Psychology: the cognitive powers / by James McCosh.

McCosh, James, 1811-1894.

Date:: 1886

Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychology: the cognitive powers / by James McCosh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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psychology we notice mind as it operates and mark its various states. In Induction we also employ Experi- ment, which is a mode of observation in which we arti- ficially place the agents of nature in new circumstances that we may perceive their action more distinctly: thus, in order to determine whether all bodies fall to the ground at the same time, we put a guinea and a feather in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, that we may note the time they take to descend, independent of the resistance of the air. In like manner, in studying the human mind we place objects before it that we may find how it is affected by them: thus, in order to determine how the conscience acts, we direct it to a cruel or a beneficent act; and how the emotions are raised, we call up objects fitted to gratify or disappoint our springs of action. Both in physical and in psychical science we begin with and proceed throughout by Observation Proper and Experiment. But there is a difference in the agent or in- strument of observation in the two departments. In the former we employ the senses, such as sight and touch, aided by such instruments as the telescope, microscope, and blow-pipe, and we weigh and measure the bodies. In psychology we make our observations by Self-Conscious- ness, which is the power by which we take cognizance of self as acting; say as thinking or feeling, as remembering the past or anticipating the future, as loving, fearing, re- solving. Self-Consciousness may give us information directly or indirectly. (1.) We may notice the states of the soul as they flow on, our judgments and our fancies, our joys and our griefs. (2.) By a brief memory we may throw back our mind on the past and recall what has been under the 3onsciousness in a given time ; say during the past hour,