BOOK REVIEWS.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. By William James, Professor of
Psychology in Harvard University. In two volumes. New York: Henry
Holt & Co., American Science Series. Advanced Course.
In the present status of psychological science every attempt to gather the diversified facts and views and present them in a single, though extensive work, cannot but be scrutinised with great care and interest; and when this work comes from the pen of one who has gained so wide and appreciative a circle of readers, the interest becomes deeper and more personal.
It was, perhaps, the professor of mental science, struggling for years with text-books, inadequate, or antiquated, or narrow, or unscientific, or dry, or unpedagogic, who most anxiously awaited the appearance of Professor James's volumes; and his expectation was the more warranted, as the work was announced in a series of text-books deservedly successful and popular. To such a one, the work itself does not come to fill the place of a text-book; not alone the great length (1,400 pages), but the general supposition of knowledge on the part of the reader which it is the object of college courses to supply, together with the selection of topics and the peculiar division of space amongst them, limit the work to students of a much more advanced type than (unfortunately, perhaps) American education as yet supplies. But while our professor must still patiently hope for some work that will present in brief and convenient form the main facts of Psychology, he will find his task made easier and more interesting by these welcome volumes. He will find in them an original and frequently brilliant treatment of many of the deepest problems of modern Psychology: and it is as a contribution to science and as an aid to the professional student that a discussion of their contents and tenets will be pertinent in these pages.
To begin with, the attitude of the author to his subject is that of a professional scientist to his specialty. "I have kept close," he says, "to the point of view of natural science throughout the book. Every natural science assumes certain data uncritically, and declines to challenge the elements between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from which its own deductions are carried on…. This book, assuming that thoughts and feelings exist, and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon contends that Psychology, when she has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain, can go no farther—can go no farther that is as a natural science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical."
This position does not carry with it the condemnation of all matters metaphysical, but simply excludes them from Psychology; nor does this independence place Psychology in a position unrelated to other sciences. Such relation is a cardinal fact in the mental world, and nowhere is it more necessary to bear in mind that the division of the sciences is largely an expression of the lines of men's interests and the inevitable specialisation of knowledge. Those forms of adaptations of means to ends which we study as forms of psychic action, while theoretically distinguishable from other modes of action, in fact, often resemble them; in other words, "the boundary line of the mental faculty is certainly vague. It is better not to be pedantic, but to let the science be as vague as the subject," and include all facts, whether they are usually called physiological, or biological, or not, that shed light on the main problems dealt with.
This conception accordingly views mind as distinctly related to and an essential part of its environment; it views mental phenomena as infinitely varied, as most intricately conditioned by and in turn conditioning other natural phenomena. For the complete survey of its domain, it calls upon experiment, observation, introspection, comparison, analysis, hypothesis, deduction, each properly controlled by the others, and limited by community of purpose to a firm foundation of fact.
It is true that in the more intricate problems, those with the smallest connection with sensation and the largest with inference and analysis, the author will be regarded as more metaphysical than psychological and plainly admits his fault; it is true that the personal leanings of the author lead him to lengthy discussions of these more intricate points, but none the less the positive, broad, and evolutionary spirit that dominates the general view of the subject leaves a clear impress of vitality, progress, and interest on every page.
Passing from point of view and purpose to content we do not look for and do not find any 'closed system,' but "a mass of descriptive details" in the selection of which personal interest has been the controlling factor. The articles which Professor James has written from time to time in the periodicals appear, sometimes a little remodelled, in the larger work; each chapter is thus largely an independent essay upon the topic printed at the head of it. On the physiological side we have an admirable chapter on the functions of the brain, but elsewhere the student is referred to other works for the physiological points involved.
Following this is an excellent essay on Habit and Automatism, whereupon without further ceremony the reader is invited to a somewhat speculative series of chapters upon 'Mind Stuff,' 'Knowledge and Reality,' and the like, and may resume the more concrete chapters on Attention, Conception, Discrimination and Comparison, Association, only after struggling with the complex picture of 'the Stream of Thought,' 'the Consciousness of Self,' and 'the Snares of Psychology.' Each of these chapters presents a distinct problem, presents it well and positively, and contributes much that is original to the discussion.