Note † — Chapter XI · A Sketch for a Psychology

M. Jules Romains recently observed† that psychology hitherto has merely contrived to say laboriously and obscurely, and with less precision, what we all know without its aid already. This is regrettably difficult to deny; any particular remark of a psychologist, if true, is unlikely to be startling. But at certain points new light has none the less crept in. Incoherences and flaws have been found in the common-sense picture, adumbration rather, of the mind; connections between bits of our behaviour, which common-sense had missed, have been noted; and, still more important, a general outline of the kind of thing a mind is has begun to take shape. The next age but two, if an oncoming Age of Relativity is to be followed as Mr Haldane supposes† by an Age of Biology, will be introduced by a recognition on the part of many minds of their own nature, a recognition which is certain to change their behaviour and their outlook considerably. We are still far removed from such an age. None the less enough is known for an analysis of the mental events which make up the reading of a poem to be attempted. And such an analysis is a primary necessity for criticism. The psychological distinctions which have hitherto served the critic are too few and his use of them in most cases too unsystematic, too vague, and too uncertain, for his insight to yield its full advantages.