Literary Notices. 513 



thoroughly before we can classify them or profitably consider 

 their relations to the materials of allied sciences ; in fact even 

 before we can distinguish physiology from psychologv' in any 

 accurate sense we must know the possible methods of classifica- 

 tion of reaction, and be able, in the light of accurate and ex- 

 tensive knowledge of the peculiarities and unimportant varia- 

 tions of reactions as well as their fundamentally important differ- 

 ences, to select as criteria those characters which are most con- 

 stant and which taken together form the most valuable working 

 basis for the sciences of reaction. 



There is a tendency among physiologists — .imong natural 

 scientists generally — to look upon psychology with distrust, if 

 not with indifference or scorn. The average German physiolo- ^ 

 gist uses very different tones of voice for the "Physiolog" and 

 the "Psycholog. " Some of them apparently feel that psycho- 

 ogy is too near akin to metaphysics to be a safe favorite for the 

 natural scientist, while others are evidently satisfied in their own 

 minds that the ps}'chic is not and cannot be material of a natu- 

 ral science. In America too there is a strong prejudice against 

 psychology, among the natural scientists especially, or, if not 

 prejudice, there is a distrustful curiosity which makes the life of 

 the truly scientific student of psychic reactions at times un- 

 pleasant. This general distrust and ridicule of psychology is 

 doubtless due, first, to tlie fact that the naturalistic movement 

 of the last century was accompanied by a wide speading and 

 deep distrust of the speculative sciences of which psychology 

 was then, and is still by many, reckoned as one ; and second, 

 perhaps almost as largely, to the semi-scientific and too often 

 carelessly used methods of that new psychology which called 

 itself experimental. Even the honest and sincere defender of 

 psychology, or of the possibilities of such a science, cannot 

 deny that much work which has been placed upon record as 

 experimental psychology is pure rot. But, admitting this with 

 regret, he well may ask, What of the early stages in the devel- 

 opment of astronomy, of chemisty, of physics, of anthropology, 

 of sociology ? Natural sciences are not born to perfection of 

 method, they develop ; and psychology is even now approach- 



