Elements of psychology / by Sydney Herbert Mellone and Margaret Drummond.

  • Mellone, Sydney Herbert.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elements of psychology / by Sydney Herbert Mellone and Margaret Drummond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    take are dependent on countless characteristics which are probably peculiar to him. But when we are able to penetrate through these special characteristics to some- thing in the mental process, which is true of all minds, we have arrived at the kind of psychological fact with which science is concerned. For example: a certain appearance in the sky suggests to me coming rain. In common life I should probably be interested mainly in the possible rain rather than in the process of its sugges- tion to my mind; the latter is, however, a psychological fact. But if I cannot get any farther with it, it is of no scientific interest. Why does the appearance suggest coming rain? Because in the past I have noticed rain to follow when the sky looked more or less the this. This experience signifies that when the union of two events has been to me an object of interest in the past, the repetition—however partial—of one of them may arouse the idea of the other. This result is no pecu- liarity of mine; it is true of all healthy minds,—in other words, it is a general truth; and it is with such truths that science deals. In common life we are mostly content if we know enough for practical purposes. But even this workaday knowledge of mental processes is not merely personal. The natural association of individuals in the family and in civic life compels a reflection—though it is scarcely conscious—which results in a knowledge of mind, con- fused and superficial, but containing the germs of scien- tific knowledge. Psychology starts with this everyday working acquaintance which we have with our own minds, and develops and extends it, in order to arrive at a general understanding of the mind, on the basis of characteristics which are not personal peculiarities but are shared by all minds,