200 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION 



psychological congress, clearl}^ shows the need and the utility of 

 this solidarity. Partial groups of workers can be but temporary. 

 There is need, therefore, for a permanent center, where the differ- 

 ent branches of ps5'chological science can be brought into continual 

 and helpful contact. Then only will all the scattered efforts made 

 in different places be made to converge upon special, broader points 

 of study, with the result that light will be thrown upon them all by 

 this effort at synthesis. This is precisely the controlling idea in the 

 foundation of the General Psj' chological Institute, ' ' 



This report is issued bj^ a board of expert psychologists. It may 

 be added, however, that this French Institute depends upon public 

 subscriptions and dues of membership, and has so far been able to 

 do little beyond the issue of programs and suggestions to single 

 workers. 



In the same connection the present reporter may also cite the 

 policy of the recently issued Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology 

 of the Macmillan Company — an international cooperative under- 

 taking of which he has acted as editor. The policy of this work, 

 devoted to the mental and moral sciences and to the criticism and 

 theory of science in general, is shown in the fact that psj^cholog)^ 

 and ps5'chological research have been made the center of the entire 

 undertaking ; and, furthermore, it appears that in this work it has 

 been thought necessary to include the main conceptions of both 

 ph3^sical and natural science — so intimate has become the relation 

 of pS3xhology to these other disciplines. The following quotation 

 from the general preface to that work may serve to show its point 

 of view\ It reads : ' ' Psychology is the half way house between 

 biology, with the whole range of the objective sciences, on the one 

 hand, and the moral sciences, with philosophy, on the other hand. 

 The claim to this place made by psychology today is no more plain 

 than is the proof of it, which the results in this department of re- 

 search make good. The rise of experimental and physiological 

 psychology has caused the science to bulk large towards the empiri- 

 cal disciplines as it always has towards the speculative ; and the in- 

 roads made by ps5^chological analysis and investigation into the 

 domains where the speculative methods of inquiry were once ex- 

 clusively in vogue, render permanent and definite the relation of 

 that side as well. In biology, in sociology, in anthropology, in 

 ethics, in economics, in law, even in physics, the demand is for 

 sound psychology ; and the criticism that is making itself felt is 

 psychological criticism. ^ * * It will be found, therefore, that 



