Psychology is the science of the act of experiencing, and deals with the whole system of such acts as they make up mental life.

The perceptive act is a reaction of the mind upon the object of which it is the perception.

Mental life is indeed practical through and through. It begins in practice and it ends in practice.

It may be added, to prevent misunderstanding, that when I speak of contemplated objects in this last phrase as objects of contemplation, the act of contemplation itself is of course an enjoyment.

We cannot therefore say that mental acts contain a cognitive as well as a conative element.

You can mark in desire the rising of the tide, as the appetite more and more invades the personality, appealing, as it does, not merely to the sensory side of the self, but to its ideal components as well.

Such being the nature of mental life, the business of psychology is primarily to describe in detail the various forms which attention or conation assumes upon the different levels of that life.