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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 582. 



and Plerbart, and now with Karl Pearson, 

 men of our craft have lost poise and become 

 mathematical methodists, forgetting Aris- 

 totle's injunction to the effect that it is 

 the mark of an amateur to insist on a 

 greater degree of accuracy than the subject 

 permits. So years ago when a man of 

 science said that memory was a continuity 

 of vibrations and that heredity and even 

 the properties of matter were a form of 

 memory, this speculation found place in 

 many a text-book almost as if it were a 

 new category, and here it stood as if con- 

 substantial with the basal facts which all 

 admit. "When hypnotism showed the im- 

 portance of suggestion, it was interpreted 

 by some of the very ablest philosophic 

 minds as including about every form of 

 mental action, and originality and spon- 

 taneity themselves were eclipsed by it, 

 while others argued that even heredity was 

 ;a form of suggestion. In a similar holo- 

 phrastic way, irritability, reflex action, 

 •electrical stimulation, tremors and vibra- 

 tions, the atom concept in the form of reals 

 and monads, the ego, the feeling of abso- 

 lute dependence, the emotions, the intellect, 

 the will, memory, and many more, have 

 been overworked or made the key for an 

 entire system. This constitutes at once 

 the charm and the confusion of the history 

 'of philosophy. It infects the mind with 

 the idea that a new principle can be found 

 io explain, or an old one stretched to in- 

 ■clude, or be made the key to unlock, the 

 entire universe; that the secrets of mind 

 are to be taken by storm and perhaps by 

 brilliant individual soldiership instead of 

 step by step by a long siege. This is the 

 very opposite of the Aristotelian temper- 

 ance with its motto — 'Nothing too much.' 

 It is this that has caused psychology, espe- 

 cially in America to-day, to be shot through 

 with surds, with metaphysical problems in- 

 jected up from ancient fires like dikes, here 

 an established conclusion from the labora- 



tory or a fact from field work, in the next 

 paragraph a discussion of its bearings upon 

 some venerable philosophical problem. 



In all this I mean no disrespect to phi- 

 losophy, the history of which I have always 

 taught and tried to understand and held 

 worthy of highest honor as the culmination 

 of culture history. Are we not all a little 

 in the unhappy state of an importunate 

 lover of two mistresses who either finds 

 it hard to choose between them, and there- 

 fore may die without issue, or seeks to wed 

 the preferred one without relinquishing his 

 hold upon the other? 



Again, psychiatry is just now coming 

 our way. Its extreme subserviency to 

 neurology is abating. Wernicke and the 

 somatologists whose chief paradigm was 

 general paresis, the outcome of which was 

 sure death and which showed brain lesions, 

 is giving way to Ziehen, Janet and 

 Hughlings Jackson, whose type diseases 

 are epilepsy, hysteria, etc., and who pro- 

 ceed from function to structure and not 

 conversely. This opens up an unprece- 

 dented opportunity for normal psychology 

 to influence psychiatry. But, alas, owing 

 to the infections of our fleld by metaphys- 

 ics, we are not unified enough to profit by 

 this opportunity. This is a large and vital 

 chapter I can only allude to here. 



Finally, should not psychology now prac- 

 tically accept the more modest ideal of 

 Bateson in biology and for a time be con- 

 tent to find and describe facts so as to 

 broaden the base of the pyramid, refuse to 

 accept its problems from speculative or 

 even ethical philosophy, suspend judgment 

 and even refrain from indulging the lit- 

 erary passion, if we have it, by writing 

 attractively concerning insoluble questions ? 

 Thus, while keeping open the perspective 

 by teaching the history of philosophy to 

 every experimenter, must we not admit 

 that we are all materialists and idealists, 

 realists and phenomenalists, necessitarians 



