The Elements of Psychology (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Elements of Psychology

This book is designed to serve as a text for students who are pursuing a first course in psychology. It aims to present in an elementary way, and within a small compass, the more easily observed facts of our mental life together with the generally accepted principles of their explanation. Its field is chiefly the study of the normal, adult, human mind, and so may be described as an introduction to what is known as General Psychology.

In these days, 'the winter of our discontent,' the writer of a first book in psychology may follow one of three courses: he may appear as 'the champion of the structural psychology' or as the advocate of a psychology in terms of behavior or he may proceed after the manner of the eclectic, without special regard to the systematic agreement of the topics and matter selected. In the preparation of the present text, the writer followed the third course, and a word of explanation seems in place.

It is clear that many of the topics that belong to an introductory survey of psychology lend themselves easily and naturally to the functional method of treatment, while certain other topics, no less important in a first book, invite rather a structural treatment. It is clear, moreover, that the student may get important side lights from the biological, physiological, genetic and other points of view.

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