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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    the recognised identity of its object. I am one in so far as my world is one. Conditions of Psychical Process. —- We come now to the third of the questions with which we started. Psychology investigates the conditions of the occurrence of psychical states. What are these ? In part they are themselves psychical. They fall within the process of consciousness itself. Conscious life is a development in which preceding stages form the basis and presupposition of succeeding stages. But this internal development is not self-support- ing. It requires a multitude of contributory conditions which are not themselves psychical states or processes. The flow of individual consciousness is closely connected with and constantly dependent on a particular bodily organ- ism with its organs of sense and movement. The psychol- ogist cannot give a systematic account of psychical process without reference to these bodily conditions. He is also compelled at every step to recognise the existence of what are called psychical or mental dispositions, inherited and acquired. Our actual experience at any moment is deter- mined by conditions which are not themselves actual experi- ence, but the abiding after-effects left behind by prior experiences. I recognise a man to-day because I met him yesterday, although I may not have thought of him in the interval. This can only be because my experience of yes- terday has left behind an after-effect which has persisted through the intervening time and now determines my present experience. This residual after-effect is an ac- quired disposition. Again, what are called in ordinary language friendship and enmity are acquired dispositions of a complex charac- ter rather than actual psychical processes. Friendship
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