to describe the facts
of consciousness, we find that the notions
and the words in popular use are very in-
adequate to the work of analytic description.
The first task of the student of psychology,
the presupposition of all other psychological
investigation, is therefore to refine, by the
aid of the terminology and the descriptions
made by his predecessors, his power of dis-
tinguishing, classifying, and describing the
constituent features of the stream of his own
consciousness. The observation or noticing
of his own consciousness is what is called
introspection. Introspection has been made
something of a mystery. It is sometimes

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 43

written of as though it were a feat which only
a specially trained acrobat could perform.
There has been much learned discussion as to
whether it is possible, how it is possible, and
how it is actually carried out. But, like
many other things we do, we can do it very
well without being able to say exactly how
we do it. Every intelligent person can and
frequently does give some description of his
consciousness; as when he says that he hears
a sound, or that he has a toothache, describ-
ing perhaps its peculiar quality; or when he
says that he feels warm, or pleased, or tired, or
angry, or doubtful, or confused, or sad; or
that he is thinking of something, or longing
for it, or trying hard to recollect a name, or
comparing any two things, or trying to make
up his mind. All these and a hundred other
current phrases we commonly use when we
wish to make others aware of the state of our
consciousness. And the introspection and
analytic description of the psychologist in-
volve merely the refinement of observation
and description of this common kind, which
we all habitually practise in various degrees.
The acquisition of familiarity with the cur-
rent descriptive terms and with the classifi-
cation of the things denoted by these terms
must be the student's first step in taking up

44 PSYCHOLOGY

any science; and it must go hand in hand with
the repeated observation and examination of
the things or processes described. The use
of the current terms (in so far as they are well
chosen) enables us to observe more fully and
accurately; for each name serves to fix our
attention upon some particular feature or
phase of the complex object of our observa-
tion, and thus, by fixing our attention in turn
upon its several principal features, helps us to
analyse the whole into its constituent parts.
And the observations we make render our un-
derstanding of the terms fuller, and our use of
them more accurate. Thus, when on begin-
ning the study of botany the student takes a
flower in his hand, he can observe it and
describe it in a rough way, distinguishing its
most prominent features by the aid of ill-
defined terms of popular speech. He then
learns to apply to each of its parts its scientific
name, petal, sepal, pistil, stamen, and so
forth; and as he repeats this double process
of observation and naming on a variety of
flowers, his power of observation and his
usage of the scientific terminology improve
hand in hand; and both improvements are
due to the fact that his thought of a flower,
which at first was confused and vague, has
become more definite and richer hi meaning;

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 45

he has learnt to know the parts in detail, and
to know the whole as the sum of the parts
related according to a definite plan.

The work of the beginner in psychology is
of just the same nature. He finds himself
able to observe his mental processes and to
describe them in a vague confused manner
by the aid of common language; and his first
step must be to refine his powers of obser-
vation and description by adopting the names
provided by his predecessors and the dis-
tinctions implied by them. In doing this, he
will find that his thought of any mental proc-
ess becomes more definite and richer in mean-
ing; instead of thinking of it as a confused in-
determinate whole, he thinks of it as a whole
of a particular kind, comprising many parts
related to one another according to a more or
less definite system.

But, though this first step in psychology
is essentially similar to the first step in any
other concrete science, namely, a process of
improvement of one's acquaintance with cer-
tain objects by means of analytic observation
and description; it must be frankly recognized
that this first step in psychology is of peculiar
(I'lficulty. In studying a flower, or any
physical object such as a piece of rock, or an
engine, or even a political system, the teacher

46 PSYCHOLOGY

may point to and name each part in turn,
saying — There is a petal, there a stamen,
there an anther, and so on. But in studying
consciousness this direct designation is im-
possible; the teacher can only describe the
conditions under which certain modes of
consciousness will in all probability be ex-
perienced; he cannot point to a feeling of
pain or of fear and say — That is a pain, or a
fear. He can only say — Pain is what you
would probably feel if your best friend cut
you dead; or — Fear is what you would feel if
a savage dog suddenly attacked you. But
men are so widely different that they react
to similar situations in very different ways,
and one can never be sure that the situation
given or described will evoke the same mental
reaction in any two persons. The situation
that evokes pain or fear in one man may
provoke another to anger, and leave a third
unmoved.

Secondly, analytic observation of mental
processes is difficult just because they are
processes and not fixed enduring objects.
We cannot examine at leisure and again and
again the same mental process; for, as we
try to notice its peculiar quality and com-
plexity, it changes every moment, and it can
never be perfectly recovered or restored; and

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 47

it changes, or rather gives place to another
process, all the more quickly, just because we
direct our attention to it.

Beside these intrinsic difficulties, stands a
third great difficulty which arises from the
backward or rudimentary state of the science,
the difficulty, namely, that the greatest au-
thorities have not yet learnt to use the same
descriptive terms, or to apply the same terms
in exactly the same senses. It results from
this lack of agreement among writers on
psychology that, even in respect of this
preliminary work, the description of con-
sciousness, the beginner is apt to become
greatly confused on turning from one author
to another. It is important that he should
not attach undue importance to these differ-
ences of descriptive method; he should real-
ize that each method may be legitimate and
useful. He must recognize that any descrip-
tion we can give is necessarily inadequate and
inevitably distorts the facts in some degree;
and he must aim at choosing for his own use
the method that seems to be most effective.

The method of description most commonly
used is what may be called the "cinemato-
graphic" or "static" method. One's con-
sciousness is always complex and always
changing; it is the progressive manifestation

48 PSYCHOLOGY

of an unceasing activity, which activity is only
partially revealed to us as consciousness. Now
the cinematographic method of description
abstracts from, or neglects, this active aspect
of consciousness, and attempts to describe
each phase of it as it is or subsists, without
reference to the functions subserved by it.

Consciousness may be likened to the surface
of a spring of water which bubbles up un-
ceasingly from obscure invisible sources. The
surface assumes at every moment new forms;
some change rapidly, others slowly, but none
persists stably; each detail of the form of the
surface is constantly giving place to new ones,
some slowly, others more rapidly. The com-
plexity and the rapidity of change are so great
that it is impossible for the mind to seize all
the details of any one moment, much less to
observe just how each detail changes. The
cinematographic method, therefore, begins
by giving names to the principal varieties of
the forms that present themselves; it then
attempts to describe the whole surface as it
exists at any moment, by enumerating the
forms presented by it at that moment; and
it attempts to represent the actual course of
the changes of the whole surface by describing
in such general terms its appearance at suc-
cessive moments. That is to say, it analyses

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 4fr

the perpetual flux into a complex of elements
each statically conceived, and it describes the
flux as consisting in the simultaneous and
successive appearances of these elements. It
is as though each of the successive pictures of
a cinematograph film were first constructed
by painting in by hand the various objects
in the positions occupied by them at the mo-
ment represented by the picture.

Now, besides abstracting from the active
or functional aspect of consciousness, this
method necessarily falsifies the facts by neg-
lecting the actual changes and by breaking
up the continuity of the whole stream of
consciousness, both the continuity of the parts
which make up the whole at any one moment
of time and the continuity of the whole at
successive moments. Nevertheless, owing to
the nature of our intellects, this is the only
method by aid of which we can approximate
to a full and detailed description of the stream
of consciousness. It is, therefore, a valuable
and, perhaps, indispensable method. But
we must beware of being misled by it into
regarding the phases and details which we
mentally fix by the aid of names as things
that endure or persist as self -identical entities.
For to do this is the natural tendency of our
minds, to which many writers have yielded,

50 PSYCHOLOGY

with the result that they have come to regard
consciousness as a mosaic of particles or
elements of consciousness, juxtaposed in ever-
changing combinations : that is to say, having
mentally analysed the continuous flux of
consciousness, by directing attention in turn
to a number of its most prominent features,
they think of it as though they had actually
broken it up into a number of separately
existing parts, and as though it were capable
of being reconstructed by bringing these parts
together again in simultaneous and successive
series.

If this method of description is to be used,
we must have some general name for the
features that we distinguish within the stream
of consciousness; and perhaps the best word
for this purpose is "feeling"; for this word
commits us to no theory or presupposition.
Adopting it, we may say that the stream of
consciousness, considered in itself and apart
from its functions, may be analytically re-
solved into a complex of feelings.

A word which has been more commonly
used for this purpose is "idea." But most
of those who have used this word have yielded
themselves up unresistingly to the tendency
to "reify" these abstractions, i. e. to treat
ideas as things endowed with intrinsic prop-

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 51

erties and forces; and the whole of mental
life has been represented as the interplay of
these things, the ideas. For these reasons it
is well to avoid the use of the word "idea";
though it must be confessed that the usage is
so very convenient and so much in accord-
ance with our natural tendency to reify, or
regard as a thing, whatever our attention is
directed to by the use of a name, that we can
hardly hope to supersede it completely and
at once.

A more modern fashion is to describe con-
sciousness as a stream of sensations. Now the
use of the word " sensation " has the same mis-
leading tendency as that of the word "idea";
namely, it tempts us to regard consciousness
as made up by the juxtaposition of things
called sensations. Nevertheless the notion
and the word are so useful that we can hardly
hope to describe consciousness without their
aid; and we must therefore accept that aid,
while guarding ourselves carefully against
the abuse of it. If we try to define what we
mean by sensation, we must first recognize
that the sensations, or sensory elements,
which, according to the cinematographic
method of description, make up so large a
part of consciousness, are of two classes, the
vivid and the faint. The vivid sensation can

52 PSYCHOLOGY

only be defined as the feeling which regularly
follows upon the stimulation of a sense-organ.
It is a fact of common experience, which has
been confirmed and studied in detail by scien-
tific experiment, that, whenever a physical
impression of a particular kind is applied to a
particular sense organ, there follows immedi-
ately a feeling of a particular quality. We
are capable of experiencing a large variety of
such sensations or feeling-qualities determined
by stimulation of the senses; and each such
quality of feeling may be experienced in
various degrees of intensity, which form a
continuous series. Thus, whenever a tuning-
fork of a given pitch is sounded in my neigh-
bourhood, the air waves set up by its vibra-
tions impinge on my ear and there stimulate
the auditory nerve, with the result that I
experience a sensation of tone of a particular
quality; and this sensation, or feeling-qual-
ity, is more or less intense according to the
amplitude of the air waves that impinge on
my ear, while its quality depends upon the
rate of succession of the vibrations.

The sensory feelings of the second class, the
faint sensations, or "sensory images" as they
are now more commonly called, can only be
defined by reference to the former class of
vivid sensations. If, when the tuning-fork

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 53

has ceased to vibrate, I think of its tone, I
experience again the same quality of feeling;
but, though the feeling has the same quality
as the vivid sensation, it differs from it in a
way which we indicate by the term "faint."
The difference between the vivid sensation
and the image or faint sensation of the same
quality is not of the same order as that be-
tween an intense and a less intense sensation
of the same quality; it is rather a difference
of an altogether peculiar or unique kind. I
experience many other sensation qualities,
though not all, in this peculiar faint form.
And the same seems to be true of all other
persons; though some experience predomi-
nantly images of one or more senses, and
others those of other senses.

One influential school of psychologists, the
"sensational" school, holds that the con-
sciousness of any person may be completely
described in terms of such sensations and
images. But others hold that we must
distinguish feelings of radically different
kinds or orders; some would recognize a class
of affective feelings, of which the types are
pleasure and pain; and, while some admit
these as the only two feeling qualities of this
order, others recognize a larger variety of
affective feelings. Others again recognize a

54 PSYCHOLOGY

third kind or order of feeling qualities, namely
the feelings of effort or activity; and here
again, while some recognize only one quality
of this order, others recognize a variety of
such feelings, each of specific and irreducible
quality.

Now this method of regarding and describ-
ing consciousness is indispensable for certain
purposes, for example, when we study the
nervous conditions of the various qualities
and intensities of sensation; but as the result
of thoroughgoing attempts to describe con-
sciousness exhaustively in this way, it is
becoming generally recognized that an ex-
haustive description in such terms is im-
possible. For over and above all the features
that are capable of being introspectively
seized and described in general terms as
sensations or other feelings of specific quali-
ties, the consciousness of any moment in-
volves something more subtle which eludes all
attempts to describe it in this way. And this
residue, though it is so subtle and elusive,
is nevertheless the most important part of
consciousness. It is the essential thought-
activity; it is the reference of consciousness
to an object; and it can only be defined or
described by naming the object of which the
subject is thinking at the moment. If we

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 55

wish to describe it statically, we can only do
so by saying that it is the "meaning" which
is present to consciousness. All the sensory
feelings are but the medium which brings this
thought-activity into play and determines its
direction from moment to moment; they are
but solicitations to thought or to thinking.

We can best realize the truth of this state-
ment by reflecting on such experiences as the
following. As I lie in deep sleep, some one
knocks on the door of my room and repeats
his knock at short intervals of time, bringing
me at each repetition a step nearer to the fully
waking state. On looking back on this
experience, it seems that I first heard the
sound in an extremely obscure and imperfect
manner, which I am tempted to describe by
saying that my consciousness consisted merely
of the sensation of sound; that on repetition
of the knock, I again experienced a similar
sensation, but that, in addition to this, I
vaguely apprehended the sound as such, as
something there; or, in other words, the im-
pression of sound was no longer a bare sensa-
tion, but evoked a vague meaning, an act of
knowing or cognition; that on further repeti-
tion of the knock, the impression of sound
evoked a richer and more definite meaning,
the cognitive activity became fuller and more

56 PSYCHOLOGY

effective, and I recognized the sound as a
knock upon the door.

Similar experiences of other senses may be
cited to illustrate the same fact. In turning
over the pages of a book, I may come upon
a picture which at first glance appears to me as
merely a confused blur of colour patches. I
continue to look at it, and presently I resolve
the patches of colour into the parts of some
object or scene of a familiar type. The sense-
impression, which at first was nothing more
than a field of colour, evokes at a later mo-
ment a definite meaning, a thought-activity
in the form of a cognition of a group of objects
in definite relations to one another. In such
cases the meaning, which, as we say, we read
into the sense-impression, suddenly appears
as an enrichment of consciousness over and
above the mere subsistence of the field of
sensations.

But we need not go to exceptional experi-
ences to illustrate the fact. At every moment
of my waking life, my various sense-organs are
receiving physical impressions from a variety
of objects; rays of light from many objects
are entering my eye, forming optical images
upon my retina, and stimulating my optic
nerve; sounds from many sources are assailing
my ears, contacts and odours my skin and

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 57

nose. And all these sense-impressions affect
my consciousness in the way of exciting sensa-
tions. But of all the objects which are thus
exciting sensations at any moment, I am
clearly aware of perhaps one only, or, if I am
sunk hi reflective thought, of none of them.
When my attention is given to any one of
these objects, the sensations excited by it
initiate a process of mental activity; they
evoke a meaning, and I apprehend the object
as such or such. All the rest of the sensations
present in consciousness remain obscure and
meaningless, or almost so; they are said to
constitute the margin of the field of con-
sciousness, while the object singled out for
attentive scrutiny is said to occupy the centre
of that field.

It is the marginal sensations which are most
difficult to describe by any other than the
cinematograph method. No doubt they play
some slight part in determining the course
of mental activity; but their functional
relation to this activity is so obscure that it
eludes us, and we can only describe them by
saying that they subsist as sensations making
up together this margin of the field of con-
sciousness. It may be said with some plausi-
bility that all of the sense-impressions re-
ceived by our organs solicit our attention.

58 PSYCHOLOGY

Each one, probably, tends, and tends more
strongly the more intense it is, to determine
the direction of our mental activity; but if so,
then only some few can at any one moment
play an effective part of this sort and be taken
up into the main current of consciousness.

The consciousness of any person always
involves, then, not only a more or less complex
mass of feelings, but also this thought-activity
which cannot be described by the cinemato-
graph method. The proportions of the two
constituents of consciousness vary widely;
during abstract thinking, the feeling-mass may
be relatively slight, consisting of little more
than a train of images of words heard or seen,
while a rich stream of meanings passes through
consciousness. On the other hand, when the
mind is inactive, when it approaches the
condition of sleep or of complete confusion,
the thought-activity is very slight, while the
feeling-mass may be large. Thus, as I lie
just awaking from deep dreamless sleep, my
sense-organs may be assailed by many strong
impressions which evoke a complex mass of
feelings of high intensity, but nevertheless I
may remain for some moments mentally
inactive; the sounds, or sights, or smells, or
touches, that assail me have no meaning for
me, or but a minimum of meaning. Whether

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 59

it is possible for any one's thought-activity to
be reduced to zero, while feeling still con-
tinues, is a theoretical question, to which it
seems impossible to return a definite answer;
for, if any one were reduced to that state, he
would be incapable of describing it, or of
remembering it on returning to a more active
or fully waking condition. This hypothetical
state of mind has been called one of anoetic
sentience or thoughtless feeling. With the
possible exception of such states of anoetic
sentience, to be conscious is to be mentally
active.

To speak, then, of consciousness and to
attempt to describe consciousness as some-
thing that exists and can be analysed into
constituent parts which severally exist, ab-
stracting from or neglecting the mental
activity or function, is to distort the facts
very seriously and to use a method which
cannot be wholly successful. This method of
description is useful for certain special pur-
poses; but, when we set out to gain insight
into mental process in general, we shall do
better to follow a method of description which
does less violence to the facts.

Now, when we regard consciousness as an
activity, we cannot ignore the fundamental
fact that some one is conscious, the fact that

60 PSYCHOLOGY

I am conscious, or that some other organism
more or less like myself is conscious; that is
to say, consciousness does not exist of itself,
but is an activity of some being which, in all
cases of which we have positive knowledge, is
a material organism, but to which we may
conveniently give the general name, subject.

A second fundamental fact is that to be
conscious is to be conscious of something;
which thing is properly called the object of
my consciousness. Being conscious is, then,
an activity of a subject in relation to an
object; and we shall do well to choose as our
most general term for describing the facts a
verb, rather than a substantive such as con-
sciousness. The best verb for this purpose is
the verb to think of. The word think is used
by some authors to refer only to mental
processes of the higher or more intellectual
kind; but it may be used with advantage in
this wider and more general sense, in which it
is equivalent to the clumsy expression to be
conscious of.

Whenever, then, there is mental activity,
some subject is thinking of some object; the
object may be a material thing, or a physical
process, or a mental activity, or an abstract
quality or property, such as virtue, or weight,
or heat, or any other object which we can

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 61

distinguish or to which we can direct our
attention and discourse. In the typical act
of thinking we can distinguish three aspects;
the subject knows the object as such or such,
he is pleasurably or painfully affected by it,
and he strives to bring about some change in
it or in his relation to it. It is generally
maintained that every mental act presents
these three aspects; or is at once a knowing,
a being affected, and a striving; or, hi
technical terms, a cognition, an affection (or
a feeling in the narrower sense of this word)
and a conation. For example, on looking
at a flower, I apprehend or cognize or know
it as a flower of a particular shape and colour,
I am pleased by it, and I examine it more
closely in order to know it more fully.

These are not separable parts of the think-
ing process; nevertheless we must regard the
affection and the striving as consequential
upon the knowing, and the character of the
striving as in some degree determined by the
affection; but in turn the striving reacts upon
the knowing, maintains and furthers it, and
leads to modification of the feeling. And so
the cycle continues and the thinking pro-
gresses towards its natural end, which is the
satisfaction brought by the terminal cogni-
tion. To illustrate again by the case of the

62 PSYCHOLOGY

flower; the initial apprehension of its colour
pleases me and stimulates me to examine it
more closely, with the more or less explicit
purpose of discovering its botanical position;
the closer examination, maintained and gov-
erned by this purpose, enables me to know it
more fully; and the whole cycle of activity
comes to its natural end when I have seized
the distinguishing features of the flower and
recognized it as a variety of this or that species
and genus. Mental activity or thinking thus
tends to progress in cycles; each cycle begins
with knowing, which excites feeling and striv-
ing; the striving results in a new knowing,
which satisfies the striving; and so the cycle
reaches its natural termination in a feeling of
satisfaction. By adopting this method of
describing mental process, we may hope to
avoid the f alsifications of the facts which the
cinematograph method tends so strongly to
produce; especially the abstraction from both
subject and object; the "reification" of the
steps of mental activity; and the ignoring of
the essentially purposive character of the
process. If for certain purposes of detailed
description we make use of that method, we
shall keep it in complete subordination to the
truer method, remaining fully aware of the
distortion of the facts produced by it. In this

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 63

way we may hope to combine the advan-
tages and to avoid the drawbacks of both
methods.

The two methods and the combination of
them may be illustrated by the description
of an imperfect recollection of a particular
flower previously seen on a single occasion.
The description according to the thorough-
going cinematograph method would run as
follows: My idea of the flower consists of
visual images which are imperfect repro-
ductions of the sensations that composed my
precept of it. The truer method would be to
say — I think of the flower hi visual terms, but
I cannot faithfully reproduce in memory the
colours of its various parts as they appeared
to me when I perceived it. The convenient
comfined method would be to say — I recollect
the flower in visual terms, but my colour-
images do not faithfully reproduce the colour-
sensations.

If every mental process is at once a know-
ing, an affection, and a striving, it must be
recognized that one or other of these aspects is
commonly dominant; so that we are led to
speak of each kind of mental process by the
name of the dominant aspect; thus we speak
of acts of perception, recognition, recollection,
reasoning, when we are predominantly cogni-

64 PSYCHOLOGY

tive; of states of emotion, or feeling, when
affection is dominant; of volition, resolution,
deciding, desiring, when we are vividly
conscious of striving towards an end. It is
this way of speaking which has led to the
common error of regarding these aspects of
all mental process as separable functions; an
error of which the commonest and most
serious form has been to regard intellectual
processes as capable of being purely cognitive
or completely freed from the influence of the
emotions and the will.

We pass on to observe that, though the
devising of an appropriate method of de-
scribing consciousness is an important and
difficult task which has not yet been com-
pleted, yet such description is merely a first
step in the study of behaviour. In itself a
mere description of the consciousness of any
subject does nothing to explain his behaviour.
It is true that in many cases a man's behav-
iour is in large measure explained by even a
very partial description of his consciousness at
the time; but this is only in virtue of our
knowledge of certain laws or rules of the con-
nexion between certain modes of conscious-
ness and certain modes of behaviour which
experience has led us to formulate, however
roughly and vaguely. Thus, if I call on a

THE STUDt OF CONSCIOUSNESS 65

friend and find him walking rapidly up and
down his room, gesticulating wildly and mut-
tering incoherently, I may feel that his behav-
iour is explained, in a partial or proximate
fashion at least, when he tells me that he is
filled with rage, or grief, or remorse; for,
through various experiences of my own as well
as through the observation of others, I have
learnt that each of these emotions is com-
monly accompanied by, or expresses itself in,
a peculiar mode of behaviour. One task of
psychology is, then, to refine and correct these
empirical generalizations in which we all for-
mulate more or less explicitly the relations of
concomitance between modes of behaviour
and modes of consciousness or thinking.

But my friend's statement that he is filled
with anger, or grief, or remorse, is at best but
a very partial explanation of his behaviour;
before I can feel that I have an adequate
explanation, I require to know what made
him angry, or grieved, or remorseful. Con-
sider a more complicated case. Suppose I am
told the bare fact that an acquaintance of
mine has shot and killed a man. Being utterly
at a loss to understand this behaviour, I go to
him and seek to find the explanation. In
doing this I am forestalling the judge and
jury; for when the homicide is brought before

66 PSYCHOLOGY

them, their business precisely is to discover
the psychological explanation of the behaviour
which resulted in homicide; and, according
to the nature of the psychological conclusion
they reach, they will bring in a verdict of
accidental homicide, of justifiable homicide,
of wilful and malicious murder, or of wilful
murder with extenuating circumstances, or of
homicide due to insane delusions, or of homi-
cide during a paroxysmal mental derange-
ment; and the treatment meted out to the
offender will be determined by the nature of
this purely psychological verdict. I dwell
upon the legal aspect of our imaginary case,
because it will serve to bring home to the
reader in a forcible manner the fact, so con-
stantly ignored, that none of us can escape
the necessity of frequently making psycho-
logical judgments, and that our relations with
our fellows are determined at every point by
such judgments. It is true that we attempt
to simplify, or to avoid altogether, the exer-
cise of psychological judgment, by accepting
and applying a number of moral maxims or
formulae, such as — to kill, or to steal, or to lie,
is wrong — to forgive injury, or to relieve
distress, or to repress anger, is right. But
only the most thoughtless of men can be con-
tent to apply these maxims to the acts of his

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 67

fellows without reference to the motives or the
mental processes of which their acts are the
issues. Now, as soon as one inquires after
motives of behaviour, one enters upon a psy-
chological problem and requires all the help
that psychology can give; just as surely as the
man who sets out to build an aeroplane enters
upon a mechanical problem and requires all
the help that the science of mechanics can
afford.

To go back now to our acquaintance, Jon-
son, who has been so unfortunate as to kill a
man Smith. If we learn that Jonson struck
down his victim in a fit of fury, we know that
the act was not accidental, but was in some
sense purposive: but, before we can under-
stand or pass any moral judgment upon the
act, we must know the conditions that excited
this violent emotion. We may learn that
Smith was a casual stranger who, in the course
of an altercation with Jonson, had struck him
or used grossly insulting language; or that
Smith had perpetrated a gross outrage upon
the dearest object of Jonson's affections; or
that Smith had long used a position of advan-
tage over Jonson to torment him and injure
him, in a spirit of wanton cruelty; or that
Jonson, after repeatedly failing in various
undertakings, had gradually become moody

68 PSYCHOLOGY

and suspicious, frequently resenting the ac-
tions of perfectly innocent persons whom he
believed to be scheming to injure him; or
that Jonson had furiously assaulted Smith,
just after recovering from an epileptic fit, and
seems to remember nothing of the incident.
In the last case we recognize that the infor-
mation enables us to class the act in the cate-
gory of post-epileptic paroxysms, of which we
can say little more than that such paroxysms

• of fury have been observed to follow upon
epileptic attacks, and that they imply a grave

' disorder of the constitution of the organism.
In each of the other cases the nature of
the train of mental activity leading up to the
action is indicated in a general way, and the
action is in so far explained. But it is ren-
dered intelligible to us only in virtue of the
fact that we have a general knowledge of
human nature and of the way in which it is
liable to react to special circumstances. Each
phase of the mental processes and of the be-
haviour which led up to the final catastrophe
was a reaction of human nature to particular
circumstances. If we have no intimate ac-
quaintance with Jonson, we can carry our
explanation no further: we have to be con-
tent with recognizing that each particular
mode of reaction to the circumstances de-

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS 69

scribed was such as the constitution of men
in general renders possible. But, if we are
intimately acquainted with Jonson, we may
be able to see that his nature was such that,
under the given circumstances, the state of
consciousness and mode of behaviour evoked
were just such as we might have anticipated.
These considerations will serve to bring
home to us the truth of the following proposi-
tion; namely, that psychology, the science of
behaviour, cannot confine itself merely to
describing consciousness as accurately and
exhaustively as possible, nor to establishing,
as empirical rules, the concurrence of certain
conscious processes with certain forms of
action or behaviour; but that it must seek
also to explain both the processes of conscious-
ness and the associated modes of behaviour
as the issue of certain enduring conditions
which we speak of collectively as the consti-
tution of the mind. This constitution is
something that we cannot directly observe;
we can only infer it. Each of us can observe
only his own consciousness and the behaviour
of himself and of his fellow-creatures; and he
can receive from his fellow-men reports of
their consciousness. From these data he has
to construct by a process of imaginative infer-
ence an account, as serviceable as may be,

70 PSYCHOLOGY

of that hidden and extraordinarily complex
thing which we call human nature, or the con-
stitution of the human mind.

