238 Education through Nature 



of Neo- Darwinism. It is interesting to note that 

 Wallace, the chief exponent of Neo- Darwinism, does 

 not include man in his scheme of evolution. 



THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY differs from the old, in (a) 

 its conclusions; (ft) in the method pursued in reaching 

 those conclusions; and (c) in its universality. The new 

 psychology has the characteristics of science, in so far 

 as it is not a one man's psychology, but a psychology 

 of all men. Its method is that of science; namely, 

 observation and experiment. The psychological labo- 

 ratory, with its apparatus for testing sense-organs, 

 nerve stimuli, and the effects of nervous fatigue on the 

 various mental manifestations of different individuals, 

 are characteristic of its method. 



It seeks the material for its conclusions in all depart- 

 ments of knowledge, especially the biological sciences, 

 physiology, neurology, and uses the methods of these 

 sciences in the investigation of mental phenomena. 

 Thus the psychologist is not now entirely ignorant of 

 the laws of life as manifested in lower organisms. 

 Animal instincts are recognized and studied with a 

 view to their possible connection with mental mani- 

 festations in the child. Development, both in the indi- 

 vidual and in the race, as shown in history and litera- 

 ture, is recognized as an important factor in mental 

 evolution, and used as an aid in interpreting mental 

 phenomena and in discovering the origin and activity 

 of mind. 



The fundamental fact which the new psychology 

 has emphasized is the elementary character of sensa- 

 tion as arising from nervous action. Stimuli, acting 

 on the end organs, the senses, or other stimuli arising 

 from physiological changes in the tissues of the body, 

 are transmitted to the central nervous system, where, 

 by the activity of the cortical centers of the gray matter 

 of the brain, these sensations are associated by simul- 

 taneous or successive nervous discharges of cortical 



