DEFINITION OF SOME MODERN SCIENCES. 



in 



iology and physics. How the methods and results of these sciences 

 could be turned to profit, without any sacrifice of its own method or 

 autonomy, was, for psychology, not easy to determine. Fortunately, 

 with some friendly discussion regarding metes' and bounds, psychology 

 has not only held its own, but has also rendered service to its neighbors. 



It has not abandoned its traditional method. For the analysis of 

 the various states, processes, tendencies and activities which appear in 

 the individual consciousness, introspection cannot be dispensed with. 

 If it is supplemented, as we nowadays say, by other methods, this im- 

 plies not that self-observation of a keener sort is our prerogative, but 

 rather that, with clearer knowledge of the conditions upon which our 

 mental life depends, we are enabled to study each process both in itself 

 and in its manifold relations. Comparison is thus a conspicuous and 

 even an essential feature of modern psychological methods. 



Psycho-physical research, as the name indicates, seeks to determine 

 the relations between mental processes and physical processes. Whether 

 this determination and its quantitative results should be called meas- 

 urement, is still a subject for discussion. But there can no longer be 

 any question as to the value for psychology of experimental methods. 

 With the aid of these it is now possible to compare accurately changes 

 in sensation and variations in the quality and intensity of external 

 stimuli, to observe closely the organic modifications which accompany 

 emotion, and to fix, within reasonable limits, the time-rate of the most 

 complex processes. In a general way, of course, it has always been 

 known that there was some sort of connection between the psychical 

 and the physical; what modern psychology accomplishes is the more 

 detailed and more exact investigation of that connection. Similarly 

 with the phenomena of association, memory, attention, inhibition and 

 fatigue; their importance has long been recognized, but their thorough 

 analysis is the outcome of experimental work. 



A complete solution of the problems that are offered in this portion 

 of the field would leave on our hands the larger problem as to the 

 development of consciousness. That mind is a growth, that its behavior 

 in any given moment is affected by its behavior in all the past 

 moments, all psychologists admit. But there is much to be learned 

 regarding the successive phases of this growth. By what steps does the 

 mind advance from the earliest impressions of childhood to the complex 

 activities of adult life? What share in the process shall be assigned 

 respectively to heredity, to the influence of environment, to the mind's 

 own reaction by impulse, imitation and the growing consciousness of 

 ends to be attained? The answer to such questions involves obviously 

 a comparison between later forms of mental life and its simpler begin- 

 nings which may lead us far into the province of biology. Certainly 

 no theory of evolution can afford to disregard the mental factors any 



