PSYCHO-PHYSICAL METHOD 117 



I have no time to show you. And that is now a 

 matter of historical interest only, because it is now 

 generally admitted that he failed to find the proof 

 he sought. The road proved longer, the task more 

 arduous, than Fechner had hoped ; and we realize 

 now that generations of workers, even of workers as 

 keen and industrious and as bold as Fechner himself, 

 must pass away before the issue of this great dis- 

 pute can be decided. We recognize that the work of 

 psycho-physics, like that of all other branches of science, 

 must involve a vast amount of patient, laborious investi- 

 gation of minute problems, investigations which, taken in- 

 dividually, may well seem trivial, and which perhaps, even 

 more than the detailed work of other sciences, are apt to 

 seem to the vulgar utterly useless and therefore absurd. 



But for some minds the work has this great fascina- 

 tion that, however small the facts investigated may be, 

 however useless the results may seem from the point 

 of view of practical application, they all in some degree 

 bear upon, and contribute towards the solution of, a 

 problem which, though it lies altogether outside the 

 scope and beyond the purview of physical science, is yet 

 profoundly interesting, because its solution is essential 

 for the understanding of man's position and destiny in the 

 universe ; I mean, of course, the problem of the relation 

 of the physical to the psychical, the psycho-physical 

 problem par excellence. 



Though Fechner failed to establish his view, he 

 achieved much in founding the science of psycho-physics. 

 It had often been asserted that mental states can never 

 be subjected to exact and quantitative observation, and 

 some, holding to the false dictum that science is measure- 

 ment, had drawn the conclusion that the study of the 

 mind can never become a science. 