We are now in a position to make a proper
use of the word "mind." We may define the
mind of any organism as the sum of the
enduring conditions of its purposive activi-
ties. And, in order to mark our recognition of
the fact that these conditions are not a mere
aggregation, but form rather an organized
system of which each part is functionally
related to the rest in definite fashion, we may
usefully speak of the "structure" of the mind.
This structure of the mind is something
which, although we cannot observe it, endures
throughout the life of the individual; and all
mental and bodily activities are expressions
and revelations of its nature. From the most
general observation of the course of life of
human beings, we can confidently infer that
the structure of the mind develops gradually
from birth onwards, increasing in complexity
and definiteness of organization up to a cer-
tain period of life, and then, if life is prolonged,
gradually undergoing some regressive changes.
We can confidently infer also that the course
of its development is governed in two ways,
partly by an intrinsic tendency to develop
along certain lines which are determined by

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 71

the ancestry or heredity of the individual;
partly by the influences of the environ-
ment, which promote in very diverse degrees
the actualization of the various hereditary
potentialities.

CHAPTER III

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND

IN what terms shall we describe the struc-
ture of the mind? How are we to conceive
it? This is a question of fundamental im-
portance for psychology; but no one answer
to it has yet secured general acceptance.

Let us glance at some of the principal ways
in which this problem has been dealt with.
An old-fashioned method of dealing with it
is to describe the mind as consisting of a bun-
dle of faculties, assigning each of the mental
functions that is commonly distinguished and
named to a faculty of the same name; such as
the faculties of perception, conception, im-
agination, judgment, reason, will, and, related
to all these in some utterly obscure fashion,
the faculty of memory. This doctrine is one
of great importance; for its great simplicity
has recommended it to the general mind, and
it still forms the implicit basis of much of
the current educational theory and practice.

72 PSYCHOLOGY

Our schoolboys are set to geometry, in order
to develop the faculty of reason; to learning
by heart poetry and dates and irregular verbs,
in order to develop the faculty of memory;
to composing Latin verses, in order to develop
the faculty of taste; and so on, and so on;
and though the "faculty psychology" has
long been regarded as out of date, the wisdom
of these practical applications of it has been
seriously and effectively challenged in recent
years only.

Another way of describing the structure
of the mind which has enjoyed a great vogue,
was devised in association with the method
of describing mental activity as a sequence of
ideas. Every idea was regarded as capable
of existing in two conditions or forms: on the
one hand, it might be a conscious idea or exist
in consciousness, consciousness being spoken
of as an illuminated chamber into which
ideas enter in turn, to be lit up and active for
a short period; and on the other hand, it
might exist as an unconscious idea in the mem-
ory, a sort of Hades or dim underworld to
which each idea, or its ghost, returns after its
brief exposure to the light of consciousness;
there to await and to seize any opportunity
of emerging again into light and life. Within
this underworld ideas remain linked together

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 73

in complex groupings. The whole assembly
of ideas, thus linked in the obscurity of mem-
ory, constitutes the structure of the mind;
and mental activity consists in each idea
dragging up after it into the light whatever
ideas are linked or associated with it.

Another way of conceiving what we have
called the structure of the mind is to identify
it with the structure of the nervous system.
This method has commonly been adopted by
those who accept literally the description of
consciousness as an agglomeration of sensa-
tions. Each sensation is regarded as attached
to some functional element of the nervous
system or brain. These brain-elements are
conceived as connected together to form an
immensely complex machine. Physical im-
pressions, falling upon parts of this machine,
set free in it currents of energy, which run
hither and thither in a manner determined by
the connections of the parts, and, finding
exit in the motor nerves that actuate the
muscles, bring about all the bodily movements
that make up behaviour; and certain of the
brain-elements, when thus stirred up to play
their parts as links of the mechanism, as
cogs of the machine, throw off incidentally
sensations of various qualities; the successive
conjunctions of which constitute the stream

74 PSYCHOLOGY

of consciousness. Some such view as this ;
is very widely accepted, and, actuated by a
belief in its literal truth, thousands of busy
workers, who turn aside from psychology as
from a mystical study comparable to astrology
or alchemy, are devoting their lives to the
minute exploration of the structure of the
brain with scalpel and microscope and a
hundred ingenious methods of refined re-
search, convinced that therein lies the secret
of human nature.

Now we have admitted already the possi-
bility that this view and this method may
ultimately justify themselves; but there are
three good reasons why we should not adopt
them in the present state of science. First,
we have no warrant for the assumption that
the mechanical processes of material struc-
tures, however complex, can issue in move-
ments that have the characteristics of be-
haviour. Secondly, we have no warrant for
believing that such processes can of them-
selves produce sensations or feeling of any
kind, or can be in any sense identified with
the processes of consciousness. Thirdly, if
we adopted this view, we should hamper our-
selves by laying down fixed limits within
which our thought must move, when we set
out to build up our conception of the struc-

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 75

lure of the mind. Of course, if the view were
well established, this restriction of the range
of speculation would be purely advantageous;
but, so long as the whole problem remains
obscure, we ought to avoid the acceptance of
such limits; for it may well be that this struc-
ture is quite incapable of being adequately
described in terms of the spatial distribution
of elements of any kind.

Here a word of warning must be given
against the tendency, so natural to most of
us, to think of all structure after the pattern
of material structures; that is, as consisting
in a spatial arrangement of connected parts.
It seems worth while to point out that com-
mon usage approves the use of the word
*' structure" to describe systems which have
nothing of this nature. We speak of the struc-
ture of a story, or of a play, or of a piece of
music; meaning thereby that, when we con-
template the whole, we see that it consists of
parts each of which is related to the whole
and to all the other parts in a fashion which
is significant for, or contributes to determine
the characteristic nature of, the whole. It
is in this sense, of a whole consisting of
systematically related parts, that we speak
of the structure of the mind. But we must
not assume that the structure of a play or of

76 PSYCHOLOGY

a sonata provides a perfect analogy for the
structure of the mind; although the analogy
may be closer than that furnished by the
structure of a steam-engine.

We have, then, to build up our notion of
the structure of the mind by an intricate
process of creative imagination, inferring its
nature from our observation of the operations
it achieves, which operations are only par-
tially revealed to us on introspection and in
the behaviour of living beings.

We have rejected as unsatisfactory three
of the traditional methods of describing the
structure of the mind. But in rejecting
these, we should endeavour to hold fast to
whatever of truth they have revealed; for it
is highly improbable that methods accepted
and used by many able men have proved
altogether barren; and the best way to arrive
at a better method is to try to remedy the
deficiencies of these traditional methods by
combining their meritorious features.

Now, the most effective of these older
methods was, undoubtedly, that which de-
scribed mental process as consisting in the
succession of ideas, and the structure of the
mind as consisting in the system of latent
ideas. The exponents of this method have
generally claimed for it as a great merit

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 77

that it enables us to dispense with the notion
of faculties; yet one of its weaknesses is in-
dicated by the fact, that many of those who
have attempted to work by it have combined
it in some degree with the method of faculties.
They have spoken of the mind as exercising
its faculties upon or about its ideas, as com-
paring them, recalling them, combining or
distinguishing them, holding fast or rejecting
them, or as otherwise reacting or operating
upon them. This tendency results from the
inherent impossibility of describing mental
process by the cinematograph method, and of
ignoring the agency or activity of a subject.
We cannot, in fact, get rid of the notion of
the subject by substituting for it a collection
or system or ideas; the subject is, at least,
that which has and enjoys the ideas and holds
them together to form one mind. For, if
we recognize ideas at all, we must also recog-
nize that ideas considered as things are not
scattered about the world as loose and sepa-
rate existences, but that they cohere in sys-
tems, each of which constitutes a mind.

We have already approved of the method
of describing mental process which consists
in speaking of it as the activity of a subject;
but, instead of saying that the subject exer-
cises these activities about ideas, we agreed

78 PSYCHOLOGY

to say that the subject, or (as we may now
say if we prefer the mode of expression) the
mind, thinks of objects in these various ways.
Now, if we recognize a subject, we must ad-
mit that it has certain faculties; for a subject
devoid of capacities would be a nonentity.
And by a "faculty" we mean a capacity
for an ultimate, irreducible, or unanalyzable
mode of thinking of, or of being conscious of,
objects; a capacity which we have to accept
as a fact, and which we cannot hope to
explain as a conjunction of more fundamental
capacities. In this sense, knowing, feeling
and striving, must be recognized as faculties
of the mind; and we have to raise in regard
to each one of them the question — Is it a
single faculty, or is it a class of faculties of
similar nature? It seems necessary to accept
the latter view. Striving seems to be of two
ultimate kinds, namely, striving towards and
striving away from the object, or appetition
and aversion. Feeling or affection, again,
seems to be of at least two ultimate kinds,
namely, agreeable and disagreeable feeling,
or pleasure and displeasure. There seems
good reason also to recognize feeling of ex-
citement and feeling of depression as equally
ultimate and irresolvable, and, therefore,
as faculties of the subject. It is difficult to

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 79

see how we can refuse to admit a larger vari-
ety of faculties of feeling. Our emotions are
infinitely various; but most of them seem
capable of being analysed and exhibited as con-
junctions of a small number of primary emo-
tions; each of these seems to be a mode of
f eeling which is not capable of further analysis,
and which is, therefore, an ultimate mode of
being conscious that implies a corresponding
faculty. But this is a very difficult question;
and in respect to it we must keep open minds.
Now we have to face the question — Is
knowing the exercise of a single faculty,
or must we recognize a variety of modes of
knowing, each being the exercise of a distinct
faculty? In attempting to answer this ques-
tion, we must observe the following principles:
whatever in our thinking can be described in
terms of the object does not imply a faculty;
a faculty is only implied by a mode of think-
ing of an object which is ultimate and irredu-
cible; a faculty may be exercised about objects
of every kind. It would seem that we cannot
be content to admit only one mode of know-
ing, namely, simple apprehension or aware-
ness of objects. For besides simply thinking
or being aware of objects, we affirm or deny
them; and these seem to be ultimate modes of
knowing or thinking (or two varieties of one

80 PSYCHOLOGY

ultimate mode) : affirming and denying, then,]
seem to be rooted in a special faculty (or
faculties), and all processes of judgment and ,
reasoning seem to be instances of the exercise
of this faculty.

It is hard to deny that the activity of
comparing is the exercise of a special faculty;
but it is doubtful whether we ought to recog-
nize any others; for every mode of thinking
other than those already named, can prob-
ably be explained as the conjoint exercise
of the faculties enumerated above. To rec-
ognize, for example, or to remember, is to
think of the same object again, and to judge
or affirm it to be the same object that we
thought of before. To perceive (in the strict
sense) is to think of an object as here at hand ;
but that which distinguishes perceiving from
imagining, or from thinking of an object not
now at hand, seems capable of being de-
scribed as a difference between the objects
in the two cases. The same is true of the dif-
ference between what is called an abstract
idea, or a general idea, and a particular idea;
the first means thinking of an abstract ob-
ject; the second means thinking of a class of
things; the third means thinking of a partic-
ular thing. Again, it may be asked — Does
our thinking of space and extension imply a

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 81

faculty of spatial intuition, as is sometimes
maintained? To this the answer seems to be
— Space and extension and position are ob-
jects, or attributes of objects, rather than
modes of thinking. And if the same question
is asked as regards time and duration, a
similar answer must be made. Duration is
an attribute of objects, not a mode of
thinking.

So much of truth, then, we have to concede
to the method or theory of faculties, and to
take over from it. What now of the method
of ideas? The fact which, according to the
method of ideas, was called the presence of
an idea of a certain object in consciousness,
we prefer to describe by saying that the
subject is thinking of the object. How, then,
are we to describe the fact which, according
to that method, was called the presence of
the idea in a latent state in the storehouse of
memory? Now, we are able to infer from a
multitude of facts that the capacity of any
subject to think in any way of any given
object implies a corresponding particular
development in the structure of his mind.
Any man can think of those things only of
which he has learned to think; and this learn-
ing to think of an object is a process of grad-
ual building up of the capacity by successive

82 PSYCHOLOGY

efforts to think the object more adequately;
and that which endures between the suc-
cessive acts of thinking of this object is a
potentiality of thinking of it again. This
potentiality is what the method of ideas
describes as the persistence of an idea in the
memory. Now this potentiality is not, like
the faculty of thinking, a potentiality of
thinking in general, but a potentiality of
thinking of a specific object. There is, then,
in the structure of any mind something that
endures as the ground of the potentiality of
thinking of each specific object which can be
thought of by that mind. For this we need
a neutral non-committal name. We have
agreed that it should not be called an uncon-
scious or latent idea. Perhaps the best term
by which to describe it is mental disposition;
for it is that which disposes or enables the
mind to think of or to exercise its faculties,
cognitive, affective, and conative, upon a
corresponding object.

Each developed mind comprises a large
number of such dispositions, and the de-
velopment of a mind consists largely in the
building up of such dispositions. We may try
to imagine a completely undeveloped mind as
consisting of faculties without dispositions;
that would be a mind with everything to

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 83

learn. But all minds of which we have any
knowledge possess some dispositions, and the
mind of every normal human adult possesses
a vast number. The mind of a man is, in
fact, a microcosm hi which the world, in so far
as he can be said to know it, is represented
in detail, a disposition for every kind of object
and every kind of relation of which he can
think. If, for example, he can think of a
horse, or a cube, or heat, or joy, or the
causal relation, it is in virtue of the existence
in his mind of a disposition corresponding
to each of these objects.

The many dispositions of any mind do not
merely exist side by side; rather they must
be conceived as functionally connected to
form a vast and elaborately organized sys-
tem; and this system is the structure of the
mind. The more perfectly organized the
mind, the more fully are the objects which
compose the world and the relations between
them represented in the mind by the dispo-
sitions and their functional relations. The
total system formed by all the cognitive
dispositions of the mind constitutes what is
commonly called the knowledge possessed
by that mind.

A principal task of psychology is, then,
to provide a general description of these dis-

84 PSYCHOLOGY

positions and their functional relations, and
to give some general account of their develop-
ment and organization. On these problems
the various departments of psychological
inquiry seek to throw light in their several
ways, of which something will be said in later
pages. Here some of the general conclusions
to which they point may be indicated.

We have to conceive the cognitive disposi-
tions as linked together in minor systems, and
these minor systems as linked in larger men-
tal systems, and these again in still larger
systems; and so on, by many steps of super-
ordination, until the whole multitude are
linked in the one vast system.

The relation between the dispositions of
any one system of the lowest order must be
conceived not as a direct connexion, but
rather as consisting in their common con-
nexion with a disposition of a higher order
corresponding to a more general object. For
example, the dispositions through which I
think of horse and dog respectively are con-
nected with that of a more general object,
mammal; and this in turn is connected with
that of the still more general object, verte-
brate; and this again with that of the still
more general object, animal.

The relation between the more general

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 85

and the more special disposition is such that
the activity of the latter involves the activity
of the former; so that, for example, I cannot
think of a horse without thinking of it also
as a mammal, as a vertebrate, and as an
animal, and as a solid material object. That
I do think of it in this complex fashion, even
in the act of casually perceiving a horse, is
shown by the fact that, if the horse exhibited
properties other than those implied by these
general terms, if I saw it fly up in the air, or
swim under water, or lay an egg, or felt it
offer no resistance to my touch, my mental
process would be jarred and disordered and
I should be thrown into a state of confusion
and astonishment: I should hesitate to re-
gard the object as a horse. In short, in
perceiving the object as a horse, I bring into
play a large store of knowledge acquired by
experience, i. e. by previous thinking about
horses, and about animals in general and
material things in general. This example
will serve to show how very inadequately so
simple a process as perceiving a horse is
described by saying that there is evoked in
my consciousness a certain field of sensations
of particular qualities and spatial arrange-
ment. The sense-impression merely initiates
the thinking process. A young child on see-

86 PSYCHOLOGY

ing a horse for the first time might receive
a sense-impression very similar to mine; but
his perceiving would be a vastly simpler proc-
ess than mine, and the difference between
the two is quite incapable of being described
in terms of sensations. Yet even his per-
ceiving would be much more than the mere
reception of the sense-impression; he would
perceive it as a moving solid thing out there;
and, if he had previous experience of cows,
he might perceive — or, in more technical lan-
guage, apperceive — it as a cow, perhaps giving
it that name and otherwise behaving towards
it as he had learnt to behave towards cows.

If we use the static method of description,
we must say that what makes my perception
of the horse so much fuller and so much more
adequate as a guide to action than the
child's perception, is not any greater wealth
of sensations or imagery in my conscious-
ness, but a richer "meaning" evoked by the
similar sense-impression. This "meaning'*
is the expression in consciousness of the
coming into activity of a vast system of
dispositions, built up in my mind through my
thinking since the time I was a young child.

This example will serve also to show how
inadequately the method of ideas describes
the facts; for my thinking of the horse is not

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 87

the bringing out into the light of conscious-
ness of some entity that had been lying
stored in some dark pigeon-hole of the mind;
it was rather an exercise of the faculty of
knowing determined and directed by the
activity of a complex system of mental dis-
positions. For note that, when I perceive,
or in any way think of, a dog, a large part of
the same system is active; for I know it as
a mammal, a vertebrate, an animal, a solid
object and so forth; and it is only in so far as
I know it as a dog-mammal, rather than a
horse-mammal, that the dispositions at work
are different.

Again, suppose that instead of perceiving
merely a horse, or a dog, I perceive my dog,
Jack. The impression has for me a still
richer meaning; it means all that the impres-
sion of any other dog means; but I think of
him not merely as a representative of the
species dog, and as all that is implied by that,
but also as the dog who will come at my call,
who will behave in this or that way under
various circumstances: I expect of him all
that I expect of dogs in general, and much
more besides. And my behaviour towards
him is quite special and peculiar; if a stranger
kicks him, I feel as bitter resentment as if he
had kicked me; if he admires him, I am

88 PSYCHOLOGY

gratified. All which shows that within my
mental system "dog" there has been differ-
entiated a special subordinate system, which
is active in addition to the whole dog-system
when I think of my dog, Jack.

The last remark leads us to consider the
way in which systems and dispositions develop
in the mind. No disposition is an altogether
new creation; every one arises rather as a
specialization within some pre-existing dispo-
sition; and in this way, by the specialization
within it of a number of minor dispositions,
a disposition becomes a system of dispositions.
And, when the constituent dispositions of
such a system in turn become systems
through the differentiation of new dispo-
sitions within them, the parent system be-
comes as it were a grandparent, and later
by further similar steps a great-grandparent.
The mental system may, then, be likened to a
family the successive generations of which
continue to live and work contemporaneously;
the dispositions are the individual members;
the work of each such member is supported
by all members of preceding generations in
the direct line of descent. Thus the disposi-
tion by means of which I think of my dog
was differentiated from that of dog in general,
this from that of animal in general; and so on.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 80

This is an over-simplified account of the
growth and relation of mental systems. If
the process of descent, or budding, were the
only way in which systems develop, we
should be justified in regarding all the dispo-
sitions of any mind as the lineal descend-
ants of some one original disposition; and
we might find an analogy for the structure
of the mind in a tree with its stem, branches,
and twigs, each twig being supported by all
parts of the tree of which it is the lineal
descendant by budding. And, if the whole
process of development occurred in the course
of the life-history of a single mind, we might
describe that mind in its primitive undevel-
oped condition as consisting of a single dispo-
sition, which would enable its possessor to
think only of a single most highly general
object. The thinking of such a mind in its
cognitive aspect would be represented by the
words " there is something " ; the nature of the
object remaining quite unspecified. To de-
scribe the growth of the mind in this way
would be far truer than to describe it as pro-
ceeding in the inverse way (as has often been
done) ; namely, as beginning with the detailed
apprehension of a number of discrete objects
as unrelated particulars, and as proceeding
by the subsequent classing together of those

90 PSYCHOLOGY

which are seen to resemble one another, or by
the bringing together in the mind of the ideas
of features in which they resemble one an-
other, to form a more general idea.

The young child does not begin by clearly
distinguishing this cat and that dog, and does
not then proceed to combine the like features
of all cats in a general idea and those of all
dogs in another; and he does not thereafter
construct a still more general idea of four-
footed beast or animal. Rather he begins
by perceiving all cats and all dogs as moving
things which he shrinks from in fear or strives
to hug in his arms; and from such experiences
he learns to think vaguely of such moving
things as different from inert things; the
disposition so formed then becomes differenti-
ated, as he learns to distinguish cat from dog,
and to think of other animals in the same way,
as things that move and respond to his actions
as his fellow human beings do. Commonly
the child seems to come, like most savages,
to think of animals as beings like himself,
accepting each new variety he comes across
as a member of the same class of beings.
And only gradually does he learn to distin-
guish the various kinds as unlike himself
in various degrees. For the developing mind
does not achieve of itself the scientific classi-

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 91

fication of the animal kingdom; that is a
product of the work of many minds, which,
being embodied in language, can be used to
direct the growth and differentiation of the
system in each developing mind.

But this differentiation by acts of pro-
gressive discrimination is not the only process
by which the structure of the mind develops.
There occurs also a process of another kind,
which is of extreme importance. This is
the process of perception of similarity between
objects. As regards the dispositions and
systems concerned, it is a process which re-
sults in the conjunction of previously separate
systems to form a single system. In terms
of the analogy presented by the structure
of a tree, we may say that one branch becomes
joined with another, so that their twigs be-
yond the point of junction are supported by
their conjoint strength.

As an example of such a process, take the
case of a child who has grown up without
learning to regard plants as living beings,
but, nevertheless, has learnt to think of them
as a distinct class of things. Suddenly it is
borne in upon him that plants also, like the
animals, are alive; at that moment two
systems become conjoined in his mind, and
thereafter form a single larger system; the

92 PSYCHOLOGY

living-being system apperceives the other, and
incorporates it with itself. In terms of the
analogy of the successive generations of a
family, we may say that diverging stocks
or lines of descent become blended now and
again by intermarriage.

As an example of a slightly different mode
of this process, we may take the young student
of physics, who, having learnt to think of
gases and of liquids as very different states
of matter, suddenly becomes aware of those
points of similarity in virtue of which they are
classed together as fluid matter. The two
systems built up by his observation of gases
and liquids respectively, become conjoined in
a new system, the possession of which there-
after enables the subject to think of the
properties common to liquids and gases in
abstraction from, or to the neglect of, the
properties in which they differ. Or again,
a child is familiar with the eggs of animals
and with the seeds of plants, but has never
thought of their similarities, until, perhaps,
he is led to do so by hearing the word egg
applied to the seed of a plant, or the word
germ applied to both eggs and seeds; after
which the word germ is used by him to mean
the properties common to both classes of
objects. In such cases the developing mind

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 93

is guided by language to effect the synthetic
process which some other mind has previously
achieved as a process of independent dis-
covery. The classical instance of original
apperception usually cited is Newton's dis-
covery of the likeness between the motion of
the moon and that of falling bodies, and his
consequent thinking of all such processes as
examples of gravitation.

The process of apperceptive synthesis pro-
duces a simplification of the structure of the
mind and of the language which reflects it,
by which they are rendered more effective
instruments of thinking. It may be regarded
as a process by which the failures of the
process of differentiation are rectified. For,
if we imagine a mind developing from the
primitive condition we have postulated on
an earlier page (p. 89) by ideally perfect
processes of successive discrimination of
objects and corresponding differentiation of
dispositions, we shall see that it would not
require the synthetic fusion of systems, in
order to perfect its structure and to become
a true microcosm accurately reflecting the
whole world of objects and their relations.
We may illustrate this point by referring
again to the world of life. We may suppose
that such a mind would first think of every

94 PSYCHOLOGY

living thing it encountered simply as such,
without discriminating varieties; it would
know then simply as possessing the proper-
ties common to all living things; in this,
exercising the fundamental property of re-
acting in the same way to things in so far as
they are alike. We may suppose that it
would then discriminate animals from plants;
and then the great classes of each kingdom;
and so step by step arrive at discrimination
of species, varieties, and lastly, individual
creatures, differentiating in the process the
corresponding dispositions.

Such, we may suppose, might be the course
of development of a pure and perfect intellect,
if such a being were possible. But the actual
growth of our minds is very different. Each
human mind takes up its course of develop-
ment from a point already far advanced and
with certain strong tendencies to react to
objects, not merely according to their intrinsic
likenesses and differences, but according to the
way in which objects subserve the practical
needs of the organism hi which the mind is
embodied; and throughout its development
each mind comes to know objects in those
aspects which affect these practical needs,
rather than in those which, from a purely
intellectual point of view, would appear to

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 95

be their essential and distinguishing features.
Hence the need for that process of synthesis
of systems, by which are discovered the
essential similarities of things previously
thought of in complete separation, if we are
to achieve the capacity of thinking things
in any other way than that which immediately
subserves practical needs.

In all these processes of development of
the human mind, the use of language plays
a very important part. In the process of dif-
ferentiation of dispositions by discrimination,
the name helps to preserve as a system the
original disposition within which differentia-
tion takes place. For the hearing of a name
given to an object fulfils the same function
as the sense-impression received from it;
namely, it brings the corresponding dispo-
sition into activity, and thus enables us to
continue to conceive as a whole the class
within which we have distinguished kinds or
individuals; whereas, in the absence of the
class-name, so soon as we had learnt to react
differently to the objects we discriminate, we
should cease to think of the class, the original
object of higher generality, and the original
disposition would decay. Thus a child, having
through contact with various dogs learnt to
think of the object dog-in-general, goes on

96 PSYCHOLOGY

to discriminate collie dogs and terriers, the
two breeds most commonly represented in
his neighbourhood; and we may suppose that
his attitude to the two breeds is very differ-
ent owing to the friendliness of the collies
and the snappishness of the terriers. In these
circumstances a child deprived altogether of
the use of language would sharply distinguish
the two classes and would tend to forget, that
is, to lose the power of thinking of, dog-in-
general. But a child who has first learnt to
give the name dog to dogs of both breeds, will
continue to think of this more general object
on hearing the word dog, after discriminating
collies and terriers. In a similar way a child
brought up in the Southern States of the
American Union learns first to think of man-
in-general; but later he learns to discriminate
white men and "niggers"; and their differ-
ences become so accentuated and their simi-
larities so neglected, that, but for his com-
mand of the word man, he would be in danger
of forgetting that black men and white men
are varieties of the one species, Man, and of
losing the power of thinking of the more gen-
eral object, Man.

In relation to apperceptive synthesis lan-
guage plays an even more important role.
There has been much discussion of the

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 97

question — Is thinking possible without lan-
guage? The question is raised, of course,
only in respect of the higher forms of think-
ing, which involve the thinking of highly
general or abstract objects and the judgment
of similarities between them. And it is some-
times said that it is impossible to think of
a general or abstract object, or, as is more
commonly said, to form general and abstract
ideas, without the aid of language. Now
this can hardly be true; for in the mind
of him who first discovers the similarity be-
tween classes of objects previously thought
of separately, and who thus first thinks of
the more general object, the apperceptive
synthesis of systems must take place without
the aid of a name for the more general object.
By afterwards giving the object a name, he
fixes it for his mind, and achieves a much
greater power of thinking of it at will; and,
farther, he becomes able to communicate his
new way of thinking to others, and to enable
them also to think of the more general object.
Names, then, are not essential to the think-
ing of general objects, but they greatly fa-
cilitate such thinking; they serve as ready
means of bringing into play the mental sys-
tems corresponding to objects. In the case of
general objects, they are much more service-

98 PSYCHOLOGY

able for this purpose than the sense-impres-
sion made by any individual object of the
class; for by such sense-impression one is
led to think of the individual object with its
specific peculiarities rather than of the general
object : and when our aim is to discover truths
about the class, the thinking of the features
peculiar to individuals does but clog the
processes of reasoning. And the second great
function of words is to fix and render commu-
nicable the results achieved by the thinking
of successive generations of mankind. The
language of any community thus embodies in
objective form the intellectual progress made
by it; it reflects the mental structure of the
individual minds, and enables and, indeed,
compels each generation to build up its men-
tal structure after the pattern set by fore-
going generations.

