Psychology : the study of behaviour.

  • McDougall, William, 1871-1938.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Psychology : the study of behaviour. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    the moon and that of falling bodies, and his consequent thinking of all sueh processes as examples of gravitation. The process of apperceptive synthesis pro- duces a simplification of the structure of the mind and of the language which reflects it, by which they are rendered more effective instruments of thinking. It may be regarded as a process by which the failures of the process of differentiation are rectified. For, if we imagine a mind developing from the primitive condition we have postulated on an earlier page (p. 89) by ideally perfect processes of successive discrimination of objects and corresponding differentiation of dispositions, we shall see that it would not lequire the synthetic fusion of systems, in order to perfect its structure and to become a true microcosm accurately reflecting the whole world of objects and their relations. We may illustrate this point by referring again to the world of life. We may suppose that such a mind would first think of every living thing it encountered simply as such, ^vithout discriminating varieties; it would know them simply as possessing the proper- ties common to all living things; in this exercising the fundamental property of re- acting in the same way to things in so far as