Date of Award

Fall 12-1-1978

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of Alexander Bain (1818-1903) and Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) upon William James (1842-1910). James is generally considered to be the foremost American psychologist and the one who "introduced" experimental psychology to the United States. James had become familiar with the psychological writings of Bain and Spencer early in his career, and he used Spencer's The Principles of Psychology and later Bain's The Senses and the Intellect and The Emotions and the Will as textbooks for his course in psychology at Harvard. Bain was foremost English psychologist at that time, and Spencer was widely known as a philosopher of evolutionary theory. Both men might have been expected to have had a large influence upon William James. The study examines the influence Bain's The Senses and the Intellect (1868), and The Emotions and the Will (1875), and Spencer's The Principles of Psychology (1880), upon James's The Principles of Psychology (1890), by comparing the three wr rs with respect to six key concepts in James's psychology. The concepts are (1) habit, (2) consciousness, (3) attention, (4) association, {5) belief, and (6) emotion. The influence of the two earlier writers upon James is assessed with respect to each key concept, and the overall influence of Bain and Spencer upon James is evaluated. iv The conclusion of the study is that neither Bain nor Spencer had a large influence upon the psychology of William James. He borrowed very little directly from them. Their main influence upon James was as examples of the current thinking about psychology which James used as background for the development of his ideas.

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