The Mind's Dependence On The External World
But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system
are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning
and consider the babe when it first opens its eyes on the scenes of its
new existence. What is in its mind? What does it think about? Nothing.
Imagine, if you can, a person born blind and deaf, and without the sense
of touch, taste, or smell. Let such a person live on for a year, for
would enter his mind? What would he think about? All would be dark to
his eyes, all silent to his ears, all tasteless to his mouth, all
odorless to his nostrils, all touchless to his skin. His mind would be a
blank. He would have no mind. He could not get started to think. He
could not get started to act. He would belong to a lower scale of life
than the tiny animal that floats with the waves and the tide in the
ocean without power to direct its own course. He would be but an inert
mass of flesh without sense or intelligence.
THE MIND AT BIRTH.--Yet this is the condition of the babe at birth. It
is born practically blind and deaf, without definite sense of taste or
smell. Born without anything to think about, and no way to get anything
to think about until the senses wake up and furnish some material from
the outside world. Born with all the mechanism of muscle and nerve ready
to perform the countless complex movements of arms and legs and body
which characterize every child, he could not successfully start these
activities without a message from the senses to set them going. At birth
the child probably has only the senses of contact and temperature
present with any degree of clearness; taste soon follows; vision of an
imperfect sort in a few days; hearing about the same time, and smell a
little later. The senses are waking up and beginning their acquaintance
with the outside world.
THE WORK OF THE SENSES.--And what a problem the senses have to solve! On
the one hand the great universe of sights and sounds, of tastes and
smells, of contacts and temperatures, and whatever else may belong to
the material world in which we live; and on the other hand the little
shapeless mass of gray and white pulpy matter called the brain,
incapable of sustaining its own shape, shut away in the darkness of a
bony case with no possibility of contact with the outside world, and
possessing no means of communicating with it except through the senses.
And yet this universe of external things must be brought into
communication with the seemingly insignificant but really wonderful
brain, else the mind could never be. Here we discover, then, the two
great factors which first require our study if we would understand the
growth of the mind--the material world without, and the brain within.
For it is the action and interaction of these which lie at the bottom of
the mind's development. Let us first look a little more closely at the
brain and the accompanying nervous system.
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Problems For Observation And Introspection
1. Explain the cause and the remedy in the case of such errors as the following: Children who defined mountain as land 1,000 or more feet in height said that the factory smokestack was higher than the mountain because it went straight... Problems In Introspection And Observation
1. Observe a reading class and try to determine whether the pupils picture the scenes and events they read about. How can you tell? 2. Similarly observe a history class. Do the pupils realize the events as actually happening, and the personages as... Problems In Introspection And Observation
1. Do you find that you understand better some difficult point or problem after you have succeeded in stating it? Do you remember better what you have expressed? 2. In which particular ones of your studies do you think you could have done better ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
One should always keep in mind that psychology is essentially a laboratory science, and not a text-book subject. The laboratory material is to be found in ourselves and in those about us. While the text should be thoroughly mastered, its statements ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Which fatigues you more, to give attention of the nonvoluntary type, or the voluntary? Which can you maintain longer? Which is the more pleasant and agreeable to give? Under which can you accomplish more? What bearing have these facts on teaching... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Select some act which you have recently begun to perform and watch it grow more and more habitual. Notice carefully for a week and see whether you do not discover some habits which you did not know you had. Make a catalog of your bad habits; of t... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Observe a schoolroom of children at work with the aim of discovering any that show defects of vision or hearing. What are the symptoms? What is the effect of inability to hear or see well upon interest and attention? 2. Talk with your teacher ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Test your power of observation by walking rapidly past a well-filled store window and then seeing how many of the objects you can name. 2. Suppose a tailor, a bootblack, a physician, and a detective are standing on the street corner as you pass... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Test the uncontrolled associations of a group of pupils by pronouncing to the class some word, as blue, and having the members write down 20 words in succession as rapidly as they can, taking in each instance the first word that occurs to them. T... