The Principles of Psychology
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~270,000 words · 1,279 passages
Cite this work
- APAHerbert Spencer. (n.d.). The Principles of Psychology. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-principles-of-psychology
- MLAHerbert Spencer. The Principles of Psychology. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-principles-of-psychology.
- ChicagoHerbert Spencer. The Principles of Psychology. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/herbert-spencer/the-principles-of-psychology.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
Spencer's psychology: mind understood as the organism's adaptation to its environment, and its forms as the accumulated result of that adaptation.
Context and history
The first edition is of 1855, four years before the Origin of Species: Spencer was already thinking in evolutionary terms before Darwin published, though with a different mechanism — he has acquired characters inherited, which would turn out to be false. It is worth reading with that in mind: it is one of the cases where one sees plainly that an idea can be in the air before anyone finds the proof of it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Realists and Idealists naturally regard that Transfigured Realism which, accepts from each a moiety of his doctrine but rejects the rest., I scarcely expect that when* they before discovered only incongruities, tins new division will show them that there are cougruitios. 1 can do no more than exhibit those, in the belief that they will, be apparent to all who have not yet committed, themselves to one side or the other. I may add that inability to rooogni/,0 these cougruitios admits of two interpretations, conveniently suggested by a Rvnrilo which I have before employed in another relation. Taken at different angles from the same object', tho two photographs placed in a stereoscope, when iirsi. viewed, not unfroquontly form a confused double imago ; but after persevering contemplation, most observers find them suddeidy unite into a single clear representation of the object. Meanwhile, there arc some eyes which to the lasJL fail in combining thorn; and, to which they continuously appear conflicting ami confused. "London, October, 1880. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. WORDS are somewhat strained in their meanings by calling that a Second Edition, of which the new portion greatly exceeds the old portion in amount ; . as happens with this volume, and as will happen with its successor. Of the five Parts here bound together, the two that have previously appeared cover 217 pages; while the three that now appear for the first time cover 425 pages.