The Elements of the Psychology of Cognition

Abstract

MR. JARDINE has seemingly had some personal reason for writing this treatise; for in the preface he asks the critic to bear in mind “that the book has been written with considerable haste, in order to secure its publication within a certain limited time.” It would have been wiser to ignore the critic: for this unsympathetic personage is only too certain to meet this innocent confidence with the unfeeling remark that perhaps the interests of science would not have suffered had the author taken a little more time over his work. Had nothing been done before Mr. Jardine began to write “to show the inadequacy and unsatisfactoriness of a prevailing system of psychology,” he would have required to make a much more thorough and more direct attack on the teachings of Mr. Mill and Prof. Bain, in order to accomplish “one principal object” that he had in view. Again, we think Mr. Jardine would have better consulted the interests of his readers generally, including the “students,” for whom the book was “principally designed,” had he made more explicit reference to the writers to whom he is indebted for the weapons he has employed in this attack on “phenomenalism.” Another general criticism that must be made is, that there is not a sufficient wealth of concrete illustration, and that, though the writer has “endeavoured to express himself in as clear and simple language as possible,” his words are, nevertheless, often dark and difficult enough. What will readers “beginning their philosophical studies” make of such a sentence as this?—“It must be borne in mind that it is in their character as modes of the non-ego that objectified sensations are localised. The localising is, therefore, not so much an act of consciousness as a precept of consciousness and a form of the non-ego.”

The Elements of the Psychology of Cognition.

By Robert Jardine, Principal of the General Assembly's College, Calcutta, and Fellow of the University of Calcutta. (Macmillan and Co., 1874.)