The Herbartian psychology applied to education : being a series of essays applying the psychology of Johann Friedrich Herbart / by John Adams.

  • John Adams
Date:
[1900?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Herbartian psychology applied to education : being a series of essays applying the psychology of Johann Friedrich Herbart / by John Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    separate, the ego is the servant, the system the master ; the system makes the ego. In a true organism this is reversed. The ego remains unchanged, is true to itself in all the different systems, and thus preserves an es- sential harmony between apparently conflicting systems. During business hours the ego attends strictly to busi- ness ; but if a question of morality arises, the ego does not take its decision from the system in which it finds itself for the moment. Being itself a part of the sys- tem, it can to a certain extent modify that system. The ego brings its own morality. Our main concern at present is not morality. What is true of the moral element is true of all the elements which enter largely into systems of ideas, and which must therefore share in regulating those systems. The really well-organized soul is not content with having systems; it must also understand them. Each system, while itself an organism including and explaining smaller organisms, must itself be included under and explained by a still wider system. This ultimate system for each individual consists of ideas inseparable from the ego itself, and which must therefore form part of all the subordinate systems. While few have this unifying system in anything like good working order, most people have sufficient command over their systems to know at once when an idea gets into the wrong system. Every such mis- placed idea produces a peculiar reaction on the mind, a sort of shock which is not unpleasant, and is the psy- chological basis of a joke. An idea in its own mass and system produces no shock, calls for no remark,
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