Thought and the Brain The Mind and its Mechanism: with Special Reference to Ideo-Motor Action, Hypnosis, Habit and Instinct, and the Lamarekiam Theory of Evolution

Abstract

(1) THE last thirty years have witnessed the inauguration of a new era in the study of mental phenomena, the introduction of the discipline of scientific induction into a field of inquiry in which the deductive procedures of the scholastic method had run riot for many centuries. The study of the evolution of the nervous system and the experimental investigation of its mode of working prepared the way for the understanding of the biological processes that express themselves as mental phenomena. Such researches as are associated with the names of Sherrington and Pavlov are clearly of fundamental importance for the interpretation of the working of the mind and for correcting the assumptions of introspective psychology. Armed with the results and the methods of experimental physiology, the psychologist has devised tests of his own to apply the method of experiment to the phenomena of mind and, under theleadership of Spearman, has attempted to express in mathematical form the fundamental analysis of mental ability so that it can be measured and subjected to the test of experiment.

Thought and the Brain.

By Prof. Henri Piéron. Translated by C. K. Ogden. (International Library Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method. Pp. xvi + 262. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., Inc., 1927.) 12s. 6d. net.

The Mind and its Mechanism: with Special Reference to Ideo-Motor Action, Hypnosis, Habit and Instinct, and the Lamarekiam Theory of Evolution.

By Paul Bousfield W. R. Bousfield. Pp. vii + 224. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1927.) 9s. net.