EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY
The psychologist naturally begins with the treatment of the
phenomena of sentiency. The several senses, their organic structure
and functions, the various forms of sentient activity with their
cognitive, hedonic and appetitive properties and their special
characteristics have to be carefully analyzed, compared, and
described. Next, imagination and memory are similarly studied, and
the laws of their operation, growth, and development diligently traced.
The discussion of the organic appetites springing from sensations,
and the investigation of the nature and conditions of the most
elementary forms of pleasure and pain may also appropriately come
here. Intellect follows. The consideration of this faculty includes the
study of the processes of conception, judgment, reasoning, rational
attention, and self conscious reflection. These, however, are all
merely different functions of the same spiritual cognitive power – the
intellect. Psychology inquires into their modes of operation, their
special features, and the general conditions of their growth and
development. From the higher power of cognition it proceeds to the
study of spiritual appetency, rational desire, and free volition. The
relations of will to knowledge, the qualities of conative activity, and
the effects of repeated volitions in the production of habit, constitute
the chief subjects of investigation here. In connexion with these
higher forms of cognition and desire, there will naturally be
undertaken the study of conscience and the phenomena of the
emotions.
-DR. NAVRAJ SINGH SANDHU