Beside the two great processes by which
there are developed in the mind dispositions
and systems that enable it to think of a wealth
of objects according to their intrinsic natures
and affinities, there goes on a process of a
different kind, as the result of which objects
are thought of as related to form groups and
series according to the accidents of time and
place which have determined their conjunc-
tion for the mind. That is to say, in addition

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 99

to all that development of mental structure
which partially mirrors the constitution of
the world of objects, the mind's structure
reflects also the history of the world in a very
partial manner, namely, in so far as that
history has been observed, whether directly
or indirectly, by the mind in question.
Objects are thought of together or in sequence,
because they are presented to the observation
of the subject as significant features of one
scene or of one train of incidents; when the
mind has once perceived, or otherwise thought
of, particular objects as related parts of one
whole scene or train of events, it retains the
power (in some degree) of thinking of them
again in similar relations. This capacity to
think again of objects in the historical rela-
tions in which they have been previously
thought of, implies the formation and persist-
ence in the mind of functional links between
the corresponding dispositions. The struc-
ture of the developed mind comprises a vast
system of such links between its dispositions;
they are generally spoken of as links of asso-
ciation, and the objects are said to be associ-
ated together for the mind. In virtue of the
existence of such links between dispositions,
the thought of any one object is apt to lead
the mind to think of another thus associated

100 PSYCHOLOGY

with it. Thus, if I have on one occasion
seen a cat seated on the back of a pony, 1
shall be apt to think of that cat whenever
I again think of that pony. The static
method describes the fact by saying that the
idea of the pony is associated with the idea
of the cat, and that the one idea, therefore,
reproduces or tends to reproduce the other.

The formation of such associative links
between dispositions is an important feature
in the growth of the structure of the mind.
It is obvious that the process is very differ-
ent from the apperceptive processes of dif-
ferentiation of dispositions and synthesis of
systems which we have discussed above.
Whereas these result in the capacity to think
objects not previously thought, the associa-
tive process merely leads to the thinking of
particular objects as standing to one another
in some external relation, such as spatial prox-
imity or temporal sequence.

The laws of such association and associative
reproduction have been minutely studied, and
much detailed knowledge of them has been
acquired, which we cannot discuss here. The
most important point to note is that the mind
does not play a passive part in the formation
of associations. Objects become associated
for the mind, not merely because they are

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 101

presented to the senses simultaneously or
in immediate succession, but when and be-
cause the mind perceives or otherwise thinks
of them as related with one another; and it
does this only in so far as it is interested in
them as so related, that is to say, in so far as
they stir up some conative tendency. To go
back to the instance of the pony and the cat;
if, at the moment my glance fell on the two
animals, the cat had been seated on the
ground at some little distance from the pony,
I should have noticed both animals only hi
the most fleeting fashion, if at all, and I
should not have associated them together.
But their spatial relation implied a friendli-
ness between them which is unusual and
appeals to my interest in the behaviour of
animals; hence, out of all the details of the
scene presented to my vision, my mind seizes
upon these two objects and their relation. It
may be remarked in passing that this example
illustrates the impossibility of describing even
so simple a process of association as this in
terms of sensation and imagery. The mere
spatial relation of the two visual forms is of
no interest. It is only because they mean for
me far more than is actually presented to the
eye, that the situation appeals to an interest
and draws my attention.

BARBARA.

102 PSYCHOLOGY

It is in virtue of the links of association thus
formed between dispositions that we are able
to reconstruct in memory the scenes and
events we have lived through, an activity
properly called reproductive imagination. In
so far as this process is determined by the
links between dispositions, one tends to re-
think any series of events in the order in which
they were first thought or perceived; the
recounting of an incident by a person of
simple mental type, who is merely talking for
the sake of talking, reveals sometimes a
mental process which is little more than the
successive excitement of dispositions through
associative links. But all such associative
thinking is governed in some degree by the
purpose or conation which maintains the
activity; and this influence of the dominant
purpose reveals itself in the selection and
accentuation of the features or phases of the
incident relevant to that purpose, and in the
neglect and suppression of those which are
irrelevant. The associative mechanism thus
forms a quasi-mechanical part of the struc-
ture of the mind, and a part which functions
in quasi-mechanical fashion; it furnishes
material, as it were, for the creative activity
of thought to work upon. In all consecutive
thinking it plays some part, but its share in

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 103

the determination of the course of mental
activity varies widely. It plays a leading
role in a simple faithful recital of events
observed. In a recital dominated by aesthetic
purpose, purposive selection and accentua-
tion greatly modify its operation. In one in
which the narrator, dominated by such a
purpose, permits himself to embellish the
story with additions as well as to select inci-
dents, its r61e is still more subordinated to
creative activity. And in the composition of
a fictitious story, such as a novel or drama,
this dominance of associative reproduction by
purposive creative thinking is carried to an
extreme, though the activity still involves the
co-operation of the two processes. Such com-
position, in so far as it is truly creative, in-
volves the apperceptive processes by which
mental dispositions and systems are devel-
oped; in so far as it is reproductive, it in-
volves merely a selective preference among
the many alternative paths of association, a
preference determined by the purpose of the
artist.

We have distinguished two parts of the
mental structure directly concerned in cog-
nition, namely, the part developed by apper-
ceptive processes and consisting in the mental
dispositions and systems functionally related

104 PSYCHOLOGY

in a manner that corresponds to the logical
relations between objects; and, secondly, the
part developed by association and consisting
in associative links between dispositions and
systems, which links reflect the historical
sequence of events rather than any logical
relations. It seems worth while to illustrate
this distinction in the following way. Imag-
ine a pair of twins whose mental constitutions,
so far as inherited, are extremely alike.
Imagine them to be brought up in separate
places and in separate, though extremely
similar, social circles, and to be subjected to
closely similar educative processes. The re-
sult will be that in respect to "logical struc-
ture" their minds will be very similar, but in
respect to "historical structure" very differ-
ent. When set in similar situations, faced
with similar problems or tasks, their mental
processes would be very similar, and they
would, as a rule, reach similar conclusions;
yet the particulars of their thinking would be
constantly different; they would be like two
men thinking the same thoughts in different
languages.

Hitherto we have considered the structure
of the mind only in so far as it conditions cog-
nition; but we have seen that all thinking is
affective and conative as well as cognitive.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 105

And knowing is but the servant of feeling and
acting; it is the process by which the will
works towards its end and the satisfaction
which comes with the attainment of the end;
and all the complex development of the con-
ditions of the cognitive life, roughly indicated
in the foregoing pages, is achieved through
the efforts of the will to attain its ends.

Regarded from the biological point of view,
the function of all mental process and mental
structure is to preserve and promote the life
of the race and that of the individual in so far
as he subserves the life of the race. The life
of the race is preserved and promoted by
bodily activities; of these the massive move-
ments of the limbs and of other motor organs
are of principal importance, and we may
without serious error consider these alone.
All mental activity, then, normally issues in
bodily movement; since only by promoting
and guiding bodily movement can it fulfil
its function. Conation is the application of
mental energy to the direction and mainte-
nance of the bodily activities by which the
life of the race is furthered, and cognition
governs bodily activity only through the
medium of conation.

The primitive cycle of purposive or mental
activity seems to be (as said above) cognition,

106 PSYCHOLOGY

evoking feeling and conation, which conation,
issuing in bodily activity, brings about a new
cognition that in turn brings a feeling of satis-
faction and terminates the conation. For
example, I become aware that the man stand-
ing beside me has struck me; this cognition
evokes in me angry feeling and an irresist-
ible impulse to return the blow. The impulse
immediately finds vent in action; and I see
the object of my thinking stretched out upon
the ground. This new cognition terminates
the conation, and my angry feeling gives place
to satisfaction. Or it may be that the new
cognition, the seeing of my fallen foe, evokes a
feeling of pity and an impulse to succour him,
which brings me to my knees beside him, and
which only subsides and terminates in a feel-
ing of satisfaction, when I see that he has
suffered no serious hurt. In this case a second
cycle of knowing, feeling, and striving, super-
venes upon the first; and in this way the
recurring cycle may be indefinitely prolonged.
The behaviour of animals and of young
children frequently expresses such simple
cycles of perceptual thinking. But the normal
adult mind is so complexly organized that it
seldom works in this simple fashion. In the
situation suggested above, my cognition may
be complicated by knowing that the man is

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 107

drunk or otherwise irresponsible; or, in ac-
cordance with a general principle of conduct, I
may restrain my angry impulse; or I may
have learnt to replace the action in which
the impulse naturally finds vent by some
dexterous jiu-jitsu movement, which lays low
my adversary even more effectually. Or the
cycle of my activity initiated by the blow may
be prolonged in the following way. My
adversary dodges or effectually parries my
blow; my thwarted impulse then waxes
stronger, and I rush furiously upon him. A
long struggle ensues, in which my angry
impulse, repeatedly thwarted and repeatedly
stimulated anew, brings into its service the
whole energy of my organism; and my efforts
are terminated only by the complete exhaus-
tion of my available store of energy. This
train of activity, which is almost wholly on
the perceptual plane, consists in the repeated
adaptation of my movements from moment
to moment, as I perceive the new positions
of my adversary; it is a recurring cycle of
cognition, conation, and feeling, in which the
conation, failing to attain satisfaction, per-
sists and is but strengthened by each new
cognition.

Or again, my angry impulse may be checked
by one of fear, which prompts me to retreat.

108 PSYCHOLOGY

In this case, as soon as I am out of danger, I
may think again of the incident; I live
through it again in imagination, as we say.
This restores the angry impulse; which, find-
ing no satisfaction, in turn keeps me thinking
of my adversary: the insult rankles in my
bosom. Try how I may to turn my mind
from this painful topic, I find myself repeat-
edly thinking of it; and, even when I succeed
in thinking of other matters, my consciousness
retains the disagreeable and angry tone.
Quite involuntarily I find myself plotting out
schemes of revenge; and perhaps, as I lie
awake in the darkness of the night, I gnash
my teeth and clench my fists and sweat and
grow now hot now cold. The unsatisfied
angry impulse drives me on to plan an
elaborate scheme of revenge. I imagine
myself meeting my adversary in a public
place and striking him a terrible blow. But
then I reflect that he is stronger than myself;
and fear returns and checks and banishes this
line of thinking, which thus, even in imagina-
tion, fails to bring me satisfaction. Then I
think of myself lying in wait for him on a dark
night and striking him down from behind with
club or gun; or I concoct an elaborate plan
by which I can injure him in his business or
his social reputation.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 109

Now, all this mental activity involved in
thinking out these schemes of action may be
not at all volitional in the proper sense of the
word. Volition begins when I attempt to
decide on executing one or other plan; or
when I try to banish the whole matter from
my mind, or to pardon the offence. The
planning is a purposive activity; but it may
be carried on wholly by the involuntary angry
impulse, which persists, because it has not
achieved its natural end, and because it keeps
bringing the incident back to my conscious-
ness and thus renewing itself by way of a
vicious circle. It may be asked — How can
such a train of purely mental activity as the
planning a line of action be said to conform
to the scheme we have laid down as typical,
namely, the cycle of cognition, conation, feel-
ing, and bodily activity, producing new cog-
nition and again conation and feeling and
bodily activity? For, it may be said, bodily
activity is omitted from the cycle. The
answer is, that the bodily activity in which
each cycle of the thinking process issues, is
only partially suppressed and disguised. We
shall realize this, if we reflect on the behaviour
in similar circumstances of a human being of a
simpler type, a savage or a child. The angry
child, whose fear checks his impulse to imme-

110 PSYCHOLOGY

diate retaliation, runs off to a safe distance
and then shouts out: "I'll get a big axe and
chop off your head," perhaps suiting his
actions to the words. That is his primitive
planning of vengeance. Now, whether or no
his words are accompanied by other bodily
activity, their utterance is in itself a bodily ac-
tivity ; the child is thinking or planning aloud ;
and that is the natural and primitive way of
thinking, in so far as one's thinking finds no
other bodily expression: many savages and
children commonly think aloud. The sup-
pression of the actual utterance of the words
used in the course of reflective thinking is a
habit which we acquire under the influence
of custom and of our natural tendency to
economize energy; but, though actual artic-
ulation may be suppressed, the use of words in
the course of our thinking remains the equiva-
lent of bodily activity; the words play the
same part; in each cycle of the thinking, the
conative impulse finds vent in a verbal formu-
lation which initiates a new cycle.

We have now to face the problem of the
way in which feeling and conation are deter-
mined by the structure of the mind. The
question may at once be raised — Does each
cognitive disposition determine not only
knowing but also feeling and striving? Is it

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 111

at the same time affective and conative, a3
well as cognitive in function? The answer to
this question cannot be in doubt. The affec-
tive and conative organization of the mind is
largely independent of and separate from its
cognitive organization; and there must exist,
for the determination of these faculties,
distinct dispositions which form an important
part of the structure of the mind. Common
speech and thought recognize this fact. For,
as knowledge is the word used in popular
speech to denote the structure of the mind in
so far as it is cognitive, so the word character
is used to denote its structure in so far as it
is affective and conative. And we all recog-
nize that the development of knowledge and
of character are processes that by no means
run strictly parallel, but are to a great extent
independent of one another. We know also
that our affective-conative attitude towards
an object may be radically transformed, while
our intellectual grasp of it remains practically
unchanged; as in the case, for example, of
some object, the thought of which at one
time evoked enthusiastic efforts on my part,
but which now leaves me cold or stirs in me
but a faint aversion and disgust. A common-
place and trifling example of such change
is the change of affective-conative attitude

112 PSYCHOLOGY

towards a beefsteak which may be produced
in a hungry man by a full meal.

A much more difficult question is that of
the relation of the affective to the conative
organization of the mind. It is clear that, if
these are in any sense distinct organizations,
they are much more intimately bound up
together than they are connected with
the cognitive organization. We may, then,
consider them as identical without risk of
serious error, and we shall not attempt to
distinguish them or treat of them separately
in these pages.

The basis of character, or of the affective-
conative organization of the mind, seems to
consist in dispositions whose number, com-
pared with that of the cognitive dispositions,
is small. Just as the latter may be regarded
as so many channels by which the cognitive
faculties are directed upon corresponding
objects; so the conative dispositions may be
regarded as so many channels through which
the conative faculty is directed to effect par-
ticular modes of bodily activity in relation to
objects cognized. For, just as cognition is
fundamentally a reaction of the mind of the
subject upon impressions made by objects on
its body (and only in the most highly devel-
oped minds attains relative independence

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 113

of sense-impressions), so conation is funda-
mentally the direction of the mechanical proc-
esses of the body by the purposive activity
of mind. And just as the various cognitive
dispositions may in principle be regarded as
having been differentiated from a single prim-
itive disposition, so the conative dispositions
of the developed mind may be regarded as
having been differentiated from a single
primitive disposition through which the cona-
tive faculty, the fundamental will to live,
found expression.

This, of course, is a view of the evolution-
ary history of mind which, however plausible
it may be, is a mere speculation. But we are
on the sure ground of direct inference from
facts of behaviour, when we describe the
normal human mind as hereditarily endowed
with a limited number of conative disposi-
tions, each of which directs the conative
energy to issue in a specific or characteristic
mode of bodily activity. In the course of
individual development each of these becomes
differentiated into a number of more highly
specialized dispositions, through the medium
of which conative energy issues in more
specialized modes of bodily activity. A
single illustration may suffice. Every normal
woman seems to be endowed with the ma-

114 PSYCHOLOGY

ternal impulse, which issues or tends to issue
in characteristic modes of bodily activity in
relation to her child; this implies the posses-
sion of a corresponding conative disposition.
Among the women of each country, custom
determines that this disposition of relatively
low degree of specialization shall be differ-
entiated to determine more highly specialized
bodily activities, which we call the expres-
sions of habits; and each individual may fur-
ther specialize these habits in ways peculiar to
herself. And through any such habit, or
specialized differentiation of the maternal
disposition which is common to the race, the
whole energy of the maternal impulse may
issue.

We have briefly indicated the nature of the
cognitive and of the conative structure of the
mind. It remains to describe equally briefly
the relations between these two sides. These
relations seem to be in the main of the nature
of associative links, a complex system of cross-
connections between the dispositions of the
two kinds. In order to illustrate the forma-
tion of such cognitive-conative associations
and their influence upon the course of mental
life, we may revert to the case (p. 106) of
anger roused by an insulting blow and
restricted in its expression by fear. Up to

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 115

the time of the incident, I had been, we may
suppose, as nearly as possible indifferent to
my assailant; that is to say, his presence had
evoked in me no well-defined feeling or
attitude. But after the painful incident, I
cannot think of him without fear, or anger, or
both, and without desiring both to avoid him
and to get the better of him in some way.
Suppose, now, that circumstances repeatedly
bring us together, and that his behaviour on
such occasions is that of a bully covertly
reminding me of the past insult that I dare
not avenge. My attitude of blended anger
and fear is renewed on each such occasion,
and, being thus confirmed and rendered per-
manent, it becomes a full-blown sentiment
of hatred. What development of the struc-
ture of my mind is implied by the growth of
this sentiment? The emotion and impulse of
anger and the specific bodily expressions and
activities in which the impulse finds, or tends
to find, vent, imply the possession of a com-
plex conative disposition. The same is true
of the emotional impulse of fear and its natural
expression in bodily activity. On the other
hand, my power of recognizing my assailant
and of thinking of him in his absence implies
the possession of a special cognitive disposi-
tion corresponding to that object. Further,

116 PSYCHOLOGY

the fact that, whereas I was formerly indiffer-
ent to this object, now I cannot think of him
without anger or fear or a blending of the
two emotions and attitudes, this fact, which
we express by saying that I entertain a senti-
ment of hatred for him, implies that these two
conative dispositions have become associa-
tively linked with the cognitive disposition,
and that these links have become permanent
features of the structure of my mind.

The effect of such linkage is not only that,
whenever the object of the sentiment is forced
upon my attention, my thinking of him is
coloured or suffused with these emotions, but
also that I am rendered peculiarly apt to
think of him. If I pass by a crowd of which he
is a member, my eye singles him out and
watches him furtively; if we both have occa-
sion to attend the same board-meeting, I am
acutely aware of him and of all he says and
does, though I may avoid glancing at him;
if I overhear his name mentioned by others
in conversation, I am all agog to hear what is
said. And this may continue, in spite of my
best efforts to cast out this demon of hatred
and to resume my former attitude of indiffer-
ence. Again, all my thinking of my adver-
sary is biased by my attitude; whatever I
hear to his discredit I accept and retain, and I

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 117

attribute his actions to the meanest motives;
until, by repetition of this process of selective
thinking under the guidance of the specialized
conative tendency, I come to think of him as
a monster of iniquity.

Let us consider the influence on the cogni-
tive life of the growth of a sentiment, in the
light of a more agreeable instance. Imagine a
light-hearted girl whose life has been a per-
petual round of pleasures and social "duties."
She marries and becomes a mother. The child
upon her breast awakens in her the hitherto
dormant maternal impulse, and all her de-
light is to watch and tend it, to describe
its perfections and fondly to imagine its
future in the brightest colours. Like the man
harbouring the demon of hatred, she, too,
seems possessed by a strong spirit; but, if she
could, she would not cast it out; for it is the
source of all her joy. Now, the maternal im-
pulse with its accompanying tender emotion
implies the existence of a corresponding cona-
tive disposition; and the formation of the
sentiment for the child involves the linking
of this with the cognitive disposition which is
the condition of all her thinking of the child;
and the new mode of life is the result of this
linkage. Shortly after this change in her life
she is left a widow; now her affections are

118 PSYCHOLOGY

wholly given to her child, her whole being is
devoted to it, and she tends it with passionate
solicitude. The desire to secure its welfare be-
comes her dominant motive, to which all her
thought and all her doing are subordinated.
Perhaps she takes up the study of hygiene,
masters the elements of physiology and the
principles of clothing, of feeding, and of train-
ing in bodily habits; if she is a very excep-
tional woman, she may even take up the study
of psychology. All this intellectual activity
and resultant expansion of her mental struc-
ture is prompted and sustained by the strong
maternal impulse concentrated upon its one
object. All her new knowledge is built up
around her child, which she studies as assidu-
ously as she tends it; in virtue of its being the
exclusive object of the strong sentiment of
maternal love, the child becomes the nucleus
about which a whole system of new knowl-
edge, new interests, and new habits, is built
up. The purposive energy which sustains and
directs all these activities about the child and
its welfare is that of the maternal impulse;
and the constant direction of this energy to-
wards this particular object is the result of the
development of the mental structure which
is the sentiment of love for the child. For,
though mother-love may seem to spring up

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 119

almost full-blown, it is in reality a growth,
subject to favourable and retarding influences;
a system of tendencies which strengthens with
use, atrophies with disuse, and only gradually
attains its full strength and perfection. We
realize this more clearly if we reflect upon
other instances of maternal love; how, in a
mother of several children, it may be con-
centrated wholly on one of them; how in a
childless woman the maternal impulse may be
evoked by some other object, a dog, or cat,
or bird, and, becoming habitually directed
to that object, may generate a sentiment
strangely like maternal love.

Now, in order to bring home to our minds
the full importance of such cognitive-cona-
tive linkage, let us carry the history of the
devoted mother a step further. After some
years of devotion, during which the sentiment
has grown all-powerful and has generated a
great system of knowledge, habits, and inter-
ests, the mother loses her child. She is pros-
trated with sorrow, and when the first parox-
ysm of grief is past, she remains inert; the
mainspring of all her energy is stopped at its
source; the will to live, which for years has
poured itself freely through this one system,
finds no adequate channel through which to
animate her organism; and slowly she dies,

120 PSYCHOLOGY

her end probably hastened by the invasion of
phthisis or of some other disease, which she no
longer has the energy to resist. Or, if she
continues to live, her best chance of restora-
tion to a life of activity and health lies in the
finding of some new object for her maternal
impulse, to which the whole system of her
master-sentiment may, with some readjust-
ment, direct its activities, thus opening once
more the choked channels by which alone the
vital energy can adequately suffuse her whole
being. She may turn to work on behalf of
children in general, and find happiness in
managing a children's hospital or in other
good works; in which case the energy of the
maternal impulse, being diverted or redirected,
is said in technical language to be sublimated.
In the foregoing paragraphs we have
illustrated the nature and growth of the
functional connexions between cognitive and
conative dispositions, taking strong and com-
plex sentiments as our instances. The struc-
ture of the normal adult mind comprises many
such sentiments of all degrees of strength and
complexity, from what is called a passing
fancy or aversion to strong, enduring, and
highly complex sentiments of love and hate.
In the structural basis of a complex sentiment
a number of conative dispositions may be

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND 121

comprised. But the linkage of a conative dis-
position with any one cognitive system does
not preclude it from becoming linked with
others; it may thus enter into the composi-
tion of sentiments for an indefinite number of
diverse objects. Thus each principal conative
disposition must be regarded as linked with a
considerable number of cognitive systems,
by each of which it may be brought into activ-
ity, and through each of which in turn it pours
its conative energy, thus maintaining its
activities and promoting its further growth
and differentiation.

It must be pointed out in passing that not
only persons and places and material things
may become the objects of sentiments, but
also highly abstract and general objects, such
as moral qualities, power, wealth, art. Of
some men it is no mere figure of speech to say
that they love virtue or power or the Church,
that they hate vice or dirt or disorder. In
respect of their growth and constitution, such
sentiments seem to be subject to essentially
the same principles as those directed to more
concrete objects. They constitute a most
important part of the structure of the mind,
since on them depends all that part of be-
haviour which we call moral conduct.

PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER IV

HITHERTO we have discussed only one of
the methods of psychological study, namely,
the indispensable preliminary description of
consciousness or modes of thinking, by aid of
introspection. Further, we have defined the
central task of psychology as the description
in general terms of the structure of the normal
human mind, and of its modes of operation
and development; and we have indicated
very roughly the kind of answers to these
questions towards which the science seems to
be working its way.

Now, there are many departments of psy-
chology, distinguished either by the methods
of inquiry pursued, or by the type or class of
beings whose behaviour is studied by the
psychologist. The former mode of division
tends to assert itself in practice, because
certain workers acquire special skill in the
application of one or other method. But the
division of the whole province of psychology
on this principle is to be deprecated; and the
second principle is preferable.

Of the departments to be recognized as

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 123

marked off according to the latter of these
principles of division, the following are the
chief: —

(1) The psychology of the normal human
adult; (2) the psychology of animals; (3) the
psychology of children; (4) individual psy-
chology, which attempts to define, and as far
as possible to account for, the peculiarities of
individual minds; (5) the psychology of men
in abnormal and diseased states of mind; (6)
social psychology, the study of the mass-mind
and of its influence upon the individual mind
in both its development and operation.

In each of these great departments all the
available methods of study are applied.
These methods fall under three principal
heads: — (1) Introspection; under this head
is included not only the introspective observa-
tion of the psychologist, but also the study of
the introspective statements or descriptions
of other persons. This method is, of course,
not available in the study of animals; but in
all the other departments it is applicable to
various extents. (2) The observation and
interpretation of behaviour, that is, of the
purposive bodily activities in which the men-
tal processes of men and animals find expres-
sion. (3) The study of the things created by
mental and bodily activity, from the point of

124 PSYCHOLOGY

view of discovering what light they throw on
the nature and operations of the minds which
fashioned them; thus, the nest of a bird, the
web of a spider, a savage dance, a language,
a code of laws or morals, a system of religious
belief, a Gothic cathedral, a poem, a song,
a child's drawing, the verses of a maniac, a
game of skill or of chance, a trade-union, a
system of government, all these, as well as
every other product of human or animal
activity, are capable of being studied from
the psychological point of view, with more or
less of profit.

It goes without saying that, wherever
possible, these three great methods of study
should be combined. Such combination is
seldom possible, except in studying activ-
ities designedly induced under circumstances
specially arranged and controlled. To study
human or animal behaviour in this way is to
make a psychological experiment. Much has
been heard in late years of "experimental psy-
chology," and it is often spoken of as though
it were a distinct department of study. But
that is by no means the case. Experiments
may be, and are, made in every field of the
province of psychology. Many persons find
it difficult to imagine how experiment can
be applied in psychological investigation; the

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 125

difficulty may be overcome by considering a
few examples. I ask a friend to divide a
straight line into two unequal parts in the
way that seems to him to give the most
pleasing or satisfying effect. The experiment
may be made to combine the three great
methods. I observe the behaviour of my
subject as he takes his pencil and divides the
line; I measure the two parts into which he
divides it; and I ask him to describe as fully
as possible how he came to choose just that
point. Now, I can hardly hope to draw any
valid and interesting conclusion from a single
experiment of this sort. But suppose that I
repeat it with fifty persons, and that I find
a striking uniformity in the products of their
activity, namely, that the great majority
divide the line in such a way that the length
of the shorter is to that of the longer part
very nearly as 1:1*6. Knowing that, if the
shorter is to the longer as 1:1*618, then the
longer bears the same ratio to the sum of the
two lengths, and noticing that the average
of all the proportions chosen by the fifty
subjects approximates very closely to this
ratio, I repeat the experiment with more
subjects. Suppose, then, I find that the
larger the number of subjects whose results
are averaged, the closer this approximation

126 PSYCHOLOGY

becomes. Here, surely, would be an indica-
tion of an experimentally established law of
human behaviour of considerable interest,
well fitted to stimulate any alert mind to seek
for an explanation. The result would make it
seem worth while to study closely both the
behaviour and the introspective reports of the
subjects, as well as the products of their
activity. It may be added that an indication
of this law may be obtained by the application
of the third method alone, namely, by study-
ing the proportions of objects in common use
and of the parts of decorative designs. But
it is obvious that, for the accurate establish-
ment and investigation of this general ten-
dency, experiment affords indispensable aid.

As another example of experiment we may
take the following: — I try to write down
continuously a familiar verse, while I repeat
aloud other equally familiar verses, and I ask
other persons to attempt the same task.
Here again all three methods of study are
applicable and instructive, namely, intro-
spection, the observation of behaviour, and
the study of the product; observations of
these three kinds supplement one another and
throw considerable light on the question of the
possibility of thinking of two things at once.

But the most profitable experiments are

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 127

generally those which are designed to provide
an answer to some definite question. For
example, it may be asked — In learning a
passage of prose or verse by heart, can I learn
it with fewest repetitions by reading it again
and again without intermission? Or shall I
do better by allowing an interval to elapse
after each reading; or by grouping my read-
ings in short series separated by intervals of
time? And, if the^second or third distribution
of the readings is most advantageous, what
interval is most favourable? For clearly there
must be such a most favourable interval.

