The Principles of Psychology

About this book

William James spent twelve years on this textbook, published in 1890, and it is anything but dry. He writes about habit, attention, memory, the self, emotion and will, and coins the phrase 'stream of consciousness' to describe how thought flows rather than moves in separate pieces. His chapter on habit is still quoted by teachers and coaches.

Context and significance

The book helped turn psychology into a scientific discipline in America, and its theory that emotions follow bodily changes is still discussed. James writes as a brilliant essayist as much as a scientist. For his work on religion, read The Varieties of Religious Experience.

About the author

William James (1842–1910), the older brother of the novelist Henry James, studied painting and then medicine, and after years of depression became a professor at Harvard, where he taught the first course in psychology in America and set up one of the first psychology laboratories.

His Principles of Psychology made the new science readable, his Varieties of Religious Experience studied faith with sympathy, and his philosophy of pragmatism asked what difference an idea makes in practice. He wrote with a warmth and clarity rare among philosophers.