The Science of Human Nature | Page 2

the psychological frame of mind or attitude which
you should acquire. The psychological attitude is that of seeking to find
and understand the causes of human action, and the causes,
consequences, and significance of the processes of the human mind. If
your first course in psychology teaches you to look for these things,
gives you some skill in finding them and in using the knowledge after
you have it, your study should be quite worth while.
W. H. PYLE.

EDITOR'S PREFACE
There are at least two possible approaches to the study of psychology
by teacher-training students in high schools and by beginning students
in normal schools.
One of these is through methods of teaching and subject matter. The
other aims to give the simple, concrete facts of psychology as the
science of the mind. The former presupposes a close relationship
between psychology and methods of teaching and assumes that
psychology is studied chiefly as an aid to teaching. The latter is less
complicated. The plan contemplates the teaching of the simple

fundamentals at first and applying them incidentally as the occasion
demands. This latter point of view is in the main the point of view
taken in the text.
The author has taught the material of the text to high school students to
the end that he might present the fundamental facts of psychology in
simple form.
W. W. C.

CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER II.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE RACE AND OF THE INDIVIDUAL 18
CHAPTER III.
MIND AND BODY 34
CHAPTER IV.
INHERITED TENDENCIES 50
CHAPTER V.
FEELING AND ATTENTION 73
CHAPTER VI.

HABIT 87
CHAPTER VII.
MEMORY 124
CHAPTER VIII.
THINKING 152
CHAPTER IX.
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 176
CHAPTER X.
APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY 210
GLOSSARY 223
INDEX 227

THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
=Science.= Before attempting to define psychology, it will be helpful to
make some inquiry into the nature of science in general. Science is
knowledge; it is what we know. But mere knowledge is not science.
For a bit of knowledge to become a part of science, its relation to other
bits of knowledge must be found. In botany, for example, bits of
knowledge about plants do not make a science of botany. To have a
science of botany, we must not only know about leaves, roots, flowers,
seeds, etc., but we must know the relations of these parts and of all the

parts of a plant to one another. In other words, in science, we must not
only know, we must not only have knowledge, but we must know the
significance of the knowledge, must know its meaning. This is only
another way of saying that we must have knowledge and know its
relation to other knowledge.
A scientist is one who has learned to organize his knowledge. The main
difference between a scientist and one who is not a scientist is that the
scientist sees the significance of facts, while the non-scientific man sees
facts as more or less unrelated things. As one comes to hunt for causes
and inquire into the significance of things, one becomes a scientist. A
thing or an event always points beyond itself to something else. This
something else is what goes before it or comes after it,--is its cause or
its effect. This causal relationship that exists between events enables a
scientist to prophesy. By carefully determining what always precedes a
certain event, a certain type of happening, a scientist is able to predict
the event. All that is necessary to be able to predict an event is to have a
clear knowledge of its true causes. Whenever, beyond any doubt, these
causes are found to be present, the scientist knows the event will follow.
Of course, all that he really knows is that such results have always
followed similar causes in the past. But he has come to have faith in the
uniformity and regularity of nature. The chemist does not find sulphur,
or oxygen, or any other element acting one way one day under a certain
set of conditions, and acting another way the next day under exactly the
same conditions. Nor does the physicist find the laws of mechanics
holding good one day and not the next.
The scientist, therefore, in his thinking brings order out of chaos in the
world. If we do not know the causes and relations of things and events,
the world seems a very mixed-up, chaotic place, where anything and
everything is happening. But as we come to know causes and relations,
the world turns out to be a very orderly and systematic place. It is a
lawful world; it is not a world of chance. Everything is related to
everything else.
Now, the non-scientific mind sees things as more or less unrelated. The
far-reaching causal relations