2o8 



NATURE 



[November 6, 1919 



on the body, and may produce fatal effects? 

 For all that, fifty years ago no one sus- 

 pected that the body itself produces drugs 

 destined to influence its own functions, that 

 certain organs pass chemical substances (chemical 

 messengers, as they have appropriately been 

 termed) into the blood to affect distant parts, and 

 that many functions of the organism are regu- 

 lated by these chemical agents and self-formed 

 drugs, sometiines in conjunction with the nervous 

 system, sometimes to the exclusion of its 

 action. 



The discovery of these internally formed drugs 

 has led to the development of a new branch of 

 physiology to which the term "endocrinology," 

 or physiology of the internally secreting glands, 

 has been applied. Fifty years ago the pituitary 

 body, the thyroid gland, and the suprarenal cap- 

 sules were mere names. Little was known of 

 their structure, nothing of their functions. The 

 account which we are now able to give of these 

 organs regds like a fairy-tale. That one of the 



smallest should by its secretion be able to influ- 

 ence the growth and stature of the body, render- 

 ing this man a giant, that man a dwarf ; that 

 another should produce a material without which 

 the nervous system is not in a condition to per- 

 form its functions ; that yet others should elabo- 

 rate materials which when discharged into the 

 blood exercise a profound influence upon the 

 activity of totally distinct and distant organs of 

 the body, are secrets of Nature which were unre- 

 vealed fifty years ago, although now amongst the 

 commonplaces of physiological instruction. 



The individuals who have been responsible for 

 these advances — whether on the old or on the 

 new lines — are too numerous even to be men- 

 tioned here ; those who most deserve such men- 

 tion would indeed be the last to desire it. But 

 History will carve their names on the monument 

 they have joined in erecting, and Science, no less 

 mindful of her votaries than Religion of hers, will 

 not fail to reward their services with the grateful 

 encomium : Ev,. SofXe dya^c nai tticttc. 



THE MODERN SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



THE progress made by psychology since 1869 

 may be justly described p.s unparalleled. In 

 that year the subject had no laboratories, and it 

 was regarded as a matter of philosophical study. 

 To-day a psychological laboratory exists in nearly 

 every important university, and psychology has 

 become recognised as the youngest recruit to the 

 natural sciences — the natural science of mental 

 processes. 



The modern science of psychology, while admit- 

 ting the great value of the older purely intro- 

 spective psychology of the philosophers (repre- 

 sented in this countrv by the writings of Ward 

 and Stout), realises its dangers and its inade- 

 quacy, and seeks to remove it £rom all meta- 

 physical implications and to study mental pro- 

 cesses under known variable conditions. From 

 experimental psychology, thus established, have 

 arisen the sub-sciences of (i) physiological psycho- 

 logy, in which the relation of mental to nervous 

 processes is investigated, (ii) animal psychology, 

 which studies the relation of animal to human 

 mentality and behaviour, and (iii) individual and 

 racial psychology, which determines the mental 

 differences Between different individuals and races 

 of mankind. 



There have also developed various " applied " 

 psychological sub-sciences — e.g. (iv) educational 

 psychology, the results of research in which are 

 now taught to teachers in their period of training; 

 (v) social psychology, which includes the psycho- 

 logy of religion and other social institutions and 

 characteristics ; (vi) abnormal psychology, which 

 forms a subject of examination for the post- 

 XO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



graduate diploma in psychological medicine now 

 established in the Universities of Cambridge, Edin- 

 burgh, Manchester, and elsewhere; (vii) industrial 

 psychology, which is concerned in discovering 

 the best conditions for the highest mental effici- 

 ency of the workers, in connection with which ap- 

 plications for the services of psychologically trained 

 investigators are now coming from pioneer indus- 

 trial and commercial firms ; (viii) the psychologry 

 of aesthetics, in which laboratory investigations 

 of importance for art have been published in this 

 country and elsewhere. Particularly in America, 

 but also in Germany, many special journals have 

 arisen devoted respectively to the psychology of 

 education, abnormal psychology, individual 

 psychology, animal psychology, industrial psycho- 

 logy, the psychology of evidence, etc. In this 

 country we have the British Psychological 

 Society, consisting of about 500 members, and 

 publishing the British Journal of Psychology. 



Fechner, who worked at Gottingen, and 

 Wundt, of Leipzig, who in the 'seventies estab- 

 lished the first psychological laboratory, may be 

 reckoned the fathers of experimental psychology. 

 Fechner was the first to formulate the psycho- 

 physical methods, a thorough grounding in which 

 is indispensable for the avoidance of the many 

 pitfalls of psychological experiment. To Wundt 

 or to his pupils (especially Kiilpe) flocked students 

 from other parts of Europe, and notably from 

 America, who sought to be trained in the prin- 

 ciples of the science. But in Italy, Austria, and 

 Russia experimental psychology has attracted few 

 workers. In Switzerland it has followed the 



