BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, MADRAS: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. TORONTO: J. M. DENT AND SONS, LTD. TOKYO: THE MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA All rights reserved 19-7229 PSYCHOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES LIBRARY BY JAMES WARD SC.D. (CANTAB.), HON. LL.D. (EDIN.), Hon. D.Sc. (oXON.) FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY AND OF THE DANISH ROYAL SOCIETY AND PROFESSOR OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY, CAMBRIDGE Cambridge: New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons 1919 PREFACE HERE are certain obvious defects in this book due to the ΤΗ circumstances of its composition. The author trusts that a brief account of those circumstances may therefore be at least condoned. Just forty years ago, that is in 1878-when I began lecturing on Psychology-the plan of the book was laid down. As the lectures proceeded, abstracts of some of them were privately printed for discussion at a Moral Sciences Club, in which some other Cambridge books also took their rise. The first two of these abstracts, written in 1880, were afterwards reproduced without revision in the American Journal of Speculative Philosophy for 1882-3, one corresponding to the present chapter ii, and the other, entitled "Objects and their Interaction," to parts of the present chapters iv-vii. A third on Space and Time, written in 1881, was rejected by the late G. Croom Robertson the editor of Mind, as too difficult and revolutionary for publication as it stood. But afterwards he accepted and published what were to have been the two opening chapters of a book bearing the same title as this. Other chapters were to follow, but circumstances diverted them elsewhere. In 1884 Croom Robertson, who had engaged some years previously to write the article. 'Psychology" for the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, was prevented by failing health from proceeding further with it. Professor Sully, who was next appealed to, having declined the task, the editor of the Encyclopaedia, at that time. T. Spencer Baynes, chancing to have made my acquaintance, offered it to me. I rashly sacrificed my book to the offer and so, as it has turned out, destroyed one of the dreams of my life. The article was begun late in 1884 and completed in 1885; then, in 1902, a supplementary article was prepared for the tenth edition of the Encyclopaedia; and finally, in 1908, these 84402 with omissions and additions were hastily amalgamated into the new article of the present or eleventh edition. For here again circumstances were untoward. I had at first declined to undertake this, pointing out the advisability of an entirely new article, which at the time I was not disposed to attempt, and recommending a younger man well fitted to take my place. Some two years later, however, the obdurate editor with many compliments begged me to reconsider my decision, but telling me plainly that-in default of a revised article from me-he meant just to reprint the old ones as they were. Finding that his threat could be legally upheld, I yielded to his importunity. Thus the final article like the first one was done in a hurry. The article of the ninth edition, published by A. and C. Black, was procurable separately. What circulation it had in this form I have never been able to ascertain; but once it was out of print and copies fetched a fancy price. With the tenth edition, published by the Times, apparently this separate issue ceased. Since then requests for a reprint or an expansion have been many and continuous both from publishers and booksellers as well as from private people. In view of this demand I stipulated, before at last undertaking the final revision mentioned above, that I should be at liberty to use the articles as the basis for a new book. This permission was readily granted by the proprietors of the copyright; but on the understanding that the book should be about a third longer and not sold below a certain price. Up to 1894 I had continued working systematically at psychology as far as new duties allowed. A paper in Mind, N.S. vols. ii.-iii. (1893-4), entitled "Assimilation and Association," was one of these essays: portions of this were incorporated in the article as it appeared in 1911 as well as portions of papers hitherto unpublished. But in 1894 I became engrossed in other subjects and the idea of an entirely new book on psychology was thenceforth abandoned. Accordingly in the spring of 1913, when arrangements for this book were made, my intention was to meet the general wish for a reissue of the Encyclopaedia article and at the same time to satisfy the demands of the proprietors by enlarging it from material already more or less in shape1. On the prescribed scale some three-quarters of the article were 1 The first chapter, for example, had previously served as opening article in the British Journal of Psychology, i. (1904). |