'idi 



SCIENCE. 



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



trary, we take any one of these higher 

 processes full-formed, and attack it di- 

 rectly, we are very likely to find that the 

 Trehiele of the mental function is extremely 

 simple ; there is a law of reduction, run- 

 ning all through mind, whereby a highly 

 complex formation tends to degenerate, to 

 reduce to a stereotyped simplicity. It is, 

 to my mind, a distinct merit of experi- 

 mental psychology that it has brought to 

 light this meagerness of content in the ex- 

 amination of 'higher' mental functions of 

 an habitual order ; and it is a healthy in- 

 stinct that sends us back and back again to 

 the channels of sense, as we seek an appre- 

 ciation of the fulness and richness of the 

 mental life. I may add, though I say this a 

 little hesitatingly, as a merely personal im- 

 pression, that the introspective attitude of 

 the observer seems to me to be more nearly 

 normal, less artificial, in cases where the 

 avowed object of experimentation is com- 

 paratively simple. If you are asked overt- 

 ly to grapple with a complex psychosis, 

 you are likely to brace yourself to the task, 

 to put on an armor of preconceived opin- 

 ion ; if the psychosis meets you unawares, 

 finds you ofif guard, the facts will have 

 their own way with you. A distinguished 

 English psychologist once declared that it 

 is futile to attempt the problems of recog- 

 nition by way of rotating discs of black 

 and white sectors. I should say, on the 

 contrary, that these discs are, in principle, 

 the very best means to an understanding 

 of the higher intellectual formations. 



As for the ultimate goal of experimental 

 endeavor, I suppose that we may call it 

 (10) the problem of consciousness, — not in 

 the sense in which that problem is under- 

 stood by the theorist of knowledge, but in 

 this sense : that, as hitherto we have an- 

 alyzed and traced to their conditions cer- 

 tain mental processes, of lesser or higher 

 degrees of complication, so now we analyze 

 and trace to their conditions total con- 



sciousness, given in varying states and 

 constituted of various formations. The 

 difficulty of this problem is enormous. 

 Only those of you who have attempted it, 

 in one case or other, for yourselves, who 

 have discarded classificatory terms, and 

 faced the living facts; only these, even of 

 experimental psychologists by profession 

 and training, can form any proper idea of 

 its difficulty. It is a problem for which 

 we are not yet ripe. We can approach it 

 only by way of theories which we know to 

 be inadequate, and by help of hypotheses 

 which we can not substantiate by facts. 

 But it is the problem towards which we 

 are trending, and the road to its solution 

 lies, as in my judgment all such roads in 

 our science lie, not through brilliant sug- 

 gestion and ingenious forecast, but through 

 patient and steady work. This work must 

 be in part the woi'k of experimental psy- 

 chology, as we are here interpreting that 

 phrase ; in part the work of what is called 

 individual psychology— though, indeed, 

 from perception onwards, the difference 

 between these two departments of psycho- 

 logical investigation is simply a difference 

 of accent. Or, to put the matter concrete- 

 ly, we must work not only with the doc- 

 trine of states of consciousness, comparing 

 experimentally the attentive and the inat- 

 tentive, the hypnotic and the dreaming, all 

 sorts of normal and abnormal states of 

 consciousness, but also with the doctrine 

 of conscious types which we owe (and the 

 debt is great) to the psychologists of indi- 

 vidual variation. 



So I finish the first part of my review. 

 If I have omitted anything of consequence, 

 or if I have seemed to do injustice to any 

 department of work, I must ask for pardon 

 and correction ; I have spoken with the ut- 

 most possible brevity. My own habitual 

 thought in experimental psychology is posi- 

 tive, not negative ; that is, I am accustomed 

 to look upon our problems rather as con- 



