SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— J. 381 



elements or factors that remain without change in forming or effecting the total thing 

 or occurrence. 



This attitude is very largely justified both in principle and by results. Indeed, 

 inasmuch as it is an inherent necessity of the analytic and quantitative aspect or 

 character of scientific method to reduce things to their simplest elements and to 

 view complex things and processes as formed out of these as their constituents, 

 mechanism must retain its place as the chief, if not the only, principle of scientific 

 procedure unless a method is forthcoming that conserves its truth and value while 

 supplementing it by some other principle. 



The question is not that of a division of spheres or levels of existence, some of 

 which are capable of complete explanation on mechanical principles, while others are 

 incapable of such explanation, and require the introduction of other principles. For 

 there is no sphere that is not in any degree susceptible of the application to it of the 

 terms and categories of mechanism. 



Nevertheless, it is gradually coming to be recognised that this procedure gives 

 only a partial explanation of any natural process. There is, in any complex process, 

 a principle of synthesis involved, such that, instead of the whole being the mere sum 

 of the parts and being explicable by the mere composition or combination of the 

 parts, it is rather the case that the parts can only be explained by reference to the 

 whole, since they are modified by their relation to it. If so, mechanism must be 

 supplanted, or at least supplemented, by a mode of explanation that gives due regard 

 to this. 



This principle of wholeness or unity is exemplified in many different spheres of 

 fact, e.g. in atomic structure, in chemical synthesis, in the life of an organism and 

 even in the character of the single life-cell, in the processes of perception and volition, 

 and also in so-called reflex action, in the development of personality and the attainment 

 of social control. 



Holism, then, signifies that everj'thing in the universe is in some form or another, 

 and in greater or less degree, potentially or actually, an organic whole ; that as 

 anything develops to a fuller realisation of its potentialities or a fuller perfection of 

 its nature, it becomes more truly such a differentiated and yet unified whole ; and 

 that, by implication, the universe itself is an infinite organic whole. 



This involves that nothing in nature can be explained merely as the result of 

 preceding processes or anterior stages of development. The lower or simpler is the 

 condition without which the appearance of the higher or more complex would be 

 impossible ; but the development to higher levels is possible at all only through the 

 impulse to organic unity or synthesis under the controlling influence of the infinite 

 whole. 



Prof. H. WiLDON CarPv. — Imagination and Reasoning. 



Dr. 0. A. Oeser. — On the Interpretation of Psychological Experiments from 

 a Typological Standpoint. 



Just as there is a reaction in education against a strict ujiiformization that has 

 resulted in the ' standard child,' so in psychology to-day there is a reaction against 

 the experimental procedure that results in uniformization and the ' standard subject.' 

 But although a great number of theories of psychological types has been produced, 

 few of them stand on a rigorous experimental basis hke that of Jaensch and the 

 Marburg School. 



To achieve consistent results, it becomes necessary to separate subjects into groups, 

 and to correlate the experiments on each group with other experiments on the same 

 group. We can no longer take a mixed lot of subjects and hope to get standard results. 

 The separation into groups has to be done by tests. These are evolved by studying 

 individuals of some pronounced, possibly abnormal type, and tracing the structural 

 peculiarities thus found into the broad field of normaUty. The question of attitude and 

 instruction becomes of great importance, since an instruction may favour the normal 

 reaction of one type and not of another, thus leading to erroneous interpretations of 

 the results. This is well evident from tachistoscopic experiments on reading. The 

 controversies that these raised have been solved by applying the structural typolngical 

 method. This method also throws fresh hght on the problem of attention, and the 

 wider problems of the antitheses between idealistic and materiaUstic philosophies 

 through a study of the modes of experience of different types. 



