198 president's address — -section J. 



we may account for the curious circumstance that the science of 

 mind, supplanted by its younger sisters, has been hitherto neglected 

 by our modern Associations for the Advancement of Science. 



The events of recent years are, hoAvever, significant of change. 

 Psychology is now separated from philosophy, and is based, like 

 other natural sciences, on a survey of positive facts. Starting with 

 the common sense distinction between mind and matter, it is the 

 task of empii-ical psychology to deal with mental facts, leaving 

 material facts to sciences which may be comprehensively classed 

 under the heads of physics, chemistry, and biology. The facts of 

 mind, like those of matter, are to be observed and classified ; the 

 complex are to be analysed into their simpler elements, and their 

 conditions and the order of their occurrence are to be ascertained. 

 A science of psychology, thus formed, has special features of its 

 own. It proceeds, in the first instance, by means of introspection 

 or self-observation, without which any advance would be impossible; 

 for our own minds are known to each of us individually, while we 

 can only infer what passes in the minds of others. It is compelled 

 also to classify aspects of mind rather than separate facts, for the 

 same complex fact may include knowledge, feeling, and will. These 

 peculiarities, however, do not invalidate its claim to be a natural 

 science. Like other natural sciences, it seeks to arrive at facts and 

 their uniformities ; and, like them also, it begins Avith assumptions 

 — such, for example, as the independent existence of the material 

 world, which it does not profess to investigate. The modern 

 psychologist has, doubtless, his philosophical creed as well as 

 another, and it may creep in where it is not wanted ; but he 

 acts wisely when he tries to keep the questions of philosophy 

 out of the way, confessing frankly that any assumptions which he 

 may make provisionally are to be handed over to another court for 

 ultimate judgment. However opposed psychologists may be to 

 each other in their philosophical tenets, they have thus found it 

 possible to maintain an armed truce, and to unite in doing excellent 

 work. In such circumstances psychology justly claims to be 

 aflaliated with the other sciences. Nay, the attitude which she 

 assumes in asserting a temporary independence may contain a 

 lesson for them also, for they are all branches of one tree of 

 knowledge — ways which part and divide themselves, as Bacon said 

 from the main and common way oi philosophia prima^ and there is 

 not one which does not move forward on assumptions which may 

 be called to submit themselves in the end to the criticism of 

 philosophy. 



The new conception of psychology involves an extension of its 

 territory. The older psychology was almost entirely restricted to 

 the consideration of the adult human mind in its normal mai.i- 

 festations ; and each observer was disposed — naturally enough — 

 to regard his own mind as typical of others. The development of the 

 human mind from earliest infancy is now more distinctly recognised 



