RELATIONS OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 669 



it be objectively or subjectively conceived, is essentially biography. 

 Psychology can contribute much to the whole body of sciences 

 whose subject-matter is human consciousness in its various spe- 

 cial relations, but to the reconstruction of individual evolution, 

 whether of life itself or of its permanent expressions in literature, 

 art, religion, and political forms, it can contribute only as a pre- 

 paratory discipline of the historian himself. 



The contribution of psychology to the utilitarian sciences, like 

 that to history, is indirect and disciplinary; but with the signi- 

 ficant difference that, since the conditions with which these sciences 

 deal are plastic instead of irreversible, the experimental study of 

 mind not only gives intelligible order to their materials, but also 

 modifies action in their regard. Of the manifold special relations, 

 physical and mental, educational and therapeutic, which are em- 

 braced within the group, I shall select medicine and pedagogy as 

 typical examples. 



I do not choose these as representative of distinct final aims. 

 Health as well as character can ultimately be expressed only in 

 subjective terms. If a bilious condition affected neither the stomach 

 nor the head, if an excess of uric acid resulted in no rheumatic 

 twinges, if a lack of red blood neither ruined our complexions nor 

 lowered our capacity for happy activity, where is the man who 

 would give a thought to these things, or care whether they were 

 normal or not; since they affected neither the quality of his pre- 

 sent consciousness nor its duration? The whole value of the art 

 of healing roots in the transformation which is effected in the sub- 

 ject of consciousness, and in that alone. 



It is, however, with the methodology of the science and not its 

 ultimate aim that we have here to do, and with this also the men- 

 tal factor is found to be inextricably interwoven. The causes which 

 the physician seeks are indeed physical. He does not attempt to 

 cure the mind immediately, but directs his efforts toward a recti- 

 fication of the perverted bodily condition which is assumed as the 

 basis of the abnormal mental state. Nevertheless he cannot safely 

 direct his treatment toward the body alone, but must constantly 

 take into account the patient's condition of mind and the bearing 

 upon his own special problems of secondary conditions of excite- 

 ment, depression, and irregularity manifested in the form of mental 

 disturbances, which may have not only prime importance for his 

 diagnosis, but also the greatest influence upon the success or failure 

 of his treatment of the original source of trouble. 



In the practice of the physician symptomatology is as much 

 a matter of psycho-physical responses as of physiological tests. 

 This is true whatever be the nature of the disease, but it is espe- 

 cially important in the case of functional disturbances, above all 



