Abstract
THERE are innumerable introductions to psychology, but few claim the distinction of being “biological” introductions. One therefore turned to this book, which was written by the professor of physiology at King's College, in the expectation that it would be something unusual. It might have been expected, for example, that it would have been written on evolutionary lines or along the developmental levels of the nervous system, since biology is mainly a study of increasing complexity in animal life. It might have progressed from the simple reflex to the greater complication of chained reflexes and thence to the instinct, the control of instinctual urges and the emergence of consciousness, the properties of memory, forgetting, and finally with the abnormalities associated with deranged function, so as to make a coherent whole.
A Biological Introduction to Psychology
An Introduction to Psychology for Students and Practitioners of Medicine. By Prof. R. J. S. McDowall. Pp. xiv + 210. (London: John Murray, 1941.) 6s. net.
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A Biological Introduction to Psychology. Nature 148, 356 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/148356a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/148356a0