Publisher's 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. 1825 edition. Excerpt: ...4 Then after telling in a few sentences what tropisms are, Royce continues: "Now it is especially notable that the 'tropisms' of Loeb are not, like the 'reflex actions' of the theories, modes of activity primarily determined by the functions of specific nerve-centres. Furthermore, they are more general and elemental in their character than are any of the acquired habits of an organism." (At this point Royce takes up, for a moment, a matter to one side of my main purpose, namely the problem of "self-activity" and "spontaneity"; so I venture to change somewhat the order and emphasis of his argument.) "Now it has occurred to me to maintain, in substance, that the factor in mental life which Wundt's school defines as 'Apperception'... may well be treated, from the purely psychological point of view, as the conscious aspect or accompaniment of a collection of tendencies of the type which Loeb has called 'tropisms.' " 5 Then we have: "Wundt has insisted that his 'Apperception' is no disembodied spiritual entity. I conceive that Loeb has indicated to us, in the concept of the 'tropism, ' how a power more or less directive of the course of our associations, and more general than is any of the tendencies that are due, in us, to habit, or to specific experience, can find its embodiment in the most elemental activities of our organism." 6 What, now, is the bearing of this idea of Royce's on the main theme of this chapter, the organism's unity as manifested in and influenced by its psychic life? As an initial step toward answering this question, the reader is asked to recur to the chapter on tropistic activities and their anatomical groundwork, recalling that it was the special aim of our discussion to show the inevitable organismal trend of the whole...