It has been found that questions such as
these can readily be answered by a little care-
ful experimenting, and that the answers to
many such questions can be stated as empiri-
cal rules which hold good within definable
limits for all normal subjects. The possibili-
ties of applying experiment, illustrated by the
few simple examples mentioned above, have
been actively exploited during the last half
century; many ingenious methods of experi-
ment and many useful pieces of apparatus
have been devised; and, since the conduct of
experiments which involve the use of appara-
tus of any complexity demands a properly
fitted laboratory, there has grown up within
the field of experimental psychology a more

128 PSYCHOLOGY

special field of laboratory psychology. But,
though owing to practical necessities there is a
tendency to regard this as a separate depart-
ment, like experiment in general it consists
merely in special refinements of the three
great methods of observation which are appli-
cable in the various departments. Experi-
mental observation and laboratory methods
are most extensively applied in the first of the
departments of our list (p. 123), namely, the
psychology of normal human adults : for only
with well-trained adult subjects can the most
complete experiments be made; only in such
subjects can we hope to find the necessary
patience and scientific conscience; and only
from them can we hope to obtain uniformly
trustworthy introspective reports. Never-
theless, experiments, and even the laboratory
methods of experiment, are now largely used in
other departments, especially in the study of
children and of patients suffering from mental
disorders. In the field of child-study they are
being applied with especial vigour and en-
thusiasm to the elucidation of many educa-
tional problems; such problems as the follow-
ing:— What are the most effective methods
of learning by heart? What is the effect
upon memory in general of practice in com-
mitting to heart verses or other matter? To

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 129

what extent, if any, does the study of algebra
improve the pupil's ability to master arith-
metic or geometry? Are there any advan-
tages in appealing to two or more senses
whenever possible, instead of to eye or to
ear alone? In what way and in what degree
can the power of visual imagination be profit-
ably developed by special exercises? In
what way does the fatigue induced by the
wage-earning of "half-timers" and evening
scholars affect their school work? These are
a few out of hundreds of questions, answers
to vvhich (of the first importance for educa-
tional practice and policy) can only be
obtained by systematic experimenting.

Even in the study of animals, where we
cannot hope for introspective reports to help
us in the interpretation of the behaviour we
observe, experiment is now much used. If,
for example, we throw to a chicken a grub or
caterpillar of nauseous flavour, and observe
its behaviour towards this kind of grub
on the first and subsequent occasions, we
repeat an experiment which has become
famous and found its way into scores of books
on psychology. Or we may confine a white
rat in a cage, the only outlet from which is a
passage with several turns and blind alleys
opening from it; by observing its behaviour

130 PSYCHOLOGY

in escaping on successive occasions, we may
get some notion of its capacity to "learn the
way out"; and, by modifying the conditions,
we can learn on which senses the animal
chiefly relies in the process of learning. Or
we may allow a monkey to learn to extract
nuts from a box by manipulating a simple
piece of mechanism; and then, by putting his
nuts in a differently constructed box, we may
discover how far he is aided by his famili-
arity with the former mechanism in the task
of solving the similar but rather different
problem. Such observation under natural
and experimental conditions of the behaviour
of animals of all grades, from the microscopic
amoeba to the dog and the still more highly
intelligent chimpanzee, or the mysteriously
co-operating ants and bees, is now one of the
most actively pursued departments of psy-
chology; it offers an inexhaustible field for in-
quiry, which becomes ever more fascinating
and profitable the further our knowledge
advances.

It has been said that measurement is the
essence of science, that where there can be no
measurement there can be no science. From
this premise it has sometimes been argued that
there can be no science of psychology; for, it
was said, states of consciousness are incapable

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 131

of being measured. The conclusion cannot
be accepted. The argument is simply a mass
of error and confusion. Without delaying to
expose it in detail, it may be pointed out that
the premise is a wholly unwarranted piece of
dogmatism. Several of the generally recog-
nized sciences owe little or nothing to measure-
ment, and they would lose but little of their
scientific character if all exact measurement
were banned from them; such, for example,
are geology and most of the biological sciences.
Further, measurement, and even exact meas-
urement, is possible in psychology, and has
been extensively applied. We can measure
the accuracy of judgments of many kinds,
e. g. of judgments of weight by the hand, of
pitch by the ear, of brightness, of colour-
tone, or of length, by the eye; in such cases,
by aid of simple apparatus and rules of pro-
cedure, we can measure with any desired
degree of refinement the average error of
judgment of a given subject under constant
conditions; and we can express the accuracy
of his power of judging in terms of this aver-
age error; or we can detect the influence of
certain disturbing conditions which tend to
induce erroneous judgment, and accurately
measure the magnitude of that influence. It
follows that we can measure the influence of

132 PSYCHOLOGY

a variety of conditions upon the accuracy of
judgments of many kinds; for example, the
influence of practice and of fatigue, of prepos-
session or bias. We can measure also the
duration of many mental processes to within a
few thousandths of a second. And we can
measure the rate of execution and repetition
and the accuracy of performance of many
mental tasks.

A kind of measurement of especial value
and wide application in psychology is the
counting the number of repetitions of a proc-

I ess involved in the execution of a given task:
for example, the number of repetitions re-
quired to commit a given quantity of verbal
matter to memory, or to re-learn it to the
same degree of perfection after a given inter-
val; the number of repetitions of a particular
combination of movements required in order
to render it automatic or independent of
attentive control; the number of momentary
glances at a picture or at such an object as a
series of printed numbers, letters, or words,

i that the subject must take in order to appre-

l hend every detail.

In all these and in other ways, data are
being accumulated from which conclusions
of many kinds can be drawn; and, since for
many purposes large masses of such numerical

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 133

data secured by experiment are required as
the basis for general conclusions, the oppor-
tunity arises of submitting the figures to
mathematical treatment and of extracting
from them in this way much knowledge which
otherwise would remain hidden. There is
thus growing up what is sometimes regarded
as a special department, namely, mathe-
matical psychology, but which is a special
development of experimental method appli-
cable in the several departments, rather than
itself a department.

A few words must be said of another line
of study which makes some claim to be
regarded as a special department under the
title physiological psychology. We only know
mind or purposive activity as embodied in
organisms; and, since our cognitive processes
are largely determined by physical impres-
sions made on our sense-organs and transmit-
ted from them along the nerves to the brain,
and since our conative processes guide and
control bodily activities through the medium
of the brain and nerves, it follows that the
psychologist cannot be indifferent to all the
knowledge of the organs of the body gained
by the detailed study of them by the methods
of physiology. Therefore, in each depart-
ment, the student of behaviour must master

134 PSYCHOLOGY

as fully as possible all that the anatomists and
physiologists can tell him of the structure and
functions of the organs, especially of the
nervous system and sense organs, of the living
beings he studies. It would, for example, be
absurd to discuss the mental powers of bisects
in ignorance of the peculiar structure of their
eyes, or to attempt to account for the peculiar
mental state of the aphasic patient without
any knowledge of the nature and effects
of brain injuries of the kind to which his
sudden loss of the power of speech is due.
For the bodily organs and their processes
are the media through which the mind is
kept in touch both with the world of material
objects and with other minds; and the pur-
posive control and guidance of these processes
is from the biological standpoint the prime
and immediate function of mind. Physiologi-
cal psychology is, then, not a province or
department, but rather a method applicable
within each department, a method which
supplements at many points the three great
methods of psychological observation. It
may also be regarded as a debatable ground
in which physiology, with its mechanical
explanations, and psychology, with its ex-
planations in terms of purpose, come together,
affording each other what help they can, yet

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 135

each striving to extend its principles of ex-
planation as widely as possible, in order to
make good its claim to explain the facts of
behaviour, and to absorb its rival by making
of it a department of itself.

We sometimes hear also the expression
"comparative psychology" used in a way that
implies the existence of a special department
of that name. But this usage, again, is mis-
leading; there is no such department; rather
every department is, or should be, compara-
tive, in so far as it does, or could, use the com-
parative method; that is to say, in so far as,
in attacking its special problems, it does, or
could, bring the observations and conclusions
or other departments to its aid.

These general remarks upon the methods
and departments of psychology may be con-
cluded by pointing out that each department
has, as it were, a double life and purpose. On
the one hand it contributes what it can to-
wards the solution of what we have called the
central problems of psychology, the problems
of the structure, functioning, and genesis of
the normal human mind. On the other hand
it has problems and a field of applications
peculiar to itself, in relation to which it
devises special methods of study, produces a
highly specialized literature, and is prose-

136 PSYCHOLOGY

cuted by bands of specialized workers, who
too often, it must be admitted, show them-
selves indifferent to, or ignorant of, the
problems, methods, and results of other
departments.

In the following pages it remains to con-
sider how each of the departments of psy-
chology is meeting its special problems, and
how each is contributing to forward the central
work of the science, the discovery of the laws
of function, structure, and genesis of the
normal human mind.

The first department on our list, the study
of the normal human adult, which, until the
modern period, was the only branch of psy-
chology seriously pursued, must always hold
its place as in some sense the most important;
for its work is to deliver the frontal attack
upon the central fortress. Nevertheless it is
now evident that the frontal attack cannot
hope to succeed without the aid of the other
lines of advance. Sixty years ago this
department, which then was the whole of the
science, was thought, even by some of its
exponents, to have well-nigh achieved its task;
but now we can see that it had not gamed
sight of the greater part of the difficulties
before it, and that it had done nothing more
than survey the outermost walls and capture

METHODS AND DEPARTMENTS 137

a few of the advanced posts of the fortress.
For in this science, more than in any other, a
most difficult task is the first and indispensa-
ble one of discovering and formulating the
problems to be solved. This appearance of
finality was due merely to the fact that the
old method of unaided introspection was
incapable of advancing our knowledge beyond
the point to which it had already carried it.

The mam work of this department falls
under two heads: first, to carry to an ever
greater pitch of refinement the introspective
description of mental process by the aid of
the new experimental methods; secondly, to
bring to bear upon the central problems all
the new light provided by the work of the
other departments. Of the nature of the
experimental work some slight indications
have been given hi the preceding chapter.
It is too highly technical for further descrip-
tion in these pages. The new light provided
by the other departments and its bearing on
the central problems can be best discussed hi
briefly reviewing each of these departments in
turn.

138 PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER V

THE STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR

LONG ago the great Greek thinker, Aris-
totle, initiated the study of animal behaviour
and set it in its true relation to the psychology
of man. He taught that the behaviour of
animals is the expression of powers of pur-
posive control which are exercised by man
also; the difference between man and animals
being the possession by man of powers which
the animals do not possess, in addition to
those which they have in common with him.
But, after this good beginning, more than two
thousand years elapsed before the study was
taken up again from this sound standpoint.

At the dawn of the era of modern science,
Descartes, perhaps the most influential phi-
losopher of the seventeenth century, put off
the time of this return to the true line of prog-
ress by contending that, while men's actions
are governed by the will and purpose of a
reasoning soul, animals are merely complex
machines — that all their movements are fully
explicable by the mechanical principles which
enable us to construct, control, and under-
stand the movements of a clock, or a pump,
or any other piece of mechanism.

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 139

Hardly less prejudicial to the study of
animal behaviour was the doctrine of instinct,
which was for a long time the only rival
of Descartes' theory. It was a theological
rather than a scientific doctrine. In so far
as it was in any sense scientific, it was of the
old "faculty psychology"; and it affords the
clearest example of the pernicious effects ex-
erted by the misuse of the notion of faculties.
The actions of men were said to be governed
by the faculty of reason, those of animals
by the faculty of instinct; and this attribution
of the actions of animals to instinct seems to
have disguised from most of those who used
the word the need for further study or ex-
planation of them. It was a striking example
of the power of a word to cloak our ignorance
and to hide it even from ourselves. Those
who tried to go behind the word, to seek some
further explanation of animal behaviour,
usually represented the instinctive acts of
animals as directly guided by the hand of
God. Now it would be presumptuous to
assert that they are not guided by the hand
of God; but, however firmly we may believe
that the world, and especially the world of
life, is hi some sense the working out of the
design of a beneficent Creator, we have to
recognize that men cannot escape responsi-

140 PSYCHOLOGY

bility for the intelligent direction of their own
lives and those of their humbler fellow-
creatures. This responsibility implies the
obligation to obtain wherever possible the kind
of understanding, both of our own natures and
of those of animals, that will enable us to con-
trol as fully as possible the course of events.

Early in the nineteenth century, the great
French naturalist, Lamarck, began the work
of setting the study of animal behaviour on
its modern lines by propounding his theory of
animal evolution; according to this theory,
new forms arise by the transmission to off-
spring of the adaptations of structure and
function achieved by the parent. But it
was not until the work of Charles Darwin,
especially his theory of natural selection, con-
vinced the world that all the forms of life, man
not excepted, had been continuously evolved
from some simple primordial form, that the
problem of the relation of the human to the
animal mind excited a widespread interest
and began to be seriously studied. Darwin
himself had argued that, just as the human
body with all its wonderful perfections of
structure and function seems to have been
evolved by a long series of minute steps from
the body of some animal species allied to the
existing manlike apes, so also all the structure

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 141

and functions of his mind must be regarded
as having been evolved by a similar series
of minute steps from the mind of the same
animal ancestor. (See Geddes & Thomson:
"Evolution.")

Herbert Spencer also had propounded in-
dependently of Darwin a theory of continuous
evolution which implied the evolution of
the mental powers of man from those of
animals; he had attempted to show how the
brain of man may be supposed to have been
gradually evolved by steps of increasing com-
plexity of organization from a nervous system
of very simple type, such as is found in some
lowly animals; and he had assumed that
the evolution of the powers of the mind had
run parallel with that of the nervous system,
and that each step of mental evolution might
in fact be regarded as the effect or expression
of a corresponding step of nervous evolution.

These views naturally excited violent oppo-
sition in many quarters; for they were felt
to endanger the privileged position which
man had assumed to be his, and to be in-
consistent hi many ways with the generally
accepted doctrines of religion. The old
antagonism between religion and science was
fanned into a new flame, and there was waged
a violent controversy, the faint rumblings of

142 PSYCHOLOGY

which may still be heard by an attentive
ear.

These new doctrines and the consequent
controversies gave a great stimulus to the
study of animal behaviour; and much accu-
rate knowledge has been accumulated by these
studies. But it cannot be said that the prin-
cipal questions hi dispute have been finally
settled. The continuity of mental evolution
of man from lower forms has in the main been
accepted, though a few authoritative voices
still protest against this acceptance. It is
generally admitted that we may confidently
accept the doctrine of continuity of mental
evolution throughout the animal world; but
it is pointed out that, between the mind of
man and that of the highest animal, there is
an enormous gap; and it is urged that we
cannot legitimately suppose this great gap to
have been bridged by the slow processes of
evolution. It is further urged that there are
differences of kind as well as of degree between
the powers of the human and those of the
animal mind. To the first of these objections
the thoroughgoing evolutionist returns two
overwhelming replies. It is admitted, he says,
that the degrees of development of mental
powers in the animal kingdom run parallel
in the main with the degrees of development

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 143

of the nervous system. Now, between the
nervous system of man and that of the highest
animal there is in the scale of complexity of
organization an enormous gap, which corre-
sponds to the gap in the scale of mental pow-
ers; and we have, therefore, good reason to
believe that, if we could observe the animals
whose nervous systems filled the gap in the
scale of nervous organization, we should find
that they possessed mental powers which filled
the corresponding gap in the scale of mental
organization. The second reply of the evolu-
tionist supplements the first in a very effective
manner, as follows. The study of the bodily
and mental development of human beings
shows that each one of us, in the course of
his growth from a microscopic germ in his
mother's womb to adult life, exhibits, as re-
gards both his bodily and his mental powers
and organization, a continuous evolution:
at no point does any new factor suddenly
appear; but, in accordance with the well-
established law of recapitulation, both the
organization of the nervous system and the
development of mental capacity progress con-
tinuously, roughly reproducing in their suc-
cessive stages similar stages of the course of
racial evolution. If, then, the child can cross
in the course of some few years the great gap

144 PSYCHOLOGY

in the scale of mental organization, how can
we with any plausibility deny that the race
may have crossed the same gap in the course
of millions of years?

As regards the contention that the powers
of the human mind differ not only in degree,
but also in kind, from those of the animals; it
is to be noted that it raises a difficulty for the
doctrine of the continuity of mental evolu-
tion, only if it is accepted as meaning that the
human mind has powers of which no feeblest
germ or trace is indicated by the behaviour
of animals. Now, it is generally recognized
that Darwin and many of his immediate
followers, biased, perhaps, to some extent by
the desire to diminish the gap between the
human and the animal mind, seriously over-
estimated the mental powers of the higher
animals, putting upon their behaviour in
many cases anthropomorphic interpretations
which were not justifiable. Nevertheless,
though we severely restrain this tendency to
exalt the mental powers of animals above their
true level, the gap no longer seems so wide as
it did half a century ago; for the new insight
into the nature of mental processes brought
by the study of animals has diminished the
gap from the human side, by showing us that
in important respects human mental proc-

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 145

esses are more like those of the animals
than had previously been supposed.

Philosophers had agreed with popular tradi-
tion in describing man as a rational being
and attributing all his actions and beliefs to
reasoned motives and logical operations.
For, studying chiefly or solely their own
minds, which no doubt approximated more
nearly than any others to the ideal of a purely
rational mind, they overlooked the fact that
much of human behaviour is the outcome
of crude impulses and desires which reason
cannot approve and the will cannot control;
and they overlooked also the fact that a large
proportion of the beliefs which are expressed
in the conduct of the average man have been
acquired by processes of an alogical nature
and are incapable of being justified by
logic.

When we have made such necessary cor-
rections in our estimates of the minds of men
and animals, we have to admit, indeed, that
the gap between them is immense; but we
may agree with the preponderant opinion
among competent persons, which asserts that
the mental functions of man present no such
radical difference in kind as would forbid
us to believe in the continuity of mental
evolution; for evidence of some rudiment

146 PSYCHOLOGY

of every type of mental function may be
discovered in animal behaviour.

The study of animal behaviour has hitherto
taught us three lessons of high importance for
psychology: (1) It has made clearer the na-
ture of mental or purposive activity, and has
revealed its prevalence throughout the whole
of the animal world; (2) it has elucidated the
very bases of human nature by displaying
in relative simplicity among the animals the
modes of activity which constitute that basis,
but which in human life are so complicated
and obscured by the great development of
our intellectual nature that they for long
eluded almost completely the penetration of
philosophers; (3) it has shown us how we
have to conceive in its main outlines the
course of evolution which has culminated in
the human mind. We may devote a few words
to each of these topics.

The kind of purposive activity with which
each of us is most familiar is the voluntary
striving to bring about some state of affairs
which he has clearly conceived beforehand,
which he has judged to be desirable or good,
and which he has deliberately designed and
resolved to bring about. Of such an activity
he can say — I act thus and thus in order to
achieve this end, which I desire to se^ achieved

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 147

because, contemplating it in idea, I foresee
that its realization will bring me satisfaction.
Such activity, therefore, becomes for us the
type of purposive activity; and, when we are
able to infer that the activity of any other
being conforms to the same type, we feel
that we understand it or can explain it.
But there remains a deeper question: Why
should the attainment of the particular end
afford me satisfaction? The answer to this
question that was most commonly accepted,
before the study of animal behaviour had
made some progress, ran as follows : Because
I have found on former occasions that a situa-
tion, similar to that which I desire to bring
about, gives me pleasure or eases me of pain.
Such increase of pleasure or diminution of
pain was thus regarded as the goal of all pur-
pose and volition, the object of all the desires
that are the motives of our actions. It was
admitted that a far-sighted man might prefer
distant pleasures of great magnitude to the
lesser pleasures of present bodily ease, and
that he might even choose to suffer pain, if
it seemed a necessary step to the attainment
of the greater pleasures: and thus was ex-
plained such facts as that Christian martyrs
without number had chosen to suffer at the
stake and in the arena rather than to renounce

148 PSYCHOLOGY

their faith; for, it was said, they believed that
by so doing they would secure the very intense
and lasting pleasures of heaven and escape
the enduring tortures of hell.

This theory of human motives (known as
psychological hedonism) was made the basis
of a philosophy of morals and politics which
claimed to be complete and ultimate, and
which has exercised a great and beneficent
influence throughout the civilized world and
has done much to shape our laws and institu-
tions; namely, the Utilitarian philosophy.
But the study of animal behaviour has led us
to see that this theory of motives was false.
When the behaviour of animals was studied
without prejudice,- it became apparent that
the animal world also has its martyrs. Many
an animal-mother strives with all the energy
of her being against overwhelming odds and,
unflinching, meets death in its most cruel
form, rather than desert her young to seek an
easy safety in flight. Yet, what nice calcula-
tion of the balance of pleasure over pain can
be supposed to sustain her efforts? She
surely has no unshakable belief in heavenly
rewards or hellish punishments! Nor can we
suppose that she dreads the pain of remorse
that may follow upon her desertion of her
post. She takes no thought of the morrow,

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 149

anticipates neither good nor evil, neither
pleasure nor pain; but, heedless of all conse-
quences, she makes one supreme self-sacrific-
ing effort to fulfil the purpose of her being, to
hand on the torch of life undimmed. In her
frail organism runs one slender stream of the
great purpose which animates all living beings,
whose end we can only dimly conceive and
vaguely describe as the perpetuation and
increase of life.

Such instances of animal self-sacrifice are
well suited to arrest our attention and to
set us thinking, and indications of the truth
to which they so clearly point may be seen
on every hand in the world of animal be-
haviour. This simple but profound truth
is that in particular situations animals behave
in this or that way, striving persistently, often
putting forth all their energy to the point of
exhaustion, because in each case it is the
creature's nature so to do, under the given
conditions. The solitary wasp laboriously
drags to her carefully prepared nest the prey
secured by a day's hunting, and seals it there
together with her egg, in order that it may
serve as food for the offspring which she will
never see, and of whose needs or existence
she can have no knowledge. The young bird
flies a thousand miles across land and sea,

150 PSYCHOLOGY

seeking, she knows not why, the climate best
suited to her young. She builds her nest
according to the pattern of the species and
broods over her eggs; experiencing, we may
suppose, a continued satisfaction in the prog-
ress of her work; but without, we may con-
fidently say, once thinking of the young birds
to whose welfare all her labours are directed.
The young male nightingale, arriving in the
spring from his distant winter haunts, takes
up his station in a dense bush and pours forth
night after night and all day long his flood of
music, without any conscious anticipation of
the mate whom his song will bring to his side;
though, when she comes, he knows well how
to welcome her. The young horse snorts and
shies at the dark object crouched upon the
roadside, though it is thousands of years since
the wolves laid in wait for his ancestors.
The town-bred, domesticated, well-fed terrier
cannot resist the smell of the rabbit on the
grass, and follows the trail in wild excitement,
deaf to his master's call; though he knows
nothing of ground game and has never before
set eyes or nose on a rabbit.

In all these and in countless other instances
of animal behaviour we see the same fact —
the animal is impelled to act as he does, at
each step foreseeing at most the immediate

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 151

consequence of his acts and nothing of the
remote ends subserved by them. Must we,
then, go back to the doctrine of Descartes,
and conclude that what we call the purposive
activities of animals are hi reality purely
mechanical processes, differing only in com-
plexity from those of any man-made machine,
and that the actions of man alone of all living
beings are directed and sustained by purpose?
This we must refuse to do for two good
reasons. First, the actions of the animals,
from the simplest to the highest, present
those outward or objective marks of purpose
on which we have throughout insisted;
namely, persistent direction towards their
proper ends in spite of all obstacles and
difficulties, with variation in detail of the
modes of activity. Secondly, if we look with
. unbiased eyes at the human comedy, ref using
to be blinded by a stupid pride and the tra-
ditional contempt for our humbler fellow-
creatures, we shall see that much of our
behaviour is strictly analogous to these char-
acteristic actions of the animals. When the
young infant first cries aloud his discomfort,
he has no knowledge of the hands or of the
breast that will succour him. When at the
first crack of thunder the child (or the adult)
runs trembling to hide himself in the nearest

152 PSYCHOLOGY

dark corner, he has no conception of any
hurtful power that he will elude in his hiding-
place. When the modest maiden puts the
last touches to her toilet, blushing at her own
loveliness, she would find it difficult to ac-
count for her behaviour in terms of purpose.
When Romeo's admiring gaze follows her and
sends her fleeing in a strange confusion, or
when she lingers a moment and casts one back-
ward glance, she may in perfect truthfulness
deny all knowledge of the natural end of her
activities. And, even when later she submits
to his embrace, she may do so without any
anticipation of pleasure or of pain and without
foreseeing one step of the way on which her
foot is set. She is merely fulfilling the pur-
pose of her being, prompted to each action
as the circumstances arise by impulses but
little, if at all, less blind than those of the
nesting bird.

Romeo, too, when bright eyes spur him on
to redoubled efforts in the game of strength
and skill or lend a new music to his voice,
may know as little as the nightingale pouring
out his song what end is subserved by his
reckless output of energy.

Or consider this strong man in the prime
of life, impelled by ambition to strain all the
powers of his cultivated intellect in the

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 153

pursuit of worldly success. His course of
life may be carefully planned out for many
years to come and steadily pursued. He is
the very type of strong purpose and resolu-
tion; but ask him: Why does he pursue this
ambition, why strive so persistently after a
high place? And you may find that he can-
not tell you. He well knows that worldly
success is dust and ashes; that fame is only
valued so long as we have it not; that he could
easily obtain a wealth of pleasures which he
now foregoes. All he can tell you is — He is
built like that. By choosing a long series
of types of human and animal activity, we
might construct a scale which, by minute
steps of difference, would lead down from the
most truly purposive actions of man, actions
sustained and renewed through long years by
a firm self-conscious resolution to achieve
some clearly conceived end, to the actions of
the simplest microscopic animalcule. Rather
than separate the animals from man and
assign them to the realm of mechanism, or
than fly at once to the extravagant conclu-
sion that our conviction of the purposive na-
ture of our own highest activities is a mere
delusion and that man also is but a piece of
complex machinery; rather than consent to
put aside our problem with this unjustifiable

154 PSYCHOLOGY

and, in any case, wholly premature conclu-
sion, we must revise and widen our notion of
purposive activity. Instead of taking the
most developed modes of human volition as
the type and form of all purposive activity, we
must recognize that these higher modes, in
which some remote end of the activity is
clearly conceived and willed, are but the most
rare and highly specialized varieties of a great
genus which includes all modes of human
and animal behaviour.

The truth is that volition springs out of
blind impulse, presupposes it, and is only a
higher development of it, brought about by a
higher organization of the structure of the
mind in both its cognitive and conative as-
pects. When the ambitious man forms and
pursues his resolution to achieve a high place
among his fellows, he does so only in virtue
of the fact that the structure of his mind
comprises a conative disposition the excite-
ment of which impels him, or gives rise to an
impulse which drives him on, to assert him-
self, to display himself, before his fellow-men.
Only in virtue of his possession of this spe-
cifically directed disposition does a great posi-
tion appear to him a desirable object; if it
were lacking in his constitution, the desires
of other men for such a position would seem

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 155

to him inexplicable and absurd. Only in
virtue of the possession of a specialized cona-
tive disposition, does the innocent youth find
his glances, his steps, his thoughts, irresistibly
turning to the maiden; only in virtue of this,
is he filled with a vague unrest and a longing
for he knows not what, a longing which makes
all other ends and pursuits seem trivial and
unreal; only in virtue of this, is he liable to
be seized with what others, who have partially
forgotten or never experienced it, speak of
as the strange madness of romantic love.

Thus, just as truly as the actions of the
animals, all instances of human activity
(even the most truly volitional and self-
consciously directed) imply the operation of
special dispositions through which the con-
ative energy, the will to live, is directed
to prompt and sustain particular modes of
action; each of these conative dispositions
may generate either a mere blind impulse, or a
desire for an end more or less clearly con-
ceived. The great differences between the
simpler and the higher modes of activity are
of two kinds: first, the differences in the
degree of clearness and fulness with which the
natural end, which alone can satisfy the im-
pulse in each case, is thought of and the steps
towards its attainment planned out; secondly,

156 PSYCHOLOGY

the differences in the degree to which the one
impulse co-operates or conflicts with other
impulses in more or less complex fashion,
according to the complexity of organization
of the mind's structure.

