THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PREJUDICE. 633 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PREJUDICE. 



By G. T. W. PATEICK, Ph. D., 



PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY LN THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. 



THE rapidly enlarging field of modern psychology makes it 

 possible to discuss some questions not before attempted by 

 students of mental science. There is, however, even yet, one 

 apparently simple problem in mental pathology which the most 

 hardy philosopher would hardly hope to solve. This problem 

 is to determine, by analysis of the soul, the causes, symptoms, 

 and cure of narrow-mindedness, or mental bias. Such a research, 

 if aught could be made of it, would be as fascinating as it would 

 be fruitful. 



My present attempt is less ambitious. It is to trace out some 

 primary laws of psychic activity in their bearing on that con- 

 dition of mind known as prejudice. I shall not here allow myself 

 to be entangled in a metaphysical puzzle by attempting an accu- 

 rate definition of prejudice. To define it as deflection from truth 

 would be to raise the ancient question, What is truth ? It will 

 be quite sufficient for my purpose to consider prejudice as indi- 

 vidual deviation from the normal beliefs of mankind, taking as 

 the standard the universal, the general, or the mean. 



The chapter in modern psychology which furnishes the prin- 

 ciples in quest is the chapter on apperception really only an- 

 other word for attention. All knowledge is the result of the 

 union of two factors, one objective and one subjective. To 

 know anything is to refer it to something known before. In 

 every cognition there is a union of the group of sensations com- 

 posing the object with a group of ideas previously acquired and 

 now recalled. Knowledge is classification. The class is within 

 us ; the thing to be classified is without. A piece of sugar lies 

 before me on the table. I perceive only that it is a white object 

 of a certain form. I apperceive, by means of the group of ideas 

 previously associated with such white substances, that it is also 

 sweet, hard, heavy, soluble in water in fact, that it is sugar. The 

 inner group of ideas varies indefinitely in complexity. Closely 

 related ideas may be altogether wanting, as when one sees, for 

 instance, a horse for the first time, and can only ask, What is that 

 thing ? or, What is that animal ? One with more experience that 

 is, with more related ideas apperceives that it is a horse. A 

 jockey, however, apperceives all his " points " ; a zoologist still 

 more. We say that the jockey or zoologist really sees more in 

 the horse than the ignorant man, yet the image made upon the 

 retina of the eye is the same in each observer. Similarly, in 



