PSYCHOLOGY 39 



PSYCHOLOGY: SCIENCE OR TECHNOLOGY? 



By B. B. TITCHENER 



PSYCHOLOGY has, of recent years, been exhorted to be practical, 

 praised for its willingness to be practical, blamed for its unwill- 

 ingness to be practical. " A kind of psychology which is needed is that 

 of every-day people." "Psychology is ceasing to be a purely academic 

 science and is now willing to study questions dealing with every-day 

 life." "Psychology as it is being taught and investigated deals with 

 matters of no concern, or of too abstract a nature, for practise." " The 

 normal psychologist has been forced out of his academic reserve." A 

 psychology is needed " which is aimed at practical ends," " a psychology 

 which works and lives rather than a psychology easy to teach or easy to 

 write," a psychology of a "matter-of-fact type," which adopts "the 

 common-sense attitude," a psychology whose problems " really go at the 

 causal relationships vital to the student, vital to any layman who wants 

 to know what psychology is and does, vital to the physician," — in a 

 word, a truly " dynamic " psychology. The demand, as these few quo- 

 tations show, far exceeds the supply; exhortation and blame are more 

 strongly in evidence than encouragement and praise. 



If, now, such amenities meant simply that there is a family quarrel 

 among psychologists, or if the attack upon theory and the call to prac- 

 tise were confined to psychology alone, then discussion and reply would 

 find their proper place in some technically psychological journal. It 

 seems, however, to a lay reader of scientific magazines, that the stir in 

 and about psychology is typical of what is just now going on in many 

 other fields of scientific work, and that the issue between theory and 

 practise has been raised in many quarters. That would, of itself, be 

 good ground for appeal to a general scientific audience; but the present 

 writer has a second reason for bringing discussion into the open. He 

 believes that, so far as the matter may be argued, so far (that is to say) 

 as we leave out of account temperamental differences and idiosyncrasies 

 which are beyond the reach of argument, hostilities are in the main kept 

 up through the neglect of a very elementary distinction, the distinction 

 of Science and Technology; and he believes that, if that distinction is 

 regarded, there may be an end of railing accusation and a new birth of 

 what theory and practise both alike require — serious and well-weighed 

 criticism. It is true that the mere expression of this belief may defeat 

 his purpose: the practically-minded reader may refuse to read further; 



