The groundwork of psychology / by G.F. Stout.

  • George Frederick Stout
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The groundwork of psychology / by G.F. Stout. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mined by a direct trial of strength between the competing tendencies, not by a voluntary decision preferring the one to the other. As the life of ideas develops desire takes the place of merely perceptual impulse. Conation, instead of issuing directly in bodily action or failing altogether to find an outlet, dwells on the idea of its end and the ideally repre- sented means of its attainment. Further, the object may be itself more or less a result of free ideal construction. We can not only “ desire to live again through experiences of which there is nothing actually present to remind us ” ;1 we can also desire what we have not previously experienced at all. With the progress of conceptual analysis and synthesis these ends become more complex, more remote from the present situation, and more generalised. Thus ends come to be pursued which demand the labour of a lifetime; others again require the combined effort of many individuals, each making a relatively small contribution to the common cause. Often the desired object is one which cannot be fully realised within the lifetime of the agent. Another aspect of this process is the organisation of cona- tive tendencies in a more or less unified system. Each separate end is pursued, not only for its own sake, but also as a step toward or away from other ends. It is regarded as part of a general plan of life. We eat not only because we have an appetite for food, but also because we cannot do other things, or live at all, without eating. A student reads a text-book not only because he is interested in the subject-matter, but because he desires to pass an examina- tion ; he desires to pass the examination not only because he wishes for evidence that he really knows something about the subject, but also because he desires a diploma; 1 Ward, article on psychology in the Encyc. Brit., p. 74.
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