Elements of Physiological Psychology: A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind from the Physical and Experimental Point of View

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C. Scribner's sons, 1887 - Mind and body - 696 pages
"There can be no doubt that an important movement in psychology has arisen in recent times through the effort to approach the phenomena of mind from the experimental and physiological point of view. As a result of some years of study of the general subject, I express with considerable confidence the opinion that there is no ground for extravagant claims or expectations, and still less ground for any fear of consequences. In all cases of new and somewhat rankly growing scientific enterprises, it is much the better way to waive the discussion of actual or possible achievements, as well as of welcomed or dreaded revelations of new truth, and proceed at once to the business on hand. It is proposed in this book to follow this better way. It will be the task of the book itself to set forth the assured or alleged results of Physiological Psychology; and this will be done at every step with such degree of assurance as belongs to the evidence hitherto attainable upon the particular subject discussed. With declamation, either in attack or defense of the "old psychology," of the "introspective method," etc., one may dispense without serious loss. The method and arrangement of the book have been chosen so as to fit it for use, both as a text-book by special students of the subjects of which it treats, and also by the general reader who is interested in knowing what results have been reached by the more modern--and even the latest--psycho-physical researches"--Pref. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).
 

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Page 187 - It consists of three parts — the Vestibule, the Semicircular Canals, and the Cochlea.
Page 517 - My theory, on the contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion.
Page 517 - What kind of an emotion of fear would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think.
Page 556 - ... memory wholly inexplicable as a mere persistence or recurrence of similar impressions. It is this which makes conscious memory a spiritual phenomenon, the explanation of which, as arising out of nervous processes and conditions, is not simply undiscovered in fact, but utterly incapable of approach by the imagination. When, then, we speak of a physical basis of memory, recognition must be made of the complete inability of science to suggest any physical process which can be conceived of as correlated...
Page 653 - one substance, with two sets of properties, two sides, the physical and the mental— a double-faced unity.
Page 521 - ... feeling. The rule, that the whole of a presentation of sight shall be to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, has been called
Page 517 - Can one fancy the state of rage and picture no ebullition of it in the chest, no flushing of the face, no dilatation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action, but in their stead limp muscles, calm breathing, and a placid face?
Page 74 - But some of the fibres from the pyramids of the medulla do not cross in the upper part of the cord. These form the uncrossed (or anterior) part of the pyramidal tract; this part gradually diminishes as it passes downward, and ceases in the dorsal region of the cord.
Page 499 - a very considerable number of the facts may be brought under the following principle — namely, that states of pleasure are connected with an increase, and states of pain with an abatement, of some, or all, of the vital functions.
Page 499 - Pleasure is the concomitant of the healthy action of any or all of the organs or members supplied with afferent cerebrospinal nerves, to an extent not exceeding the ordinary powers of reparation possessed by the system.

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