The second great lesson, learnt in the main
through the study of animal behaviour, is
that each human mind does not, as so many
of the older writers assumed, start upon its
career like a blank sheet of paper or a smooth
tablet of wax, equally ready to receive and
retain whatever impressions the outer world
may make upon it, and endowed merely with
the power of re-shuffling and reproducing in
fainter forms these vivid sensory impressions.
Or, to put the matter in another way, it has
taught us that each individual organism,
human or animal, begins its active career
either with some considerable part of its full
mental structure, both cognitive and conative,
already perfected, or, if with but little per-
fected structure, still with much in the way
of innate tendencies to the development of
structure.

The necessity of believing in the trans-
mission from generation to generation of such
innate tendencies to the development of
mental structure is most obviously forced
upon us by the behaviour of some of the

insects; for in the insect world the innately
determined structure of the mind is commonly
very complex, and constitutes a larger pro-
portion of the total structure than in any
other of the higher branches of the tree of
life. Of all the insects, the solitary wasps,
perhaps, illustrate our present thesis in the
most striking manner. There are many
species which prey upon insects and other
small creatures; these creatures are generally
killed or paralyzed by stinging, and then are
packed away and sealed up in a nest or bur-
row together with one or more eggs of the
wasp, there to serve as food to the grub which
after a time will emerge from the egg. Now
the features of this process, of especial interest
from our present point of view, are two: —
First, the wasps of each species (with few
exceptions) prey on animals of one kind only,
although in all probability the grubs of each
species might flourish on animal food of almost
any kind; one species of wasp preys on cater-
pillars only, another on grasshoppers, a third
on spiders, and so on; and a wasp may spend
many hours searching for her proper prey
amidst an abundance of other small creatures
which seem equally well adapted to serve as
food for her grubs. This choice of her proper
prey is not the result of imitation of other

158 PSYCHOLOGY

wasps of the same species, nor of any other
process of learning; for the wasp hatches out
from the isolated chrysalis as a fully adult
insect, and shortly proceeds to seek her prey.
The wasp, then, has innate power of recog-
nizing her proper prey, or, in the sense in
which we have defined the word knowledge,
she must be said to have innate knowledge
of her prey; that is to say, she inherits a
cognitive disposition which renders her ca-
pable of knowing her prey, when it comes
within range of her sense-organs. The second
point of interest in the present connection is
that the wasp of each species handles her prey
in a manner peculiar to her species; one always
stings her caterpillar in a peculiarly effective
manner: another walks backwards as she
drags her prey to her nest; this mode of
progression gives her more power in dragging
large specimens of the kind she preys upon,
but she behaves in the same way when the
specimen is so small that she could easily
run forward with it raised in her jaws; it is
as though a man should stagger home with
bent back and bowed legs, under the weight
of a pound of tea slung on his shoulders: a
third always straddles across the body of
her victim as she carries it off: one species
always holds her prey with her third pair of

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 159

legs, another with the second pair; others
hold it in the jaws. And, when the wasp ar-
rives at her nest with her prey, her behaviour
again runs on stereotyped lines; one species
invariably lays down her prey and runs into
the hole she has prepared, turns about, and
drags in her prey after her; another suspends
it on the crotch of some low branching plant,
while she explores her nest; a third carries
hers directly into the nest without prelim-
inary exploration. This constancy of mode
of behaviour of each species in the normal
course of their activities might seem at first
sight to favour the view of those who regard
animals as mere machines (and that such
insects as wasps are unconscious mechanisms
has been seriously maintained by some
modern observers) ; yet these same wasps are
capable of intelligently adapting their be-
haviour to unusual circumstances, and they
display in certain respects very striking
idiosyncrasies.

Such exhibition of complex modes of
nicely adapted behaviour without previous
experience of the situation, and the con-
stancy of such modes throughout a species,
are the two most generally accepted marks
of instinctive action. For the word instinc-
tive survives as a general descriptive term for

160 PSYCHOLOGY

activities of this kind; though modern science
is no longer content to use it as a cloak for
ignorance, and to regard such actions as
explained by attributing them to a faculty
of instinct: it uses the word rather to mark
the need for a theory. The foregoing ex-
amples of instinctive behaviour, considered in
connection with the general account of mental
structure given on earlier pages, indicate
clearly what our theory of instinct must be.
The recognition of her specific prey by the
wasp of each species, without any guidance
from her previous experience, implies the
possession of a corresponding cognitive dis-
position, which is provided in the innate
constitution and becomes functionally perfect
in each individual without being exercised.
The handling of her prey by each individual
in the manner characteristic of her species on
her first encounter with it, similarly implies
the possession of a corresponding innate
conative disposition. And the fact that each
wasp reacts in this specific fashion to her
specific prey, and to that alone, implies that
this conative disposition is innately linked
with the cognitive disposition that enables
her to recognize her prey. This, then, is the
nature of an instinct, the mental structure
which is the condition of an instinctive action :

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 161

it consists in a more or less highly specialized
conative disposition linked with a specialized
cognitive disposition; the whole cognitive-
conative system being innate or inherited,
that is to say, developing spontaneously in
each individual to a state in which it is capable
of determining appropriate reaction to its
object.

This is the formula by which we may in a
sense explain a large part of the behaviour
of all animals; namely, all those purposive
reactions which imply perceptual discrimina-
tion of the object without previous experi-
ence of it. Well-nigh the whole of the be-
haviour of some animals conforms strictly
to this type. The best examples of lives
governed wholly by instinct are provided by
some of the insects, which, emerging from
the chrysalis with all their organs and capaci-
ties fully developed, straightway perform a
single cycle of highly complex purposive
actions, and die. The structure of the mind
of such an animal must be conceived as con-
sisting of a limited number of innate cognitive
dispositions, each linked with a conative
disposition; and the maintenance of the
single cycle of activities, which compose the
life history of the adult creature, depends on
the fact that the exercise of each conative

162 PSYCHOLOGY

disposition produces a situation which excites
another cognitive disposition, which in turn
sets to work another conative disposition,
and so on, until the cycle is completed. Such,
for example, is the behaviour of an insect
which, after hatching out, flies about until it
encounters a certain flower, settles upon it,
and, by an series of precise manipulations of
its parts, deposits its eggs among the ovules of
the flower, that is, in the one situation hi all
the world in which the eggs can develop.

But most of the animals perform their
instinctive actions more than once in the
course of their lives; and, when any such
action is repeated many times, we can gener-
ally observe that the nature of the activity
becomes modified in accordance with ex-
perience, modified, that is, in such a way as
to subserve the life of the individual or of the
race more perfectly. The modifications are
of three kinds. First, the animal may learn to
react more discriminatingly to objects of the
class which evokes the instinctive reaction:
for example, a bird, which at first instinc-
tively pursues all butterflies, learns, through
experience of the nauseous taste of one species,
to refrain from pursuing members of that
species and of all others which have similar
markings; or again, a young lamb instinc-

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 163

lively follows any large moving object, but
shortly learns to react in this way to sheep
only; and later he learns to discriminate his
dam from other sheep and to follow her only.
In all such cases we have to infer that the
innate cognitive disposition has undergone
further differentiation through experiences of
success and failure, pleasure and pain.

Secondly, the animal may learn to react
with one of its instinctive modes of behaviour
to an object of a kind towards which it at
first remained indifferent. Abundant illus-
trations of this mode of adaptation of in-
stinctive behaviour are provided by instances
in which animals learn to devour objects other
than those which they instinctively seek. The
tiger, for example, does not instinctively prey
upon man; but if, driven on by scarcity of
food and consequent extreme hunger, he has
once attacked and devoured a man, men
henceforth are objects that excite his preda-
tory impulse. Or again, a young dog does not
instinctively flee hi fear from a boy; but if
once, or on several occasions, he has been
tormented by a gang of boys, he may after-
wards flee from all boys: the mere appearance
of any boy may suffice to evoke the impulse
of fear and its characteristic bodily expression.
We have to suppose that in such cases a

164 PSYCHOLOGY

conative disposition becomes linked with a
cognitive disposition with which it was not
innately connected.

The third type of modification of instinctive
behaviour consists in a modification of the
bodily activities that are directed upon the
object of the instinct. This is seldom ex-
emplified except in conjunction with modifi-
cation of one or other of the preceding types,
or under the teaching of man. When seagulls
learn to follow a ship and to snatch up pieces
of food thrown overboard, or to follow the
plough and feed on worms and grubs, we
have an instance of modification of the
mixed type; and some of the tricks learnt
by animals, such as the pushing up of a latch,
provide examples of predominantly motor
adaptation. Such modification of any purely
instinctive mode of bodily movement im-
plies differentiation of the innate conative
disposition comprised in the instinct.

When the behaviour of an animal exhibits
modification of a purely instinctive mode of
behaviour of any one of these three kinds, we
say that it has profited by experience and be-
haves intelligently. All animal behaviour is,
then, either purely instinctive or intelligent;
and, when we say intelligent, we mean that
it is such as implies some degree of modifica-

tion of the innate structure of the mind
through experience of success or failure,
pleasure or pain, in the course of purposive
activity. Intelligent behaviour thus always
involves modification of instinctive modes of
behaviour, and intelligence presupposes in-
stinct: for, unless a creature possessed in-
stincts of some kind, all basis for the play of
intelligence would be lacking, there would
be no tendencies to be modified; and modifi-
cation of pre-existing tendencies is the essence
of intelligent activity.

This, then, is the relation of intelligence
to instinct in the animal world; each animal
is natively endowed with certain instincts
which lead it to react in specific ways to cer-
tain situations or objects of its environment;
in the course of the striving to which it is thus
prompted, it may learn to modify its bodily
movements, to discriminate more nicely be-
tween the objects which yield more or less
of satisfaction to its impulses, or directly to
respond with specifically directed impulses to
objects which do not normally evoke them
prior to such modification; and in proportion
as an animal effects much or little of such
adaptive modification of its instincts, we say
that it exhibits much or little intelligence.

Now the higher animals, that is, those

166 PSYCHOLOGY

whose behaviour exhibits the greatest com-
plexity and nicety of adjustment to a variety
of situations, fall into two great classes;
namely, the class in which behaviour is pre-
dominantly instinctive, in which the modifi-
cations of the innate tendencies are relatively
few and slight, but in which these innate
tendencies are themselves very complex and
highly specialized; and, secondly, the class in
which the instinctive tendencies are of low
degree of specialization, but become greatly
modified and specialized in various ways in the
course of the individual's experience. The
former class is best represented by the higher
insects; the second by the higher vertebrate
animals, especially the mammals.

It is as though Nature had tried two
different plans for securing the nice adjust-
ment of her children's behaviour. The one
plan is to provide in the innate mental struc-
ture of each animal as complete as possible a
system of highly specialized instincts, which
shall fit the creature so fully for its special
environment that it has little need to modify
in any way its instinctive modes of behaviour
in order to thrive and propagate its kind.
This is the plan usually realized in those
creatures which, like most of the insects, are
launched full-grown to lead an independent

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 167

life of active movement; for, if such creatures
had to learn to modify extensively their in-
nate modes of behaviour in order to cope
effectively with their environment, most of
them would inevitably perish before they
had achieved this task.

The other plan is to provide in the innate
mental structure of each animal a number of
very general instincts, that is, instincts of
which both the cognitive and the conative
parts are but little specialized, so that the
creature reacts in a few highly general ways
to a corresponding number of large classes
of objects; and to supplement these instincts
with a large capacity for intelligent adaptation
of behaviour, through the exercise of which
the innate dispositions may become special-
ized and differentiated to cope with a large
variety of objects and circumstances. It is a
necessary part of this plan that the young
animal shall not, during the first period of its
active life, be dependent altogether upon its
own efforts; for its highly general instincts
would hardly suffice to maintain it alive un-
aided. Rather it must enjoy a period of
sheltered life, during which it may acquire,
through experience, such specializations of its
innate mental structure as are necessary for
independent existence. This period of pro-

168 PSYCHOLOGY

tected immaturity Nature provides by devel-
oping in the species the parental instinct,
which leads the adults of each generation to
feed, protect, and shelter their young, while
these add to their highly general innate knowl-
edge a sufficient store of acquired knowledge.

We use here the term "innate knowledge"
in referring to all that part of the structure of
the mind which is inherited, in order to mark
the view that it is of essentially the same
nature as what we call acquired knowledge;
and this is in conformity with general usage,
for by knowledge we mean the capacity to
think and act in certain ways. We say that
a person knows how to swim or to shoot, as
well as that he knows the multiplication table,
the French language, or the principles of
chemistry; and we say with equal propriety
that the bee knows how to build the honey-
comb, that the squirrel knows how to find
and to open nuts, that the spider knows how
to repair her web, or that the bird knows
its own nest; for in each case, whether the
knowledge be innate or acquired, its posess-
sion consists in the presence of more or less
specialized dispositions appropriately related
to the rest of the structure of the mind.

When we compare these two great plans
according to which adjustment of behaviour

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 169

is secured, it seems obvious that the second
offers the greater possibilities. Upon the
former plan, the more highly specialized are
the instincts of any creature and the more
perfectly they are organized at the moment it
enters upon its life of free activity, the less
chance has it of acquiring new knowledge or
of further elaborating in any way the structure
of its mind; for the highly specialized in-
stincts, coming at once into operation, become
set or confirmed by use; and the creature is
thenceforward condemned to a life of routine
repetition of its purely instinctive modes of
behaviour.

The second plan, on the other hand, seems
to offer a prospect of unlimited possibilities
of individual mental development; for the
less specialized are the instincts and the more
prolonged the period of youth or protected
immaturity, the more opportunity has each
individual of further elaborating the struc-
ture of his mind by his own efforts. This
second plan inevitably brings a further very
great advantage to the species among which
it obtains; namely, it enables the acquired
knowledge or experience of each generation
to be in some degree handed on to the next;
that is to say, it introduces the principle of
tradition. For the young animals, remaining

170 PSYCHOLOGY

under the care of their parents, inevitably
profit in some degree by imitating their
behaviour: whereas, under the other plan,
the parent, having deposited the egg, is no
more concerned for its welfare; and the young,
therefore, never enjoy the companionship
of their parents, and have no opportunity of
imitating them.

The simplest way in which the young
take to themselves knowledge acquired by
their parents, is to follow them about and
thus to learn where best to find food and
shelter. But the possibilities of advantage
from imitation are so great that special
adaptations of innate mental structure have
been evolved in many species, in order
that these advantages may be more fully
secured. The typical and most obvious and,
perhaps, the simplest example of such special
innate provision for securing to each genera-
tion the fuller benefits of family and social
life, is the development of a special cog-
nitive disposition for the perception of the
expressions of fear made by other members
of the species, and its innate linkage with the
conative disposition in which the impulse of
fear arises. In virtue of such a special devel-
opment of the cognitive side of this instinct,
the young bird crouches motionless or runs to

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 171

shelter when the parent emits a cry of fear;
the young rabbit runs to earth when its
mother's white tail bobs before it; and among
the gregarious mammals similar signals recall
the young to the herd, as it prepares for
collective flight or defence. The frequency
among the higher animals of recognition-
marks (of which the white underside of the
rabbit's tail is a simple example) affords some
indication of the importance of this principle.
But among the higher animals the part
played by tradition, through imitation of the
old by the young, goes far beyond these simple
modes; thus the forms of the nests and of the
songs of many birds seem to be only in
part instinctively determined and in part
traditionally.

If now we apply all the foregoing prin-
ciples of animal behaviour to the elucidation
of the relation of the human to the animal
mind, the human mind appears as the product
of an extreme evolution according to the
second of the two great plans of mental
organization. The human being necessarily
inherits certain instincts; for without these he
would lack all means of setting to work on
his task of building up the immense mass of
acquired knowledge that he needs: that is
to say, if he were not provided by heredity

172 PSYCHOLOGY

with some cognitive and conative dispositions,
and if certain of these were not innately
linked, there would be no means of setting
his mental faculties to work. But his acquisi-
tion of knowledge is rapid and extensive; for
his conditions are very favourable to such
acquisition. First, the instincts he inherits
are of the most highly general type on both
their cognitive and conative sides; they
merely provide a basis for vaguely directed
activities in response to vaguely discriminated
impressions from large classes of objects.
Secondly, the duration of his immaturity and
the period of parental protection are very
greatly prolonged; for, whereas the youth of
the more intelligent animals lasts only some
months, or, at the most, a very few years, as
in the families of the elephants and man-like
apes, human beings enjoy immaturity and
parental protection during nearly a score of
years. Thirdly, the possibilities of profiting
by tradition are immensely increased for man
by his power of speech; for language enables
each generation to hand on to its successor a
vastly greater store of acquired knowledge
than can be transmitted in any other way;
and, of course, the invention of writing has
again immensely increased the possible mass
of traditional knowledge. These three favour-

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 173

able conditions of development of the human
mind go far to explain how it attains so vast
a superiority to that of the highest animal.

The study of animal behaviour, besides
throwing light on the general nature of the in-
nate basis of the human mind and on the
general conditions of its development in the
individual, helps us to elucidate its innate
basis in detail, in that it affords us guidance
when we seek to define the human instincts.
For it becomes clear that, as the theory of
continuous evolution demands, the human
mind is endowed with a number of instincts
which are very similar to some found in the
higher animals, for example, the instincts of
fear, of sex, and of pugnacity. While these
are displayed in simple and unmistakable
forms of behaviour among the animals, their
operation in human beings is so largely
modified and obscured by acquired modifica-
tions and the power of self-conscious control,
that without the analogy presented by animal
behaviour the task of defining the human
instincts would be one of extreme difficulty.

The third way, we said, in which the study
of animal behaviour illuminates the central
problems of psychology is to show us the
general nature and course of the evolution
of which the human mind is the supreme

174 PSYCHOLOGY

achievement. We must pass over this great
topic with a very few words.

We have already seen how the process of
evolution has produced in its higher stages
two great divergent types of mental structure;
one of the two great lines of progress seems to
have culminated in the higher insects, the
other and more successful line has produced
man. Now, when we contemplate the behav-
iour of animals, representing both of these
divergent lines of evolution, and that of the
more lowly creatures, representing the com-
mon stem from which the lines diverge, we are
led to see the unity of type of all animal
behaviour; for we note everywhere, as its
characteristic marks, purposiveness, selectiv-
ity, and adaptation through experience. We
are thus led to recognize the same fundamen-
tal mental faculties as operative at all levels of
the evolutionary scale, but operating with
very different degrees of efficiency according
to the degree of development of mental struc-
ture. In this way we reach the conclusion
that mental evolution has been essentially a
continuous evolution of mental structure,
rather than a process marked at various levels
by the sudden irruption of new faculties.

Another important truth, brought home to
us by this lmekof study, is that progressive

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 175

evolution has been primarily an evolution
of mental structure and only secondarily one
of bodily structure. For everywhere we find
the bodily structure adapting itself to the
mode of life and environment of the animal.
When the mammal takes to seeking its food
in the water, it acquires many of the bodily
peculiarities of a fish, becoming a whale
or a porpoise; when the reptile or the mam-
mal learns to seek its prey in the air, its bodily
structure approximates to that of a bird;
when the water-breather learns to come on to
the land, he loses his gills and acquires lungs;
and so in thousands of cases: the change of
mode of life or of behaviour leads to change
of bodily structure. But the change of be-
haviour is the expression of a change of men-
tal structure. Other changes of habitat and
consequent changes of bodily structure, col-
our, and so forth, conform to the same prin-
ciple: either the species is forced into a new
habitat, or, owing to some change in its
mental constitution, seeks a new environment;
and in both cases the individuals of each gen-
eration adapt their behaviour as best they
can to the new environment, while the bodily
structure gradually follows suit. Thus, men-
tal evolution leads the way, and evolution
of bodily structure is in the main the conse-

176 PSYCHOLOGY

quence of it; and this remains true, no matter
what theory of the conditions of evolution we
adopt.

Unlike Darwin, most of the biologists of the
present day leave the mental powers out of
account altogether, when they seek to account
for biological evolution; but if it is primarily
a mental evolution this procedure is doomed
to failure. And the hopelessness of such
mindless biology may be deduced in another
way. Evolution, so far as we can at present
see, has been brought about either through
the transmission from one generation to
another of the structural effects cf the efforts
of creatures at more complete adaptation to
their environment; or by the natural selec-
tion of the so-called spontaneous variations,
in the course of the unremitting struggle for
existence to which we all, men and animals
alike, are committed; or, more probably, by
both processes. In either case the work of
the mind has been an all-important condition
of such evolution; for, even if natural selec-
tion of spontaneous variations has been the
sole method of evolution, such selection was
only rendered possible by the struggling for
existence, that is, by the sustained purposive
efforts of the animals to maintain their own
lives and to propagate their species. Animal

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 177

evolution, that is to say, however it may have
been with plant evolution, has been the
product of the struggles of the animal, of
their purposive efforts to survive; for the
factor determining survival or destruction in
chief measure has always been success or
failure of the purposive activity of the animal;
to this all other factors have been subordinate.
Thus the main stress, the brunt of the work
of evolution, has been borne by the mind; the
mind has been the pioneer of bodily evolu-
tion; the bodily organs and functions have
been merely the instruments through which
the mind has accomplished its purposes.

We see, then, how distorted is any view
of the evolutionary process which represents
mind as a mere bye-product of its later stages;
first coming into being, when the physical
processes within the nervous systems of
animals reached a certain degree of com-
plexity. Yet that is a view of mental evolu-
tion which has been widely entertained.

Before leaving this topic, it must be pointed
out that in the study of animal behaviour
lies our best, perhaps our only, hope of
answering the question — Are acquired char-
acters transmitted? Are the adaptations of
behaviour and the consequent modifications
of structure (bodily or mental) achieved by

178 PSYCHOLOGY

the efforts of individuals, transmitted in any
degree to their progeny? This is the most
urgent and practically important biological
problem, perhaps the most important of all
problems, a definite answer to which we may
confidently hope to obtain by the methods of
empirical science.

Biologists have been divided into two
acutely opposed parties by this question,
ever since doubt was thrown on such trans-
mission; the majority denying it dogmati-
cally, a strong minority as confidently affirm-
ing it. So long as we have no positive answer
to this question, there can be no progress made
with many of the major problems of biology
and of sociology, and a wise decision on some
of the most far-reaching legislative and ad-
ministrative problems is wholly impossible.
For example, the solution of the eugenic
problem, the practical problem of promoting
the progress of the human race, or of any
section of it, or of preventing its deterioration,
hangs upon the answer to this question. It
is difficult for us to view this problem dis-
passionately in relation to ourselves; let us,
therefore, consider it for a moment in relation
to the negro race, in order to bring home to
our minds its vast importance. It seems
indisputable that the negro race is, in certain

STUDY OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR 179

respects, at a lower level of mental evolution
than the white race; now, if acquired charac-
ters are transmitted, even in a very slight
degree only, we may reasonably hope that,
after the negro race shall have been subjected
to the better influences of civilization for a
number of generations, it will be raised to a
higher level of innate intellectual and moral
capacity. If, on the other hand, acquired
characters are not in any degree transmitted,
as the majority of biologists assert, then there
is no hope that the civilization and educa-
tion of the negro peoples, no matter how
wisely and beneficently the work may be
directed, will of themselves raise them to a
higher level of innate capacity. It is clear,
then, that our hopes and our practical policy
in relation to the negro race (and to all
other races of mankind) must be profoundly
affected by the establishment of the true
answer to this question.

For a whole generation at least this question
has been pressing for an answer, and no
progress has been made with it. Yet if a
tenth, or even a hundredth, part of the money
which is devoted to research in physical
science, in order to add to our material com-
forts and conveniences, could be diverted to
promote the study of animal behaviour, this

180 PSYCHOLOGY

problem could be rapidly solved. For there
is every reason to believe that the answer to
it which is true of the animals is true also
of man.

CHAPTER VI

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD

WE have seen in a previous chapter that
the experimental methods of observation are
being applied to a great variety of psycho-
logical problems, and to none more energeti-
cally than to those which are of immediate
importance from the educational point of
view. Many of these experimental observa-
tions are made by and upon children, espe-
cially such experiments as can be carried on
collectively with a considerable group of
subjects. Much of the work of this sort has
been directed to the elucidation of very spe-
cial problems. But the study of children has
also its bearings on the wider and more gen-
eral problems of the mind and its develop-
ment. It has been rendered far more fruitful
of results than it otherwise could have been
by the light thrown by the theory of organic
evolution and by the principle of recapitula-
tion— the principle, namely, that in the course
of his development each individual recapitu-

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 181

lates or retraces, however roughly and imper-
fectly, the steps by which his species was
evolved. In the light of this theory and of
this principle, it has become obvious that the
development of the mind of the child, far from
being a mere moulding of it by the impres-
sions rained upon it by its environment, is
itself a process of evolution in the proper
sense of the word, an unfolding of latent
potentialities. In other words, we have learnt
that, though education may do much, hered-
ity is all-important; and that education can
but refine, perfect, or restrain the native
tendencies of the mind. The greatest prob-
lem for the solution of which we have to
rely largely on the study of children may,
then, be stated as follows: — What is the
nature of the mental inheritance of the normal
man? What powers, faculties, tendencies, or
mental structures, does he inherit? What is
the natural order or sequence of their evolu-
tion? The importance, both practical and
theoretical, of finding the answers to these
questions, is equalled by the difficulty of the
task.

A part of the mental inheritance of the
normal man can be roughly defined with some
confidence, and the natural order of its evolu-
tion can be stated in general terms. This part

182 PSYCHOLOGY

consists of the human instincts. These, as in
other animal species, seem to be common to
the whole human race. The recognition of
their presence and of their several natures is
rendered difficult, first, by their highly general
character; secondly, by the fact that most of
them mature, or come into operation, only
when the individual has made some consider-
able intellectual progress; thirdly, by the
great development in man of the power of
control and modification of the instinctive
tendencies, or, in other words, by the complex
interaction of the conative tendencies which
results from the high complexity of the men-
tal organization. The main phases of the
development of the child are determined by
the successive ripening of these instincts. The
one which generally produces the prof oundest
effects — effects which make themselves felt
throughout well-nigh the whole of the mental
life — is the sex instinct. Whether this is
normally operative in any degree before the
onset of puberty is an obscure question on
which opinions differ widely; but it is clear
that it either first comes into operation at
puberty, or becomes much more powerfully
operative at that time; and it is clear also
that the profound bodily and mental changes
which characterize that period of life are

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 183

largely due to its evolution. The very great
influence upon the course of mental life which
is often exercised by it, is due not only to the
great strength of the impulse to which its
excitement gives rise, but also to the fact that
it begins to exert its strong influence at a time
when the rest of the mind has attained a
high level of development, when self-con-
sciousness has already become highly elab-
orated, and when the individual has already
formed a complex system of sentiments and
habits and has entered into a complex system
of social relations; for the awakening of this
new impulse, however blind it may remain,
necessitates profound readjustments of all
these acquisitions, and affects profoundly
many judgments of value and many emo-
tional attitudes. For these reasons the period
of puberty is of critical importance, and the
study and understanding of it are an impera-
tive necessity to the educator. But this
instinct is only first in strength and influence
among others; and the obvious importance of
the study of it serves to make us appreciate
the need for the definition and understanding
of other powerful instincts, and of the course
of then* evolution in the human being.

When we turn to ask — What besides the
instincts is comprised in the innate constitu-

184 PSYCHOLOGY

tion of the human mind? we find the widest
divergences of opinion and the greatest diffi-
culty in returning any answer. What we
have called the mental faculties are, of course,
inherited. But does the inheritance include
anything more than these and the instincts?
If we are right in saying that any mind can be
wholly described in terms of its faculties and
its structure, we may put the question in the
following form: — Does the native basis of
the mind comprise any dispositions in addition
to those which enter into the composition of
the instincts; and, if so, to what extent are
they systematically linked together?

