204 president's address — section j. 



into complexes of sensations and their possibilities ? Thus an 

 intelligent student, after the perusal of such a textbook as Sully's 

 " Outline of Psychology," ma)' imagine that there is no escape from 

 a doctrine of subjective idealism. But here, again, as Sully is careful 

 to point out, a distinction must be made between the psychology 

 and the philosophy of perception. The '•individualistic" con- 

 clusion is the result of the limitation of our inquiry to mental 

 facts ; and Ave are not to take a restriction which we have ourselves 

 deliberately made as the ultimate limit of our knowledge. In this 

 case also psychology must stand aside, and make way for the final 

 criticism of philosophy. Kven physiological psychology, while it 

 clings to the phenomenal dualism between mind and matter, is 

 not free from the temptation of making certain presuppositions of 

 its own the ba^is of a metaphysic. It begins by postulating an 

 exact correspondence between physiological and psychical facts, 

 the latter depending on the former as their conditions. Here is an 

 hypothesis which may be fairly worked, as Professor James puts 

 it. " for all it is worth ;" we need not exclude working hypotheses 

 in psychology any more than in other positive sciences. Hut the 

 psycho-physiologist may proceed to ignore, or to deny, mental facts 

 for which he is vmable to find any physiological counterpart ; and 

 thus in psychology he may give us a revised edition of the old 

 theory of transformed sensations, and may also use his psychology 

 as the basis of a philosophical theory of materialism or automa- 

 tism. Such a use of his own presuppositions is clearly illegiti- 

 mate.* Facts which consciousness attests do not depend for theii 

 reality on the success of an explorer in the field of cerebral 

 physiology, and the enunciation of a hypothesis at the outset of an 

 inquiry does not prove its truth. Any results which may be 

 reached in following out such a hypothesis are subject to the 

 verification of facts, and, finally, to philosophical investigation into 

 the ultimate nature of matter and of mind. 



Of the methods to be employed in philosophy, as thus dis- 

 tinguished from psychology, time would fail me to speak. Strictly, 

 philosophy should not be included under mental science ; but we 

 may, I think, taking a liberal interpretation, gladly welcome any 

 philosophical contribution which is the outcome of genuine 

 thought. The imreasonableness of attempting to exclude all 

 consideration of the questions of philosophy is shown by its 

 futility How is it possible that the human mind, encouraged by 

 the spirit of modern Science to push its inquiries to the uttermost, 

 should stop short abruptly, declining all investigation into the first 

 principles or conditions of knowledge and of being? Every 

 polemic against metaphysics is itself a metaphysic in disguise, 

 for an assertion of the impossibility of answering metaphysical 



•The danger here briefly touched upon has been fully ti eateil, with leterence to recent 

 speculations, by Dr. Ward, in an article entitled ".Modern Psychology: a Reflection," in 

 Mind for January, 1893, and by Professor Seth in an article on "The New Psychology and 

 Automatism," in the Contemporary JRevieio for April, 1893. 



