JIarch 6, 1808] 



SCIENCE 



385 



Science and Faith Cure healers the un- 

 deniable therapeutic values of this process. 

 Medicine, as well as psychology, could 

 therefore profit by the answer. What is 

 the physiological foundation of hypnosis? 

 Answers to questions such as these would 

 set us far on our way to a better under- 

 standing of the mind and its connection 

 with the body. With due modesty I may 

 as a psychologist say that the issues raised 

 here concern matters about which our 

 present knowledge is almost exclusively 

 psychological. 



I trust that in this brief sketch I have 

 made it clear that psychologists are watch- 

 ing with utmost eagerness a wide range of 

 neighboring scientific territory from which 

 they will purloin anything of value to 

 them if not prevented, and I hope I have 

 also shown that their needs are many and 

 genuine and definite. But what has the 

 psychologist to offer in return for the 

 blessings of natural science past and 

 future' 



I shall make my reply very brief and 

 confine it to a few words dealing first with 

 the general advantages which psychology 

 offers and second, to the specification of a 

 few more concrete details of service. 



One very obvious and simple service 

 which the psychologist would be glad to 

 render his scientific coUeagiies is the tender 

 of a knowledge of a few simple psycho- 

 logical distinctions and a reasonably satis- 

 factory terminology in which to clothe 

 them. It is depressing to the psychologist 

 to find his brethren still using ideas and 

 terms which were becoming obsolete in 

 psychology at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century. It may readily be granted 

 that the terminology created for strictly 

 psychological purposes may be found un- 

 satisfactory in some particulars when em- 

 ployed in psychiatry or neurology. But 

 the correct alternative to choose in the face 

 of this difficulty would not seem to be 



the naive creation of a new terminology, 

 nor the utilizing of one already outworn, 

 but rather the modification of the best one 

 in vogue. I would not seem to imply that 

 psychological terminology is a finished and 

 satisfactory product. Quite the reverse is 

 true, but it has some relatively stable 

 features to offer and some good reasons for 

 offering them. Moreover, there are cer- 

 tain elementary psychological ideas and 

 principles which are quite firmly estab- 

 lished, and should be familiar to every 

 scientist whose work requires him now and 

 again to indulge in psychological state- 

 ments. Such terms as sensation, percep- 

 tion, imagination, memory, attention, asso- 

 ciation, conception, reasoning, emotion, 

 and volition have sufficiently fixed and 

 definite meanings attached to them to 

 render their use perfectly practicable. 

 Without such knowledge it is hardly pos- 

 sible to make any extended statement about 

 mental facts without becoming involved in 

 needless tenninological difficulties. 



I trust my attitude will not be mis- 

 understood. I speak in sadness, not in 

 irritation; in sorrow, not in anger. Open 

 the standard anatomies of the nervous 

 system and you will not infrequently find 

 diagrams of the cerebral cortex with one 

 set of areas marked "sensory" and another 

 set marked "psychic," as though sensa- 

 tions were not psychic and as though 

 psychic meant anything in particular any- 

 how. What kind of psychic? Emotional 

 psychic; ideational psychic; volitional 

 psychic? To classify the functions of a 

 region as psychic is much like classifying 

 the people of the United States as human. 

 It may be true but it is not illuminating ; 

 and if the term psychic is employed as 

 sig-nificant simply of something not imme- 

 diately sensory in character it is an un- 

 pardonably vague term for which good 

 substitutes are easily available in psy- 

 chology. If it is used as a cloak for ignor- 



