SECTION J.—PSYCHOLOGY. 
PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
ADDRESS BY 
SHEPHERD DAWSON, M.A., D.Sc., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
Sociat problems are partly material and partly mental. Every society 
consists of interdependent personalities whose harmonious co-operation 
is necessary for the general well-being, and the really serious problems of 
life concern this co-operation. Very great progress has been made in 
the solution of the material problems: the physical and biological sciences 
have given increased control over material resources ; the energy values 
of foods have been determined, the amounts required for different kinds 
of work have been calculated, and preventive and remedial measures have 
been devised by medical science which are improving national health 
and lengthening life. 
Very much less attention has been given to the study of the mental 
aspects of social welfare, perhaps because every man finds it difficult to 
persuade himself that his conduct and thought can be studied as physical 
and biological phenomena are studied, resenting the suggestion that 
anyone but himself can know what he is going to do or what he is able to 
do, and yet with a strange inconsistency not hesitating to claim for himself 
such knowledge regarding others, or perhaps it is because the conditions 
that affect human thought and behaviour are so extremely complex that 
they make the understanding of a chemical reaction a trivial matter as 
compared with that of a bit of human behaviour. Nevertheless, for a 
proper understanding of the numerous problems that arise from life in a 
community, such as those of supply and demand, labour and capital, law 
and order, hygiene, housing, transport, education, the conflict of traditions 
and ideals, and local and international rivalries, the study of mind is just 
as important as is that of matter. The solutions to these problems are 
to be found ultimately in the forces that move men to action, in their 
inherited tendencies, in their acquired habits, in the mentality of the 
groups to which they belong, and in their relationships to those groups. 
Most men with any experience of the world know this, but it rarely 
occurs to them that these matters are amenable to scientific treatment : 
they rely on their own intuitions, seldom doubting their truth, preferring 
_ persuasion to proof. If opinion is to give place to knowledge, scientific 
method is just as necessary here as it is in chemistry, physics or biology, 
for it is just a deliberate effort to get a clear understanding of things by 
