In the development of "psychology," the study of the mental life and activities of animals and men, three phases can be conveniently distinguished—the presystematic, the systematic but prescientific, and the scientific. The presystematic, by far the longest of the three phases, is that in which men observed and reflected on human ways and embodied their reflections in aphorisms, anecdotes, and fables. Presystematic thinking is important since it has been passed down through the ages and is continually augmented by that amalgam of wisdom, superstition, and dogma that those who claim no professional competence like to describe as the fruits of their experience. The presystematic psychology of contemporary primitive groups has been recorded by anthropologists, but little is known of the corresponding ideas of the precursors of the systematic psychology of the European tradition. The doctrines of the pre-Socratic philosophers are transitional.

Systematic Philosophy of Mind

Mind, Body, and Nature