Psychology : an introductory manual for the use of students / by F. Ryland.

  • Ryland, Frederick, 1854-1902.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Psychology : an introductory manual for the use of students / by F. Ryland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    involved in scientific and practical pursuits. Not only is it necessary to be able to visualize clearly, but it is also necessary to be able to construct mental pictures of what we have never experienced. The internal behaviour of a biological organ, or the way in which a projected bridge will respond to a strain, or the kind of effect a given statement will make on a person, all this must be more or less constructively imagined, that is, put together out of previous images, under the guid- ance of experience. At the same time visualization is actually a hindrance to abstract thought, and Galton found that abstract thinkers do not as a rule picture to themselves. The musician must of course have the gift of auditory imagination in a high degree. The ability to read an orchestral score, and reproduce all the tones and timbres of the different instruments, involves a re- markable power of reviving impressions in new com- binations. Even to read and understand a novel or a biography requires auditory and visual imagination. §4. Association of Ideas. The laws of Association of Ideas occupy a large space in the works of most English psychologists, who attempt to explain nearly all the phenomena of mind by means of them. Thus according to such writers as Mill, Bain and Spencer, we associate thoughts and feelings when they occur in close connexion in time (Law of Contiguity) and when they resemble each other M