Format:
Online-Ressource (xviii p., 1 leaf, 477 p.)
,
22 cm
Edition:
3rd ed (Online-Ausg.)
Content:
"In writing this book I have had rather conflicting aims. It was begun as a series of articles reporting observations on infants, published in part in the journal Science, 1890-1892. In the prosecution of this purpose, however, I found it necessary constantly to enlarge my scope for the entertainment of a widened genetic view. This came to clearer consciousness in the treatment of the child's imitations, especially when I came to the relation of imitation to volition, as treated in my paper before the London Congress of Experimental Psychology in 1892. The further study of this subject brought what was to me such a revelation of the genetic function of imitation that I then determined-under the inspiration, also, of the small group of writers lately treating the subject-to work out a theory of mental development in the child, incorporating this new insight. I fell into reading literature of biological evolution, with view to a possible synthesis of the current biological theory of organic adaptation with the doctrine of the infant's development, as my previous work had led me to formulate it. This is the problem of Spencer and Romanes. My book is then mainly a treatise on this problem; but the method of approach to it which I have described, accounts for the preliminaries and incidents of treatment which make my book so different in its topics and arrangement from theirs, and from any work constructed from the start with a 'System of Genetic Psychology' in view"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)
Note:
Includes index. - Electronic reproduction; Washington, D.C; American Psychological Association; 2011; Available via World Wide Web; Access limited by licensing agreement; s2011 dcunns
Language:
English
Author information:
Baldwin, James Mark 1861-1934
