Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's IdealsJames, William
Science
Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals
James, William
College students -- Conduct of life; Educational psychology; Teachers -- Professional ethics
Thus, in biology, we used to have interminable discussion as to whether
certain single-celled organisms were animals or vegetables, until
Haeckel introduced the new apperceptive name of Protista, which ended
the disputes. In law courts no _tertium quid_ is recognized between
insanity and sanity. If sane, a man is punished: if insane, acquitted;
and it is seldom hard to find two experts who will take opposite views
of his case. All the while, nature is more subtle than our doctors. Just
as a room is neither dark nor light absolutely, but might be dark for a
watchmaker's uses, and yet light enough to eat in or play in, so a man
may be sane for some purposes and insane for others,--sane enough to be
left at large, yet not sane enough to take care of his financial
affairs. The word 'crank,' which became familiar at the time of
Guiteau's trial, fulfilled the need of a _tertium quid_. The foreign
terms 'desequilibre,' 'hereditary degenerate,' and 'psychopathic'
subject, have arisen in response to the same need.
The whole progress of our sciences goes on by the invention of newly
forged technical names whereby to designate the newly remarked aspects
of phenomena,--phenomena which could only be squeezed with violence into
the pigeonholes of the earlier stock of conceptions. As time goes on,
our vocabulary becomes thus ever more and more voluminous, having to
keep up with the ever-growing multitude of our stock of apperceiving
ideas.
In this gradual process of interaction between the new and the old, not
only is the new modified and determined by the particular sort of old
which apperceives it, but the apperceiving mass, the old itself, is
modified by the particular kind of new which it assimilates. Thus, to
take the stock German example of the child brought up in a house where
there are no tables but square ones, 'table' means for him a thing in
which square corners are essential. But, if he goes to a house where
there are round tables and still calls them tables, his apperceiving
notion 'table' acquires immediately a wider inward content. In this way,
our conceptions are constantly dropping characters once supposed
essential, and including others once supposed inadmissible. The
extension of the notion 'beast' to porpoises and whales, of the notion
'organism' to society, are familiar examples of what I mean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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