The mind of man : a text-book of psychology / by Gustav Spiller.

  • Spiller, Gustav
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The mind of man : a text-book of psychology / by Gustav Spiller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    49/576 (page 29)
    the moon, the wind, or the clouds. Or he may take account of the trans- formations which one particular bush undergoes in a twelvemonth, and possibly generalise tentatively at the same time as to our common flora. As explained more especially in sec. 136, he will examine concrete facts; he will choose a simple problem and give his whole attention to it; he will proceed methodically, and reason as boldly and as systematically as his facts allow. I have referred to brain physiology, botany and some facts in physics. The application to psychology is no less in place. The study of a science whose facts we merely store as we usually do the data of geography, does not cultivate the judgment: physical science thus taught is not to be com- pared in its effect with the benefit derived from a classical education where skill is constantly required in the interpretation of a?i author. In psychology, too, the appeal must be to the student’s judgment rather than to his memory. Let us examine some psychological problems in the light of the principles I have endeavoured to expound in this section. Everybody knows, we are told, what is pleasure and what is pain : they are elemental facts which admit of no explanation. Apply now the rules of investigation which have been referred to. First, we go to the facts. We do not recall illustra- tions, which might or might not be the result of bias; we observe at first hand. Observation, again, must not be without guidance. We observe pain after pain in mechanical succession ; every pain as it occurs; and not only one here and there, where subjective selection may play some part. We observe for as long periods together as possible. Our experiments are as minute and as guarded as were the experiments about skin sensa- tions already dealt with. We notice kinds and degrees of pain, and try to define them accurately. We learn what are the most regular accompani- ments or signs of pain. We compare our painful states with other states- where pain appears to be absent or pleasure present. We are on the look- out to see what pain has in common with other states, such as sensations, emotions, feelings of doubt or touch, inclinations or disinclinations, habits,, and effort. Of all our observations we keep full notes. As facts repeat themselves, so we tentatively, but none the less boldly, suppose them to be general facts. At last no new classes of facts seem to come forward, and to go on, is to be thrashing chaff. We proceed now to set down those features which were repeated oftenest, and we arrange our material, with our tentative minor conclusions, systematically. Is it then true, we ask ourselves, that in pain we always tend to turn away from the object which causes it, and that in accordance with the degree of pain ? And is it correct that in nothing else do we tend to turn away from an object ? Is pain an elementary fact, not to be defined, always recognised with certainty as soon as met with, and never confounded with anything else? The answers to these questions the student will find in ch. 6. Here I insist that even a tentatively correct reply must be based on an examination such as I have fore-