BAIN, ALEXANDER. – Scottish philosopher and educationalist, born in Aberdeen in 1818, died there in 1903. He taught at the Universities of Glasgow, London, and Aberdeen.
Principal works, in addition to various popular scientific works and literary publications: The Senses and the Intellect, Oxford 1855; The Emotions and the Will, ibid. 1859; The study of Character, ibid. 1861; Compendium of Psychology and Ethics, London 1868; Logic deductive and inductive, ibid. 1870; The relations of Mind and Body, ibid. 1873; Education as a Science, ibid. 1879, etc. In 1876 he founded the journal Mind, in which he published various essays.
B. is the last great representative and foremost systematizer of the classical associationist school. B.’s thought is the direct continuation of that of J. Stuart Mill, his teacher and friend, and may be summarized as having extended the principle of association to the processes of volition, recognized the importance of physiological factors, and acknowledged the constructive function of the sensation of muscular effort in the genesis of perceptions (Fabro). In associations he distinguishes two basic forms: contiguity and resemblance. By admitting attention among the factors under whose influence associations are formed, however, he weakens the mechanical character of associationism. B. also concerned himself with pedagogy, naturally in a positivist sense, dealing exclusively with questions of teaching and school discipline. B. marks a transitional phase in the history of psychology. He wished to give his investigations a more decisively experimental character, so that he has been defined as the epigone of philosophical psychology and the precursor of experimental-physiological psychology.