538 



SCIENCE, 



I N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 199. 



It would be possible for me to give other 

 objective proofs of the progress of psychol- 

 ogy — the establishment, in 1894, of a second 

 journal, The Psychological Revieiv, which 

 during the first six months of the present 

 year published some 900 pages, all we hope 

 contributing to the advancement of psy- 

 chology ; the prominent place given to 

 psychology in our journals of education, 

 philosophy, general science and popular 

 literature ; the widespread amateur interest 

 in child-study and psychical research ; our 

 Psychological Association, with a member- 

 ship of 102, all engaged in advancing psy- 

 chology — ^these and other witnesses for 

 psychology might be called upon to testify, 

 but the development of psychology in the 

 university has seemed to me best deserving 

 of extended comment. Until the State shall 

 learn to care for those who do the most for 

 it, until those who are engaged in advanc- 

 ing knowledge shall work for the State and 

 be supported by the State our universities 

 will be the centers for research, and the 

 position of a science in the university will 

 measure its opportunity and fruitfulness. 

 Very significant for psychology, therefore, 

 is its progress in the universities of America 

 during the past twenty years. 



My remarks have been confined to the 

 externals of psychology. Its inner history, 

 its present content, its future outlook are not 

 subjects that can be readily brought up and 

 dismissed in a few words. Psychology is 

 the most complex of the sciences. I do not 

 at all claim that it is the most important of 

 the sciences. The human race got on with- 

 out it very well and could doubtless con- 

 tinue to do so. Its practical applications 

 do not compare in importance with those 

 of many of the sciences ; it is in a way 

 lacking in great discoveries and universal 

 laws. But, compared with psychology, a 

 science such as astronomy may almost be 

 regarded as naive. The entire known per- 

 formance of the solar system and of the 



fixed stars since the time of the Chaldtean^ 

 is less complicated than the play of a child 

 in its nursery for a single day. The stars 

 are so far away, the telescopes are so big, 

 eclipse expeditions proceed to such remote 

 quarters of the earth, that the simplest 

 items of information take on a dramatic 

 interest. Atoms and molecules are so in- 

 visible, the ether is so intangible, we know 

 after all so little about them, that it is easy 

 to invent hypotheses that do not contra- 

 dict our ignorance. The generalizations of 

 physical science are, indeed, the greatest 

 achievements of the human intellect, but 

 the intellect, by which and for which these 

 generalizations have been created, when 

 itself made the subject-matter of a science, 

 is complex beyond those sciences which are 

 its offspring. 



Psychology does not, of course, claim as its 

 subject-matter all ' that is in heaven above, 

 or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in 

 the waters beneath the earth.' The phys- 

 ical and natural sciences, language, litera- 

 ture and the fine arts, industries and insti- 

 tutions have, it is true, their origin and 

 end in the mind, but this does not turn them 

 into departments of psychology. The phy- 

 sicist no more needs to concern himself 

 with the mental processes leading to his 

 discovery than does the hen with the pro- 

 cesses preceding the laying of its egg. The 

 kind of novel called psychological is by no 

 means a product of science. The enjoy- 

 ment of art decreases as we analyze its prod- 

 ucts. Scientific prevision and guidance 

 have scarcely more to do with the rise and 

 decline of institutions than with the rise 

 and decline of the sun in the firmament. 



Still I do claim that there is no depart- 

 ment of knowledge or activity which does 

 not have an aspect that concerns psychol- 

 ogy, and while hitherto it is psychology 

 which has learned from sciences preceding 

 it in their development, the time will come, 

 and perhaps has now come, when every 



