THE MACHINERY OF
THE MIND
THE MACHINERY
OF THE MIND
BY
VIOLET M. FIRTH
WITH A FOREWORD BY
A. G. TANSLEY, F. R. S.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1922
COPYRIGHT 1922
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
The Quinn & Boden Company
BOOK MANUFACTURERS
RAHWAY NEW JERSEY
FOREWORD
I am very glad to have the opportunity of commending this little volume
to those without any previous knowledge who desire to gain a clear idea
of the way in which modern psychology regards the human mind.
For every time the words “psychology” and “psychological” were used in
the newspapers ten years ago, they must be used fifty times to-day; and
though very often some other word would do just as well, or a good deal
better, this sudden vogue has a real meaning. The public has become
aware of the existence of psychology: people are beginning to realise
that the human mind, the instrument by which we know and think and feel
and strive, must itself be studied for its own sake if we are to gain a
deeper understanding and a greater control of human life.
A distinct reaction from the rather narrow materialism of the end
of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, an
increased realisation of immaterial, of “spiritual,” values, has
helped towards giving the mind its rightful place in human interest.
On the one hand, modern academic psychology has for many years now
been gradually emancipating itself from the chaotic subjectivities
of competing philosophies, and developing on really scientific lines,
with the aid of accurate observation, comparison and experiment. Its
genuinely and increasingly useful applications to education and to
industry are evidences of that.
On the other hand, the remarkable results of psychoanalysis have
been made widely known, though often with that misleading one-sided
emphasis which seems fated to attend the popularisation of any branch
of scientific enquiry. And these results have been found not only
interesting but exciting--to some morbidly exciting--because they
appeal to instincts and emotions which our civilisation represses
and often perverts. Psychoanalysis has indeed become a fashionable
craze, and as such has doubtless done a certain amount of harm and
has met with a good deal of opprobrium from the serious-minded. But
psychoanalysis has come to stay, because, however much it may be
misused by the ignorant, the unbalanced and the half-educated, it is
both a sound technique of research and a sound therapeutic method.
And it certainly has a most important contribution to make to the
psychology of the future.
This little book, which can be read through at a sitting, succeeds in
the difficult task of presenting the rudiments of the modern view of
the mind in an easy, lucid and attractive form. Though I may not agree
with every sentence she has written, Miss Firth’s development of the
subject, and of its very intimate connexion with human life and human
troubles, seems to me not only substantially sound and accurate, but
essentially sane and well balanced. Her explanation of the different
levels of the mind and of the “censors” by the metaphor of the tank
and the sieves is particularly ingenious and helpful. The book will
certainly succeed, to use the author’s words, in “planting certain
fundamental concepts in untrained minds so that they may serve as a
basis for future studies.”
A. G. TANSLEY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
FOREWORD BY A. G. TANSLEY 5
INTRODUCTION 11
I. THE PHYSICAL VEHICLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS 15
II. THE EVOLUTION OF THE NERVOUS
SYSTEM 18
III. HOW AN IDEA ENTERS THE MIND 20
IV. THE ORGANISATION OF THE UPPER
LEVELS OF THE MIND 22
V. THE ORGANISATION OF THE LOWER
LEVELS OF THE MIND 27
VI. COMPLEXES 31
VII. THE INSTINCTS 35
VIII. THE SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT 39
IX. DISEASES OF THE SELF-PRESERVATION
INSTINCT 42
X. THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT 44
XI. DEVELOPMENT OF THE REPRODUCTIVE
INSTINCT 46
XII. DISEASES OF THE REPRODUCTIVE INSTINCT 49
XIII. SUBLIMATION 52
XIV. MALADAPTATION TO ENVIRONMENT
AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 56
XV. CONFLICT 60
XVI. REPRESSION 63
XVII. DISSOCIATION 66
XVIII. SYMBOLISATION 69
XIX. PHANTASIES, DREAMS, AND DELUSIONS 71
XX. PSYCHOTHERAPY 76
XXI. PSYCHOANALYSIS 78
XXII. HYPNOSIS, SUGGESTION, AND AUTOSUGGESTION 84
XXIII. THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF PSYCHOLOGY 89
XXIV. CONCLUSION 93
INTRODUCTION
Originally given as a popular lecture course, this little book does not
pretend to be a contribution to the formidable array of psychological
literature. It is intended for those who have neither the time nor the
training necessary to assimilate the standard works on the subject,
but who want to know its elements; and to understand the principles on
which our characters are formed and the means by which the process of
thought is carried on, not so much from the scholastic point of view,
as in relation to the problems of everyday life.
