Mental Philosophy Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will by Joseph Haven

If any apology were necessary for adding yet another to the numerous works on Mental Philosophy which have recently appeared, the circumstances that led to the preparation of the present volume may, perhaps, constitute that apology.

When called, several years since, to the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy, in this Institution, the text-books, then in use, seemed to me not well adapted to the wants of College students. Nor was it easy to make a change for the better. Of the works in this department, then generally in use in our Colleges, some presumed on a more extensive acquaintance with the science than most young men at this stage of education are likely to possess; others, again, erring on the opposite extreme, were deficient in thorough and scientific treatment; while most, if not all, were, at the best, incomplete, presenting but a partial survey of the entire field. In none of them was the science of mind presented in its completeness and symmetry, in a manner at once simple, yet scientific; in none of them, moreover, was it brought down to the present time. Something more complete, more simple, more thorough, seemed desirable.