We cannot answer this question with a
negative. There is certainly much beside
the faculties and the instincts comprised in
the native basis of each human mind. If
there were not, it would be impossible ade-
quately to account for the vast superiority of
the mind of the human adult to that of the
highest of the animals. Some of those who
regard the mind purely from the physiological
standpoint, and who believe that all we
have called the structure of the mind can be
adequately described in terms of the organ-
ized structure of the brain, take the view that
the superiority of the native endowment of
man consists chiefly or wholly in the presence

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 185

in the brain of the infant of a great mass of
unorganized nervous tissue, which offers un-
limited possibilities of progressive organiza-
tion. But, even if we accepted the assump-
tion that the structure of the mind can be
wholly described in terms of nervous disposi-
tions and their connections, we could not
accept the view that nothing of the mental
organization beyond the instincts is innate.

We have to recognize that the greater part
of what we have called the logical structure
of the mind is innately given; that is to
say, that there are given the principal great
cognitive systems, by means of which we
implicitly think the most general properties
and relations of things, in thinking of particu-
lar objects. No direct proof of the truth of
this view can be offered; but in support of it
the following considerations maybe advanced.

The fact that the human mind develops
so far beyond the highest animal mind can-
not be wholly accounted for by the more
favourable conditions of its development;
of which, as we have seen, the highly general
character of its instincts, prolonged youth,
and the use of language as the instrument of
communication and tradition, are the chief.
If the superiority resulted from such condi-
tions merely, it should be possible, by careful

186 PSYCHOLOGY

training, to raise the mind of an animal
much nearer to the human level than it can
actually be brought. As a matter of fact the
most favourable conditions and the most care-
ful training bring the animal mind but a very
little part of the way towards the human mind.

Again, the behaviour of young children
affords evidence of their implicit knowledge
of such things and relations as space, spatial
relations, thinghood, causality, at a time
when they are quite incapable of explicitly
thinking of such objects, and when they can
hardly be supposed to have built up such
knowledge through their own experience.

But perhaps the strongest evidence is
afforded by the inequalities of the intellectual
and moral development, as respects both
kind and degree, of children placed under
similar conditions and influences. These in-
equalities are much greater than any that
could be attributed to favouring or retarding
influences. For we see sometimes a child
growing up under the most unfavourable con-
ditions of every kind, and yet rapidly and
easily attaining a high level of development;
and we see others under the most favourable
conditions remaining stupid and of low moral
level, or exhibiting special intellectual defects
or moral deformities.

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 187

Again, among those children who develop
exceptionally high powers, we commonly find
that the development of these powers cannot
be accounted for by the influences of their
environments. And in many cases it is ob-
vious that their special excellences are innate
or have an innate basis; for the same pecu-
liarities can be traced in their ancestry through
several generations; they are, therefore,
hereditary, and whatever is inherited is in-
nate. The most striking instances are those
in which the hereditary peculiarity takes the
form of excellence (or defect) in highly spe-
cial forms of mental activity, such as musical
and mathematical talent; but similar evi-
dence of highly special innate powers and
tendencies is afforded by the appearance of
numberless family traits, idiosyncrasies of
thought and feeling, and special mental ex-
cellences and defects of many kinds. Perhaps
the most striking evidence is afforded by the
study of twins, who sometimes, even though
brought up under very different influence??,
exhibit very close resemblances of intellect
and character. In short, the more children
are studied from this point of view, the more
far-reaching does the influence of heredity
appear. Now, although it is generally impos-
sible to define in anything but the roughest

188 PSYCHOLOGY

way the innate bases of these hereditary
peculiarities, we seem compelled to believe
that they consist — in large part at least — in
inherited mental structures of very consider-
able degrees of specialization.

Here, then, is an immense field for research,
the extent and importance of which we are
only just beginning to realize. And it is a
field for the psychologist. He alone can hope
to define the problems in the detailed way
which is the necessary presupposition of
fruitful work in this field. This is sufficiently
shown by the few attempts made to enter it
by biologists and statisticians without psy-
chological preparation. They tend to work
in terms of the confused notions and crude
distinctions embodied in popular speech; they
attempt to determine the inheritance of such
questionable entities as good temper, courage,
conscientiousness, or popularity; ignoring
the necessity of accurate psychological analy-
sis of the constitution of the mind as the pre-
liminary to all such work.

If education, properly understood and
practised, is what the word implies, a drawing
out of the native powers of the mind, a wise
direction and control of the process of spon-
taneous development of innate tendencies,
surely, when every civilized nation devotes

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 189

enormous sums of money and the self-sacri-
ficing energy of many thousands of teachers
to the work of educating its children, it must
be worth while to find out what are those
innate tendencies and what is their normal
course of development.

Individual Psychology

Individual Psychology is a field for the
application of the knowledge and under-
standing acquired by study in the other de-
partments of the science, rather than a branch
which directly contributes towards the solu-
tion of its general problems. Its work is to
define the peculiarities of mental constitution
which render the behaviour and the develop-
ment of each individual human being unique.
Its success depends upon the degree of prog-
ress achieved by the other departments.
For, before we can give an adequate ac-
count of the individual, we must be able to
describe in general terms the innate basis of
the mind, in so far as it is common to all men;
and we must be able to state the general
principles of the development of the mind
under the joint influences of its native ten-
dencies and of its environment. In this field
psychology comes near to art; for biography,
fiction, and drama are largely concerned with

190 PSYCHOLOGY

the portrayal of the intellectual and moral
peculiarities of individuals.

It is true that at the present time the char-
acter of an individual may be more effectively
displayed by the sympathetic intuition of the
artist, than by the application of the rudi-
ments of psychological science that have
hitherto been built up. But, as psychology
progresses, it will more and more aid in the
accurate delineation of individual disposition
and temperament and character; and it will
enable us, not only to portray, but also to
understand and explain them in terms of
heredity and the laws of mental development.

What accurate work is being done in this
field mainly takes the form of experimental
determination of capacities to execute definite
tasks. The task set is of such a nature that
the degree of excellence attained by the
subject is capable of being accurately stated
in terms of the number of some unit, units of
rate, or of repetition, or of errors committed.
By the application of such a "mental test" to
any number of subjects under strictly similar
conditions, the subjects may be placed in an
order of merit in respect of excellence in the
performance of the task. Now it is perhaps
not possible to devise tests which can be
regarded as testing any one mental function

THE STUDY OF CHILDHOOD 191

purely. It might, for example, seem an easy
matter to devise a simple test for memory.
But, whatever form of test is applied, at least
two very different functions are involved, and
the degree of excellence of each perform-
ance depends on both of them — namely, the
function of committing to memory, and the
function of retaining that which has been
committed. In a similar way every other
simple experiment tests not a single function,
but a complex of functions.

Nevertheless the application of a well-
chosen set of carefully devised tests to a group
of subjects, say fifty or more children of the
same age and school experience, is capable
of throwing much light upon their relative
capacities; and, if the process is repeated at
intervals of six months or a year, further light
upon their individual peculiarities is obtained.
Little has yet been done in this direction; but
there seems to be no reason why we should
not ultimately work out a scheme of mental
tests which will allow us to estimate the
intellectual capacities of any individual with
considerable accuracy, and to assign him his
place in an empirical scale of capacity, far
more accurately than can be done by any
other method of examination yet devised. One
great advantage of such a method of estimat-

192 PSYCHOLOGY

ing intellectual capacity over our ordinary
examination methods is that it should enable
us to distinguish more fully the respective
shares of native capacity and of acquired knowl-
edge in the performances of any individual.
The data obtained by the application of
mental tests may be made to yield further
conclusions of great interest by the mathe-
matical treatment of them according to the
principle of correlation. By applying this
method we can discover what kinds of excel-
lences or defects commonly go together in
the composition of the human mind. For
example, we take the two lists of figures repre-
senting the achievements of a considerable
group of subjects under two different tests,
and arrange them in order of merit; then, if
the subjects appear approximately in the
same order of merit in the two lists, we may
infer that the functions involved in the two
performances are correlated, i. e. that they
tend to be of the same level of excellence in
the same subjects. And if we find no such
correspondence between the two lists, or if
we find an inverted correspondence, those
near the top of one list being near the bottom
of the other; then we may infer that there
is no correlation, or a negative correlation,
between the functions involved.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 193

With this very brief indication of a method
of investigation which not only promises
great things for Individual Psychology, but
which raises also the prospect of effecting ul-
timately a complete objective analysis of the
mental functions, we must pass on to our next
topic, namely, the study of abnormal mental
processes.

CHAPTER VH

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

ABNORMAL psychology offers a vast and
fascinating and, just at the present time, a
very fruitful field of research. It can probably
claim a much larger number of serious stu-
dents than any of the other departments, and it
excites much more popular interest than any
of them. The ordinary man is so accustomed
to the ordinary behaviour of normal men and
to his own habitual modes of thinking, that
he cannot see behind them any problems to
be solved. The notion of any one trying to
find out more about the human mind than he
himself knows, generally fills him with im-
patient scorn, even though he may be pre-
pared to tolerate those who spend their lives
in classifying beetles or minutely describing
the skeletons of microscopic animalcules.

194 PSYCHOLOGY

But, when one meets a man who gravely and
persistently asserts that his conduct is con-
stantly governed by the voice of an invisible
being, or that he sees beside him a human figure
which none other can see, or that he is the
«mperor of the world; or when one hears of a
man who repeatedly inflicts painful mutila-
tions upon his own body, or who refuses to
move hand or foot for months at a time; then
even the dullest man is startled into curiosity,
and feels himself in presence of a fact that
calls for explanation and understanding.

Abnormal psychology comprises a num-
ber of sub-departments, which in the main
have been pursued independently by different
bodies of workers; happily, in recent years
these groups have come more closely together
,and are now giving mutual aid. We may
broadly distinguish two groups of these
; sub-departments, namely, those that are
concerned with minds in definitely morbid
or pathological states, and those concerned
with distinctly unusual or abnormal states of
mind which cannot fairly be classed as mor-
bid. The former group consists of two sub-
xdepartments: the study of mental diseases
proper and that of the psycho-neuroses. The
separation of these studies is largely conven-
tional and professional rather than scientific,

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 195

and there is manifest at the present time a
strong tendency to abolish it.

Until recent years the study of mental
diseases proper had in the main been pur-
sued in strange detachment from the other
branches of psychology, and it had thrown but
little light on the major problems of the science.
This was mainly due to the prevalence among
the physicians for mental diseases of a
tendency to seek to understand and explain
all the morbid conditions of mind in terms of
structural disorder or disease of the brain
only. Some mental diseases are primarily
diseases of the brain, and in cases of certain
types gross inflammatory or degenerative
changes of the brain tissues are regularly
found upon post mortem examination. But
this fact does not justify the assumption that
all mental disease is of this nature; and of
late years there has appeared a strong tendency
to seek for mental or functional causes of
the abnormal course of mental process in
insane patients. This tendency has been
greatly stimulated by the modern develop-
ments of the other department of mental
pathology. In this second department the
disease which provides the largest number of
patients and the most interesting material
for the student of psychology is hysteria.

196 PSYCHOLOGY

A generation ago the attitude of the medi-
cal profession towards hysteria and allied
abnormal conditions was, with very few
exceptions, wholly unscientific, being based
merely on popular psychology. It was
vaguely recognized that the extraordinary
behaviour of the hysterical patient implied
some kind of mental abnormality, and that no
gross disease of the nervous system was
implied by it. But the tendency then prev-
alent may be crudely described by saying
that the abnormal behaviour of the hysteric
was attributed to "pure cussedness"; the
treatment accorded was "firmness," strong
electric shocks, cold douches, and other
decorous substitutes for a sound birching.
To a small group of French physicians belongs
in the main the credit of having put the study
of hysteria and allied conditions on a scientific
basis, by showing that the patients must be
regarded as suffering from a disorder of men-
tal origin and must be treated in the main
through the mind. They succeeded in show-
ing that in many such cases, perhaps in all,
the essence of the disorder is some division of
the mind into parts which, instead of co-
operating in normal fashion, function more or
less independently of one another and even
enter into some sort of rivalry. It was shown

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 197

that, while in the majority of cases the divi-
sion takes the form of the separation of some
minor functions only, in others there occurs
something like a separation of functions into
two rival systems that compete with one
another for the control of behaviour, some-
times the one, sometimes the other predomi-
nating; and it was shown that more rarely
such rival systems seem to maintain their
activities simultaneously, the behaviour of the
patient seeming to express at any one mo-
ment the purposes of two minds. In this way
was introduced the notion of the division
or splitting of the personality, resulting in
alternating or in coexistent dual personali-
ties. Of these two conceptions, that of alter-
nating personalities is the clearer and more
intelligible. Under it are generally classed
rare cases of the type which in former ages
was explained as due to "possession" of the
body of the patient by a "demon" or by the
spirit of some deceased person.

In a typical well-marked case of this sort,
the patient's normal life suddenly gives way
to a period in which he behaves in a manner
altogether "unlike himself." He wanders
perhaps to some distant place, and there takes
up some new mode of life under a new name,
behaving sufficiently like a normal person to

198 PSYCHOLOGY

avoid the attention of the police or of the
medical profession. After weeks, months, or
years of the new mode of life, he suddenly
changes again, perhaps waking up one morn-
ing to find that his surroundings are wholly
strange to him, and that he remembers noth-
ing of his past life from the moment at which
lie left home; in short, he becomes himself
again, after being to all intents and purposes
a different person. Thereafter he may re-
lapse at longer or shorter intervals into the
secondary state, "coming to himself" again
after each period of secondary existence. In
the greater number of such cases, each of the
two alternating personalities has no direct
knowledge of the other or of his doings, the
period of the dominance of the one being a
complete blank for the memory of the other;
and the two personalities commonly differ
widely in respect to temperament.

It is attempted to render such cases intel-
ligible by pointing out that most of us ex-
perience from time to time changes similar
in kind, though much less in degree; for
example, one passes into a mood in which all
one's thinking has an unusual emotional tone,
say, a tone of melancholy; and so long as
this tone prevails, one dwells upon gloomy
memories, forgetting the brighter phases of

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY

one's past life, one's thinking reaches pessi-
mistic conclusions, and one's behaviour reveals
this inward gloom. Now, it is said, imagine
this condition to be accentuated and recur-
rent, and you have an approximation to
alternation of personalities; the border-line
being crossed when the emotional tones of the
alternating periods become so widely different
that in each period the memories only of the
periods of congruent tone are recoverable.

The cases of dual personality of the con-
current type are rarely so extreme. The
existence of a secondary personality is inferred
from .certain features of the behaviour of the
bodily organism which seem to bear no rela-
tion to the thinking of the subject, so far
as he can reveal it to us; for example, the
patient has an anaesthetic or insensitive arm
and hand, and this can be induced to write
intelligible answers to questions whispered
in his ear, while the subject, who afterwards
denies all knowledge of both question and
answer, maintains an animated conversation
with a third person. Or the anaesthetic hand
may be pricked a given number of times, and,
though the subject remains, so far as can be
ascertained, unaware that the hand has been,
touched, the hand itself may be induced to
write down the number of the pricks.

200 PSYCHOLOGY

In such cases, according to the commonly
received view, the impressions made on the
anaesthetic limb fail to affect the thinking of
the subject, but evoke instead a feeble trickle
of mental activity, which flows on as an
independent subsidiary stream alongside the
main stream; since this main stream is, as
it were, deprived of the influence of these
sense-impressions, the lesser stream is said
to have been split off from the greater. The
facts are interpreted after the analogy of a
river which overflows its banks at one spot,
and thus sends off a small divergent stream
which follows for a time a separate course.

In the rarest and most interesting of all
these strange cases of dual personality, the
phenomena of the alternating and the con-
current types are presented by the same
organism. During the dominance of the
normal personality, a secondary personality
reveals itself occasionally in the production
of movements of which the normal personality
remains unconscious or for which he denies
all responsibility, and which yet express
intelligent appreciation of the circumstances
of the moment; and later, when the secondary
personality is dominant, he claims to remem-
ber the incident and to have willed the "auto-
matic" movements.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 201

In face of such puzzling cases, some of
which have been studied with the most
admirable patience and acumen by the
French physicians, and also more recently
by some American doctors, any hypothesis
must be put forward tentatively. The view
that they all imply or result from some kind
of division of the mental functions into two
systems which carry on their activities in-
dependently of one another — this view finds
support in many facts (though others cannot
easily be reconciled with it), and is widely
accepted. But this view is really nothing
more than a hypothetical description of the
condition, and needs to be supplemented by
some hypothesis which will explain the pro-
duction of the condition. Such an hypothesis
is that of Professor Janet, to whom more than
to any other our present knowledge of these
states is due. He assumes that the unity of
the mind, as normally revealed in the direc-
tion of its activity towards one topic at any
one moment, is conditioned by the exercise of
a synthetic power or energy which is one of
the fundamental functions or faculties of
mind; and he supposes that, in the patients
who exhibit these curious modes of behaviour,
this synthetic energy is for one reason or
another defective; hence, he says, the mind

202 PSYCHOLOGY

cannot perform so completely as the normal
mind its unifying function, and its activities,
instead of being harmonized in one stream
which, however broad and deep, is neverthe-
less a single complex activity, fall apart into
two or even more streams, with the result that
the patient's field of consciousness or stream
of mental activity is narrowed and that indi-
cations of subconscious activities appear.

In recent years our knowledge of this group
of pathological states of mind has been further
enriched by the work of Prof. Freud of
Vienna, who also has sought to carry further
the theoretical explanation of them by means
of a system of ingenious hypotheses. At the
present time these hypotheses are by no means
generally accepted, but are the subject of a
most lively and heated controversy; neverthe-
less, they are so well supported by the good
results obtained by many physicians who
have applied them in the treatment of
patients, and their interest from the point of
view of the major problems of psychology is
so great, that some indication of their nature
must be given here.

The French conception of hysteria tends to
be intellectualistic; i. e. it takes but little
account of the function of will or conation in
mental life. In the teaching of Freud a

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 203

leading role is assigned to conation. The
fundamental fact from which the theory
starts out is that our organized conative
tendencies are apt to come into conflict with
one another, producing what we called moral
struggles. Every case of what is commonly
called temptation involves such a conflict
of conative tendencies; when, in such a con-
flict, we conquer our temptation, our highly
organized self -consciousness brings into opera-
tion a strongly organized system of conative
tendencies which support the more moral or
social tendency in its conflict with the immoral
or socially disapproved tendency, and thus
secure the defeat of the latter. Now, we know
that such a defeated tendency, or conquered
temptation, is not always destroyed or wholly
abolished by such a victory of one's moral
nature in open conflict; we know that in some
cases it recurs and requires to be thrust down
again and again. But in many cases we
succeed, either at once or after repeated
conflicts, in banishing this temptation from
consciousness. We commonly feel then that
we have done with it and wholly cast it out
or destroyed it. Now, it is possible or even
probable that, when we stoutly face a tempta-
tion, frankly recognizing it for what it is, an
expression of a lower possibility of our nature,

304 PSYCHOLOGY

a conative tendency opposed to our moral
sentiments, and when we thus conquer it,
the tendency is destroyed. But it seems (and
this is the essential novelty in Freud's teach-
ing) that many natures, especially perhaps
women brought up in a strictly conventional
manner, react hi a different way to their
temptations; they are so horrified at the first
dim awareness of the nature of their tempta-
tion that they never frankly recognize it,
never bring it out into the light in order to
confront it in open conflict. The tendency is
apt then to be repressed and yet to live and
work in the mind in a subterraneous fashion;
it becomes, as it were, a parasitic growth
seeking constantly to force its way to con-
sciousness, or, in other words, to determine
the conscious thinking of the subject. But the
subject's moral nature, being radically op-
posed to it, maintains a rigid censorship, again
in a subconscious fashion; and so there goes
on a perpetual subterranean or subconscious
conflict. In states of diminished mental alert-
ness, as in dreaming or mere day-dreaming,
this repression, maintained by the organized
system of tendencies which constitute the
moral nature, is liable to partial remission;
it becomes less effective, and then the re-
pressed tendency finds its chance to deter-

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 205

mine the subject's conscious thinking. Even
in such states, it commonly fails to express
itself directly and clearly in the course of the
subject's thinking, but rather finds expression
only in symbolical fashion. Thus, in the
dreams of such a person, the repressed ten-
dency is apt to manifest itself in a flight of
imagery which, when described by the dreamer,
may seem to have no relation to the repressed
tendency, and which is not recognized by
the dreamer as so related, but which in reality
symbolizes the course of events subconsciously
desired by him. In this way, it is held, the
tendency achieves a certain measure of the
satisfaction which in the waking state is
wholly denied to it by the rigid censorship
of the moral nature.

Such analysis and interpretation of dreams
occupies a very important position in Freud's
system of psycho-pathology; for it was a
main point of departure from which the whole
system was developed; and it discovers an
analogy between the dream-experiences of
normal persons and the processes which are
assumed to underlie and express themselves in
the symptoms of hysteria. It has, therefore,
been much criticized; but there can be little
doubt that, though some of its most enthusias-
tic exponents have gone too far in asserting

206 PSYCHOLOGY

that every dream is determined by the sub-
conscious working of a repressed tendency,
such interpretation does in some cases hit the
mark and reveal a wealth of subconscious
mental activity of which the dream is the
expression in consciousness.

It may be objected — How is it possible to
establish any such interpretation? — How can
it be more than guesswork? To this the
reply is that the interpretation is achieved by
an intricate process of delicate analysis; and,
though this process opens the door to many
possibilities of error, yet on the whole the
analysis of a very large number of dreams
by various observers who have used this
method, has revealed a certain lawfulness and
consistency of mode of operation which forbid
us to set aside the interpretations as purely
arbitrary; and further, they are borne out by
the analogous processes revealed as issuing
in the symptoms of hysterical patients.

The symptoms of the hysteric take the
form not only of perverted modes of thinking,
such as the baseless conviction of having
performed some reprehensible action, or other
troublesome obsessions; but also very com-
monly that of the performance of seemingly
senseless actions, of paralysis of various or-
gans, legs, arms, organs of speech, and so

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 207

forth; and of anaesthesia or complete insensi-
tiveness of parts of the skin or of other sense-
organs. Now, according to the doctrine of
Freud, these symptoms also are, like the per-
verted course of thinking, and like the think-
ing of the dreamer, symbolical expressions of
repressed tendencies. We ha veto suppose that
in the normal person the mental forces which
maintain the repression suffice to prevent any
expression of the tendency save in dreams, or
in reverie, or in occasional bodily movements
which seem to be senseless and accidental;
but that in certain persons, whose mental
energy is depressed either by violent emotional
shock, by long-continued excess of work, or by
the persistent subconscious conflict between
the repressed tendency and the moral nature,
the repressing forces fail to accomplish their
task in an adequate manner; so that the ten-
dency succeeds in asserting itself more fully,
though still in a symbolical or indirect manner
only. The symptoms of the hysterical patient
thus appear as so many disguises, adopted by
a repressed tendency in order to evade the
censorship of the moral nature and to obtain
a partial satisfaction through playing some
part in the determination of conscious thought
and of behaviour.
A relatively simple type of such indirect

208 PSYCHOLOGY

expression of a repressed tendency, which may
serve to illustrate the principle, is the re-
current hallucinatory perception of some
object. The object thus falsely perceived
is found in some cases to be one with which
the patient happened to be employed at the
moment of some emotional crisis in the course
of the moral conflict that resulted in repres-
sion; such an object has no intrinsic con-
nection with the tendency, and the occasion of
the perception of it may have escaped the
conscious memory of the patient; and, just for
this reason it would seem, it is seized upon by
the repressed tendency as a means of evading
the censorship and securing a secret satisfac-
tion. In a classical instance of this type
recorded by Freud, the patient complained
of perceiving almost constantly a strong odour
of burnt pudding. Of this hallucination she
could suggest no explanation; yet it was
ultimately found that, at a moment of emo-
tional crisis in the history of a repressed
love attraction, she had been occupied with a
burnt pudding.

Now, as of the interpretation of dreams,
the reader properly and naturally asks — •
What proof can be given of the correctness
of such interpretation of symptoms? The
answer is twofold : first, when by a long and

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 209

delicate process of analysis the physician has
discovered a repressed tendency and its prob-
able connection with such a symptom, the
patient frequently remembers the circum-
stances which determined the form of the
symptom and recognizes the significance at-
tributed to it; secondly, it appears that in
many cases, when the patient has been led to
recognize frankly the nature of the tendency
which has been repressed, to face it coura-
geously, and to bring the whole history of it
under the free criticism of his intellectual and
moral nature, all the symptoms rapidly disap-
pear and the patient is restored to health.

A useful confirmation of the reality of the
subconscious operation of conative tendencies
has been provided by the application of a very
simple experimental procedure to both normal
and abnormal subjects. If a list of words is
called aloud to any subject, he having been
instructed to reply to each one by calling
aloud some other word with the least possible
delay, he will reply to most of the words after
a delay whose duration is not more than one
or two seconds; but in any considerable list
of words so applied, there are usually a few
to which his reaction is longer delayed or in
some other respect abnormal. And it is
found, in nearly all such cases, that the word

210 PSYCHOLOGY

in question has some emotional significance,
or that the object denoted is connected in the
mind of the subject with some strong conative
tendency, often one more or less repressed.

Enough, perhaps, has been said to suggest
the nature of this new system of ideas, and
to indicate their value and significance. It
is sometimes asked — What has psychology
done to enable us to benefit in any way
our fellow-men? Much might be said in
reply to this question, but perhaps the most
striking answer would be to point to a number
of men and women, who, after being for
many years a painful burden to themselves
and their friends, and after having been
subjected without benefit to many forms of
medical treatment, have been restored to
health and happiness and usefulness by the
application of psychological knowledge and
psychological theory. This new doctrine and
the practice based upon it are of importance
not only in the one province of medicine in
which they have been worked out; their
interest and importance go far beyond those
limits. They are leading to a great extension
of the psychological attitude towards mental
diseases of all kinds; and they are opening
vistas of great extensions of our knowledge of
the workings of the normal mind; especially

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 211

they are revealing a realm of subconscious
mental activity, the existence of which had
been vaguely conjectured, but which had
remained unexplored and altogether prob-
lematical. For both the continued repression
of the reprehensible tendencies, and the proc-
esses by which they partially evade control,
are distinctly purposive activities; and the
latter seem to involve in some cases complex
and subtle operations. And, if the interpreta-
tion of dreams according to this new method
is not altogether fanciful, some complex
dreams are not, as hitherto generally assumed,
merely fortuitous and purposeless streams of
pictorial fancies; rather, they are full at every
point of significance, are in fact highly elabo-
rated trains of symbolical imagery produced
by ingeniously selective and constructive
thinking, which, while remaining subcon-
scious, is guided and sustained by a hidden
purpose or design.

If the symptoms of the hysteric, and the
imagery that fills the consciousness of the
dreamer, are the products of elaborate though
subconscious mental activity, we may fairly
suppose that the waking thoughts of the
normal man may be in part the expression of
similar subconscious activities; and Freud and
his followers are actively carrying then* prin-

212 PSYCHOLOGY

ciples into many fields of normal psychology,
and especially are applying them to throw
light upon the genesis of works of art and
literature. In this way morbid psychology
is being brought into fruitful relations both
with normal psychology and with the study of
mental states and processes that are abnormal
without being morbid.

These latter constitute a wide field of study
which can only be negatively defined by say-
ing that it comprises all states and processes
that are neither normal nor morbid. It may
be roughly divided into two parts, that of
the subnormal and that of the supernormal.
The former comprises such states as idiocy
and weak-mindedness, and alcoholic and other
intoxications in so far as they involve impair-
ment of mental processes. These are not
without their own special interest, but they
cannot compete in this respect with the super-
normal manifestations; for in dealing with this
division we are constantly confronted by the
problem of the future evolution of the human
mind, and we seem to get glimpses of immense
possibilities, of modes of mental operation
and communication indefinitely transcending
the recognized limits of the usual and the
normal. The principal topics of this field
may be grouped under the following heads: —

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 213

(1) Subconscious operations producing re-
sults similar to those of normal thinking;
(2) supernormal manifestations in the do-
mains of intellect and character, including the
production of works of genius, religious con-
version, and mystical experiences; (3) super-
normal influence of the mind over the body;
(4) supernormal processes of communication
between mind and mind.

