The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Granger - Psychology
The present volume belongs to the University Extension Series. It can hardly be said to come into direct competition with existing works on psychology of recognized standing, as it is, for instance, of less than half the dimensions of either Professor Ladd's or Professor James's briefer book on the subject, besides being written in more popular style. It is essentially an introduction to the study of psychology, and as such must be judged.
It is a difficult matter to give a fair idea of what modern psychology is in such brief compass, but the author has performed his task well, on the whole. One feature of the book is much to be commended: it is not a mere catalogue of facts, or digest of the larger works on the subject, but a lucid exposition of the science from the author's point of view. The second chapter, "General Conditions of Mental Development," gives in the briefest possible way some of the more significant facts of physiological psychology. It is necessarily somewhat scrappy, but perhaps worth the thirty-five pages devoted to it. The rest of the book is devoted to the subjects usually treated in an elementary psychology. The order of the chapters is not fortunate. After the chapter on "Sensation," come those on "Laws of Mind," "Memory," "Reasoning," "Perception," etc. This unnecessary separation of the treatment of sensation and that of perception would tend to give the student the impression, not sufficiently guarded against in the chapter on "Sensation," that pure sensations are among our actual states of consciousness. It also seems like a curious inversion to treat of reasoning before perception. The same infelicity as to order of exposition is sometimes shown within the chapters, a conspicuous instance of which is the treatment of the association of ideas. In the section entitled "Association," in the short chapter on "Laws of Mind," association by contiguity alone is described. In the chapter on "Memory," however, section on "Suggestion," association by similarity and association by contrast are also described, and described first, though the author regards association by contiguity as the fundamental form.
Professor James has well said that when psychology approaches metaphysics "one must be impartially naïf or impartially critical." The author has wisely decided to be the former in the present little book, but one is inclined to object to language like that used on page 15, where he says, "All cases ... in which a mental effect follows upon a physical cause are instances of physical laws." Other examples of this inexact use of words might be cited, as well as certain cases of dogmatism upon controverted points. These latter, however, are almost inevitable in an elementary text-book.
But the faults of the book, of which the above are examples, are not such as seriously to impair its value. It is eminently readable, and is reliable in all essential respects as far as it goes. It is to be hoped that the little book will be instrumental in interesting a class of readers in psychology who would hardly be reached directly by the more advanced works on the subject.
Ernest Albee.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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