Psychology

Abstract

OF books on general psychology as at present understood there is a goodly array. Their name is legion, and we gather that it would not have occurred to Dr. Troland to add another to the list. The problems he sets out to solve are essentially practical. Why do people behave and feel as they do? What are the foundations of impulse, desire, emotion, purpose, and habit? Yet his book does not belong to the category of ‘applied psychology’. Though he is guided by practical considerations, his aim is to fill a gap in the literature of pure psychology. His treatment, which is very thorough, eventuates in a form of psychological hedonism, according to which our voluntary choices are determined by the summation of all past affections. This ‘hedonism of the past’, which is his interpretation of happiness, constitutes the basis of preferability among alternative courses of action.