W.H.R.Rivers

“ The section on the theory of centrally excited sensations is little more than an attempt to explain by having recourse to vague physiological assumptions. This is to a certain extent the logical outcome of the author’s standpoint that psychology has only to do with conscious processes; one is frequently reduced to the dilemma of having to seek an explanation either in unconscious mental processes or in purely physiological processes. ”

“ This is a critical account of the results of the experimental method in psychology rather than an attempt to construct a system on the basis of those results. Psychology is regarded as an inductive descriptive science, differing from other sciences in the dependence of the experiments it describes on the experiencing individual. ”

“ The sources of reproduction are peripherally excited sensations which must have existed in order that similar centrally excited should occur.
Feeling is regarded as a primary and independent element of consciousness, and the view that it is to be looked on merely as a property of sensation- the feeling tone- is rejected. Br Külpe recognises only two qualities of feeling proper, and sees in emotion a basis of one or other of these combined with organic sensations to which the emotion owes its special colouring. ”