Boris Sidis

“ The definition of the physical object as that which is common to many minds and of the psychic object as that which is present to one mind only is not acceptable, since it postulates the result of complicated epistemological reflection and psychological research, still very doubtful in themselves, at the very outset of the science of psychology. It may be that the world is nothing but consciousness and that the physical universe is nothing but the social object of many minds ”

“ The psychologist deals with phenomena and not with the "really existent." Standing on the ground of psychology the psychologist has no right to reduce the physical world to psychic terms; in fact, such a procedure would undermine his science, as all distinction between psychic and physical facts would become obliterated. ”

“ Personality is more and more stripped of the thing aspect until the inner mental life, especially in its will aspect, remains as its sole characteristic. Persons are willers, and it is these wills which are of the utmost importance for the child to learn as the fulfillment of his will depends on them. He then learns to class himself within the category of willers; he himself is a willer. Impersonal things, falling outside and being contrasted with the class of willers, are conceived as independent of persons. ”

“ We defined the psychic phenomenon in opposition to the physical phenomenon. Physical phenomena are in space, psychic phenomena are not spatial. Now a negative definition may to many prove rather unsatisfactory. ”

“ Such identification is an obliteration of the opposition between the psychic and physical facts, an opposition with which the psychologist must set out, if he is to place psychology in the hierarchy of natural sciences. The psychologist must postulate the existence of an external physical world, just as the geometrician postulates space or the mechanician matter and motion. ”

“ As against persons things are contrasted as impersonal. Gradually the child learns to include himself within the class of persons, his hopes, wishes and desires come in contact, as well as in conflict with those of other persons, and he learns more and more of inner life and activity with which he finally identifies all personality. ”