i8o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It seems to me that most of the research work that has been done 

 by me or in my laboratory is nearly as independent of introspection as 

 work in physics or in zoology. The time of mental processes, the ac- 

 curacy of perception and movement, the range of consciousness, fatigue 

 and practise, the motor accompaniments of thought, memory, the asso- 

 ciation of ideas, the perception of space, color-vision, preferences, judg- 

 ments, individual differences, the behavior of animals and of children, 

 these and other topics I have investigated without requiring the slight- 

 est introspection on the part of the subject or undertaking such on my 

 own part during the course of the experiments. It is usually no more 

 necessary for the subject to be a psychologist than it is for the vivi- 

 sected frog to be a physiologist. 



James and Wundt agree in telling us that the experimental method 

 is chiefly of use as a servant of introspection; indeed James says that 

 there is no ' new psychology,' ' nothing but the old psychology which 

 began in Locke's time, plus a little physiology of the brain and senses 

 and theory of evolution, and a few refinements of introspective detail.' 

 But our leaders in psychology have become our leaders by belying such 

 partial statements. Although neither Wundt nor James has at- 

 tempted any considerable experimental research, yet we look up to 

 them as the founders of modern psychology. Wundt's original and 

 laborious Physiologische Psychologie, the Leipzig laboratory and the 

 Philosophische Studien have been in large measure the foundation 

 stones of experimental psychology. The broad opportunistic treat- 

 ment of James, instinct with genius and fearless of logical inconsist- 

 ency, has been of immense service in freeing psychology from tradi- 

 tional fetters. I see no reason why psychology, at least the psychology 

 of twenty years ago, may not be said to be the subjects treated in 

 James's Principles of Psychology and Wundt's Physiologische Psy- 

 chologic with such additional subjects as other psychologists have in- 

 cluded or might have included in their treatises. 



When the introspective purist says that the treatises of Wundt and 

 James are potpouris of sciences, or that the kind of work that some of 

 us have attempted to do belongs to physiology or to anthropometry or 

 nowhere in particular, there is a natural temptation to reply that much 

 of introspective and analytic psychology belongs to art rather than to 

 science. Such things may be ingenious and interesting, like the per- 

 sonae of Bernard Shaw or the mermaids of Burne Jones, but we don't 

 expect to meet them in the street. An attitude of this kind would, 

 however, be as partial as that which it seeks to controvert. Let us take 

 a broad outlook and be liberal in our appreciation ; let us welcome varia- 

 tions and sports ; if birth is given to monstrosities on occasion, we may 

 be sure that they will not survive. 



Any attempt at a priori limitation of the field of a science is futile. 



