16 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 210. 



has been kept up assiduously, and in recent 

 yeS,rs the number of meridian observations 

 of the Moon has largely surpassed those 

 made anywhere else. 



In spite of this limitation in the scope of 

 its operations, the N'aval Observatory has 

 not been unmindful of other lines of work. 

 As instances of this may be cited the brill- 

 iant discovery of the moons of Mars by 

 Professor Hall ; the extensive work upon 

 the satellites of the outer planets by Profes- 

 sors Hall, ISTewcomb and Brown ; and 

 finally the star catalogues of Professors 

 Yarnall and Eastman and the contribution 

 to the great star catalogue of the German 

 Astronomical Society in the observation of 

 the zone of stars from 13° 50' to 18° 10' of 



south declinations. a ^t o 



A. N. Skinner. 



U. S. Naval Observatory. 



THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIETY. 



The attempt to construct a science of 

 society by means of biological analogies has 

 been abandoned by all serious investigators 

 of social phenomena. It was one of those 

 misdirected efforts that must be looked 

 upon as inevitable in the development of 

 any branch of knowledge. The notion of a 

 universal evolution compelled those who 

 accepted it to tr}^ to find some other expla- 

 nation of our social relations than that 

 dogma of an original covenant which had 

 come down to us from Hobbes and Locke. 

 Biology supplied most of the facts and ideas 

 of which the evolutionary thought was con- 

 structed ; and naturally, therefore, biolog- 

 ical conceptions were first made use of in 

 formal Sociology. At present, however, all 

 serious work in Sociology starts from psy- 

 chological data, and proceeds by a combina- 

 tion of ps3'chological with statistical and 

 historical methods. 



Psychology has had a development some- 

 what similar. Beginning with purely meta- 

 physical terms and reasonings, it became a 

 natural science with the advent of evolu- 



tionary thought, and for a long time drew 

 its best materials and its most fruitful 

 hypotheses from physiological data. Phys- 

 iological Psychology was the only psy- 

 chology very well worth attention. George 

 Henry Lewes was one of the first writers 

 to argue, as he did with great force and 

 brilliancy in the ' Problems of Life and 

 Mind,' that the physiological explanations 

 of mind must be supplemented by explana- 

 tions drawn from the study of society. At 

 the present time the social interpretation 

 of mental development is an important part 

 of psychological activity. 



Psychological and sociological investiga- 

 tions have thus converged upon certain 

 common problems, namely: The problem of 

 the social nature of the individual mind, 

 and the problem of the psychical nature of 

 social relations. Any new contribution to 

 either Psj'chology or Sociology is likely to 

 be found also a contribution to the other, 

 and we may look in the near future for a 

 number of books of which it will be difficult 

 to say whether they are primarily works 

 on Psychology or on Sociology. 



This is eminently true of Professor Bald- 

 win's ' Social and Ethical Interpretations,' 

 the second volume of his work on ' Mental 

 Development.' The first volume, on ' Meth- 

 ods and Processes,' was definitely a study 

 in Psychology. The problem dealt with 

 was that of mental development through 

 the interaction of physical and social causes, 

 and the importance of social factors was 

 emphasized throughout. In the volume on 

 ' Social and Ethical Interpretations ' we 

 again find the same problem. The develop- 

 ment of the individnal mind through its 

 social relations and activities is further con- 

 sidered. In this volume, however, the 

 opposite problem also is introduced. The 

 development of social relations and activi- 

 ties throvigh the outgoing of the individual 

 is discussed, and the nature of society is 

 sulijected to a critical examination. 



