33G 



DISCOVERY 



Freud, Jung, and Morton Prince, have been made quite 

 independently of physiological foundations and physio- 

 logical considerations. 



Let us realise, then, that the nervous system can be 

 studied for its own sake by the physiologist, that the 

 mental system can be studied for its own sake by the 

 psychologist, and that the relation between neural and 

 mental processes is the concern of a fascinating border 

 science, physiological psychology, in which physiology 

 and psychology are deeply interested, from which each 

 may (with due precaution) derive considerable help, 

 but in which each is only secondarily concerned. 



When, nearly twenty years ago, I began to teach 

 experimental psychology, it was generally confused 

 with the physiology of the sense organs, and reaction 

 times. During that period I have naturally adhered 

 closely to the general lines of my predecessor and 

 teacher, Dr. Rivers, who was probably the first, in 

 Europe at least, to introduce a reaUy systematic prac- 

 tical course of experimental psychology into the 

 laboratory. His pupils began by studying the simplest 

 and most abstract processes, sensations — proceeding 

 thence to illusions, memory, and so on. To-day I feel 

 by no means sure that this is any longer the best method 

 of beginning the subject, so great has been the advance 

 within recent years in the experimental investigation 

 and in the scientific observation of other mental pro- 

 cesses. The objects of the teacher of psychology must 

 be first to train his pupils in discerning the varied 

 material with which they will have to deal, and next to 

 train them in scientific method. I am disposed to tliink 

 that sensations afford a less easy and less interesting 

 theme for introspection than, say, ideas or thoughts. 

 I believe that, at all events in the biological sciences, of 

 which psychology forms a part, it will often prove a 

 mistaken procedure to begin with the study of appa- 

 rently the most simple object, which is often that which 

 we have come to know last, about which we know least, 

 and which is often, by reason of its very simplicity, the 

 most abstract or remote from everyday experience. 

 We owe this principle of instruction, I suppose, to the 

 age of scholasticism, which confused the formal laws 

 and operations of Logic with the mental processes 

 actually employed in reasoning, and the rules of 

 grammar with the speaking of language. We are at 

 length recognising that, inasmuch as the grammar of 

 language and the scales of music were not formulated 

 until ages after speech and melody had been in use, a 

 foreign language should not be taught by first learning 

 the basic rules of grammar, nor should music be taught 

 by beginning with scale practice. The last to be ab- 

 stracted cannot be the first to be taught. For this and 

 other reasons I would suggest that the study of psy- 

 chology should begin with a preliminary survey of the 

 more advanced mental processes, the more familiar, the 



more interesting, and the more alive in tendency to 

 action and in wealth of introspection : I mean the flow 

 of thoughts. The prominence of individual mental 

 differences would be thus forced early on the student's 

 notice, and at the outset he would be trained in analysis 

 and in recognising the enormous importance of afiec- 

 tion, emotion, conation, of instinctive and unconscious 

 mental activity, and in the effects of suggestion, fore- 

 knowledge, etc. Having thus learnt the general ground- 

 work of his subject, the student would then receive 

 instruction in the psycho-physical and statistical 

 methods, a knowledge of which is so essential for the 

 avoidance of pitfalls in psychological experiment. It 

 is mainly due to their ignorance or neglect of the 

 psycho-physical methods that those experienced in 

 research in other branches of natural science are apt to 

 fail so egregiously when they attempt to carry out 

 investigations involv'ing the action of mental processes, 

 e.g. in colour vision, in mental fatigue, and most strik- 

 ingly in so-called " psychical research," which has fallen 

 almost wholly into the hands of the psj'chologically 

 untrained. The psjxho-physical methods are most 

 easily practised and mastered in the sphere of sensory 

 experience. 



Before he begins the stud}' of psychologj-, the student 

 should have leanit the elements of physics and biology, 

 and he should have then attended a course of ele- 

 mentary physiology and a course of elementary phi- 

 losophy, so as to a\'oid subsequent confusion of scientific 

 psychology with either, and so as to recognise the deep 

 interest of psychology in both. 



There is a correspondence, but not, I think, any 

 connection, between the importance which experimental 

 psychology at one time attached to the study of sensa- 

 tion and the great stress laid by philosophers, in the 

 pre-experimental phase of psychology, on the sphere 

 of the intellect. In the world's history, philosophical 

 speculation has alwaj's preceded scientific experiment 

 and analysis. Natural science, which demands greater 

 patience, self-control, and impartiality, has only made 

 real progress during the last two or three centuries, 

 whereas philosophical thought and speculation have 

 been able to flourish from remote antiquity. The sub- 

 ject-matter of psychology formed but a fraction of the 

 wide sphere of interests of the metaphysician, who con- 

 sidered himself qualified and in duty bound to philoso- 

 phise on every branch of knowledge. It is little wonder, 

 then, that the framers of such world-wide hypotheses 

 overlooked psychological facts that did not easily fit 

 into them, and neglected to observe those which were 

 not of immediate interest. They laid little stress on 

 instinct and suggestion : their consideration of the 

 unconscious was practically limited to the recognition 

 of habit and of the mental " dispositions" left behind 

 from previous experience. Somewhere the " will " had 



