Classics in the History of Psychology
An internet resource developed by
Christopher D. Green
York University, Toronto, Ontario
ISSN 1492-3173
(Return to Classics index)
First published in American Journal of Psychology, 1, 3-4.
Posted September 2000
The object of this Journal is to record the psychological work of a scientific, as distinct from a speculative character, which has been so widely scattered as to be largely inaccessible save to a very few, and often to be overlooked by them. Several departments of science, sometimes so distinct from each other that their contributions are not mutually known, have touched and enriched psychology, bringing to it their best methods and their clearest insights. It is from this circumstance that the vast progress made in this department of late years is so little realized, and the field for such a journal, although new, is already so large.
Among the readers whose studies the editor will bear in mind are these: teachers of psychology in higher institutions of learning; biologists and physiologists; anthropologists who are interested in primitive manifestations of psychological laws; physicians who give special attention to mental and nervous diseases; all others interested in the great progress recently made in so many directions in applying more exact methods to the study of the problems of human feelings, will and thought. The advancement of the science will be constantly kept in view, and the journal will be a record of the progress of investigations. The journal will consist of three parts.
I. Original contributions of a scientific character. These will consist partly of experimental investigations on the functions of [p. 4] the senses and brain, physiological time, psycho-physic law, images and their association, volition, innervation. etc.; and partly of inductive studies of instinct in animals, pyschogenesis in children, and the large fields of morbid and anthropological psychology, not excluding hypnotism, methods of research which will receive special attention; and lastly, the finer anatomy of the sense-organs and the central nervous system, including the latest technical methods, and embryological, comparative and experimental studies of both neurological structure and function.
II. Digests and reviews. An attempt will be made in each number to give a conspectus of the more important current psychological literature, and to review significant books, bad as well as good.
III. Notes, news, brief mentions, etc.
While articles of unusual importance in the field of logic, the history of philosophy, practical ethics and education will be welcomed, the main object of the journal will be to record the progress of. scientific psychology, for which no organ now exists in English.
Controversy so far as possible will be excluded.
The journal will he published quarterly.