THE PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. 35 



THE PROBLEMS OF COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY* 



By JOSEPH JASTEOW, Ph. D., 



PROFESSOR OF EXPERIMENTAL AND COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN THE 

 "UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 



TO any one thoroughly impressed with the intimate relations 

 of mind and body, it seems natural enough that the gradual 

 development and perfection of the one should carry with it analo- 

 gous stages in the growth of the other ; but even the most pro- 

 found student must at times give wondering expression to the 

 marvelous extent, the endless variety, and the unexpected pre- 

 cision of the interrelations of the physical and the psychological. 

 An extensive survey of the phenomena to be studied, and a dis- 

 cerning and comprehensive use of the comparative method in 

 studying them, are as necessary and as promising in the mental 

 as they have proved to be in the physical sciences. We must 

 overcome the tendency to study too exclusively our own adult, 

 civilized, conscious selves ; to view the landscape by observing its 

 reflection in a mirror, and thus seeing everywhere our own image. 

 With full appreciation of the supreme interest we must always 

 have in our own mental powers, it may be maintained that in 

 proportion to our knowledge of the earlier, simpler, and lowlier 

 manifestations of intelligence, will be our ability to appreciate 

 and utilize the best and worthiest faculties in ourselves. 



Comparative Psychology finds its origin and its material in the 

 variety of animal life, in the series of changes of which an indi- 

 vidual life consists, and in the evolution of more complex forms 

 of life from one generation to another. The first of these — Ani- 

 mal Psychology — endeavors to arrange in orderly secpience the 

 various forms of mentality from protozoon to man, to discover in 

 what this advance consists, to establish orderly relations between 

 mental powers and the nervous system, and the like. The study 

 of the stages, and especially the earlier stages, of the growth of 

 the human mind — Child Psychology — has only recently been pur- 

 sued in a scientific spirit, so that systematic records of the essen- 

 tial and important points of child-growth are lamentably rare. 

 But even this limited research has brought to light an interest- 

 ing body of facts, and holds out the promise of more valuable 

 results as the fruits of more extended investigation. The side of 

 anthropology that deals with the stages of man's mental progress 

 from rudest savagery to the highest civilization ; tracing the 

 variety and onward movements of customs, habits of thought, 



* Abstract of a lecture delivered before the Chicago Institute of Arts, Science, Letters, 

 and Religion. 



