SCIENCE IN ADULT EDUCATION 325 



nature, it is useful to know something of the modes of behaviour which he 

 shares with other Hving things, before trying to understand his particular 

 mental life. Having thus prepared ourselves, we shall then turn to certain 

 fundamental aspects of human psychology which are open to experimental 

 study, as a training in objective methods as well as for their intrinsic interest. 

 The more specialised fields of child psychology, industrial psychology and 

 social and political studies, can be taken up in the second and third years. 



/. What Psychology Is and Does. 



Psychology is the study of mental life and covers both the field of behaviour 

 and the field of consciousness. The various schools and isms in psychology 

 and the reasons for these ; the limitations and values of each as method. 

 Mental life is not co-extensive with conscious experience ; evidence for the 

 significance of the ' unconscious.' 



What makes psychology a science is its methods, which in the broadest 

 terms it shares with all other sciences. Its special problems and handicaps. 

 Its place among the sciences ; a branch of the study of life as a whole, 

 biology. Man's place in nature. The particular sorts of biological fact 

 which are the province of psychology. 



The methods of Psychology : General Outline. — (a) Introspection ; 

 training in exact self-observation ; its limits and difficulties ; attempts to 

 apply measurement, (b) Objective methods ; the direct study of animal 

 and human behaviour. Experiment, and its special precautions in psycho- 

 logy. Mental measurement ; mathematical aids ; the limitations and 

 risks of ' objective ' measurement, (c) Methods of studying the ' un- 

 conscious,' wishes, anxieties, phantasies ; mental mechanisms. 



//. Preparation for Study of the Human Mind. 



The fundamental characteristics of living things ; sensibility and response ; 

 the ' wish ' as the source of action ; characteristic patterns of response ; 

 innate forms ; their relation to bodily structure and its evolution. The 

 ends of action ; nutrition and reproduction. The behaviour of the simpler 

 animals ; the protozoa, earthworm ; insects and insect societies. Reflex 

 action and purpose ; instinct and intelligence. 



The behaviour of the birds and mammals ; what is instinct ? Its relation 

 to habit, to emotions and to adaptive behaviour. 



///. Some Aspects of Mental Life in Human Beings. 



Instinct in man ; its gre£(ter fluidity and adaptiveness. The neural 

 mechanism of feeling and action in man ; comparison of the nervous 

 systems of man and other animals. The capacity to learn from individual 

 experience ; retentiveness and the conditioned reflex. Habit, and its 

 experimental study. Skill in work and play. The effects of pleasure and 

 pain. 



The perception of ' things ' — what is a thing ? Qualitative, temporal 

 and spatial patterns ; movement and perception. Colour vision, cutaneous 

 sensation, smell, taste, hearing. Recognition. Perceptual intelligence and 

 adaptiveness. Emotion and its relation to instinct ; bodily changes in 

 emotion ; the measurement of emotion. 



Images and the imagination ; imaginal types ; eidetic imagery. The 

 experimental study of remembering and forgetting. 



The measurement of intelligence ; mental age, mental retardation, mental 

 ratio. The distribution of intelligence. Individual and group tests ; 

 verbal and practical intelligence. Experimental studies of reasoning. 