It is hoped that many will find herein the key to things that have
puzzled them in their own natures, for only those who hold such
unsolved problems in their hearts can know how crippling and tormenting
they are.
This book does not aim so much at an orderly setting forth of the
elements of psychology as at planting certain fundamental concepts in
untrained minds so that they may serve as a basis for future studies.
To this end the writer has adopted a pictorial, almost diagrammatic
method of presentation in order that a framework of general ideas may
be formed into which details may subsequently be fitted, having found
this to be the best way to convey novel concepts to minds untrained in
metaphysical subtleties.
The teachings of no special school of psychology are adhered to; the
writer is indebted to all, but loyal to none, holding that in the
absence of any accepted standard of authority in psychological science
each student must review the doctrines offered for his adherence in the
light of his own experience.
This book is essentially practical in aim, written in response to a
practical need. In her experience of remedial psychology, the writer
saw that many cases of mental and nervous trouble would never have
developed if their victims had had an elementary knowledge of the
workings of the mind; she also found that many patients required
nothing but an explanation of these principles to put them on the road
to recovery, and that even when more than this was needed to effect a
cure, such a knowledge greatly expedited the treatment by enabling the
patient to co-operate intelligently.
So far as she is aware, there is no book that deals with
psychopathology, not from the point of view of the student, but from
that of the patient who needs an elementary knowledge of the laws of
the mind in order to enable him to think hygienically. This book is
written to fulfil that need; it is not only applicable, however, to
those who are sick in mind or estate, but to those also who desire to
develop their latent capacities by means of the practical application
of the laws of thought and character.
The Machinery of the Mind
CHAPTER I
THE PHYSICAL VEHICLE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
In order to arrive at an adequate understanding of mental processes it
is necessary to have some idea of the machinery whereby the mind makes
contact with the body.
Throughout every inch of our organism is a network of specialised
fibres whose function it is to carry nervous impulses from the sense
organs to the central nervous system of brain and spinal cord, and from
thence out again to the muscles, glands, and other organs of reaction.
The sense organs act as receivers of sensation, the nerve fibres
as transmitters, the central nervous system as a general telephone
exchange, and the muscles, glands, and organs as the executants of the
impulses of the mind.
Sense organs consist of cells, or sets of cells, specialised for the
reception of particular kinds of impressions. That is to say, if the
particular kind of stimulus they are fitted to receive is administered
to them, a change, probably of a chemical type, takes place in their
substance, which, it is thought, gives rise to energy of an electrical
nature, which runs along the nerve fibre as along a wire. At the
present moment, however, our knowledge of the nature of the nervous
impulse is tentative and hypothetical.
Like all other living tissue, the nervous system is built up of
millions of specialised cells. These cells consist of a main cell body
with prolongations, usually two in number. One of these has a mass of
branching fibres like the root of a plant, and is called the DENDRON;
the other consists of a long thread, the end of which is frayed out
into strands as the end of a piece of worsted may be unravelled. This
process is called the AXON.
The thread-like branches of the axon of one cell interlace with these
of the dendron of another cell, and a nervous impulse, running down the
nerve fibres, jumps the gap in the same way as the electric current
jumps the space between the terminals of an arc lamp.
It will readily be seen that these interlacing fibrils, millions in
number, ramifying throughout every portion of the body, form a most
wonderful system of communication; the brain and spinal cord acting as
a central telephone exchange.
Muscles are composed of long, spindle-shaped cells which are capable
of contraction. Chemical changes are constantly going on in their
substance. The blood and lymph which bathe them bring food materials
and carry away the waste products of their activity.
These food substances, which are highly organised chemical compounds,
are stored in the body of the cell. When a nervous impulse is received,
these food globules, as it were, explode; that is to say, they break
down into their component chemical parts, and the energy which went
to build them up is set free in the process and performs the work for
which the muscle is designed.
The glands are the chemists of the body, and in the crucibles of their
minute cells carry out the wonderful processes of living chemistry upon
which our vital functions are based. The quantity and quality of their
output is controlled by the nervous system, which acts as regulator of
every process of the body.