January 20, 1899.] 



SCIENCE. 



91 



place in a systematic, thorougli study of the 

 subject. The number of such experiments, 

 and hence the length of the special courses, 

 will naturally be very different in the 

 various instances ; thus experimental physi- 

 ology of the eye will occupy more time than 

 the phj^siology of the larynx. As many 

 courses should be given at one time as there 

 are instructors in the department. The 

 student may elect the subjects that most 

 interest him, but must choose a sufficient 

 number to occupj^ him during the entire 

 four weeks of instruction. 



The afternoons of the days on which 

 physiology is taught are devoted to physio- 

 logical chemistry. 



Wm. T. Portee. ° 



Haevakd Medical School. 



psychology. 



The invitation to talk about the methods 

 of teaching psychology was to me in one 

 way very welcome. All the year long I 

 have done nothing with fuller conviction 

 than to tell the psj'chologists that they 

 ought not to meddle with methods of teach- 

 ing, as they can hardly offer any aid. But 

 there is one exception, and here I have at 

 last a welcome chance to make the neces- 

 sary appendix to vay year's sermon; the 

 psychologists ought not to trouble them- 

 selves with the methods of teaching which 

 the other men appl}', but they ought, in the 

 highest degree, look out for the methods 

 which they use themselves, as there is per- 

 haps no science in which bad methods are 

 so confusing and dangerous. 



But the invitation came also as an em- 

 barrassment. The methods of psychology, 

 on account of the manj^ changes in recent 

 years, have so far not had the time to crys- 

 tallize ; they have not reached the stage of 

 an objective form about which the psj'chol- 

 ogists themselves agree, and it is a hopeless 

 task to seek there anything which is more 

 than a reflex of personal experiences. I 



felt this difficulty strongly and cannot offer, 

 therefore, anything but an expression of 

 my subjective convictions, which can claim 

 in their favor nothing but the fact that they 

 are based on observations in a university 

 where the rather vincritical rush towards 

 psychology has reached unexpected propor- 

 tions. 



The time is too short to demonstrate here, 

 what even every outsider ought to know, 

 that a scientific psychology is to- day in first 

 line experimental psychology and that col- 

 lections of instruments are thus the neces- 

 sary, full laboratories the desirable back- 

 ground of teaching psychology. The audi- 

 ence, on the other hand, is here too various 

 to allow a description of special important 

 pieces of appai'atus. I want, therefore, to 

 emphasize merely questions of principle. 



Such a question of principle it is to ask 

 which place this experimental psychology 

 ought to have in the lecture courses of the 

 university. To say the experimental work 

 ought to be the whole is absurd ; that is 

 possible for physics or physiology, but it is 

 impossible for psychology. The physical 

 sciences start with fundamental conceptions 

 and presuppositions which are acknowl- 

 edged without difficulty, while in psychology 

 just the basal conceptions like conscious- 

 ness, psychical causality, psychical elements, 

 psychophysical parallelism are full of dif- 

 ficulties and certainly not open to experi- 

 mental treatment. The usual waj' now is 

 that the elementary treatment of mental 

 life deals with this general theoretical book- 

 psychology, while the more advanced lec- 

 ture courses go forward to an exact experi- 

 mental study of the special facts. 



This seems to me a methodological blun- 

 der; the order ought to be just the op- 

 posite. I think, firstly, that the treatment 

 of the theoretical questions in psychology is 

 of no value whatever if it is given in an 

 elementary way; every f)roblem leads here 

 to epistemological discussions which go far 



