176 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE CONCEPTIONS AND METHODS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



By Professor J. McKEEN CATTELL, 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 



/""\NE of the verses in the treasure-house of Greek letters warns us 

 ^-' against calling any man happy before he is dead. The greatest 

 living English author lets one of his favorite characters say : ' But does 

 incessant battling keep the intellect clear?' Such reflections may well 

 lead us to distrust any attempt, by one in the ranks, to sum up the 

 fundamental conceptions and methods of a science, especially of a 

 young and growing science. It may be the prerogative of the student 

 of psychology to write the biography of an infant, but he has not 

 hitherto penetrated very far into its real life. I disagree completely 

 with the eminent psychologist to whom the plan of this great con- 

 gress is chiefly due when he claims that 'the presuppositions with 

 which a science starts decide for all time the possibilities of its outer 

 extension.' Sciences are not immutable species, but developing organ- 

 isms. Their fundamental conceptions and methods at any period can 

 only be approached by a research into work actually accomplished. 

 Had time and circumstance permitted, I should have attempted to 

 make an inductive study of the contents and methods of psychology 

 rather than to prepare three quarters of an hour of generalities and 

 platitudes. But as even the pedant knows, ' die Kunst ist lang, und 

 kurz ist unser Leben.' The court poet must console himself for the 

 deficiencies of his ceremonial verses by reflecting on the honor of being 

 permitted to write them. 



The concept of a science is an abstraction from an abstraction. 

 The concrete fact is the individual experience of each of us. Certain 

 parts of this experience are forcibly and artificially separated from the 

 rest and become my science of psychology, your science of psychology, 

 his science of psychology. From all these individual sciences, shifting 

 not only from person to person but also from day to day, there arises 

 by a kind of natural selection a quasi objective science of psychology. 

 In a well-bred science, such as chemistry, the conventions have become 

 standardized; the dogmas impose themselves on the neophyte. But 

 projectiles as small as ions or electrons break up the idols, and the map 



* An address at the International Congress of Arts and Science, St. Louis, 

 September, 1904. 



