Licence: In copyright
Credit: The mind of man : a text-book of psychology / by Gustav Spiller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![mastered it. Ordinary scientific observation is unquestionably beyond the uninitiated.* This is also true of self-observation. ^ At first we must expect the student to be helpless and inefficient. Only with time and practice will his ability to grapple effectually with psychic facts assume any considerable proportions. Like every discipline, psychology has its own difficulties which the student must overcome. Failure at first should no more discourage or dishearten him than the corresponding failure to ride a bicycle easily and gracefully when mounting one for the first time. He must judiciously practise until the so-called impossibilities, of which we heard so much in the last section, become commonplace realities. “ Be normal ” in your psychologising, is the supreme rule. To show nervousness, to become excited, to be full of anxiety, to wonder, to doubt, to desire, are states which the student must ignore. Ordinary attention is liable to these very freaks, and passes beyond thein by dmt of intelligent practice. Average individuals go about their affairs without becoming morbidly self- conscious and agitated. In a similar manner, agitation in self-observation argues the apprentice eye. We must become accustomed to turn inwards with as little ado as when turning outwards. Let us leave generalities. As I am writing at the present moment I do not, as far as the writing is concerned, in the slightest measure feel excited or confused. If I shut my eyes, as I have done just now, the writing ought to proceed with no more transformation in the process than is implied in the absence of sight. Any excitement or change in the attention is of the evil one, and the most delicate instrument should scarcely record any modifica- tion. Mechanically the eyes are closed, and mechanically we proceed. After some practice it should be difficult to tell which out of a number of short lines were written with eyes closed or eyes open.f On the intel- lectual side, too, the severest scrutiny should reveal only serene peacefulness. [Repeat this experiment a number of times, and record results.~\ Thus with walking. At any convenient moment I shut my eyes and walk along as if they were open. My thoughts also keep unchanged, and there is altogether no alteration except as regards the absence of sight and its results. Should I be self-conscious and find normal thought difficult, or should I detect that I am different, it would be a proof that my experiment has been a failure and that I require further practice. [Test experimentally.Thus with eyes open, after due exercise, I attend to what can be observed as regards the process of walking : how I lift the legs, how I put them down, and the sensations connected with these acts. If I am thoroughly trained, there will be no normal feelings suppressed or added to, and there will only be noted what a perfect memory of the normal process would redevelop. * “ Observation is not, like perception and sensation, something that comes to man of itself; witness the fact that there are countless numbers who never reach the point of observing the phenomena of outer existence ” (Beneke, Die neue Psychologic, 1845, P- 15)- + Bain (Senses and Intellect, 1894, p. 348) incautiously observes : “ When we make our signature without seeing it, the execution is very faulty.” (Test this.']](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21938982_0041.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
