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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    The description of the brain and sense organs follows the recent views instead of those current in the early eighties. By thus discarding the unprofitable geography of ‘convolutions/ ‘centers’ and ‘tracts’ and utilizing the real facts of the constitution of the nervous system, we not only give the student knowledge of a truly explanatory sort which he can apply to psychologi- cal facts, but also supplant an incoherent mass of detail by a simple and clear hypothesis. The length in pages of Part II is due to the photographs and drawings and represents a shortening rather than a lengthening of the student’s time and effort. The descriptive or structural psychology has been sharply separated from the dynamic psychology. For instance, instead of taking up in one chapter both the nature of percepts and the laws of mental action in- volved in perception and illusion, I have put the latter in Part III along with such topics as instinct, habit and the association of ideas. The older custom is a relic of the ‘faculty psychology’ and inevitably disposes the student to believe that perception, memory, reasoning and the like are subtle dynamic forces acting on mental proces- ses. By the separation the real value of the terms, sensa- tions, percepts, images, memories, judgments, emotions and the like,—namely, their value as terms describing qualitative differences,—is preserved. Needless to say, the newer arrangement is not only truer to the facts, but also more teachable. Dynamic psychology is given a place in this book more in accord with the place it holds in present psy- chological thought than is customary in elementary books. It is surely wise to give adequate space to the facts and laws of instinct, capacity, habit, discrimination, analysis, assimilation, pre-perception, the association of ideas,