350 METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE 



ever, they do not lead to a species concept, but are excluded from 

 scientific consideration (except for special purposes) as deformities or 

 monsters. 



While organisms usually work with kinds of energy which we know 

 well from the inorganic world, organs are found in the higher forms 

 which without doubt cause or assist transfers of energy, but we 

 cannot yet say definitely what particular kind of energy is active in 

 them. These organs are called nerves, and their function is regularly 

 that, after certain forms of energy have acted upon one end of them, 

 they should act at the other end and release the energies stored up 

 there which then act in their special manner. That energetical 

 transformations also take place in the nerve during the process of 

 nervous transmission can be looked upon as demonstrated. We 

 shall thus be justified in speaking of a nerve energy, while leaving it 

 undecided whether there is here an energy of a particular kind, or 

 perhaps chemical energy, or finally a combination of several energies. 



While these processes can be shown objectively by the stimulation 

 of the nerve and its corresponding releasing reaction in the end 

 apparatus (for instance, a muscle), we find in ourselves, connected 

 with certain nervous processes, a phenomenon of a new sort which 

 we call self-consciousness. From the agreement of our reactions 

 with those of other people we conclude with scientific probability 

 that they also have self-consciousness; and we are justified in making 

 the same conclusion with regard to some higher animals. How far 

 down something similar to this is present cannot be determined by 

 the means at hand, since the analogy of organization and of behavior 

 diminishes very quickly; but the line is probably not very long, in 

 view of the great leap from man to animal. Moreover, there are many 

 reasons for the view that the gray cortical substance in the brain, 

 with its characteristic pyramidal cell, is the anatomical substratum 

 of this kind of nervous activity. 



The study of the processes of self-consciousness constitutes the chief 

 task of psychology. To this science belong those fields which are gener- 

 ally allotted to philosophy, especially logic and epistemology, while aes- 

 thetics, and still more ethics, are to be reckoned with the social sciences. 



The latter have to do with living beings in so far as they can be 

 united in groups with common functions. Here in place of the indi- 

 vidual mind appears a collective mind, which owing to the adjust- 

 ment of the differences of the members of society shows simpler 

 conditions than that. From this comes especially the task of the 

 historical sciences. The happenings in the world accessible to us are 

 conditioned partly by physical, partly by psychological factors, and 

 both show a temporal mutability in one direction. Thus arises on 

 the one hand a history of heaven and earth, on the other hand a 

 history of organisms up to man. 



