296 The American Naturalist. [ March, 
which it exists. The law of preservation has determined the develop- 
ment of the special senses, the emotions, the impulses, and even of the 
aspects of consciousness which we are accustomed to regard as distinct- 
ively human—discursive thought, reasoning and volition. In some 
cases it is possible to classify mental phenomena teleologically where 
other bases of classification prove inapplicable, and phenomena form- 
erly unintelligible sometimes become intelligible from this point of 
view. Yet it must be admitted that genetic psychology is yet to be. 
The history of some forms of consciousness, it is true, has been fairly 
well ascertained. We may be said, I think, to know something of the 
origin of the emotions, of the “ recept ” and concept, of many impulses 
and, perhaps, of the simpler types of volition. But no systematic and 
comprehensive genetic theory has yet been propounded that has met 
with any considerable acceptance. 
It is too late, then, for those who are addicted to philosophy, as dis- 
tinguished from science, to lament the introduction of scientific methods 
into psychology. Little by little those methods of exact and pains- 
taking research will make their way into every department of human 
thought. We are apt to talk much of Logic, Psychology, Ethics and 
Metaphysics as being the mental “sciences.” We forget that, as sci- 
ences, they do not yet exist. They exist only as rather ill-coordinated 
tendencies. Each has a subject matter which is sufficiently well-defined 
for practical purposes, and each has a few well-worn generalizations 
that meet with some acceptance. But the very facts with which they 
deal are still, in large measure, subjects of dispute ; the conceptions 
under which it is proposed to systematize those facts are rough hewn 
from the vulgar common sense of the community ; ill-defined and crude, 
much labor must be expended upon them before we can hope to make 
our facts intelligible. . This is the work to which the student of mental 
phenomena must address himself. If we draw a distinction between 
science and philosophy, even though we cannot, as yet, claim for psy- 
chology the proud name of a science, let it be once for all understood 
that she is to be regarded as a scientific rather than a philosophical 
discipline. ` 
But why should any such distinction be drawn? The word “ phil- 
osophy ” is, as I have said, frequently applied to those branches of 
learning which we have inherited from the ancients, which still pre- 
serve, on the whole, their ancient form. And the usage is not without 
justification. For the “ philosopher ” was originally a man who pur- 
sued knowledge for its own sake, and the knowledge which he acquired 
constituted his philosophy. But this is what we mean to-day by “ sci- 
