MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 145 



has become essentially German. The German method is characterized by 

 a slow and laborious accumulation of data, and is deficient in the very element 

 that the doctrine of evolution supplies. The German method has freed 

 psychology comjDletely from the hypothesis of a metaphysical entity called 

 mind, and has enabled it to reach the point where it has been called in derision, 

 a psychology without a soul. This is the condition that every su})ject of 

 knowledge must reach before it can be called a science. It must be a science 

 of phenomena, and not a science of ultimate causes. German psychology 

 has regarded physiological processes as a means of studying the psychical, 

 and has introduced experiment as a primary means of psychological research. 

 The demonstration of Weber's law has rendered forever impossible the 

 continuance of the former conception of mind as a postulate for psychical 

 study. 



But the German ]3sychology is deficient in a great synthesizing principle 

 that shall guide discovery and summate all progress. All psychical facts 

 are valuable, but not all are of equal importance. Sometimes, also, I fear 

 that we are too busy in trying to find out what the Germans are doing to 

 accomplish all that we ought to do ourselves. 



The greatest need in psychology today is the formulation of a synthesizing 

 principle, based vipon the doctrine of evolution, and including the facts 

 discovered by German methods, which shall enter every field of psychical 

 activity and shall bring all departments of research under its dominion. 

 We need for psychology a restatement of evolution in psychological terms; 

 and I predict that it will not be many years before a new Darwin will arise 

 in psychology and that this Schoolmaster's Club will listen to a continuation 

 of this paper in newer terms than it is possible now to emplov. 



Ypsilanti, April 2, 1909. 

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