Chapter I: Front Matter

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 46677-h.htm or 46677-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/46677/pg46677-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46677/46677-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/introductiontops032004mbp

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY

by

WILHELM WUNDT

Professor of Philosophy in the University Of Leipsic

Translated from the Second German Edition by Rudolf Pintner, M. A. (Edin.), Ph. D., (Leipsic)

Publication of the "Pädagogische Literatur Gesellschaft Neue Bahnen"

London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. Ruskin House, 40 Museum St. W. C. I.

Published 1912--Reprint 1920

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

It is not the intention of this introduction to psychology to discuss the scientific or philosophical conceptions of psychology, or even to make a survey of the investigations and their results. What this little book attempts is rather to introduce the reader to the principal thoughts underlying present-day experimental psychology, leaving out many facts and methods which would be necessary for a thorough study of the subject. To omit all mention of experimental methods and their results is at the present day impossible. Yet we only need to consider a comparatively small number of results of the first importance in order to comprehend the basal principles of the new psychology. To characterise the methods of this psychology it would be impossible to omit all reference to experiments, but we can and will omit reference to the more or less complicated instruments on which the carrying out of such experiments depends. I must refer the reader who wishes a fuller account of the new psychology to my _Outlines of Psychology_, which also contains the necessary bibliography of the subject.

W. WUNDT.
Leipsic, June 1911.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

The present volume is a popular introduction to the Wundtian psychology. It is a shorter and simpler sketch than the same author's _Outlines of Psychology_, and it should prove invaluable to the English-speaking student who wishes to gain some conception of the subject before entering upon a deeper study of the same. Its popularity in Germany has been phenomenal.

In translating the work the translator has, as far as possible, used the same English terms as those employed in the translations of Wundt by Judd and Titchener.

He is greatly indebted to Mr. Robert Wilson, M.A., B. Sc., for his advice and help in reading over the manuscript before going to press.

RUDOLF PINTNER.
Edinburgh, May 1912.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ATTENTION

Psychology as a description of processes of
consciousness--The metronome--The rhythmical
disposition of consciousness--The scope of
consciousness--The threshold of consciousness--The
fixation-point and field of consciousness--The focus
of attention--The scope of attention--Apprehension and
apperception

CHAPTER II

THE ELEMENTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Psychical elements and compounds--Sensation and
idea--Memory images and perceptions--Quality and
intensity of sensations--Feelings--Difference
between sensation and feeling--The three pairs
of feelings--The affective process--Emotions and
moods--Volitional processes--Motives--Instinctive,
voluntary, and discriminative actions--The qualities
of feelings--Feeling and apperception

CHAPTER III

ASSOCIATION

Associations and apperceptions--The fusion of tones
into clangs--Spatial and temporal perception
--Assimilation and dissimilation--Direct and reproduced
forms of the same--Complications--The recognition and
cognition of objects--Successive association--The
so-called "feeling of familiarity"--Secondary ideas
--The affective processes in recognition--The so-called
states of consciousness in forgetting, remembering, &c.
--Memory associations

CHAPTER IV

APPERCEPTION

General characteristics of apperceptive combinations
as compared to associations--The aggregate idea and
its analysis--Concrete and abstract thought--Speech
and thought--Understanding and imagination--Examples
of primitive forms of speech in the language of
primitive races--Development of apperceptive
combinations out of associative ones--Inadequacy
of the method of introspection in dealing with the
psychological problems of thought--Psychology of
language and race

CHAPTER V

THE LAWS OF PSYCHICAL LIFE

The relation between psychical and natural laws--The
psycho-physical individual--The question as to the
universal validity of the laws--The principle of
creative resultants--The principle of heterogony of
ends--The principle of conditioning relations--The
principle of intensifying contrasts--The psychological
and physical standpoints--Relation between physical
and psychical values--Physical and psychical
elements--The nature of the soul--Mythological
views--The "substance" hypothesis--The principle of
the actuality of mind

AN INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY