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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 343. 



every century has added alike to its mass 

 and to its dignity as a 'science, every year 

 of late has better shown its interpenetra- 

 ting relations with other topics of learning 

 and dug ifs foundations ever deeper into the 

 rock-based ground of human knowledge. 

 From one point of view the science is some- 

 times at a relative disadvantage because it 

 merges in its upper rarefied air with meta- 

 physics and ' divine philosophy,' so that 

 some have left it in their eagerness to 

 loiter on the paths less fixed, less final ; let 

 us hope their wings will bear them there. 

 It is as if the astronomer should become a 

 dreamer wandering among his stars, hop- 

 ing thus best to make out the almanac or to 

 satisfy the yearning curiosity animating all 

 men on the humble earth. In psychology 

 as in astronomy it is the workers who count 

 most, men and women to whom a sphyg- 

 mograph or a chronoscope is an instrument 

 as dignified as the pen which writes with- 

 out experimental mediation the reasoned 

 imaginings of the seer. 



But there is a class of persons who harm 

 the fame and progress of psychology among 

 the mass of average men, and the injury 

 these do is devoid of any sort of recom- 

 pense. These are the irresponsible multi- 

 tude who know little or nothing of science 

 and who have no desire to know, quite, 

 nay more than, satisfied if in one or the 

 other of a host of shiny masks they can 

 fleece a willing public either of their dol- 

 lars or their sense, succeeding ordinarily in 

 abstracting both at once. These are the 

 ' mental healers,' the ' metaphysicians,' 

 the ' Christian scientists,' the ' psycholo- 

 gists,' the astrologers, the palmists, the 

 * mediums,' and their ilk, all of whom more 

 or less of the public consider in some way 

 or other allied with the science of psy- 

 chology. Mysticism of this grade is for the 

 scientific student an absorbingly interesting 

 topic of research, leading him meanwhile to 

 wonder and to pray — wonder at the shal- 



low deeps of the human mind, pray for the 

 day to hasten when education shall be for 

 all men, share and share alike, each ac- 

 cording to his needs and his ability. Psy- 

 chology bears the brunt, necessarily, of 

 many a false system and falser creed whose 

 names any who reads the signs along the 

 pavement may learn full easily, the list 

 above containing some of those most known. 

 But the science of psychology looks on 

 with serenity, complacently expressioned 

 with the consciousness that phenomena 

 like these are part of its own subject-mat- 

 ter, to analyze and to explain. It is the 

 public who are fooled and who wish to be, 

 and them in turn, as the loci of ever-recur- 

 ring phenomena, psychology studies and 

 characterizes. Deplorable indeed is the 

 ignorance of the mass of men, even in 

 America, concerning this science. To many 

 the name means psychical research, to 

 others some phase of mental healing, to 

 others something, which, chiefly because 

 spelled p-s-y-c-h instead of s-i-c-h, can never 

 come within their knowledge, to others, 

 finally, nothing whatever for they never 

 heard the word. 



But even among the educated, too often 

 the notion of this science is such that it is 

 not valued at its proper worth, because its 

 practicality is too little understood. Here 

 is suggested one of the future duties of the 

 psychologist — it is time that he demon- 

 strated to the world, the great world as well 

 as to the lesser world of letters, that psy- 

 chology is properly a very practical science, 

 thoroughly useful to the average man. It 

 is on this basis alone that it is worthy of 

 life. A science seemingly should not be 

 classed with belles-lettres or with pure phi- 

 losophy, as the means of satisfaction of man's 

 eagerness for abstract knowledge or for an 

 understanding of the aesthetics of existence. 

 These things may in one sense be more than 

 science, but they are at the same time in a 

 different sphere and incomparable. The 



