790 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 519. 



fective processes, we have no such difficulty 

 in selecting oui' problems. This whole 

 chapter in experimental psychology is one 

 single problem. Will you believe— I had 

 myself not realized it before— that in all 

 the five and thirty volumes of the Zeit- 

 schrift there is not a solitary experimental 

 article on the feelings? This although the 

 same volumes contain, roughly, two hun- 

 dred contributions to experimental psy- 

 chology! The Studien has about one hun- 

 dred and forty experimental papers, of 

 which nine deal with affective psychology 

 or experimental aesthetics: that is the best 

 record I have found. Now look at the 

 problems. We are not at one as regards 

 the nature and number of the elementary 

 affections; there are experimental psychol- 

 ogists who reduce all the elements of con- 

 sciousness to sensations. We are not 

 agreed whether the diversity of feelings is 

 •to be referred to a diversity of affective 

 process proper or to a diversity of organic 

 sensation. Some of us think that a given 

 affective process is coextensive with con- 

 sciousness ; others maintain that conscious- 

 ness may be a mosaic of affections. Some 

 assert that the feeling element is effective 

 for association ; others deny it this effect- 

 iveness. Some find the best illustrations 

 of the law of contrast in the sphere of 

 feeling; to others, contrast may itself be a 

 feeling. Our facts are few, our laws du- 

 bious. Surely, it is time to gird up our 

 loins and make serious business of these 

 affective problems. 



I have insisted on the paucity of the ex- 

 perimental articles upon feeling. I do not, 

 by this, mean to accuse experimental psy- 

 chology of idleness or neglect: Lehmann's 

 two books would save us from such a 

 charge, if we had nothing else to offer. 

 But these two books are characterized by 

 their, reliance upon the expressive method 

 — a method which, as you are aware, has 

 stood in the forefront of many recent dis- 



cussions. I have been at the pains to make 

 out a complete table— complete, that is, so 

 far as I was able to make it complete— 

 of the results obtained by the method of 

 expression. There is much to be learned 

 from them. But I can not believe that 

 the method will help us very greatly to- 

 wards an affective psychology. The or- 

 ganic reactions which the expressive 

 method registers are closely interwoven 

 and interdependent, and the task of differ- 

 entiation presents difficulties which, if not 

 insurmountable, have at least not yet been 

 surmounted. I am disposed to think, e. g., 

 that the plethysmograph, as a differential 

 instrument, is doomed to disappear from 

 our laboratories. The sphygmograph, and 

 especially the pneumograph, hold out better 

 hope ; but I doubt if, at the best, a differen- 

 tiation of affective qualities is to be ex- 

 pected from them. From the method of 

 suggestion, which really takes us over into 

 social psychology, I expect still less. There 

 remains, at present, only the method of 

 impression, which has done good service in 

 a limited field, and which should be capable 

 of modification and expansion. However, 

 I am fortunately not called upon here to 

 propose methods of work, but only to indi- 

 cate problems. And the facts and laws of 

 the affective life, the life of feeling and 

 emotion, form one of the largest and one 

 of the most insistent problems of modern 

 experimental psychology. 



( 3 ) Attention. — The prominence given to 

 the state of attention is characteristic of ex- 

 perimental psychology, as contrasted with 

 the empirical psychology of associationism. 

 It is, indeed, one of Wundt's greatest serv- 

 ices to the new psychology that he early 

 divined the cardinal importance of atten- 

 tion in the psychological system, and began 

 that series of experiments of which we can 

 by no means see the end to-day. For I 

 imagine that we must all admit, if we are 

 honest with ourselves, that the body of 



