The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method was published posthumously by Trübner & Co. in 1879 as the third series of Problems of Life and Mind, edited by George Eliot after Lewes’s death in November 1878. It represents Lewes’s most mature thinking about the nature and methodology of psychology as a scientific discipline.
Lewes argues that psychology must be distinguished from both philosophy (which addresses questions about the mind through speculation and argument) and physiology (which addresses the brain through observation and experiment). Psychology’s proper object is consciousness — not as an abstract metaphysical entity but as a real phenomenon that arises in biological organisms living in social environments. Its method must combine introspection (the direct observation of one’s own mental states), physiological investigation (the study of the nervous system), and social analysis (the study of how consciousness is shaped by language, culture, and interaction).
This triple methodology — combining what we would now call phenomenology, neuroscience, and social psychology — anticipates much of twentieth-century thinking about the mind. Lewes’s insistence that consciousness cannot be reduced to brain activity alone (because it is shaped by social factors) and cannot be understood through introspection alone (because it has biological substrates) remains a reasonable position in contemporary philosophy of mind.
Collecting The Study of Psychology
First edition (Trübner & Co., London, 1879): Part of Problems of Life and Mind, Third Series. Posthumous publication.
Market values:
- As part of Problems of Life and Mind set: $150–$400
- Individual volume: $30–$60