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"This volume is a continuation of the studies in genetic psychology begun in my Mental Development in the Child and the Race. As was announced in the earlier work, I had intended to publish the volume of 'Interpretations' under the same general heading of 'Mental Development' and to include in it certain educational 'Interpretations' also. It seems best, however, for the sake of unity of treatment in this volume, --and also on account of its size, --to omit the educational matter for the present, and also to make this volume quite independent of the former work, except in so far as the natural connection requires somewhat frequent reference to it. This departure from my original plan also enables me to include in Part II certain chapters which were written with reference to the question set by the Royal Academy of Denmark ("Is it possible to establish, for the individual isolated in society, rules of conduct drawn entirely from his personal nature; and if such rules are possible, what is their relation to the rules which would be reached from the consideration of society as a whole?"). I have also endeavoured, in view of the lack in English of a book on Social Psychology which can be used in the universities in connection with courses in psychology, ethics, and social science, to make my essay available for such a purpose. This has led to such expansions--some may call them repetitions--of the fundamental ideas of the work as seemed necessary to a fairly complete working-out of the social element in connection with each of the greater psychological functions. Part I is thus made, as far as its topics are concerned, a more or less complete study of social and ethical psychology"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Social psychology. --- Social ethics.

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This book has been prepared in response to a request from a number of teachers of psychology in the universities who suggested that the expense and length of my Handbook of Psychology precluded its use as the text in their courses of instruction. I have, accordingly, aimed to make a book which shall present the newest essentials of the science in a single compact volume at reasonable cost. It differs from my larger work mainly in its omissions. I have endeavored, however, to simplify the exposition, throughout, often rewriting whole sections or recasting whole chapters with this in view, and adding more illustrative facts and explanations. The treatment of the nervous system has been put at the beginning--a pedagogical concession to my critics, to which I ask attention as unanimous as their criticism. In regard to other alterations--respecting which the critics' opinions have largely neutralized one another--I have depended as before mainly on my own judgment.

Psychology --- Study and teaching.

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"The present volume completes the survey of the mind begun in my "Handbook of Psychology: Senses and Intellect". In method and scope my plan has remained the same. The treatment of this volume, however, is somewhat fuller: since I have wished to remove, in some degree, the reproach so often and so justly cast upon the general works in Psychology that they give Feeling and Will summary and inadequate discussion. This volume, it may be said, however, puts to a better test the claim upon which the Handbook is written, i.e., the possibility of a psychology which is not a metaphysics, nor even a philosophy. For the phenomena of the emotional and volitional life have not been worked over for purposes of philosophical system, as intellectual phenomena have: and for this reason, the psychologist has in this field greater freedom of treatment and a larger scientific opportunity. Hence--while not laying a claim to originality, which only the opinion of competent readers could make of any force--I feel that, apart from the general arrangement and division, certain chapters of this volume are more independent. In other words, the book not only aims to be useful for purposes of university instruction, but it may also be found, on some points, to make contributions to psychological discussion. The topics to which I refer especially are: "Interest, Reality, and Belief" (Chap. VII), "Pleasure and Pain" (Chaps. V and XI), "Conceptual Feeling" (Chap. IX), "Suggestion as Motor Stimulus" (Chap. XIII), and the theory of "Volition" (Chaps. XV and XVI). A point of distinctive treatment under the head of Will is the emphasis laid upon the analysis of the "Reactive Consciousness" considered as basis of Volition"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychology.

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"The volume is made up of papers selected from a larger number scattered during fifteen years in various journals. The philosophical presupposition of a view which joins the words "Philosophy" and "Science" is, to my thinking, at once an Idealism and also a Naturalism. No philosophy can today deny Naturalism; by Naturalism meaning the recognition of the right of Dame Nature--physical, vital, mental--to be and to do what she really is and does with no let nor hindrance whatever, from us or from all the tribe of thought. If we allow science at all--knowledge of Nature, at all--then the ideal of science and of scientific explanation is once for all erected. Naturalism, which, in my usage of the term, is a name for science not for philosophy, must sweep the boards of every fact that "is, was, or ever shall be," of every fact of every kind, before its task is done, leaving not a pawn on any square of the board we call the cosmos. Philosophy is a new reading of Science, a saying of this or that about knowledge--not a special species of knowledge, nor a discovery of what is new. Philosophy evaluates, estimates, criticises, unifies, enjoys. Philosophy says "How?"--To Science's "What?" How can this and that both be true? How can the universe hold both man and nature? Both fact and ideal? Both "is" and "ought"? How can action be immoral and thinking false? In short: How can and how must we men think Nature and act naturally? Nature being what and only what science makes her out to be. Such be one's presuppositions, then it follows that one's philosophy is simply one's thought--one's best thought--about Nature. My best thought of nature, my type of philosophy, is an Idealism which finds that the universe of science, is, when all is said, a cosmos which is not only true but also beautiful, and in some sense good. Science tells us what is true; that is science's prerogative: and whatever maybe science's final word about Nature, that word is in so far the truth of the matter. Philosophy then enters her questions: How can such truth be also good, beautiful, livable--or none of these? While others say other things, and many others many other things, I say it is true and good because it is beautiful. Nothing, I think, can be true without being beautiful, and nothing can be, in any high sense, good without being beautiful. The ascription of beauty, a reasoned, criticised, thought-out ascription of aesthetic quality, is the final form of our thought about nature, man, the world, the All"--Book. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

Philosophy and science. --- James, William,

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"This text represents a continuation of the fourth through sixth parts in the second volume of a series devoted to the history of psychology. This book considers the philosophical roots of modern psychology, examining philosophical theories up to and including the nineteenth century. Empiricism, naturalism, and eighteenth century materialism are discussed. The concept of faith philosophy is explored. Scientific psychology is then examined. The text concludes with two chapters concerning individual thought." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychology --- History.