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Carefully consider your own powers of memory and see whether you can decide which of the four types of brain you have. Apply similar tests to your classmates or a group of school children whom you have a chance to observe. Be sure to take into ac... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Watch your own thinking for examples of each of the four types described. Observe a class of children in a recitation or at study and try to decide which type is being employed by each child. What proportion of the time supposedly given to study ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. What instincts have you noticed developing in children? What ones have you observed to fade away? Can you fix the age in both cases? Apply these questions to your own development as you remember it or can get it by tradition from your elders. ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Are you subject to the blues, or other forms of depressed feeling? Are your moods very changeable, or rather constant? What kind of a disposition do you think you have? How did you come by it; that is, in how far is it due to hereditary temperame... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. What are the characteristic bodily expressions by which you can recognize a state of anger? Fear? Jealousy? Hatred? Love? Grief? Do you know persons who are inclined to be too expressive emotionally? Who show too little emotional expression? How ... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Try making a list of your most important interests in order of their strength. Suppose you had made such a list five years ago, where would it have differed from the present list? Are you ever obliged to perform any activities in which you have l... Problems In Observation And Introspection
1. Give illustrations from your own experience of the various types of action mentioned in this discussion. From your own experience of the last hour, what examples of impulsive action can you give? Would it have been better in some cases had you st... Reasoning
All the mental processes which we have so far described find their culmination and highest utility in reasoning. Not that reasoning comes last in the list of mental activities, and cannot take place until all the others have been completed, for reas... Rules For Habit-forming
JAMES'S THREE MAXIMS FOR HABIT-FORMING.--On the forming of new habits and the leaving off of old ones, I know of no better statement than that of James, based on Bain's chapter on Moral Habits. I quote this statement at some length: In the acquisiti... Rules For Using The Memory
Much careful and fruitful experimentation in the field of memory has taken place in recent years. The scientists are now able to give us certain simple rules which we can employ in using our memories, even if we lack the time or opportunity to follo... Selection Among Our Interests
I said early in the discussion that interest is selective among our activities, picking out those which appear to be of the most value to us. In the same manner there must be a selection among our interests themselves. THE MISTAKE OF FOLLOWING TO... Sensory Qualities And Their End-organs
All are familiar with the five senses of our elementary physiologies, sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. A more complete study of sensation reveals nearly three times this number, however. This is to say that the body is equipped with more tha... Strong And Weak Wills
Many persons will admit that their memory or imagination or power of perception is not good, but few will confess to a weak will. Strength of will is everywhere lauded as a mark of worth and character. How can we tell whether our will is strong or w... Structural Elements Of The Nervous System
It will help in understanding both the structure and the working of the nervous system to keep in mind that it contains but one fundamental unit of structure. This is the neurone. Just as the house is built up by adding brick upon brick, so brain, c... The Concept
Fortunately for our thinking, the great external world, with its millions upon millions of individual objects, is so ordered that these objects can be grouped into comparatively few great classes; and for many purposes we can deal with the class as ... The Control Of Emotions
DEPENDENCE ON EXPRESSION.--Since all emotions rest upon some form of physical or physiological expression primarily, and upon some thought back of this secondarily, it follows that the first step in controlling an emotion is to secure the removal of... The Cultivation Of Imagery
IMAGES DEPEND ON SENSORY STIMULI.--The power of imaging can be cultivated the same as any other ability. In the first place, we may put down as an absolute requisite such an environment of sensory stimuli as will tempt every sense to be awake and ... The Effects Of Attention
ATTENTION MAKES ITS OBJECT CLEAR AND DEFINITE.--Whatever attention centers upon stands out sharp and clear in consciousness. Whether it be a bit of memory, an air-castle, a sensation from an aching tooth, the reasoning on an algebraic formula, a cho... The Extent Of Voluntary Control Over Our Acts
A relatively small proportion of our acts, or responses, are controlled by volition. Nature, in her wise economy, has provided a simpler and easier method than to have all our actions performed or checked with conscious effort. CLASSES OF ACTS OR... The Four Factors Involved In Memory
