The Methods and Snares of Psychology We have now finished the physiological preliminaries of our subject and must in the remaining chapters study the mental states themselves whose cerebral conditions and concomitants we have been considering hitherto.
Beyond the brain, however, there is an outer world to which the brain-states themselves 'correspond.' And it will be well, ere we advance farther, to say a word about the relation of the mind to this larger sphere of physical fact.PSYCHOLOGY IS A NATURAL SCIENCE.That is, the mind which the psychologist studies is the mind of distinct individuals inhabiting definite portions of a real space and of a real time.With any other sort of mind, absolute Intelligence, Mind unattached to a particular body, or Mind not subject to the course of time, the psychologist as such has nothing to do.'Mind,' in his mouth, is only a class name for minds.Fortunate will it be if his more modest inquiry result in any generalizations which the philosopher devoted to absolute Intelligence as such can use.
To the psychologist, then, the minds he studies are objects , in a world of other objects.Even when he introspectively analyzes his own mind, and tells what he finds there, he talks about it in an objective way.He says, for instance, that under certain circumstances the color gray appears to him green, and calls the appearance an illusion.This implies that he compares two objects, a real color seen under conditions, and a mental perception which he believes to represent it, and that he declares the relation between them to be of a certain kind.In making this critical judgment, the psychologist stands as much outside of the perception which he criticises as he does of the color.Both are his objects.And if this is true of him when he reflects on his own conscious states, how much truer is it when he treats of those of others! In German philosophy since Kant the word Erkenntnisstheorie , criticism of the faculty of knowledge, plays a great part.Now the psychologist necessarily becomes such an Erkenntnisstheoretiker.But the knowledge he theorizes about is not the bare function of knowledge which Kant criticises - he does not inquire into the possibility of knowledge überhaupt.He assumes it to be possible, he does not doubt its presence in himself at the moment he speaks.The knowledge he criticises is the knowledge of particular men about the particular things that surround them.This he may, upon occasion, in the light of his own unquestioned knowledge, pronounce true or false, and trace the reasons by which it has become one or the other.
It is highly important that this natural-science point of view should be understood at the outset.Otherwise more may be demanded of the psychologist than he ought to be expected to perform.
A diagram will exhibit more emphatically what the assumptions of Psychology must be:
1 The Psychologist 2 The Thought Studied 3 The Thought's Object 4 The Psycholo- gist's Reality These four squares contain the irreducible data of psychology.No.1, the psychologist, believes Nos.2, 3, and 4, which together form his total object, to be realities, and reports them and their mutual relations as truly as he can without troubling himself with the puzzle of how he can report them at all.About such ultimate puzzles he in the main need trouble himself no more than the geometer, the chemist, or the botanist do, who make precisely the same assumptions as he.
Of certain fallacies to which the psychologist is exposed by reason of his peculiar point of view - that of being a reporter of subjective as well as of objective facts, we must presently speak.But not until we have considered the methods he uses for ascertaining what the facts in question are.THE METHODS OF INVESTIGATION.Introspective Observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always.The word introspection need hardly be defined - it means, of course, the looking into our own minds and reporting what we there discover.Every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness.
So far as I know, the existence of such states has never been doubted by any critic, however sceptical in other respects he may have been.That we have cogitations of some sort is the inconcussum in a world most of whose other facts have at some time tottered in the breath of philosophic doubt.All people unhesitatingly believe that they feel themselves thinking, and that they distinguish the mental state as an inward activity or passion, from all the objects with which it may cognitively deal.I regard this belief as the most fundamental of all the postulates of Psychology , and shall discard all curious inquiries about its certainty as too metaphysical for the scope of this book.
A Question of Nomenclature.We ought to have some general term by which to designate all states of consciousness merely as such, and apart from their particular quality or cognitive function.Unfortunately most of the terms in use have grave objections.'Mental state,' 'state of consciousness,'
'conscious modification,' are cumbrous and have no kindred verbs.The same is true of 'subjective condition.' 'Feeling' has the verb 'to feel,' both active and neuter, and such derivatives as 'feelingly,' 'felt,' 'feltness,'
etc., which make it extremely convenient.But on the other hand it has specific meanings as well as its generic one, sometimes standing for pleasure and pain, and being sometimes a synonym of ' sensation ' as opposed to thought ; whereas we wish a term to cover sensation and thought indifferently.Moreover, 'feeling' has acquired in the hearts of platonizing thinkers a very opprobrious set of implications ;
