Page:Mary Whiton Calkins - A First Book in Psychology (1st edition, 1902 printing).pdf/9



pressing into the crowded ranks of psychological text-books, this volume has one practical excuse to offer,—the convenience of the students to whom its author lectures. The book is written in the conviction that psychology should study consciousness, both as a series of complex mental processes, or ideas, and as a relation of conscious selves to each other. It is hoped, however, that the two points of view have been so carefully distinguished that the book may be useful to readers who reject one or other of these underlying conceptions.

As its name implies, the book is intended for students beginning the study of psychology; and,—except for the last chapter and parts of the Appendix,—it substantially reproduces a first course, as actually given. References to psychological literature and formulations of conflicting theories are included, in the belief that, in the use of textbooks, “a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,” and with the conviction that excessively simplified statements, unsupported by reference to different writers, tend to breed in the student a dogmatic or an unduly docile habit of thought, The references, like the supplementary discussions of the Appendix, are meant also for the use of the more advanced student. The section on the structure and functions of the nervous system has been added, for the practical advantage of including, within the covers of one book, all that is absolutely essential to the first-year student