Nothing is more obvious than that memory cannot return to us what has never been given into its keeping, what has not been retained, or what for any reason cannot be recalled. Further, if the facts given back by memory are not recognized as belongin... The Function Of Images
Binet says that the man who has not every type of imagery almost equally well developed is only the fraction of a man. While this no doubt puts the matter too strongly, yet images do play an important part in our thinking. IMAGES SUPPLY MATERIAL ... The Function Of Perception
NEED OF KNOWING THE MATERIAL WORLD.--It is the business of perception to give us knowledge of our world of material objects and their relations in space and time. The material world which we enter through the gateways of the senses is more marvelous... The Function Of Thinking
All true thinking is for the purpose of discovering relations between the things we think about. Imagine a world in which nothing is related to anything else; in which every object perceived, remembered, or imagined, stands absolutely by itself, ind... The Instinct Of Imitation
No individual enters the world with a large enough stock of instincts to start him doing all the things necessary for his welfare. Instinct prompts him to eat when he is hungry, but does not tell him to use a knife and fork and spoon; it prompts him... The Instinct Of Play
Small use to be a child unless one can play. Says Karl Groos: Perhaps the very existence of youth is due in part to the necessity for play; the animal does not play because he is young, but he is young because he must play. Play is a constant factor... The Material Used By Imagination
What is the material, the mental content, out of which imagination builds its structures? IMAGES THE STUFF OF IMAGINATION.--Nothing can enter the imagination the elements of which have not been in our past experience and then been conserved in th... The Mechanism Of Thinking
It is evident from the foregoing discussion that we may include under the term thinking all sorts of mental processes by which relations are apprehended between different objects of thought. Thus young children think as soon as they begin to underst... The Mind's Dependence On The External World
But can we first see how in a general way the brain and nervous system are primarily related to our thinking? Let us go back to the beginning and consider the babe when it first opens its eyes on the scenes of its new existence. What is in its mind?... The Nature Of Association
We may define association, then, as the tendency among our thoughts to form such a system of bonds with each other that the objects of consciousness are vitally connected both (1) as they exist at any given moment, and (2) as they occur in successio... The Nature Of Consciousness
INNER NATURE OF THE MIND NOT REVEALED BY INTROSPECTION.--We are not to be too greatly discouraged if, even by introspection, we cannot discover exactly what the mind is. No one knows what electricity is, though nearly everyone uses it in one form or... The Nature Of Feeling
It will be our purpose in the next few chapters to study the affective content of consciousness--the feelings and emotions. The present chapter will be devoted to the feelings and the one that follows to the emotions. THE DIFFERENT FEELING QUALIT... The Nature Of Habit
Many people when they speak or think of habit give the term a very narrow or limited meaning. They have in mind only certain moral or personal tendencies usually spoken of as one's habits. But in order to understand habit in any thorough and complet... The Nature Of Instinct
Every child born into the world has resting upon him an unseen hand reaching out from the past, pushing him out to meet his environment, and guiding him in the start upon his journey. This impelling and guiding power from the past we call instinct. ... The Nature Of Interest
We saw in an earlier chapter that personal habits have their rise in race habits or instincts. Let us now see how interest helps the individual to select from his instinctive acts those which are useful to build into personal habits. Instinct impart... The Nature Of Memory
Now that you come to think of it, you can recall perfectly well that Columbus discovered America in 1492; that your house is painted white; that it rained a week ago today. But where were these once-known facts, now remembered so easily, while they ... The Nature Of Perception
HOW A PERCEPT IS FORMED.--How, then, do we proceed to the discovery of this world of objects? Let us watch the child and learn the secret from him. Give the babe a ball, and he applies every sense to it to discover its qualities. He stares at it, he... The Nature Of Sensation
SENSATION GIVES US OUR WORLD OF QUALITIES.--In actual experience sensations are never known apart from the objects to which they belong. This is to say that when we see yellow or red it is always in connection with some surface, or object; when we t... The Nature Of The Will
There has been much discussion and not a little controversy as to the true nature of the will. Just what is the will, and what is the content of our mental stream when we are in the act of willing? Is there at such times a new and distinctly differe... The Part Played By Past Experience
PRESENT THINKING DEPENDS ON PAST EXPERIENCE.--Images or ideas of things you have seen or heard or felt; of things you have thought of before and which now recur to you; of things you remember, such as names, dates, places, events; of things that you... The Perception Of Space
