Studies in the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling
9781465622006
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Of all the sciences psychology is, perhaps, the most imperfect. If a science is a body of knowledge obtained by special research and accepted by the general consensus of specialists, then psychology is so defective as to scarcely merit the name of science. This want of consensus is everywhere apparent, and must especially impress any one who compares the lack of harmony in manuals of psychology with the practical unanimity in manuals of botany, geology, physics, and other sciences. Even in the most fundamental points there is no agreement, as will be evident in a most summary statement. It is now something more than a century since the general division of psychic phenomena into intellect, feeling and will, first came into repute, but still some psychologists of note do not agree to this fundamental classification, but would unite feeling and will in a single order. As to the subdivisions of feeling and will we are confessedly wholly at sea. In intellect it is only on the lower side, sensation and perception, that anything of great scientific value has been accomplished; and even now it cannot be said that the classes of sensation have been marked off with perfect certainty. In the higher range of intellect psychology can do scarcely more than accept some ready-made divisions from common observation and logic. And if so little has been settled in the comparatively simple work of a descriptive classification of the facts of mind, we may be assured that still less has been accomplished toward a scientific consensus for the laws of mind. Weber’s law alone seems to stand on any secure basis of experiment, but its range and meaning are still far from being determined. Even the laws of the association of ideas are still the subjects of endless controversy. Also in method there is manifestly the greatest disagreement. The physiological and introspective schools each magnify their own methods, sometimes so far as to discredit all others. Physiological method has won for itself a certain standing, indeed, but just what are its limitations is still far from being settled. But the grievous lack of generally accepted results is most apparent in the domain of feeling. The discussion of feeling in most manuals is very meagre and unsatisfactory. Professor James’s recent treatise, for instance, gives some 900 pages to the Intellect, and about 100 pages each to Feeling and Will. There is little thorough analysis and no perfected inductive classification. We often, indeed, find essays of literary value which appeal to the authority of literature. But to refer to Shakspeare or Goethe as psychological authorities, or in illustration or proof of psychological laws, is generally a doubtful procedure. The literary and artistic treatment of human nature is quite distinct from the scientific, and literature and art cannot be said to be of much more value for psychology than for physics, chemistry, or biology. To appeal to the Bible or Shakspeare in matters psychological, is usually as misleading as to consult them for light on geology or botany. Even the fuller treatises on the subject of feeling rarely reach beyond literary method and common observation, being for the most part a collection and arrangement of the results of common sense, accepting common definitions, terms, and classifications.
