Contents: Vol. I: Preface. I. Introduction: 1. The evolution of the scientific method and point of view. II. Physiological psychology in the first half of the nineteenth century: 2. Physiology of the nervous system: 1800-1850. 3. Phrenology and the mind-body problem. 4. Physiology of the brain: 1800-1870. 5. Specific energies of nerves. 6. Physiological psychology of sensation: 1800-1850. 7. Hypnotism. 8. The personal equation. III. The preparation for experimental psychology within philosophical psychology: 9. Beginnings of modern psychology: Descartes, Leibnitz and Locke. 10. English psychology in the eighteenth century: Berkeley, Hume and Hartley. 11. British Associationism in the nineteenth century: the Mills and Bain. 12. German psychology in the first half of the nineteenth century: Herbart and Lotze. IV. The founding of experimental psychology: 13. Gustav Theodor Fechner. 14. Hermann von Helmholtz. 15. Wilhelm Wundt. 16. Brentano, Stumpf and G.E. Muller.

Vol. II: V. Modern experimental psychology: 17. The 'New' Psychology. 18. Act psychology in relation to experimental psychology. 19. British psychology. 20. American psychology: Its pioneers. 21. American psychology: movements. 22. Gestalt psychology and behaviorism. VI. Survey of experimental psychology: 23. General survey of experimental psychology: Fechner to the present. 24. Review and interpretation. Appendix. Index of names. Index of subjects.

"Both those who believe that psychoanalysis is to become the core of an all-embracing psychology and those who expect to find its position within the rest of psychology will welcome this volume. The first will findin it much with which an all-embracing psychology has to cope, the latter an orientation about the remote and recent past of the scientific neighbours among whom it will have to find a place.

Boring's volume is not just a history of experimental psychology, but also of its matrix--general psychology." (jacket)