Psychology / A Study Of Mental Life

Psychology, then, is a science. It is the science of--what shall we say? "The science of the soul"--that is what the name means by derivation and ancient usage. "The science of the mind" has a more modern sound. "The science of consciousness" is more modern still. "The science of behavior" is the most recent attempt at a concise formula.

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THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE SCIENCE, ITS PROBLEMS AND ITS METHODS

CHAPTER I
WHAT PSYCHOLOGY IS AND DOES

Experience, however, is not received; it is lived, and that means done;

mental {47} phenomena, whether movements, sensations, emotions, impulses or thoughts, are a person's acts, but that every act is a response to some present stimulus.

The motor area in the right hemisphere is connected with the left half of the cord and so with the muscles of the left half of the body; the motor area of the left hemisphere similarly affects {52} the right half of the body.

The motor area in the right hemisphere is connected with the left half of the cord and so with the muscles of the left half

The lower motor centers, called also reflex centers, are located in the cord or brain stem, and their nerve cells give rise to the axons that form the motor nerves and connect with the muscles and glands. A muscle is thrown into action by nerve currents from its lower motor center.

The principal higher motor center is the "motor area" of the brain, located in the cortex or external layer of gray matter, in the cerebrum. More precisely, the motor area is a long, narrow strip of cortex, lying just forward of what is called the "central fissure" or "fissure of Rolando".

If hearing you speak of Calcutta makes me think of India, your words are the stimulus and my thought the response. Well, then, if I think of Calcutta in the course of a train of thought, and next think of India, what else can we say than that the thought of Calcutta acts as a stimulus to arouse the thought of India as the response? In a long train of thought, where A reminds you of B and B of C and C of D, each of these items is, first, a response to the preceding, and, second, a stimulus to the one following.

First psychology lost its soul, then it lost its mind, then it lost consciousness; it still has behavior, of a kind."