Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1920 edition. Excerpt: ... viii remarks on spencer'S definition of mind as correspondence1 1878 As a rule it may be said that, at a time when readers are so overwhelmed with work as they are at the present day, all purely critical and destructive writing ought to be reprobated. The half-gods generally refuse to go, in spite of the ablest criticism, until the gods actually have arrived; but then, too, criticism is hardly needed. But there are cases in which every rule may be broken. "What " exclaimed Voltaire, when accused of offering no substitute for the Christianity he attacked, "je vou s dilivre d'une bete feroce, et voUs me demandez par quoi je la remplace " Without comparing Mr. Spencer's definition of Mind either to Christianity or to a "bete feroce" it may certainly be said to be very far-reaching in its consequences, and, accord ' Reprinted from Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 1878, 12, 1-18. The central Idea of this essay is the teleological character of mind. This idea may be said to be the germinal idea of James's psychology, epistemology, and philosophy of religion. Cf. Will to Believe, p. 117 ("Reflex Action and Theism"), where this essay is referred to, with the remark that "the conceiving or theorizing faculty... functions exclusively for the sake of ends that... are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity." Ed. ing to certain standards, noxious; whilst probably a large proportion of tliose hard-headed readers who subscribe to the Popular Science Monthly and Nature, and whose sole philosopher Mr. Spencer is, are fascinated by it without being in the least aware what its consequences are. The defects of the formula are so glaring that I am surprised it should not long ago have been critically overhauled. The reader will readily