Psychology : briefer course / by William James.

  • James, William, 1842-1910.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Psychology : briefer course / by William James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    tlie study of tlie useless is made over to 'Esthetics.' ^Esthetics and Psychiatry will receive no special notice in this book. All mental states (no matter what their character as regards utility may be) are followed by bodily activity of some sort. They lead to inconspicuous changes in breath- ing, circulation, general muscular tension, and glandular or other visceral activity, even if they do not lead to conspi- cuous movements of the muscles of voluntary life. Not only certain particular states of mind, then (such as those called volitions, for example), but states of mind as such, all states of mind, even mere thoughts and feelings, are motoi- in their consequences. This will be made manifest in detail as our study advances. Meanwhile let it be set down as one of the fundamental facts of the science with Avhich we are engaged. It was said above that the ' conditions' of states of con- sciousness must be studied. The immediate condition of a state of consciousness is an activity of some sort in the cerebral hemispheres. This proposition is supported by so many pathological facts, and laid by physiologists at the base of so many of their reasonings, that to the medically educated mind it seems almost axiomatic. It would be hard, however, to give any short and peremptory proof of the unconditional dependence of mental action upon neural change. That a general and usual amount of dependence exists cannot possibly be ignored. One has only to con- sider how quickly consciousness may be (so far as we know) abolished by a blow on the head, by rapid loss of blood, by an epileptic discharge, by a full dose of alcohol, opium, ether, or nitrous oxide—or how easily it may be altered in quality by a smaller dose of any of these agents or of others, or by a fever,—to see how at the mercy of bodily happenings our spirit is. A little stoppage of the gall-duct, a swallow of cathartic medicine, a cup of strong coffee at the proper moment, Avill entirely overturn for the time a man's views of life. Our moods and resolutions arc more determined