![]() ![]() ![]() As regards Rational Psychology, which inquires into the nature of the mind itself, there is no difficulty in seeing how it is differentiated from these sciences, so we need only keep Empirical Psychology in view when comparing them. There are, however, other departments of Philosophical knowledge of a subjective character both Logic and Ethics deal with mental activities. The latter science seeks to investigate the inner constit ution of matter, the nature of space and time, and the ultimate principles or laws which underlie and govern the course of the universe while Psychology confines itself to the study of the subjective world, the mind of man. In the scheme of strictly metaphysical branches of speculation it stands opposed to Cosmology, as the Philosophy of spirit to that of nature. The scope of Psychology will be made still clearer by pointing out how it is connected with other kindred sciences, and how it is separated from them. We may thus hope by a judiciously combined use of reasoning and observation to attain to a well grounded assurance regarding the existence of an immaterial soul, its relations with the body, its origin, and its future destiny. The knowledge of the effect leads us up to that of the cause the mode of action indicates the nature of the agent. Starting from the knowledge acquired in Empirical Psychology regarding the character of the operations and activities of the mind, we draw further conclusions as to the nature and constitution of the root or subject of those activities. The two branches of the science of course employ both observation and inference but while frequent appeal to the facts of consciousness is a prominent feature in the first stage, deductive reasoning prevails in the last. Thus we have included in our First Book certain questions regarding external perception, memory, the origin of ideas, the nature of intellectual activity, and the freedom of the will which would now-a-days be usually allotted to the sphere of Rational Psychology. We have not, however, sought to make the division rigid: in fact, our chief contention is that a complete and accurate separation of the two branches of Psychology is impossible. mainly to Empirical Psychology, whilst Book II. In the present work we have devoted Book I. ![]() The second part of our subject is marked by the epithet Rational, because the truths which are there enunciated are reached, not by direct experience, but by reasoning from the conclusions established in the earlier part. It is called Empirical or Experimental, because we have an immediate experience of these facts: we can study them by immediate observation. The term Phenomenal is applied to the first part of Psychology, because it investigates the various phenomena of the mind, the facts of consciousness. Such are the primary significations of these terms, but the meanings vary with different writers. Thus a train of thought, an emotion, and a dream are said to be subjective whilst a horse, an election, and a war are objective realities. ![]() The adjective subjective is similarly opposed to objective, as denoting mental in opposition to extra-mental facts, what pertains to the knowing mind as contrasted with In modern philosophy the mind is also called the Subject, especially set in contrast with the external world, which is characterized as the Object. The terms Ego, Self, Spirit, are used as synonymous with mind and soul, and, though slight differences attach to some of them, it will be convenient for us (except where we specially call attention to divergencies of meaning) to follow common usage and employ them as practically equivalent. By the mind or soul ( psuche) is meant the thinking principle, that by which I feel, know, and will, and by which my body is animated. Psychology ( tês psuchês logos) is that branch of philosophy which studies the human mind 0r soul. DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF PSYCHOLOGY.ĭefinition. ![]()
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