Many have been the philosophical controversies over the nature of space and our perception of it. The psychologists have even quarreled concerning whether we possess an innate sense of space, or whether it is a product of experience and training. Fo... The Perception Of Time
The philosophers and psychologists agree little better about our sense of time than they do about our sense of space. Of this much, however, we may be certain, our perception of time is subject to development and training. NATURE OF THE TIME SENS... The Place Of Expression In Development
Nor are we to think that cultivation of expression results in better power of expression alone, or that lack of cultivation results only in decreased power of expression. INTELLECTUAL VALUE OF EXPRESSION.--There is a distinct mental value in expr... The Place Of Habit In The Economy Of Our Lives
Habit is one of nature's methods of economizing time and effort, while at the same time securing greater skill and efficiency. This is easily seen when it is remembered that habit tends towards automatic action; that is, towards action governed by t... The Place Of Imagination In Mental Economy
But such a measure for the imagination as that just stated is far too narrow. A good imagination, like a good memory, is the one which serves its owner best. If DeQuincey and Poe and Stevenson and Bulwer found the type which led them into such dizzy... The Producing And Expressing Of Emotion
Nowhere more than in connection with our emotions are the close inter-relations of mind and body seen. All are familiar with the fact that the emotion of anger tends to find expression in the blow, love in the caress, fear in flight, and so on. But ... The Relations Of Mind And Brain
INTERACTION OF MIND AND BRAIN.--How, then, come these two widely different facts, mind and brain, to be so related in our speech? Why are the terms so commonly interchanged?--It is because mind and brain are so vitally related in their processes and... The Stuff Of Memory
What are the forms in which memory presents the past to us? What are the elements with which it deals? What is the stuff of which it consists? IMAGES AS THE MATERIAL OF MEMORY.--In the light of our discussion upon mental imagery, and with the aid ... The Training Of Perception
In the physical world as in the spiritual there are many people who, having eyes, see not and ears, hear not. For the ability to perceive accurately and richly in the world of physical objects depends not alone on good sense organs, but also on inte... The Types Of Association
FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF ASSOCIATION.--Stated on the physiological side, the law of habit as set forth in the definition of association in the preceding section includes all the laws of association. In different phrasing we may say: (1) Neurone groups acc... The Tyranny Of Habit
EVEN GOOD HABITS NEED TO BE MODIFIED.--But even in good habits there is danger. Habit is the opposite of attention. Habit relieves attention of unnecessary strain. Every habitual act was at one time, either in the history of the race or of the indiv... Training In Association
Since association is at bottom nothing but habit at work in the mental processes, it follows that it, like other forms of habit, can be encouraged or suppressed by training. Certainly, no part of one's education is of greater importance than the cha... Training The Imagination
Imagination is highly susceptible of cultivation, and its training should constitute one of the most important aims of education. Every school subject, but especially such subjects as deal with description and narration--history, literature, geograp... Training The Will
The will is to be trained as we train the other powers of the mind--through the exercise of its normal function. The function of the will is to direct or control in the actual affairs of life. Many well-meaning persons speak of training the will as ... Transitoriness Of Certain Interests
Since our interests are always connected with our activities it follows that many interests will have their birth, grow to full strength, and then fade away as the corresponding instincts which are responsible for the activities pass through these s... Types Of Attention
THE THREE TYPES OF ATTENTION.--Attention may be secured in three ways: (1) It is demanded by some sudden or intense sensory stimulus or insistent idea, or (2) it follows interest, or (3) it is compelled by the will. If it comes in the first way, as ... Types Of Imagination
Although imagination enters every field of human experience, and busies itself with every line of human interest, yet all its activities can be classed under two different types. These are (1) reproductive, and (2) creative imagination. REPRODUCT... Volitional Types
Several fairly well-marked volitional types may be discovered. It is, of course, to be understood that these types all grade by insensible degrees into each other, and that extreme types are the exception rather than the rule. THE IMPULSIVE TYPE.... What Constitutes A Good Memory
Let us next inquire what are the qualities which enter into what we call a good memory. The merchant or politician will say, Ability to remember well people's faces and names; the teacher of history, The ability to recall readily dates and events; t... Where Consciousness Resides
I--the conscious self--dwell somewhere in this body, but where? When my finger tips touch the object I wish to examine, I seem to be in them. When the brain grows weary from overstudy, I seem to be in it. When the heart throbs, the breath comes quic...