Mental development in the child and the race: Methods and processes

Baldwin · James Mark Baldwin

Jan 1895 · Macmillan

About this ebook

This text proposes a theory of mental development in the child, which incorporates the stance that no consistent view of mental development in the individual could possibly be reached without a doctrine of the race development of consciousness--ie., the great problem of the evolution of mind. The earliest chapters (1-6) are devoted to the statement of the genetic problem, with reports of the facts of infant life and the methods of investigating them, and the mere teasing out of the strings of law on which the facts are beaded--the principles of Suggestion, Habit, Accommodation, etc. Chapter 5 gives a detailed analysis of one voluntary function, Handwriting. Then follows the theory of adaptation, stated in general terms in Chapters 7 and 8; and afterwards comes a genetic view in detail (Chaps. 9 to 16) of the progress of mental development in its great stages, Memory, Association, Attention, Thought, Self-consciousness, and Volition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2004 APA, all rights reserved).