The phenomena falling under all these
heads are connected by the fact that all of
them seem to imply more or less extensive
subconscious operations; and it has been
attempted to bring them all under one ex-
planation by the hypothesis that each of us
has a twofold mental constitution and a
double mental life; namely, the normal life
of conscious thought conditioned by one of
the two constitutions, and the subconscious
mental life conditioned by a second more or
less independent mind or department of the
mind. Various names, such as the "sub-
liminal self," the "subconscious mind," the
"secondary self," and so forth, have been
applied to this hypothetical department of
the mind. Now, it cannot be too strongly laid
down, in view of the popularity of these catch-
words, that, as commonly used, they are little
or nothing more than words that serve to

214 PSYCHOLOGY

cloak our ignorance and to disguise from
ourselves the need for further investigation.
For the ordinary procedure is to postulate a
"subconscious mind," and then merely to
assign to its agency all the varied phenomena
of a supernormal character, its nature re-
maining completely undefined and its capa-
cities for the production of marvels being
regarded as without limit in any direction.

It is, of course, a legitimate enterprise to
attempt to work out an hypothesis of this
sort; but we must recognize that none has yet
been devised which can claim to be a satis-
factory working hypothesis by which the
facts can be brought into intelligible order.
We must recognize also that the relations of
subconscious operations to conscious thinking
are in many cases so ultimate, so much of the
nature of participation in the working out
of a single purpose, that any such division
of the mind into two unlike parts, such as is
commonly implied by names of the kind men-
tioned above, appears wholly unwarranted.
We shall, therefore, do well to consider the
supernormal phenomena under some such
provisional classification as that suggested
above, without committing ourselves to any
hypothesis which attributes them all to any
one special agency or entity.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 215

(1) The evidence of subconscious opera-
tions producing results similar to those of
normal thinking is abundant. It is obtain-
able experimentally in unlimited quantities
by hypnotic and post-hypnotic suggestion.
Hypnosis is an artificially induced condition
of partial quiescence of the mind, allied to
sleep. After a long period of unscientific
dogmatic denial, the scientific world at last
recognizes that this condition can be induced
in the great majority of normal persons, and
that it is in itself perfectly harmless. It is
now recognized also that hypnotism (the
study of hypnosis) opens many problems of
the greatest interest and provides methods for
investigating them. By means of it, many of
the peculiarities of mental process character-
istic of hysteria and other pathological states,
and many of the supernormal phenomena,
can be experimentally produced and studied;
and it provides effective methods of treating
many disorders in the production or mainte-
nance of which a nervous or a mental factor
plays a part.

In the present connexion the facts of post-
hypnotic suggestion claim our attention.
Any good subject may be told, while in the
hypnotic state, to perform some simple action
at some definite time or upon some signal

21G PSYCHOLOGY

being given; and, if then awakened before
the appointed moment, he will cany out the
suggestion, although he cannot remember in
the interval or immediately after performing
the action, even if closely questioned, what
suggestion was given him. And the signal
may be of such a nature that its appreciation
involves mental activity of considerable com-
plexity; for example, the subject may be told
that he will open and shut the door when the
observer touches his own face with his left
hand for the eleventh time. In such a case
(and the experiment may be varied and com-
plicated indefinitely with the best subjects)
the subject in some sense watches the operator,
notes and counts the significant movements,
and carries out the suggestion; and yet he
truthfully denies that he was aware of the
nature of the command given, or of the fact
that the observer had touched his face even
once; and in some cases the subject cannot
even remember his execution of the sug-
gested action immediately after its perform-
ance. Here, then, is indisputable and abun-
dant evidence that a train of purposive mental
activity, which controls to some extent the
behaviour of the subject, may go on while he
is consciously thinking of other matters.
Another and equally striking kind of

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 217

evidence of the same fact is afforded by
"automatic" writing, an accomplishment
which a certain number of normal persons
are capable of acquiring. In an ordinary
case of this kind the subject may sit read-
ing or talking, while his hand, holding a
pencil upon a writing-block, writes more or
less coherent and intelligible passages of prose
or verse, of which he remains ignorant until,
like any other person, he reads the script.
In various closely analogous ways other
automatic movements may reveal guidance
which is indisputably intelligent and yet
independent of the conscious thinking of the
subject; popular methods of inducing such
movements are table-tilting with the finger
tips, planchette writing, and the "ouija"
game. In some cases these movements reveal
knowledge of facts which cannot be recalled to
conscious memory; and in others they reveal
deliberate intention and ingenious design of
which the subject remains unconscious. It
should be added that the "automatic script"
commonly consists chiefly of detached sen-
tences or mere fragments of sentences; yet
in some cases it consists of long connected
passages not without literary merit.

(2) Another type of evidence of the same
class consists in the solution of problems, or

218 PSYCHOLOGY

the production of written matter of literary
merit, during sleep or while the mind is occu-
pied with other matters. The special interest
of these cases is that they form a transition
to the processes of the second class (p. 213),
namely, the production of works of genius,
religious conversion, and mystical experience.
For there is a natural tendency to set such
processes apart by themselves and to accen-
tuate their differences from normal mental
process. But it is more conducive to an un-
derstanding of them to seek and to accentuate
the points of resemblance rather than those
of difference. From this point of view we do
well to begin the consideration of such facts
by insisting on the large proportion of subcon-
scious mental activity which is involved in our
everyday thinking. Whoever has made on
the spur of the moment a witty remark will
probably be prepared on reflection to acknowl-
edge that the words sprang to his lips without
any deliberate search for them, and that the
mental process, the assimilation of two seem-
ingly unlike things, or relations, or what not,
accomplished itself in secret, the result only
coming to consciousness as the words issued
from his lips; and he may subsequently have
found, somewhat to his surprise, that there
was more in his remark than he at first realized.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 219

This is the kind of normal activity which
we may set at the lower end of a continuous
scale, at the upper end of which we may place
the achievement of the greatest works of
genius. At every level of this scale we seem
to see at work the same factors or contributing
conditions, but in very different proportions.
In the first place it is to be noted that the
subconscious activity which is revealed by
the achievement expresses in some sense the
previous mental development of the subject,
his interests, knowledge, and character. The
dull pedant does not suddenly coruscate in
flashes of wit; the calculating prodigy does
not solve problems in the higher branches of
mathematics without previous study of those
branches; the person who has neither learnt
to enjoy, nor been trained in the technique of,
a particular art does not suddenly produce a
masterpiece. Sudden conversions and mys-
tical experiences may seem in some cases to
be exceptions to this rule; but it is doubt-
ful whether on closer examination any such
exception could be substantiated. It will
usually be found that the religious convert
or mystic, no matter how little his previous
life may have shown the influence of religion,
has been at some period of his life subjected
to religious influences; in the common phrase

220 PSYCHOLOGY

—the good seed has been sown and has
ripened in secret.

Again, the subconscious activity usually
expresses the influence of some conscious
volition or conation. The problem which is
solved during sleep is usually one with which
the sleeper has striven while awake. Even
the sudden outburst of wit implies a certain
conative attitude. The sudden formulation
of a great scientific hypothesis is preceded by
much thinking directed to the problem. The
compositions of the musician or the poet
express his will to compose, often his explicit
intention at the moment, but in any case a
general attitude of his will. Even the auto-
matic writer can to some extent voluntarily
set himself to produce the automatic script.
And religious conversion or ecstasy is usually
preceded by a longing or striving for some
change of life, some new mode of conscious-
ness, though it may be little more than a vague
discontent with life as hitherto known and
lived. These considerations justify us in
seeking to exhibit even the more extreme and
extensive forms of subconscious activity as
continuous with normal mental activities,
rather than as processes of an altogether
different order, wholly attributable to some
second mind, whether a "subconscious mind"

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 221

of the subject or some mind external to and
altogether independent of his normal mind.

(3) The supernormal control of the mind
over the bodily processes is a topic that has
been brought into the forefront of popular
interest of late years. Systems of mental
healing, or at least methods of treating bodily
disease that rely little or not at all on physical
or chemical agencies, are enjoying a great
vogue; and even the medical men of this
country are becoming aware that there is
" something in" hypnotism, and that the
methods of suggestion and persuasion and
even the claims of the "Christian Scientists"
are deserving of some unbiased attention.

In all this disputed region, in which the
plain man of science feels himself to be walk-
ing on a quagmire, surrounded with mists, the
effects of hypnotic suggestion provide the one
sure evidence that mental influences upon
bodily processes may go far beyond the nor-
mal or ordinarily recognized. And this evi-
dence forbids us to shut our eyes to the possi-
bility that some elements of truth and reality
are mixed up with the large mass of error and
deception that grows up in connexion with
every system of mental healing. For it
si lows us the reality of mental influences
upon the nutrition, repair, and regulation of

222 PSYCHOLOGY

bodily organs, which influences nevertheless
completely elude our understanding; and it
forces us to recognize that we can set no limit
to the extent of such influences. It is char-
acteristic of all or most of the methods of
mental healing that, in so far as they are real,
they involve mental activities which are
largely subconscious.

(4) Passing now to consider supernormal
communication of mind with mind, we enter
a region of critical importance for our inter-
pretation of the foregoing classes of super-
normal phenomena. For if, as has always
been maintained by most of the religious
systems, minds can communicate with, or in
any way influence, one another in some direct
fashion which does not involve the use of the
organs of sense; then we must be prepared to
look outside the mind of the individual for
the explanation of some at least of the super-
normal manifestations of mental activity.
Explanations of this sort have always been
accepted by the greater part of mankind:
hence the crucial importance of any positive
empirical evidence of such direct communica-
tion or influence, and hence the need for the
most impartial and critical examination of any
evidence alleged to be of this nature. The
word "telepathy" has recently come into

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 223

general use to denote the direct action of mind
on mind; the crucial question may therefore
be stated in the form — Does telepathy occur?
The efforts of the well-known Society for
Psychical Research have for more than a
generation been largely directed towards
establishing an affirmative answer to this
question, by means of experiments of many
kinds and the collection and critical sifting of
facts which seem to demand this hypothesis
for their explanation. The evidence accumu-
lated by these efforts is such as would suffice
to establish the fact in dispute for all normal
minds, were it not that the question is of so
momentous importance.

Admitting, then, the necessity of still hold-
ing our minds in suspense on this question,
let us glance at the prospect opened out by the
highly probable, but not perhaps completely
verified, assumption that telepathy occurs.
If this assumption is accepted, the mind of
the individual organism no longer appears as
inevitably isolated from all other minds, or as
communicating with them only by the medium
of the bodily organs of expression and sense-
perception; and it is open to us to seek to
explain mental processes and effects that
seem otherwise inexplicable as due to the
direct influence of other minds. Two distinct

224 PSYCHOLOGY

lines of explanation are then open to us.
First, we may seek to explain certain super-
normal mental processes by invoking the
influence of some of those minds of which we
have positive knowledge, namely, the minds of
our contemporary fellow-men; we might, for
example, suppose that religious conversions,
or some of the supernormal effects of mind on
body, are brought about by the influence of
some one stronger mind, or by the concen-
tration of several or many minds, upon the
one. But this supposition would fail to ex-
plain some of the facts and alleged facts,
notably the inspirations of genius that exceed
the powers of all other existing persons, and
cases in which persons seem to display knowl-
edge that was in the possession of no person
living at the time.

In this way, many of those who regard some
of these supernormal manifestations as inex-
plicable, unless the direct influence of mind on
mind is assumed, are led to see in them evi-
dence of the influence of disembodied minds.
The study of abnormal psychology has thus
become a field in which it is sought to find
empirical evidence for two of the most ancient
and widely held beliefs of the human race;
namely, the belief in the survival of human
personalities after bodily death, and the be-

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 225

lief in the communion of human with divine
mind.

Evidence in support of the former belief is
sought chiefly in automatic speech or writing,
which seems hi so many cases to express the
personalities of deceased human beings. So
faithfully are such personalities thus por-
trayed that many hundreds of cultured men
and women have become convinced that
these "automatic messages" are what they so
often seem and claim to be, namely, messages
formulated in the still surviving minds of
deceased persons, and somehow expressed
through the medium of the automatic writer.
Those whose first impulse is to dismiss this
conception with a sneer should try to abstain
from this course, until they have first-hand
acquaintance with instances of this strange
phenomenon. On the other hand, a hasty
acceptance of this interpretation of the facts
is equally to be deprecated. For the evalu-
ation of the evidence is a most delicate and
difficult work, requiring complete freedom
from bias; yet the number of persons who are
capable of maintaining the attitude of im-
partial inquiry in the face of this evidence
seems to be but a minute fraction of the
cultivated world.

Empirical support for the belief in com-

226 PSYCHOLOGY

munion with the divine mind is sought along
two lines chiefly. First, it is argued that the
process of religious conversion is often one
which cannot be accounted for in terms of the
known properties of the human mind in
general and of the mental peculiarities of the
persons concerned. Secondly, it is pointed
out that in all ages the specifically religious
experiences of men, even of men brought up
under the influence of the most diverse
traditions, have certain features in common
which mark them as the work of a common
influence and point to their determination
from a common source. Hence, it is argued,
it is reasonable to believe that this religious
experience, of which the fullest or completest
type is the mystical sense of the absorption
of the self in a larger whole, is what it appears
to be to those who best know it; namely, an
actual union or communion of the human
mind with the divine mind. This reasoning
has been urged in modern times by a number
of writers, but by none so forcibly as by the
late William James in his celebrated treatise,
"The Varieties of Religious Experience.'*
The influence of that work has been very
great; and to it is largely due the fact that
psychology, which until very recently was
commonly regarded with hostile suspicion by

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 227

the leaders of religious thought, as well as by
the rank and file, seems now in a fair way to
become the chosen handmaid of theology and
even its principal support. For, since the
publication of that book, there has sprung up
what may almost be called a new branch of
literature in the shape of several journals and
a stream of articles and books, devoted to the
psychology of religious experience and written
for the most part by theologians.

It will be seen from this brief review of the
field of abnormal psychology that in most of
its branches we are compelled to recognize
the reality of subconscious mental operations;
and that though the results both in behaviour
and in consciousness of such operations are
often similar to those of normal mental
process, yet in many cases these results go
beyond the normal.

More than one attempt has been made to
devise an hypothesis which will bring all these
supernormal effects under one explanation.
Of such attempts the most interesting,
perhaps, is that of William James. He
suggested that we may regard all minds as
connected in some immediate fashion which
permits of their reciprocal influence and of
the conjunction of their powers; or, to put
the notion in another way, that all mind,

228 PSYCHOLOGY

human and infra-human as well as super-
human mind, is one, and that our individual
minds are but partial manifestations of the
one mind, conditioned by the peculiarities of
our bodily organisms. All the supernormal
effects of mental action, including the ex-
tremer instances of control of bodily processes,
the expression of knowledge not acquired
by any normal means, the supreme achieve-
ments of genius, religious conversion and the
ecstatic sense of absorption of the self in a
larger all-comprehensive whole, which seems
to be the extreme form of the specifically
religious experience — all these effects might
then be attributed to a partial or temporary
suspension of the conditions which commonly
isolate the individual mind.

No open-minded student of psychology will
refuse to recognize the legitimacy and the
fascination of such speculations. But the
chief work of abnormal psychology must
continue to be impartial observation and
critical sifting of the empirical data, on the
basis of which alone such speculations can be
tested or verified.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 229

CHAPTER VIH

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

WHEN the student of behaviour has learnt
from the various departments of Psychology,
reviewed in the foregoing pages, all they can
teach him of the structure, genesis, and modes
of operation of the individual mind, a large
field still awaits his exploration. If we put
aside as unproven such speculations as that
touched on at the end of the foregoing chapter,
and refuse to admit any modes of communi-
cation or influence between minds other
than through the normal channels of sense-
perception and bodily movement, we must
nevertheless recognize the existence in a
certain sense of over-individual or collective
minds.

We may fairly define a mind as an organ-
ized system of mental or purposive forces;
and, in the sense so defined, every highly or-
ganized human society may properly be said
to possess a collective mind. For the collec-
tive actions which constitute the history of
any such society are conditioned by an organ-
ization which can only be described in terms of
mind, and which yet is not comprised within
the mind of any individual; the society is

230 PSYCHOLOGY

rather constituted by the system of relations
obtaining between the individual minds which
are its units of composition. Under any given
circumstances the actions of the society are,
or may be, very different from the mere sum of
the actions with which its several members
would react to the situation in the absence of
the system of relations which renders them a
society; or, in other words, the thinking and
acting of each man, in so far as he thinks
and acts as a member of a society, is very
different from his thinking and acting as an
isolated individual.

We shall presently consider more nearly
what is implied in this proposition. But first
it may be pointed out that, if we recognize
the existence of collective minds, the work of
social psychology falls under three heads.
The one head is the study of the general
principles of collective psychology, that is,
the study of the general principles of collec-
tive thinking and feeling and acting, as dis-
played by men in social groups. Secondly,
the general principles of collective psychology
being given, there remains the study of the
peculiarities presented by the collective be-
haviour and mental life of particular societies.
Thirdly, the mental life of any society with its
socialized and organically related members

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 231

being given, social psychology has to describe
the way in which each new member entering
the society becomes moulded to its traditional
ways of thinking, feeling, and doing, until he
is fit to play his part as a member and to con-
tribute his influence to its collective mental
life.

This third division of the field of social
psychology overlaps with and supplements
in an important manner the study of the
development of the individual mind. For,
though it is possible to study this development
in abstraction from the social setting of the
individual, and to establish in this way certain
laws of mental development, any such study
must be in many respects incomplete and
misleading. Every normal human being
grows up under the constant influence of the
society into which he is born, and his mental
development is moulded by it at every point.
He becomes the heir to an intellectual and
moral tradition which has slowly been built
up, bit by bit, through the efforts of thousands
of generations. Even in the most primitive
societies of savage men this tradition is al-
ready very extensive and complex; and in our
modern civilized societies it has advanced so
far in these respects that no one mind can
absorb more than a relatively small fraction

232 PSYCHOLOGY

of the whole. Of the intellectual tradition
the most important part is language, the
instrument and condition of almost all fur-
ther acquirement. In acquiring the com-
mand of his native language a child has much
more to learn than the adult who sets out to
master a foreign tongue. For, while the latter
has to do little more than to attach a new
sound to some familiar object, the child, in
learning to use words, is learning also to
break up the whole world of his environment
into a multitude of things, and to discern a
multitude of distinctions and relations be-
tween them. All these things, distinctions,
and relations are but a selection from the
infinite number which might be discerned by
an all-powerful mind. The child makes a
selection which is in the main that which is
the basis of the culture of his society; and
in making this selection he is largely in-
fluenced by the language created by his
forefathers, in order to mark these selected
aspects of the wrorld. The normal child
acquires also from his social group a great
number of traditional beliefs about the objects
which he has been led to recognize; most of
which he continues to hold throughout his
life, without ever questioning their truth or
inquiring how he came to accept them. And

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 233

in civilized societies he may acquire also the
command of all, or some of, the powerful
instruments of the intellect which have been
built up by the labours of many generations,
such instruments as written language, draw-
ing, numbers, and mathematical knowledge.

A more important part, perhaps, of the
individual's social heritage is the moral
tradition. Each one of us has to make this
his own, not merely by acquiring knowledge
of it, but by building up a system of moral
sentiments; for it is questionable whether
these are in any degree transmitted by he-
redity; and even if a certain basis of the moral
sentiments is thus transmitted, it is certain
that much of the moral tradition has to be
impressed anew upon each child, in order that
he may become capable of controlling his
behaviour in accordance with the moral code
of his community.

The preparation of the individual to play
his proper part in the life of his community
involves, then, a vast amount of shaping of
his mental development by the influence of
society; the understanding of this shaping
process is clearly a matter of some importance.
In so far as men have deliberately attempted
to promote this process, they have acted upon
theories which, especially as regards the shap-

234 PSYCHOLOGY

ing of the character, have generally been of
the most inadequate kind. From the ancients
who taught that knowledge and virtue are
identical, to Rousseau, the English Utilita-
rians, and Herbert Spencer, the intellectualist
and the hedonist fallacies, generally combined,
have vitiated almost all theories of the proc-
ess; and man has been persistently repre-
sented as doing right because he realizes that
honesty is the best policy. The practical out-
come of all such theories is an undue reliance
upon rewards and punishments and the pros-
pect of pleasure or of pain, as regulators of
conduct.

Only a sounder psychology can save us
from these fallacies. We must sweep away
every trace of the doctrine that conduct
proceeds essentially from a calculation of
satisfactions to be yielded by this or that
course; and we must put in its place the truth
that every creature, whether animal, child,
or man, behaves in this or that way, because
the impulses with which he is innately en-
dowed are set towards this or that end. From
this it follows that the problem of moral
education is the problem of directing the
impulses towards appropriate objects, or, in
technical terms, of linking the appropriate
conative and cognitive dispositions. This

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 235

cannot be achieved by any system of rewards
and punishments, but only by a much more
subtly working influence of society upon the
developing individual. We must recognize
that, in the influencing of the development
of both the cognitive and the conative sides
of the mind, logical reasoning plays but a
secondary and occasional role, and that the
processes by which society works upon the
growing mind at every moment of its waking
life are of a very different nature.

These processes may be classed under three
great heads — suggestion, sympathy, and imi-
tation. By "suggestion" we mean the proc-
ess in virtue of which beliefs are induced
in, or communicated to, the subject independ-
ently of all logical reasoning to a conclusion.
We tend to accept without question the
beliefs we find established in the minds of our
fellows; and to this tendency each of us owes
by far the greater part of the beliefs which
constitute the working capital of his intel-
lect; even when we reason with strictest
logic, we commonly reason from premises
which are beliefs acquired in this unreasoning
fashion.

By "sympathy" we mean the tendency to
experience, in face of the same object, the
same emotions and impulses that are revealed

236 PSYCHOLOGY

by the behaviour of our fellows. By the
working of this principle the set of our im-
pulses is regulated and brought into conform-
ity with the moral tradition, or, in other
words, the growth of our moral sentiments is
directed.

By "imitation" we mean the tendency to
direct in detail the bodily movements to which
our impulses prompt us, according to the
pattern set us by our fellows; a tendency not
without importance, though less profoundly
influential than the other two.

The elucidation of the subtle workings of
these principles is the chief task of the one
branch of social psychology. Here it must
suffice to have indicated merely the nature of
that task, and to say that some progress has
already been made with it.

In studying the general principles of
collective psychology, we have to begin with
the simplest forms of human and animal
association; for, although it is only the more
highly developed human groups that can
properly be said to manifest a collective mind,
yet the modes of reciprocal influence of the
individual and of the group, which are essen-
tial to the existence of the collective mind,
are displayed in relatively simple forms by
groups of low degrees of organization.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 237

We must pass over the fascinating study of
animal societies, noting merely the most
important of its lessons; namely, first, that
the prime condition of the existence of animal
societies is the gregarious instinct; and sec-
ondly, that the harmonious co-operation of
the members of the group, especially in
flight and in defence, is secured by the ten-
dency to sympathetic reaction which is in-
nate in each member (see p. 171). This primi-
tive sympathetic tendency, the reader may be
reminded, is merely an instinctive tendency
to respond, to the expressions characteristic
of each of the principal innate impulses of
the species, with a similar impulse and emo-
tional excitement. We see this principle
illustrated in the most perfect and simple
manner among the most social of all the
animals, namely, the hive bees. The removal
of the queen from the midst of her immediate
attendants produces in them a distress which
expresses itself in a peculiar note; and this
note rapidly evokes a similar distress, simi-
larly expressed, throughout all the bees pres-
ent in the hive. The restoration of the queen
(or even of her dead body or of some object
impregnated with the odour of her body)
transforms the distress of the bees in her
immediate neighbourhood to a pleasurable

238 PSYCHOLOGY

excitement, which in turn expresses itself
in a characteristic note and is rapidly spread
by the agency of this sound throughout the
hive. The note expressive of anger spreads
in like manner this excitement throughout
the hive; and in all probability the same is
true of notes expressing other emotional
impulses.

When we turn to consider the simplest
form of human association, namely, the
fortuitously collected crowd of men, we see
that it owes its most striking peculiarities
to this same sympathetic principle. The
notorious characteristic of the crowd is the
violence of the outbursts of the primary
emotions and impulses. The panic is the
simplest and most striking type of such
collective excitement; it is displayed by
human crowds just as simply and terribly
as by animal groups. If some hundreds of
men are gathered together in one place, and
if some few of them are terrified and give
audible and visible expression to then* fear,
the excitement is apt to spread almost,
instantaneously throughout the whole group ;
even though the object that primarily pro-
voked it in the few remains hidden from the
mass. And the excitement intensifies itself
from moment to moment; because each man

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 239

not only responds to the first cry of fear with
a thrill of the same emotion, but also, as
he looks round to discover the threatening
danger, he sees fear expressed on every face
and in every gesture, and hears it in every
voice. Thus the emotion is propagated and
accentuated by the primitive sympathetic
tendency; and with it the impulse to escape
grows stronger, until it becomes uncontrol-
lable and, dominating all members of the
crowd, drives them on to those wild struggles
to escape in which men seem to lose all the
human attributes, and to sink back to the
level of purely animal behaviour.

If the panic affords the most striking and
terrible illustration of collective emotion, all
the other crude emotions and impulses seem
capable of being spread and intensified by
the same process of sympathetic contagion.
Anger especially is notoriously apt to spread
through a crowd, and the angry mob is only
less violent and less inaccessible to the voice
of reason than the panic-stricken crowd.
The achievements of great orators show how
the whole range of the emotions may, under
favourable conditions, be collectively evoked
and intensified.

The intensity of the collective emotion of
an unorganized crowd is favoured by the fact

240 PSYCHOLOGY

that each member of a crowd tends to lose to
some extent his sense of personal identity
and responsibility; he no longer stands alone,
an individual before the eyes of his fellow-
men, but feels himself an undistinguishable
unit of a mass on which, rather than on its
units, the judgment of the rest of the world
must be passed. Hence each man is apt to
let himself go, to make little effort to control
himself.

The emotional excitability of the crowd is
very unfavourable to its intellectual processes;
for intense emotion renders men uncritical,
hasty, biased in judgment, and easily led to
belief by mere suggestion. The diminished
sense of personal responsibility of the mem-
bers of a crowd makes in the same direction.
But the influence most deleterious to the qual-
ity of collective judgment and reasoning is
what may be called mass-suggestion. Every
man is to some extent suggestible; every one
is a little inclined to believe a proposition
which is confidently made to him; and, if the
same proposition is made to him by a hundred
or a thousand men, it becomes difficult for
him to retain a critical attitude towards it.
But now, when a great crowd acclaims a
statement made by an orator, the proposition
not only comes to each member as the ac-

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 241

cepted opinion of each of his fellow-members;
but the fact that these constitute a crowd, a
vast whole impressive by reason of its mass,
its power, its unknown possibilities, renders
each man more suggestible, more ready to
accept its opinions uncritically, than if he
merely heard the same opinion expressed by
the same number of individuals. The most
striking illustration of this suggestibility of
crowds is afforded by many recorded instances
of collective hallucination thus induced, in-
stances in which all or most of the members
of a crowd have been led to perceive objects
that had no existence, objects such as the
sea-serpent, or a fiery cross, or even a host
of men or angels in the clouds.

By reason, then, of its emotional excita-
bility, its high degree of suggestibility, and
the diminished sense of responsibility of its
members, the behaviour of the fortuitous
unorganized crowd is apt to be of a kind much
inferior to the average behaviour of its units
when they think and act as individuals.

Few crowds, however, are altogether fortui-
tous. A crowd is commonly brought together
by some common interest or purpose in the
minds of the individuals that compose it, a
common interest in sport, or music, or politics,
or religion, a common loyalty or a common

242 PSYCHOLOGY

resentment. Any such crowd, then, is com-
posed of less diverse units than a fortuitous
crowd: it may be said to possess a certain
homogeneity of composition in so far as its
units are possessed of common knowledge,
common opinions, and common sentiments.
Some degree of homogeneity is a necessary
condition of all collective mental process.
A fortuitous gathering of persons of various
nationalities, of various levels of culture,
speaking different languages and possessing
widely different opinions and sentiments,
could display only the crudest of all forms of
collective process, namely, the panic. And
the more homogeneous is the crowd, the more
capable is it of truly collective thinking and
acting. But, so long as the crowd possesses
no organization, its homogeneity will tend
only to intensify the peculiarities of collective
mental process that we have already noted.

