The elements of psychology / by Edward L. Thorndike.

  • Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee), 1874-1949.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The elements of psychology / by Edward L. Thorndike. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of acid, the smell of the woods or the touch of a pin, as mixtures or combinations of simpler elementary feelings. But they also use the word more vaguely for all direct feelings of the qualities of things or of conditions of the body which are not the definite feelings of things classed as percepts or the rich combinations of feelings classed as emotions. This being the usage, the complex sound of a city street, the taste of coffee or the shock of a cold plunge would be called a sensation. Sensations are sometimes defined as the primitive, bare elements of mental life, the first things in consciousness. From this point of view only the original appearance of any feeling may be called sensation; after that the mental state equals sensation plus association or experience. The fact of importance that appears from these va- rious definitions, is that they and all others are arbitrary, that in fact we cannot draw clear lines of distinction between sensations of qualities of things and sensations of bodily conditions,—between sensations from special, well-known stimuli like sounds and from vague, ill- known stimuli like the condition of the blood or the gnawings of dyspepsia,—between atomic, indivisible bits or brightness or pain or bitter and complex masses of color, toothache or tones,—between the first sensation of any sort and the subsequent ones modified by it. Nor can we draw a clear line around sensations (taken in the broad sense shown by the group of samples above) so as to infallibly separate sensations from percepts or from emotions or from certain feelings of relationships. It is indeed as important to know that these mental states shade off the one into the other as to know the general, features of difference which lead us to separate them into groups. Realizing then that definitions must be rough, one