An Introduction to Psychology Translated from the Second German Edition · Wilhelm Max Wundt
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
It is not the intention of this introduction to psychology to discuss the scientific or philosophical conceptions of psychology, or even to make a survey of the investigations and their results. What this little book attempts is rather to introduce the reader to the principal thoughts underlying present-day experimental psychology, leaving out many facts and methods which would be necessary for a thorough study of the subject. To omit all mention of experimental methods and their results is at the present day impossible. Yet we only need to consider a comparatively small number of results of the first importance in order to comprehend the basal principles of the new psychology. To characterise the methods of this psychology it would be impossible to omit all reference to experiments, but we can and will omit reference to the more or less complicated instruments on which the carrying out of such experiments depends. I must refer the reader who wishes a fuller account of the new psychology to my _Outlines of Psychology_, which also contains the necessary bibliography of the subject. W. WUNDT. Leipsic, June 1911. The present volume is a popular introduction to the Wundtian psychology. It is a shorter and simpler sketch than the same author's _Outlines of Psychology_, and it should prove invaluable to the English-speaking student who wishes to gain some conception of the subject before entering upon a deeper study of the same. Its popularity in Germany has been phenomenal.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.