March 2, 1900.] 



8CIENGE. 



329 



actively in operation, are practical, are so- 

 cial, are ethical, are anything you please 

 — save merely psychical. In comparison 

 with this, the material and the data, the 

 standpoint and the methods of psychology, 

 are abstract. They transform specific acts 

 and relations of individuals into a flow of 

 processes in consciousness ; and these proc- 

 esses can be adequately identified and re- 

 lated only through reference to a biological 

 organism . I do not think there is danger 

 of going too far in asserting the social and 

 teleological nature of the work of the 

 teacher ; or in asserting the abstract and 

 partial character of the mechanism into 

 which the psychologist, as a psychologist, 

 transmutes the play of vital values. 



Does it follow from this that any attempt 

 on the part of the teacher to perform this 

 abstraction, to see the pupil as a mechan- 

 ism, to define his own relations and that of 

 the study taught in terms of causal influ- 

 ences acting upon this mechanism, are use- 

 less and harmful? On the face of it, I 

 cannot understand the logic which says 

 that because mechanism is mechanism, and 

 because acts, aims, values are vital, there- 

 fore a statement in terms of one is alien 

 to the comprehension and proper manage- 

 ment of the other. Ends are not compro- 

 mised when . referred to the means neces- 

 sary to realize them. Values do not cease 

 to be values when they are minutely and 

 accurately measured. Acts are not de- 

 stroyed when their operative machinery is 

 made manifest. The statement of the dis- 

 parity of mechanism and actual life, be it 

 never so true, solves no problem. It is no 

 distinction that may be used oif-hand to 

 decide the question of the relation of psy- 

 chology to any form of practice. It is a val- 

 uable and necessary distinction ; but it is 

 only preliminary. The purport of our dis- 

 cussion has, indeed, led us strongly to sus- 

 pect any ideal which exists purely at large, 

 out of relation to machinery of execution, 



and equally a machinery that operates in 

 no particular direction. 



The proposition that a description and 

 explanation of stones, iron and mortar, as 

 an absolutely necessary causal nexus of 

 mechanical conditions, makes the results 

 of physical science unavailable for purposes 

 of practical life, would hardly receive at- 

 tention to-daj'. Every sky-scraper, every 

 railway bridge is a refutation, compared 

 with which oceans of talk are futile. One 

 would not find it easy to stir up a problem 

 even if he went on to include, in this same 

 mechanical system, the steam derricks that 

 hoist the stones and iron, and the muscles 

 and nerves of architect, mason and steel 

 worker. The simple fact is still too obvi- 

 ous ; the more thorough-going and complete 

 the mechanical and causal statement, the 

 more controlled, the more economical is the 

 discovery and realization of human aims. 

 It is not in spite of nor in neglect of, 

 but because of the mechanical statement 

 that human activity has been freed, and 

 made effective in thousands of new prac- 

 tical directions, upon a scale and with 

 a certainty hitherto undreamed of. Our 

 discussion tends to suggest that we enter- 

 tain a similar question regarding psychol- 

 ogy only because we have as yet made so 

 little headway — just because there is so 

 little scientific control of our practice in 

 these directions ; that at bottom our diffi- 

 culty is local and circumstantial, not in- 

 trinsic and doctrinal. If our teachers were 

 trained as architects are trained, if our 

 schools were actually managed on a psy- 

 chological basis as great factories are run 

 on the basis of chemical and physical sci- 

 ence ; if our psychology were sufficiently 

 organized and coherent to give as adequate 

 a mechanical statement of human nature as 

 physics does of its material, we should 

 never dream of discussing this question. 



I cannot pass on from this phase of the 

 discussion without at least incidental re- 



