LOEB'S " THE MECHANISTIC CONCEPTION OF LIFE " 465 



peculiar connection of sensitive surfaces with muscle tissue, if 

 physical or chemical stimuli to which such animals are suscep- 

 tible attack one side of the organism moie violently than the 

 other, the muscles of the two sides will be unequally innervated. 

 (2) In animals possessing symmetrical anatomical disposition of 

 muscles this unequal innei vation will result in orienting move- 

 ments tending to biing the organism into a position wheie the 

 stimulus falls evenly on the two sides, i.e., into a position point- 

 ing toward or away from the source of the stimulation. (3) It 

 should be the aim of psychology to reduce all the forms of 

 psychic behavior to the s?me essentially physico-chemical expla- 

 nations as are afforded by the knowledge ot tropisms. Dr. 

 Loeb's own words on the third point may be quoted: "To me 

 it is a question of making the facts of psychology accessible to 

 analysis by means ot physical chemistry." (P. 61). 



This pronouncement, which a decade or two ago might have 

 occasioned considerable agitation, will haidly cause a flutter in 

 the psychological breast today. The notion that the practi- 

 cally useful type of explanation of mental events is to be found 

 in terms of neuial activities is now almost universally accepted 

 among experimental psychologists. Obviously it is in physical 

 and chemical terms that the final analysis of these neural pro- 

 cesses is to be given. The fact that we seem today to be a long 

 journey away fiom any adequate physico-chemical knowledge 

 about the innei workings of the nervous system detracts not 

 a whit from the theoretical soundness ot the position. 



The psychological issue which is really raised by this doc- 

 trine, although Loeb does not explicitly enter upon it, concerns 

 the necessity for a thorough-going analysis of the psychical 

 facts themselves, and the methods of executing such analysis. 

 To be sure he remarks (speaking of comparative psychology) : 

 ' But I believe also that the further development of this subject 

 will fall more to the lot of biologists trained in physical chemistry 

 than to the specialists in psychology or zoology * * * ." 

 (P. 61). How far, however, he recognizes a necessity for a 

 technique of mental analysis as a preliminary to his process of 

 chemical and physical explanation is not clear. 



In the case of human behavior at least the need for strictly 

 psychological analysis seems to the present writer so obvious as 

 to be almost truistic, and yet many intelligent persons, not for- 



