A history of psychology / by George Sidney Brett.

  • George Sidney Brett
Date:
1912-1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of psychology / by George Sidney Brett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    which would find no place in a history of psychology confined to purely scientific data. In this part of the work I have had to rely on translations and the state¬ ments of others, being ignorant of the languages of the ancient Eastern literatures. Fortunately such scholars as Max Muller and his collaborators, in producing versions of the “ Sacred Books of the East/' have made accessible the required data. As the object of this history is to exhibit the evolution of ideas about the soul, Eastern ideas are by no means irrelevant. They have influenced Western theories in the past, and the wTorld to-day turns to the East in its speculations almost as much as it turns away in its science or its practice. Amid much fruitless revival of empty phrases there is a useful tendency in this; it relieves the painful insistence on motions and mechanism which is our heritage from the eighteenth century. But there is urgent need for a clearer under¬ standing of many ideas, particularly those attributed to Indian sages; for a little knowledge would undermine once for all the fantastic doctrines built on stray quota¬ tions from Indian writings. Such ideas as are found in the Vedanta, for example, usually suffer depreciation or exaggeration. In reality the Indian traditions seem to say well what they have to say; both as a phase of history and as a contribution to knowledge they express significant points of view which may be given sympathetic attention without fanatical partisanship. The tendency towards mysticism makes them an abomination to some, while to others it is a recommendation or even a fatal attraction. A recent writer seems to me to have stated the case for these and similar writings in words that exactly fit the present stage of our development. “ We in our time are perhaps too much inclined to limit the powers of the human spirit to the world of sense and observation. The slackening hold on faith in a spiritual
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