Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/709

 REVIEWS 693

book are filled in. It produces nothing of the impression which even those of us who are ardent admirers of James must deplore, that each chapter is a treatise upon a separate subject only distantly related to the others. The unity of all conscious processes is made a central idea in the treatment of each one.

The plan of the book is not new, but it is one which is well adapted to bring out the point of view from which it is written. The first two chapters, on the " Problems and Methods of Psychology " and on " The Psycho-physical Organism and the Nervous System," are introductory. The main subdivisions of the subject-matter proper are as follows: chaps. 3 and 4 contain a general discussion of the nature of consciousness and its relation to neural action ; chaps. 5-12 deal with cognitive processes ; chaps. 13 and 14 have to do with the affective aspect of consciousness ; chaps. 15-22 are concerned with the conative aspect, including emotion ; and the final chapter, 23, is a discussion of the self. A definite order of presentation is followed in each chapter. It may be stated in the author's own words thus :

We have made it a general practice to begin our study of a given mental process by analyzing its more conspicuous and characteristic features, and then, with this as a starting-point, we have turned back to trace, wherever we could, the genesis and function of the process in the individual, or in the race (p. 340).

The fundamental point of view, which is consistently elaborated throughout the rest of the book, is simply and clearly stated in the first two chapters of the Psychology proper, chap. 3 on the " General Relations of Consciousness to Neural Action," and chap. 4 on "Attention, Discrimination, and Association." It is in brief as follows : Consciousness is the device by means of which the organism is able to bring about new co-ordinations whenever the old ones become inadequate. In so far as adaptations are perfect, they involve no consciousness, but are purely automatic or reflex acts. In any given situation involving consciousness there are certain forms of reaction (at the outset merely the inherited ones) which can be brought to bear, but they need reorganization in order to fulfil suc- cessfully the demand made upon the organism. It is at the point where the organized reactions fail and need modification that con- sciousness appears. Its nature is determined by the sort of obstacle to be overcome. The first of the two chapters under discussion deals with habit, or the organized aspect of adaptation, while the second is concerned with the attentive, or organizing side.