COMPRISING AN INTRODUCTION TO RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY DESIGNED (PARTLY) AS A TEXT-BOOK FOR BY S. S. LAURIE, M.A., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF THE INSTITUTES AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION COPYRIGHT, 1892, EDUCATION DEPI. TYPOGRAPHY BY J. S. CUSHING & Co., BOSTON, U.S.A. PRESSWORK BY BERWICK & SMITH, BOSTON, U.S.A. PREFACE. I BEGAN this book as a Handbook for the students of my own class. It grew in the course of production. I felt that I could be of most service to students, and perhaps also to Lecturers on Education, if I printed in full the more abstract portions of my argument those, namely, which dealt with the philosophy of method. The result is that the volume is more than a Handbook and less than a Treatise. I have used the term on the title-page, "rational psychology," to distinguish my point of view. Doubtless it might be maintained that no one should in these days attempt any philosophy of mind until empirical psychology has completed its microscopic task, and psycho-physics has said its last word. This would be to strike dumb all but the devotees of physical experimentation, while they themselves do not hesitate to travel outside their peculiar field, and commit themselves to speculative opinions (e.g. freedom of the Will) which contain implicit in them a whole metaphysical system. It will be granted that the uncorrelated phenomena of consciousness, which empirical psychology offers us, cannot in itself yield a theory of knowledge, much less a philosophy of life. There must be some principle, idea (call it what you will), which correlates and unifies. And until that principle emerges out of the laboratory (if that is to be its birthplace), we may be allowed our own thoughts as 544193 |