BIOLOGY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS 



formation of proper manual habits is an indispensable step 

 to right living in which the voice of psychology is claiming 

 and receiving a hearing. 



There has been slight attempt in this eclectic survey to 

 apportion mention to importance, or to aim at any com- 

 pleteness of inclusion. Much has gone into the making of 

 modern psychology that is omitted from this sketch. The 

 purpose has been to convey a set of impressions that may 

 compose into a picture — a motion picture — selecting 

 significant moments in the story of how modern psychology 

 came to be, together with excursions into characteristic 

 scenes within its comprehensive domain. 



To the same end a selection of general questions that 

 have a material bearing on viewpoints in psychology may 

 be added. 



For one of these a place might have been found earlier 

 in the exposition. It is equally appropriate in this connec- 

 tion, in further illustration of a problem of reflection 

 persistent from Greek days. For the complement of the 

 precept: "Man, know thyself," is the injunction: "Man, 

 know thy world." How we come into relation with the 

 stimulations to behavior, what it is that we react to, as 

 well as how we react, are the problems of a psychology 

 that has achieved the dignity of an independent name, not 

 easily anglicized — '^Gestalt psychology." The Gestalt is a 

 concept of correction; its problem is the fundamental one 

 of the terms in which the organism reacts to the environ- 

 ment; what it particularly corrects are the limitations and 

 ignorings of a strict behaviorism. The convenient steno- 

 graphic formula of the mechanism incorporated in a unit 

 of behavior is stimulus and response, S-K. It is a label, not 

 an explanation. As the strict behaviorist interprets it, it 

 is a formula omitting the essential ingredient. It should 

 read S-O-K — Stimulus -|- Organism -\- Response — and the 

 clue to the relations of S and R lies wholly in the 0. It is 



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