psychology is the study of a certain number of laws, relations, and connections.
As to the particular feature which distinguishes mental from physical laws, we can formulate it, as does William James, by saying that the essence of a mental law is to be teleological, or, if the phrase be preferred, we can say that mental activity is a finalistic activity, which expends itself as will in the pursuit of future ends, and as intelligence in the choice of the means deemed capable of serving those ends. An act of intelligence is recognised by the fact of its aiming at an end, and employing for this end one means chosen out of many. Finality and intelligence are thus synonymous. In opposition to mental law, physical law is mechanical, by which expression is simply implied the absence of finality. Finality opposed to mechanism; such is the most concise and truest expression in which must be sought the distinctive attribute of psychology and of the moral sciences, the essential characteristic by which psychological are separated from physical facts.
I think it may be useful to dwell a little on the mental laws which I have just opposed to the physical, and whose object is to assure preadaptation and form a finality.[1] Their im-
- ↑ Finality seems to be here used in the sense of the doctrine which regards perfection as the final cause of existence.—Ed.
