A James Baldwin source page

Originally published as:

James Mark Baldwin. The Mental Development of the Child and the Race 3rd ed., New York: Macmillan & Co. (1906).

Editors' notes

Baldwin's Mental Development is a central text in the development of social psychology in North America and recently has re-emerged as a primary source in artificial intelligence, being part of the set of Baldwin publications documenting what is now known as "the Baldwin effect." Unfortunately, we have not been able to obtain a usable copy of the 1895 edition and have had to rely on a reprint of the third edition. Intervening years introduced some changes and references in the 1890s documents will not always be relevant to this version.

In his introduction to the reprint, Vahan Sewny wrote: --

The importance of Mental Development lies mainly in the fact that it represents a pioneer effort to present a picture of the social nature of the self and the manner of its growth. Baldwin began to formulate his theories at a time when Darwinian evolutionism and Hegelian idealism were among the major forces guiding the thinking of students of the individual and society and of their interrelationship. The new evolutionary approach to the subject marked a movement away from the atomistic and rigidly structural interpretations that characterized much of the psychological and sociological literature up to the last decade of the nineteenth century. There was a shift of emphasis from formal and logically static schemes of explanation to function and development. It is important to note, however, that to Baldwin the evolutionary process was not something tentative or groping in character. It was a movement marked by a definite pattern of predictable stages. He believed that as the individual self grows, through a dialectical process, to the level of full social consciousness it becomes an ethical self. This contention echoed a point of view that was more Hegelian than Darwinian in essence. (Sewny, 1968)

The book is often referenced as a predecessor to Mead's analysis of the development of the self. Following Royce, Baldwin had argued for a development process, a stepwise bootstrapping into selfhood, ideas similar to those later expounded by Mead. Also, Baldwin argues for the co-emergence of concepts of self and other, of ego and alter, ideas that would also be developed more fully by Cooley and Mead.

We have added references to the Prefaces to the 1st and 3rd editions, included in the third edition of Mental Development but not listed in the Table of Contents. The original version of the table had, of course, page references. Hypertext has removed the need for this type of link and it looks prettier this way.

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Mental Development in the Child and the Race

Table of Contents | Next

Preface to the First Edition (Abridged)

Preface to the Third Edition

Introduction

Chapter 1: Infant and Race Psychology

Infant Psychology: Ontogenesis, the Genetic Point of View
Race Psychology: Phylogenesis
Analogies of Development: Epochs of Development
Variation in Ontogeny: Organic and Mental Recaptitulation

Chapter 2: A New Method of Child Study

Critical: Earlier Methods
Expository: the Dynamogenic Method
Formula of the Dynamongenic Method

Part I: Experimental Foundation

Chapter 3: Distance and Colour Perception by Infants

Experimental: Colour, Distance
Critical: Estimate of Results

Chapter 4: The Origin of Right-Handedness

Experimental: Arrangements and Results
Interpretation: Neurological and Race Considerations; Modifications of Formula of Method.

Chapter 5: Infants' Movements

Descriptive: Reflexes; the Child's Drawings; Rise of Tracery Imitation
Interpretation of Tracery Imitiation: The Origin and Analysis of Handwriting

Chapter 6: Suggestion

Definition and Criticism
Physiological Suggestion
Sensori-Motor: General, Personality, Deliberative Suggestion
Ideo-Motor: Simple Imitative Suggestion, R&eauctesumé of Suggestions of Infancy
Subconscious Adult Suggestion: Tune-suggestion, Influence of Dreams, Auto-suggestion, Sense-exhaltation
Inhibitory Suggestion: Pain, Control, and Contrary Suggestion; Bashfulness
Hypnotic Suggestion: the Facts, the Theory
The Law of Dynamogenesis: Habit and Accomodation

Part II: Biological Genesis

Chapter 7: The Theory of Development

Organic Adaptation in General
The Current Theory of Adaptation: Darwin, Spencer, Bain
Development and Heredity: Neo-Darwinism and Neo-Lamarckism
The Origin of Consciousness
Outcome: Habit and Accommodation

Chapter 8: The Origin of Motor Attitudes and Expressions

General View
The Theory of "Emotional Expression": Applications of Principles of Habit, Accommodation, Dynamogenesis
Hedonic Expression and its Law
Habitual Motor Attitudes: Principles of Antithesis, Associated Habits, Analogous Stimuli

Chapter 9: Organic Imitation

The General Question
The Neurological Question
The Physical Basis of Memory and Association

Part III: Psychological Genesis

Chapter 10: Conscious Imitation (Begun): The Origin of Memory and Imagination

General Facts and Explanations
The Origin of Memory and Association
Assimilation and Recognition
Phylogenetic Value of Memory and Imagination

Chapter 11: Conscious Imitation (Continued): The Origin of Thought and Emotion

Conception and Thought
Conception as Class-recognition
Emotion and Sentiment: Self and the Social Sense

Chapter 12: Conscious Imitation (Concluded)

Classification
Plastic Imitation
How to observe Imitation in Children

Chapter 13: The Origin of Volition

Analysis of Volition: Deliberation, Desire, Effort
The Typical Case of Rise of Volition in the Child: Persistent Imitation
Phylogenetic
Special Evidence
Ontogenetic: Variations in the Rise of Volition

Chapter 14: The Mechanism of Revival: Internal Speech and Song

Internal Speech: How do we think of Words?
Internal Song: How do we think of Tunes?
Pitch Recognition: How do we know Notes?

Chapter 15: The Origin of Attention

Voluntary Attention
Reflex and 'Primary' Attention
The Development of Attention: Sensori-motor Association
Voluntary Acquisition and Control

Part IV: General Synthesis

Chapter 16: Summary: Final Statement of Habit and Association

Summary of Theory of Development
Interaction of Habit and Accommodation
Organic Centralization: Pain, Attention

Appendix B: Colonel Mallery on Sign Language

Appendix C: I and II

Notes

No notes

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