2/2 Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



Action is a category common to all science, whether we 

 are dealing with the motion or energy of physical science, with 

 the "reactions" so-called of living organisms in the case of 

 tropisms, reflexes, and instincts, or with the "mental processes" 

 or "mental activity" so vaguely conceived at the present time 

 under the figure of a "stream of consciousness." Ostwald's 

 recent attempt to subordinate the psychical to the idea of energy 

 is indicative of the demand for a category of action which may 

 serve as a platform upon which the various sciences may get to- 

 gether to discuss those important problems where their respective 

 fields overlap. Baldwin's conception of "psychophysical evo- 

 lution" and of "bionomic" and "psychonomic" forces is a simi- 

 lar attempt to find a basis upon which we can discuss the prob- 

 lems of mutual interest to biology and psychology, without rais- 

 ing metaphysical issues. The evolution of action, then, in the 

 application of the comparative method to neurology and 

 psychology, means the evolution of the organism, especially of 

 the nervous system, as a machine for converting stimulus into 

 response, as a mechanism susceptible to, and in turn mediating, 

 measurable changes in the phenomenal world. Whether men- 

 tal process is simply a phase of action and, if so, in what sense 

 this is true, are questions which here are not raised, the posi- 

 tion taken by this Journal being simply that for the comparison 

 of the mental and the neural, the two sets of phenomena must 

 be facts of the same order. The facts of comparative psychol- 

 ogy, as truly as the facts of comparative neurology, are acts or 

 reactions, whether or not, in the last analysis, we distinguish 

 the "psychic" as distinct from the "psychological" and "phys- 

 ical" facts, which latter are here brought into comparison. 



The Carnegie Institution has established a Department of 

 Experimental Biology under the charge of Professor C. B. 

 Davenport, now of the University ou Chicago. In this De- 

 partment two Stations have already been arranged for. One at 

 the Dry Tortugas, Florida, under charge of Dr. A. G. Mayer, 

 will undertake the investigation of tropical marine faunas. The 



