An introduction to social psychology / by William McDougall.

  • McDougall, William, 1871-1938
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: An introduction to social psychology / by William McDougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/496 (page 44)
    We may say, then, that directly or indirectly the instincts are the prime movers of all human activity; by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct (or of some habit derived from an instinct), every train of thought, however cold and passionless it may seem, is borne along towards its end, and every bodily activity is initiated and sustained. The instinctive impulses determine the ends of all activities and supply the driving power by which all mental activities are sus¬ tained ; and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most highly developed mind is but a means towards these ends, is but the instrument by which these im¬ pulses seek their satisfactions, while pleasure and pain do but serve to guide them in their choice of the means. Take away these instinctive dispositions with their powerful impulses, and the organism would become incapable of activity of any kind ; it would lie inert and motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose main¬ spring had been removed or a steam-engine whose fires had been drawn. These impulses are the mental forces that maintain and shape all the life of individuals and societies, and in them we are confronted with the central mystery of life and mind and will. The following chapters, I hope, will render clearer, and will give some support to, the views briefly and somewhat dogmatically stated in the present chapter. strange cluster, of ideas of all the pains suffered in the past upon contact with, or in the presence of, that object? (cj. Bain’s “Emo¬ tions and the Will,” chap. vi. ; and H. Spencer’s “ Principles of Psychology,” vol. i. part iv. chap. viii. 3rd Ed.) 1 For a further discussion of the nature of instinct the reader may be referred to The British Journal of Psychology, vol. iii., which contains papers contributed to a symposium on Instinct and Intelligence by Messrs. C. S. Myers, Lloyd Morgan, Wildon Carr, G. F. Stout, and the author.