198 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



Finally there is the question of the relation of the results of specific 

 experimentation to the claims of general systematic theorising. It 

 should be clear that I am not for one moment for the haphazard experiment 

 that has no idea, no broadly formulated problem, behind it. Also I would 

 condemn as heartily as anybody that scatter of descriptive results, unco- 

 ordinated, unsystematised, which is common in many directions nowadays. 

 We must explain our results and not merely collect and exhibit them. Yet 

 I would urge that when we have, for example, satisfactorily stated the 

 conditions of some particular perceptual reaction, we have no more right 

 to pronounce magisterially upon a complex problem of reasoning than a 

 physiologist who has studied respiratory functions has to pretend at once 

 to clear up the secrets of spinal reflexes. No doubt the physiologist would 

 never for a moment attempt to do this, but unfortunately it is not so easy 

 to answer for the pretensions of the experimental psychologist in a like 

 case. It may even be that all our specific studies will lay bare common 

 broad principles of the determination of response. Even so, the broad 

 principles are not the explanation of the specific problem, and for whatever 

 they may be worth, before we erect them into a comprehensive system we 

 must have the specific problems widely and patiently worked out. 



With this outlook of mingled boldness and caution I believe that 

 experimental psychology will prove adequate to its task of building up a 

 sound scientific study of complex response in animal and man. 