Are we to conclude, then, that to share in
collective mental life, to be a member of a
group, is necessarily to suffer degradation of
one's mental life? Such a conclusion (and
it is often asserted or implied) would be a very
serious error.

It is only by sharing in the collective life
of organized societies that the mass of men
is raised above a very low level of almost

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 243

purely selfish behaviour; and it is through
such sharing that great numbers of men are
raised to a level of consistently public-
spirited conduct and even to heights of
heroic self-sacrifice.

The principal task of collective pyschology
is, then, to show how organization of societies
produces this paradoxical result; namely,
that, whereas the collective behaviour of the
unorganized group implies a much lower level
of mental process than the individual be-
haviour of its average units, and thus involves
a degradation of its component individuals,
the collective life of a well-organized society
commonly attains a higher level, both intel-
lectually and morally, than could be individu-
ally attained by its average members, and
raises many of those who participate in it
to much higher levels of thought and action.

A single example may serve to illustrate
the fact and to indicate the lines along which
the solution of the paradox is to be found. A
well-organized patriot army, such as the
Japanese army that fought in the late war,
illustrates the facts most strikingly and simply.
The organization of such an army is relatively
simple, yet in other respects it is of the highest
type; for it is the product of deliberate design
and of the voluntary acceptance and working

244 PSYCHOLOGY

out of the design by all its members. The
movements of the whole army express a
degree of intelligence which far surpasses that
of its average members; namely, the intelli-
gence of the commander-in-chief and of a
highly selected and trained staff, deliberating
and deciding with the aid of a vast amount
of detailed information supplied by sub-
ordinates, and in the light of the knowledge
of the principles of war accumulated by
successive generations of mankind. The
essential condition that raises the intellectual
level of the collective behaviour of such an
army is so obvious, that it may seem needless
to state it in words; it is such an organization
as gives, to those best qualified to judge of any
question, the decisive voice in the formation
of opinion upon it. But it is no less true,
though less obvious, that all collective deliber-
ation and decision, whether of a committee, a
parliament, or a whole nation, can only be
saved from the imbecilities of the unorganized
crowd by the existence of such an organization
as gives predominant influence and respon-
sibility to those members best qualified for
arriving at just conclusions. It may be
added that the extreme simplicity and effec-
tiveness of the organization of the army on
its intellectual side is only rendered possible

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 245

by the fact, that the collective action of the
group is directed towards a single end, which
end is perfectly defined and is accepted and
willed by every member of the group; namely,
the ultimate defeat of the enemy.

On the moral side also the collective life
of such an army rises to a high level in virtue
of its organization. It is true that it owes
much to the fact that a common purpose
animates all its members; for even an un-
organized mob animated by a common pur-
pose, such as a lynching mob, may display
a considerable degree of resolution. The
moral force displayed by an army depends
also in large measure upon sympathetic
intensification of emotion; though, as the
liability of almost all armies to panic shows,
sympathetic contagion may work adversely
also.

But the main condition of the attainment
by the army of a high moral level is the exist-
ence of the group-spirit. By the group-spirit
we mean the existence in each soldier's mind
of a clear knowledge or idea of the army and
of his place in it and of his part in its life,
accompanied by a sentiment of devotion to
it. It is the existence in each mind of this
sentiment that alone renders possible a truly
collective volition; it is this which sustains

246 PSYCHOLOGY

each man throughout long months of fatigue
and discomfort and which plays a part of
decisive importance at each critical moment
of battle, as when the charging line wavers
under the hail of bullets. And in the wisely
organized army, the group-spirit is not single
but multiple; each man entertains not only
a sentiment of devotion to the army as a
whole, which leads him to desire its success
and glory, but also similar sentiments for his
corps, his regiment, his company, which lead
him to desire, and to do his utmost to achieve,
the success and glory of each of these groups
with which he identifies himself, in friendly
rivalry with the similar groups. For it is a
most beneficent characteristic of the group-
sentiment, that devotion to any group is per-
fectly compatible with, and even favourable
to the strength of, a similar sentiment for
any larger group that comprises the lesser.
The development of the group-spirit, the in-
fluence upon it of traditions, and symbols,
and territorial grouping, and so forth, are
therefore of great importance for the military
psychologist, with whom it lies to display
the principal conditions of success and of
failure in war.

Yet another condition of high morality is
secured for an army, if it is so organized that

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 247

the men with the firmest courage and finest
enthusiasm occupy the positions of greatest
prestige; for then their temper will inspire
those who stand next to them, and will be
transmitted by these downwards through the
whole system.

These are a few of the psychological prin-
ciples by the operation of which the collective
life of the group may be raised far above
that of the unorganized crowd. It must be
noticed that the basal principles of all collec-
tive life, namely, sympathetic contagion,
mass-suggestion, and imitation, are not sus-
pended in the well-organized group; they work
in it as strongly as in the crowd, but their op-
eration is modified and turned wholly to good.

The study of other types of organized
groups, the savage tribe, the secret society,
the political party, or the trade-union, enables
us to elaborate these fundamental principles
and to supplement them with others of less
importance; and in this way collective psy-
chology prepares itself to gain some under-
standing of the most complex, interesting, and
important form of collective mind; namely,
the mind of a modern nation-state.

The phrase "national character" is in com-
mon use; but those who use it seldom make
clear in which of its two senses they mean it

248 PSYCHOLOGY

to be understood. Perhaps it is commonly
meant to denote the character of some hypo-
thetical individual who may be regarded as
the type or average representative of the
nation. But the other meaning of the phrase
must be clearly distinguished from this. A
nation with a long past and a vast system of
living traditions and institutions has a char-
acter which is not by any means merely the
sum or resultant of the characters of all its
component units. For this character is largely
determined by these traditions and institu-
tions; and these are the joint product of the
characters of the individuals of foregoing
generations and of the historical circum-
stances of the life of the nation through many
centuries. In the same sense and for the
same reasons, a nation has also a collec-
tive national intellect as well as a collective
national character.

The application of the principles of col-
lective psychology to the understanding of the
lives of particular nations, or of other histori-
cal groups, constitutes the third field of social
psychology. In this great field of research
psychology cannot walk alone, but has to co-
operate with other sciences, especially political
history and economic science; and the proper
division of the work between these several

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 249

studies and the science of sociology is at
present a hotly disputed problem. Without
entering into that difficult question, we may
insist that, in the interpretation of the life of
nations, the application of the principles of
collective mental life is not the whole of the
psychological work that has to be done.

There remains for the psychologist the work
of describing the mental peculiarities of the
individuals that compose the various nations
and the classes within them, and especially
he has to try to define the innate peculiarities
of their mental constitutions. That is to say,
collective psychology has to invoke the aid
of the comparative psychology of races and
classes, before it can hope to accomplish its
proper share in the interpretation of history
and in accounting for the peculiarities of the
collective life of each nation. For, however
great the influence of traditions, of institu-
tions, and of economic conditions, in deter-
mining the course of life and the success or
failure of a nation, the innate qualities of the
population will make themselves felt and,
in the long run, will exert a preponderant
influence over all other factors.

Here we have an immense field awaiting
exploration. Much has been written on the
innate mental peculiarities of races and

250 PSYCHOLOGY

nations; but hitherto we have little more
than vague, though generally dogmatic, ex-
pressions of opinion, unsupported by any
attempt at exact observation, and, for the
most part, expressed by writers who have not
even grasped the nature of the problems to
be solved. The tasks immediately confronting
the psychologist in this field are, then, the
definition of the problems and the working
out of methods by which they may be profit-
ably attacked.

The prime difficulty of all work in this field
is that of distinguishing between the innate
and the acquired mental structure, to which
reference was made in an earlier chapter. But
the comparative study of peoples may throw
light on this question, and is perhaps more
capable of doing so than any other method
of approaching it. For, since the innate
qualities of any people constantly, and genera-
tion after generation, exert a shaping and
selective influence upon the growth of its
culture and institutions, we may expect to
find them reflected there. This, then, is one
of the tasks of comparative racial psychology.
But its main work must be the description of
the innate mental peculiarities of races and
peoples. We want to know just what are the
differences in regard to mental endowment

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 251

between the Yellow, the Black, and the White
races, between the Celt and the Teuton and
the Slav, the Arab and the Jew and the
Armenian. We want to know how these
differences have been produced. We want to
know the effect upon innate mental structure
of the crossing of races, and whether popula-
tions formed by the crossing of races can
properly be said to form in course of time
new stable sub-races. We want also to know
whether any differences of innate mental
quality obtain between the various sections
and social strata of our great complex national
societies. And especially we want to know
what changes, if any, are being brought about
in the innate mental constitution of these
populations under then* present conditions;
whether, as some assert, various forms of
social selection are making strongly for
deterioration; or whether, as is commonly
believed, the civilized stocks continue to
evolve a higher type of mental structure; or
lastly, whether the principal change being
effected is not a greater differentiation, re-
sulting in the production of a comparatively
low-grade mass of population at one end of the
scale, and of a number of stocks of exceptional
ability and moral stamina at the other. AH
these are questions that must be answered

252 PSYCHOLOGY

in detail, before we can build up a true science
of society, a science that will point the way
to such a political and social organization as
will offer some guarantee of stability and some
prospect of the continued progress of human
mind and human culture.

All these problems fall within the province
of psychology, and can be solved only through
the progress of that science.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FOR GENERAL SURVEY

WILLIAM JAMES — Principles of Psychology (Henry Holt & Co.).
G. F. STOUT — Manual of Psychology (Clive & Co.).
JAMES WARD — Art. "Psychology," Ency. Brit.
WM. McDouGALL — Body and Mind (Methuen & Co.).

EXPERIMENTAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL
PSYCHOLOGY

C. S. MYERS — Introduction to Experimental Pyschology

(G. P. Putnam's Sons).

G. T. LADD and R. S. WOODWOHTH — Elements of Physiological
Psychology (Scribner).

WM. McDouoALL — Primer of Physiological Psychology

(Macmillan).

G. M. STRATTON — Experimental Psychology and its Bearing
on Culture (Macmillan & Co.).

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION

L. T. HOBHOUSE — Mind in Evolution (Macmillan & Co.).
W. M. KEATINOE — Suggestion in Education (Macmillan).
STANLEY HALL — Adolescence (Appleton & Co.).
JAMES SULLY — Teacher's Handbook of Psychology (Longmans).

R R. MARETT — Anthropology

(Home University Library, Henry Holt & Co.).
Ml

256 BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE ANIMAL MIND

C. LLOYD MORGAN — Animal Behaviour (Longmans).

G. W. & E. G. PECKHAM — Wasps, Social and Solitary

(Houghton Mifflin Co.).

E. L. THORNDIKE — Animal Intelligence (Macmillan).
M. F. WASHBTJRN — The Animal Mind (Macmillan).

THE ABNORMAL

F. W. H. MYERS — Human Personality and its Survival of

Bodily Death (abridged ed., Longmans).

A. MOLL — Hypnotism (Contemporary Science Series)

(Scribner).

WILLIAM JAMES — The Varieties of Religious Experience

(Longmans).

BERNARD HART — Abnormal Psychology (Camb. Univ. Press).

MORTON PRINCE and other writers — Psychotherapeutics

(Badger).
Sir W. F. BARRETT — Psychical Research

(Home University Library, Henry Holt & Co.).

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

GRAHAM WALLAS — Human Nature in Politics

(Houghton Mifflin Co.).

WM. McDouGALL — An Introduction to Social Psychology

(J. W. Luce).

G. LB BON— The Crowd (Macmillan).

£. A. Ross — Social Psychology (Macmillan).

THE HOME UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY of Modern Knowledge

Is made up of absolutely new books by leading authorities

Tbe editors are Professors Gilbert Murray, H. A. L.

Fisher, W. T. Brewster and J. Arthur Thomson.

Cloth bound, good paper, clear type, 256 pages per
volume, bibliographies, indices, also maps or illustra-
tions, where needed. Each complete Q/\ r
and sold separately. Per volume, */U C6IltS»

LITERATURE AND ART.

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73. EURIPIDES AND HIS AGE. By Gilbert Murray, Regius Pro-
lessor of Greek, Oxford.

101. DANTE. By Jefferson B. Fletcher. Columbia University. An inter-
pretation of Dante and his teaching from his writings.

?.. SHAKESPEARE. By John Masefield. "One of the very few in-
dispensable adjuncts to a Shakespearean Library." — Boston
Transcript.

81. CHAUCER AND HIS TIMES. By Grace E. Hadow, Lecturer Lady
Margaret Hall, Oxford; Late Reader, Bryn Mawr.

97. MILTON. By John Bailey.

59. DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE. By John Bailey. Johnson's life,
character, works, and friendships are surveyed; and there is a notable
vindication of the "Genius of Boswell."

83. WILLIAM MORRIS: HIS WORK AND INFLUENCE. By A. Chit-
ton Brock, author of "Shelley: The Man and the Poet." William Morris
believed that the artist should toil for love of his work rather than the
gain of his employer, and so he turned from making works of art to
remaking society.

75. SHELLEY, GODWIN AND THEIR CIRCLE. By H. N. Br.il.ford.

The influence of the French Revolution on England.

70. ANCIENT ART AND RITUAL. By Jane E. Harrison, LL. D., D.
Lift. "One of the 100 most important books of 1913."— New York
Times Review.

45. MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LITERATURE. By W. P. Ker, Professor
of English Literature, University College, London. "One of the
soundest scholars. His style is effective, simple, yet never xlry." —
The Athenaeum.

87. THE RENAISSANCE. By Edith Sichel, author of "Catherine de
Medici," "Men and Women of the French Renaissance."

89. ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE. By J. M. Robertson, M. P.,

author of "Montaigne and Shakespeare," "Modern Humanists."

27. MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. By G. H. Mair. From Wyatt
and Surrey to Synge and Yeats. "One of the best of this great series."
— Chicago Eoening Post.

61. THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE. By G. K. Chesterton.

40. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By L. P. Smith. A concise history
of its origin and development.

66. WRITING ENGLISH PROSE. By William T. Brewster, Professor
of English, Columbia University. "Should be put into the hands
of every man who is beginning to write and of every teacher of English
who has brains enough to understand sense." — New York Sun.

58. THE NEWSPAPER. By G. Binney Dibblee. The first full account
from the inside of newspaper organization as it exists to-day.

48. GREAT WRITERS OF AMERICA. By W. P. Trent and John
Erskine, Columbia University.

93. AN OUTLINE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE. By Maurice Baring,

author of "The Russian People," etc. Tolstoi, Tourgenieff, Dos-
toieffsky, Pushkin (the father of Russian Literature,) Saltykov (the
satirist,) Leskov, and many other authors.

31. LANDMARKS IN FRENCH LITERATURE, By G. L. Strachey,

Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. "It is difficult to imagine
how a better account of French Literature could be given in 250 pages."
— London Times,

64. THE LITERATURE OF GERMANY. By J. G. Robertson.

62. PAINTERS AND PAINTING. By Sir Frederick Wedmore. With
16 half -tone illustrations.

38. ARCHITECTURE. By Prof. W. R. Lethaby. An introduction to
the history and theory of the art of building.

NATURAL SCIENCE.

68. DISEASE AND ITS CAUSES. By W. T. Councilman, M. D.,

LL. D., Professor of Pathology, Harvard University.

85. SEX. By J. Arthur Thompson and Patrick Geddes, joint authors
of "The Evolution of Sex."

71. PLANT LIFE. By J. B. Farmer, D. Sc., F. R. S., Professor of Bot-
tany in the Imperial College of Science, London. This very fully
illustrated volume contains an account of the salient features of plant
form and function.

63. THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE. By Benjamin M. Moore,
Professor of Bio-Chemistry, Liverpool.

90. CHEMISTRY. By Raphael Meldola, F. R. S., Professor of Chem-
istry, Finsbury Technical College. Presents the way in which the
science has developed and the stage it has reached.

53. ELECTRICITY. By Gisbert Kagp, Professor of Electrical En-
gineering, University of Birmingham.

54. THE MAKING OF THE EARTH. By J. W. Gregory, Professor of
Geology, Glasgow University. 38 maps and figures. Describes
the origin of the earth, the formation and changes of its surface and
structure, its geological history, the first appearance of life, and its
influence upon the globe.

56. MAN: A HISTORY OF THE HUMAN BODY. By A. Keith, M. D.,
Hunterian Professor, Royal College of Surgeons, London. Shows
how the human body developed.

74. NERVES. By Dayid Fra»er Harris, M. D., Professor of Physi-
ology, Dalhousie University, Halifax. Explains in non-technical
language the place and powers of the nervous system.

21. AN INTRODUCTION TO SCIENCE. By Prof. J. Arthur Thomson,
Science Editor of the Home University Library. For those unac-
quainted with the scientific volumes in the series, this should prove
an excellent introduction.

14. EVOLUTION. By Prof. J. Arthur Thomson and Prof. Patrick
Geddes. Explains to the layman what the title means to the scien-
tific world.

23. ASTRONOMY. By A. R. Hinks, Chief Assistant at the Cambridge
Observatory. "Decidedly original in substance, and the most readable
and informative little book on modern astronomy we have seen for a
long time." — Nature.

24. PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. By Prof. W. F. Barrett, formerly Presi-
dent of the Society for Psychical Research.

9. THE EVOLUTION OF PLANTS. By Dr. D. H. Scott, President
of the Linnean Society of London. The story of the development
of flowering plants, from the earliest zoological times, unlocked from
technical language.

43. MATTER AND ENERGY. By F. Soddy, Lecturer in Physical
Chemistry and Radioactivity, University of Glasgow. "Brilliant.
Can hardly be surpassed. Sure to attract attention." — New York
•Sun.

41. PSYCHOLOGY, THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOUR. By William Me-

Dougall, of Oxford. A well digested summary of the essentials of the
science put in excellent literary form by a leading authority.

42. THE PRINCIPLES OF PHYSIOLOGY. By Prof. J. G. McKendrick,

A compact statement by the Emeritus Professor at Glasgow, for
uninstructed readers.

37. ANTHROPOLOGY. By R. R. Mafett, Reader in Social Anthro-
pology, Oxford. Seeks to plot out and sum up the general series of
changes, bodily and mental, undergone by man in the course of
history. "Excellent. So enthusiastic, so clear and witty, and so
well adapted to the general reader." — American Library Association
Booklist.

17. CRIME AND INSANITY. By Dr. C. Mercier, author of "Crime
and Criminals," etc.

12. THE ANIMAL WORLD. By Prof . F. W. Gamble.

15. INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICS. By A. N. Whitehead,

author of "Universal Algebra."

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.

69. A HISTORY OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT. By John B. Bury,

M. A., LL. D., Regius Professor of Modern History in Cambridge
University. Summarizes the history of the long struggle between
authority and reason and of the emergence of the principle that co-
ercion of opinion is a mistake.

96. A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. By Clement C. J. Webb, Oxford.

35. THE PROBLEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. By Bertrand RusselL Lec-
turer and Late Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge.

60. COMPARATIVE RELIGION. By Prof. J. Estlm Carpenter. "One

of the few authorities on this subject compares all the religions to
see what they have to offer on the great themes of religion." — Chris-
tian Work, and Evangelist.

44. BUDDHISM. By Mrs. Rhys Davids, Lecturer on Indian Philoso-
phy, Manchester.

46. ENGLISH SECTS: A HISTORY OF NONCONFORMITY. ByW.B.
Selbie. Principal of Manchester College, Oxford.

55. MISSIONS: THEIR RISE AND DEVELOPMENT. By Mrs. Man-
dell Creighton, author of "History of England." The author seeks to
prove that missions have done more to civilize the world than any
other human agency.

52. ETHICS. By G. E. Moore, Lecturer in Moral Science, Cambridge.
t)iscusses what is right and what is wrong, and the whys and where-
fores.

65. THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By George F.
Moore. Professor of the History of Religion, Harvard University "A
popular work of the highest order. Will be profitable to anybody
who cares enough about Bible study to read a serious book on the
subject."— American Journal of Theology.

88. RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT BETWEEN OLD AND NEW TESTA-
MENTS. By R. H. Charles, Canon of Westminster. Shows how
religious and ethical thought between 180 B. C. and 100 A. D. grew
naturally into that of the New Testament.

50. THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By B. W. Bacon,

Professor of New Testament Criticism, Yale. An authoritative
summary of the results of modern critical research with regard to
the origins of the New Testament.

SOCIAL SCIENCE.

91. THE NEGRO. By W. E. Burghardt DuBois, author of "Souls of
Black Folks," etc. A history of the black man in Africa. America or
wherever else his presence has been or is important.

77. CO-PARTNERSHIP AND PROFIT SHARING. By Aneurin Wil-
liams, Chairman, Executive Committee, International Co-opera-
tive Alliance, etc. Explains the various types of co-partnership and
profit-sharing, and gives details of the arrangements now in force in
many of the great industries.

99. POLITICAL THOUGHT: THE UTILITARIANS. FROM BENT-
HAM TO J. S. MILL. By William L. P. Davidson.

98. POLITICAL THOUGHT: FROM HERBERT SPENCER TO THE
PRESENT DAY. By Ernest Barker, M. A.

79. UNEMPLOYMENT. By A. C. Pigou, M. A., Professor of Political
Economy at Cambridge. The meaning, measurement, distribution,
and effects of unemployment, its relation to wages, trade fluctuations,
and disputes, and some proposals of remedy or relief.

80. COMMON-SENSE IN LAW. By Prof. Paul Vinogradoff, D. C. L.,

LL. D. Social and Legal Rules — Legal Rights and Duties — Facts
and Acts in Law — Legislation — Custom — Judicial Precedents — Equity
— The Law of Nature.

49. ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By S. J. Chapman,

Professor of Political Economy and Dean of Faculty of Commerce
and Administration, University of Manchester.

11. THE SCIENCE OF WEALTH. By J. A. Hobson, author of "Prob-
lems of Poverty." A study of the structure and working of the modern
business world.

1. PARLIAMENT. ITS HISTORY, CONSTITUTION, AND PRAC-
TICE. By Sir Courtenay P. Ilbert, Clerk of the House of Commons.

IS. LIBERALISM. By Prof. L. T. Hobhouse, author of "Democracy and
Reaction." A masterly philosophical and historical review of the subject .

5. THE STOCK EXCHANGE. By F. W. Hirst. Editor of the London
Economist. Reveals to the non-financial mind the facts about invest-
ment, speculation, and the other terms which the title suggests.

10. THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT. By J. Ramsay Macdonald, Chair-
man of the British Labor Party.

28. THE EVOLUTION OF INDUSTRY. By D. H. MacGregor, Professor
of Political Economy, University of Leeds. An outline of the recent
changes that have given us the present conditions of the working classes
and the principles involved.

29. ELEMENTS OF ENGLISH LAW. By W. M. Geldart, Vinerian
Professor of English Law, Oxford. A simple statement of the basic
principles of the English legal system on which that of the United
States is based.

32. THE SCHOOL: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF EDU-
CATION. By J. J. Findlay, Professor of Education, Manchester.
Presents the history, the psychological basis, and the theory of the
school with a rare power of summary and suggestion.

6. IRISH NATIONALITY. By Mrs. J. R. Green. A brilliant account
of the genius and mission of the Irish people. "An entrancing work,
%nd I would advise every one with a drop of Irish blood in his veins
or a vein of Irish sympathy in his heart to read it." — Neto Yorl^ Times'
Review.

GENERAL HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY.

102. SERBIA. By L. F. Waring, with preface by J. M. Jovanovitch,
Serbian Minister to Great Britain. The main outlines of Serbian
history, with special emphasis on the immediate causes of the war.
and the question which will be of greatest importance in the after-
the-war settlement.

33. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By A. F. Pollard, Professor of
English History, University of London.

95. BELGIUM. By R. C. K. Ensor, Sometime Scholar of Balliol College
The geographical, linguistic, historical, artistic and literary associa-
tions.

100. POLAND. By J. Alison Phillips, University of Dublin. The history
of Poland with special emphasis upon the Polish qustion of the pre-
sent day.

34. CANADA. By A. G. Bradley.

72. GERMANY OF TO-DAY. By Charles Tower.

78. LATIN AMERICA. By William R. Shepherd, Professor of His-
tory, Columbia. With maps. The historical, artistic, and commercial
development of the Central South American republics.

18. THE OPENING UP OF AFRICA. By Sir H. H. Johnston.

19. THE CIVILIZATION OF CHINA. By H. A. Giles, Professor of
Chinese, Cambridge.

36. PEOPLES AND PROBLEMS OF INDIA. By Sir T. W. Holderness,

"The best small treatise dealing with the range of subjects fairly in-
dicated by the title."— The Dial.

26. THE DAWN OF HISTORY. By J. L. Myers, Professor of Ancient
History, Oxford.

92. THE ANCIENT EAST. By D.G. Hogarth, M. A., F. B. A., F.S. A.,

Connects with Prof. Myers's "Dawn of History" (No. 26) at about
1000 B. C. and reviews the history of Assyria, Babylon, Cilicia. Persia
and Macedon.

30. ROME. By W. Warde Fowler, author of "Social Life at Rome," etc.

13. MEDIEVAL EUROPE. By H. W. C. Davis, Fellow at Balliol CoU

lege, Oxford, author of "Charlemagne," etc.
3. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By Hilaire Belloc.

57. NAPOLEON, By H. A. L. Fisher, Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield Uni-
versity. Author of "The Republican Tradition in Europe."

20. HISTORY OF OUR TIME. (1885-1911). By C. P. Gooch.

22. THE PAPACY AND MODERN TIMES. By Rev. William Barry,
D. D., author of "The Papal Monarchy," etc. The story of the rise and
fall of the Temporal Power.

4. A SHORT HISTORY OF WAR AND PEACE. By G. H. Ferris,

author of "Russia in Revolution," etc.

94. THE NAVY AND SEA POWER. By David Hannay, author of "Short
History of the Royal Navy," etc. A brief history of the navies, sea
Power, and ship growth of all nations, including the rise and decline
of America on the sea, and explaining the present British supremacy.
8. POLAR EXPLORATION. By Dr. W. S. Bruce, Leader of the
"Scotia" expedition. Emphasizes the results of the expeditions.

51. MASTER MARINERS. By John R. Spears, author of "The His-
tory of Our Navy," etc. A history of sea craft adventure from the
earliest times.

86. EXPLORATION OF THE ALPS. By Arnold Lunn, M. A.
7. MODERN GEOGRAPHY. By Dr. Marion Newbigin. Shows the re-
lation of physical features to living things and to some of the chief in-
stitutions of civilization.

76. THE OCEAN. A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SCIENCE OF
THE SEA. By Sir John Murray, K. C. B., Naturalist H. M. S. "Chal-
lenger," 1872-1876, joint author of "The Depths of the Ocean," etc.

84. THE GROWTH OF EUROPE. By Granvilfe Cole, Professor of
Geology, Royal College of Science, Ireland. A study of the geology
and physical geography in connection with the political geography.

AMERICAN HISTORY.

47. THE COLONIAL PERIpD (1607-1766). By Charles McLean An-

drews, Professor of American History, Yale.

82. THE WARS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA (1763-1815).
By Theodore C. Smith, Professor of American History, Williams
College. A history of the period, with especial emphasis on The Re-
volution and The War of 1812.

67. FROM JEFFERSON TO LINCOLN (1815-1860). By William Mac-
Donald. Professor of History, Brown University. The author makes
the history of this period circulate about constitutional ideas and slavery
sentiment.

25. THE CIVIL WAR (1854-1865). By Frederick L. Paxson, Professor
of American History, University of Wisconsin.

69. RECONSTRUCTION AND UNION (1865-1912). By Paul Leland
Haworth. A History of the United States in our own times.

OTHER VOLUMES IN PREPARATION

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

19 West 44th Street New York

from which it was borrowed.

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