December 9, 1904.J 



SCIENCE. 



;97 



of the problems of experimental psychol- 

 ogy. The psychologist of the laboratory is 

 apt to emphasize the crudity and roughness 

 of the work, and its neglect of introspective 

 control; the psychologist of the clinic or 

 the schoolroom or the animal room is apt 

 to consider his colleague narrow and 'his 

 colleague's work finical and meticulous. 

 The transcending of this difference, the 

 reconciliation of these views, I take to be a 

 very real problem for experimental psy- 

 chology — though a problem of a different 

 order from those that I have been discuss- 

 ing. And I suggest the following points 

 for your consideration. First, one can not 

 be too nice or too careful in experimenting 

 on mind. There is no such thing as over- 

 refinement of method.* Let those who 

 doubt this fact read Martin and Miiller's 

 / Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit ' ; I the more 

 delicately one analyzes, the more subtle 

 does mental process reveal itself to be. 

 Galton's questionary results on visualiza- 

 tion are psychology, and valuable psychol- 

 ogy; but they are also pioneer psychology. 

 Now, the pioneer may pride himself on his 

 work, but not on the roughness of his work. 

 When the laboratory psychologist smiles at 

 the charcoal sketches of objective experi- 

 ment — well, he does wrong to smile, be- 

 cause honest woi'k should not be laughed 

 at; but he is right in his conviction that 

 the details are all to come, and that the 

 simplification of the lines means over- 

 hasty generalization. Mind is, so to say, 

 our common enemy; and the laboratory 

 psychologist learns, by dearly bought ex- 

 perience, not to underestimate his op- 

 ponent. Secondly, I would remind you 

 that, after all, objective work in psychol- 

 ogy must always be inferential; introspec- 

 tion gives the pattern, sets the standard, 



* A method may be too refined for the man 

 who is using it, or for the problem upon which 

 he is immediately engaged. But these are dif- 

 ferent matters. 



of analysis and explanation. If we in- 

 terpret the animal mind by the law of 

 parsimony, our only justification is that 

 introspection discovers the reign of this 

 law. in the human consciousness ; if we sub- 

 sume the evolution of mind in the animal 

 series to the principle of natural selection, 

 our only justification is, again, that intro- 

 spection discovers the working of this same 

 principle in our own case. As I put it 

 just now, there is but one excuse for the 

 neglect of introspection in psychology, and 

 that is that introspection is impossible ; but 

 even here our neglect is methodical only, 

 and does not— must not— extend to inter- 

 pretation. These things have been said so 

 often* that they have become common- 

 places; but even a commonplace may be 

 true— and it makes a difference, too, 

 whether the truth be urged with polemical 

 or with friendly intent. I should like to 

 see more cooperation between the alienist, 

 or the student of comparative psychology, 

 and the laboratory psychologist; quite 

 apart from practical results, such coopera- 

 tion would be of great advantage to the 

 psychological system. We can hardly hope 

 — this point should be borne in mind — that 

 the two interests, the objective and the sub- 

 jective, will be combined in the same per- 

 son. When one has once stepped inside 

 the ring of the normal, adult consciousness, 

 there is very little temptation to step out 

 again; the problems that I listed a little 

 while ago are enough to occupy several 

 generations of workers, and the fascination 

 of the work is like the fascination of the 

 mountains or the sea. And if one begins 

 from the outside, with the child or the 

 animal or the abnormal mind, there is little 

 * In saying them, from the ' narrower ' point of 

 view, I am, of course, hoping for similar cautions 

 (au any rate, for varied advice and information) 

 from the more ' objective ' psychologists. What 

 they will have to tell their colleagues of the labo- 

 ratory, I do not know; but I have no doubt that it 

 will be worth listening to. 



