The Principles of Psychology

London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. London, Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. Octavo, viii, 620 pages. Blind-stamped brown cloth lettered in gilt; edges uncut; covers a little marked and worn; binding a little shaken; old stamp of 'Varley & Evan, Solicitors, Adelaide' to the title page; a few early leaves a little marked; light crease to the top corner of the text block; a very good copy. 'Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychology" (1855, first edition) was regarded by his contemporaries, including William James and John Dewey, as a major contribution to what was then a very new discipline. In this book he first expounded his ideas about both evolution of species and how behavior of the individual organism adapts through interaction with the environment. His formulation of the principle that behavior changes in adaptation to the environment is closely related to the version of the law of effect propounded some years later by Thorndike. He can thus be seen as the first proponent of selectionism, a key tenet of behavior analysis. He also explicitly attacked the then prevailing view of free will as being incompatible with the biologically grounded view of psychological processes that he was advocating, and thus put forward ideas that were precursors of B.F. Skinner's in this important area of debate' (Julian Leslie: 'Herbert Spencer's contributions to behavior analysis. A retrospective review of "Principles of Psychology"', in 'Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior', July 2006).

Provenance: Richard Davies Hanson, with his armorial bookplate on the pastedown. London-born Sir Richard Davies Hanson (1805-1876), author and judge (eventually Chief Justice of South Australia); he settled there in 1846. He had been very active in colonization schemes since the early 1830s, and had lived and worked for some years in both Canada and New Zealand. In Adelaide in October 1846 he was admitted 'a barrister, solicitor, attorney and proctor' in the Supreme Court, and became heavily involved in law and politics in the colony. 'Despite his "steady flow of carefully measured words, weighted with calm and logical reasoning", Hanson often claimed that he turned to law to please his father but wished he was rid of it, especially its "archaic procedures" such as public executions. A voracious reader in his leisure, he turned readily to science and theology and was moved to share his knowledge. He believed in inevitable human progress and abhorred the mental barriers that hindered it. He saw the Bible as "God's main instrument in the education of the world" only if read with a spirit of inquiry instead of infallible authority. His first public lecture on this theme was to the South Australian Library and Mechanics' Institute in March 1849 and shocked his audience. He emerged again to lecture in 1856 to the East Torrens Institute and in 1857 to the South Australian Institute on the power derived from adult self-instruction. By 1860 he was propounding law in nature in relation to scripture to the Adelaide Philosophical Society. Members of the Bible Society were present and asked him to resign; when he refused, they elected a new president. Hanson moved on to law in creation, rejecting Lamarck as "absurd" but confessing attraction by Charles Darwin's theories, however incomplete. In 1865 his "Law in Nature and other Papers" was published in Adelaide and London; its argument that the Bible should not be exempt from inquiry was highly praised by Bishop Colenso, whose sermons on the Pentateuch had greatly influenced Hanson' ('Australian Dictionary of Biography').