expanded within about a year, bringing the book down to the end of chapter xi. Owing to the exigencies of space, the sections of the article dealing with experience at the self-conscious and social level had been unduly compressed. Hence the remaining chapters (xii-xviii), forming almost a third of the book, are, with the exception of a few pages, entirely new; and the last two were no part of the original plan. On the other hand the concluding sections of the article-on the Relation of Body and Mind and on Comparative Psychology-which first appeared in the supplement-are now omitted: perhaps I may have an opportunity of dealing with these topics by and by. "A belated patchwork, mostly of antiquated rags" such, then, is the sort of censorious criticism the author may expect to hear and must endeavour to anticipate. From the charge of putting forth a belated book' I am at any rate partly absolved by the general demand that has long existed and still exists. Moreover I have done my best in the text and still more in notes to place a studious reader au courant with the psychological literature of the present day. But there is a psychology which arrogates to itself the title of 'new'.' New it undoubtedly is, and there are signs that in its present form it will not long survive. In any case it is not psychology-save in so far as it occasionally furnishes the psychologist with material of some value. As a method in the hands of psychologists it has done some good: as a pretended science in the hands of tyros whose psychological training has not even begun, it has done infinite harm. This book, however, is not so antiquated as to ignore altogether the character and claims of this 'modern' psychology, as the reader may see. As to the lack of originality which this charge may covertly imply-perhaps the inaccessibility of a long article in a vast work of general reference will make this charge seem more plausible than it is. For much of this article, I am proud to say, has become the common property of students to whom the original is unknown. À propos of this I may be pardoned for referring to the concluding words of a too laudatory review by the late 1 Concerning this I may perhaps here refer to my "Modern' Psychology: a Reflexion," Mind, N.S. ii. (1893), PP. 54 ff. Alexander Bain-all the more generous as on several points the views put forward by me differed widely from his own1. Finally, as to the charge of 'patchwork '-this, I have admitted and lament; but the patches are my own and the plan is, I hope, uniform. I have done my best to weld the old and the new together, and I confess that what distress me most are not the patches' but the 'holes.' In any case a book on psychological principles-that is, one aiming to be 'explanatory'-must differ from one concerned chiefly in being 'descriptive.' I never contemplated more than an exposition of psychology as a whole: merely subsidiary details, however interesting, were beyond my purview'. But in writing the later chapters I have become painfully aware of more serious gaps. Unfortunately the earlier chapters were by that time printed off. Of course it would have been better at the outset to have scrapped the whole, as was my original intention, but in 1913 my day was too far spent for that. An author may be expected to acknowledge his obligations. Psychology was not taught in Cambridge in my day, and what I owe to others I owe entirely to previous writers and to my pupils. Among the former, besides our English psychologists, I may mention Herbart and some of the Herbartians, Lotze, Wundt, Brentano and his Austrian connexions. In the actual preparation of the book, I am indebted to friends, too numerous to mention, for their help on special points; but three, who patiently waded through all the galleyslips, furnishing me with detailed and valuable comments-to say nothing of 'counsels of perfection' beyond my reach-I 1 Cf. "Mr James Ward's Psychology," Mind, xii. (1886), p. 477. 2 Chapter ix, it must be allowed, hardly conforms to the rule. The substance of it appeared first in the supplementary or tenth edition of the Encyclopaedia. The purpose of that edition was to bring the articles of the ninth 'up to date'; and as the supplementary article "Psychology" began by stating that "psychology since 1885 had entered upon an experimental stage," the experimental work 'relating to memory and association' was selected as 'probably the most important' and a brief account inserted later on 'by way of illustrating the so-called new psychology.' And after all it bears on some problems-the so-called 'regressive' and 'mediate' forms of association, for example, among others—that are of fundamental importance. Hence it was retained; but if there is one chapter more than another in the book that may be skipped,' it is this. must name: they were Mr H. Barker of the University of Edinburgh, Professor G. F. Stout of the University of St Andrews— former students of my own-and Dr G. Dawes Hicks, Professor at University College, London. I shall always feel deeply grateful to them for services that I can never repay. I have also to thank Mr A. R. Waller, the Secretary of the Press Syndicate, and the officials of the Press itself for their kindly cooperation and long forbearance. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. July, 1918. JAMES WARD. |
