The Story of the Mind

The Story of the Mind, by James
Mark Baldwin

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of the Mind, by James
Mark Baldwin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost
and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Story of the Mind
Author: James Mark Baldwin
Release Date: February 6, 2007 [EBook #20522]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
STORY OF THE MIND ***

Produced by Curtis Weyant, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by Case Western
Reserve University Preservation Department Digital Library)

THE

STORY OF THE MIND

BY
JAMES MARK BALDWIN

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1905

COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1902,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
* * * * *

PREFACE.
In this little book I have endeavoured to maintain the simplicity which
is the ideal of this series. It is more difficult, however, to be simple in a
topic which, even in its illustrations, demands of the reader more or less
facility in the exploration of his own mind. I am persuaded that the
attempt to make the matter of psychology more elementary than is here
done, would only result in making it untrue and so in defeating its own
object.
In preparing the book I have secured the right and welcomed the
opportunity to include certain more popular passages from earlier

books and articles. It is necessary to say this, for some people are loath
to see a man repeat himself. When one has once said a thing, however,
about as well as he can say it, there is no good reason that he should be
forced into the pretence of saying something different simply to avoid
using the same form of words a second time. The question, of course, is
as to whether he should not then resign himself to keeping still, and
letting others do the further speaking. There is much to be said for such
a course. But if one have the right to print more severe and difficult
things, and think he really has something to say which would instruct
the larger audience, it would seem only fair to allow him to speak in the
simpler way also, even though all that he says may not have the merit
of escaping the charge of infringing his own copyrights!
I am indebted to the proprietors of the following magazines for the use
of such passages: The Popular Science Monthly, The Century
Magazine, The Inland Educator; and with them I also wish to thank
The Macmillan Company and the owners of Appletons' Universal
Cyclopædia.
As to the scope and contents of the Story, I have aimed to include
enough statement of methods and results in each of the great
departments of psychological research to give the reader an intelligent
idea of what is being done, and to whet his appetite for more detailed
information. In the choice of materials I have relied frankly on my own
experience and in debatable matters given my own opinions. This gives
greater reality to the several topics, besides making it possible, by this
general statement, at once to acknowledge it, and also to avoid
discussion and citation of authorities in the text. At the same time, in
the exposition of general principles I have endeavoured to keep well
within the accepted truth and terminology of psychology.
It will be remarked that in several passages the evolution theory is
adopted in its application to the mind. While this great theory can not
be discussed in these pages, yet I may say that, in my opinion, the
evidence in favour of it is about the same, and about as strong, as in
biology, where it is now made a presupposition of scientific
explanation. So far from being unwelcome, I find it in psychology no

less than in biology a great gain, both from the point of view of
scientific knowledge and from that of philosophical theory. Every great
law that is added to our store adds also to our conviction that the
universe is run through with Mind. Even so-called Chance, which used
to be the "bogie" behind Natural Selection, has now been found to
illustrate--in the law of Probabilities--the absence of Chance. As
Professor Pearson has said: "We recognise that our conception of
Chance is now utterly different from that of yore.... What we are to
understand by a chance distribution is one in accordance with law, and
one the nature of which can, for all practical purposes, be closely