The Principles of Psychology.

a landmark in modern psychology

First edition, first printing of the founding text of modern psychology that coined the term 'stream of consciousness'. With the publisher's ads facing the titles reading, 'The principles of Psy-/ chology' and the readings 'the seat of intellectual power' in volume I, p. 10 and 'object of some absent object of sensation' in volume II, p. 101.

'James's textbook of psychology represents one of the first attempts to treat psychology as a natural science in which the mind is conceived of as being subject to both Darwinian evolutionary principles and to acts of will' (Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science & Medicine 1153).

'The book presents, in masterly language, a wealth of naturalistic observation about human behavior and conscious experience... It makes clear that psychology concerns, and is of concern to, the lives of individual people. It is exploratory, not consistently scientific in spirit, and arrives at no coherent theory of psychology. However, it widens horizons and raises issues that have, in the twentieth century, been approached scientifically. It raises many issues that still challenge scientific enquiry' (Oxford Companion to the Mind, as cited in Hook & Norman).

First edition, first printing; 2 vols, 8vo; publisher's ad facing the title of each volume, 8-page publisher's ads at rear of volume II, inscriptions in ink by previous owners to preliminary blanks, illustrated bookplate to preliminary blank of vol. I, numerous in-text illustrations, pencil annotations to margins; publisher's olive green cloth, gilt lettering to spine, dark brown endpapers, boards slightly loose, head and foot of spines rubbed and a little frayed, corners bumped and frayed, boards lightly marked, crease to spine of vol. I.

Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science & Medicine 1153; Horblitt, 100 Books Famous in Science 100b.