1897.] Psychology. 555 
pathology and brain localization. Once discover pain-nerves, and we 
refute a theory academic from the year I. Now the credit of tak- 
ing this objective point of view generally and of using so deliberately 
biological data and even biological explanations belongs to Spencer. 
What is the use trying to complete a psychology simply as such? 
What is the good trying with Wundt to abstract “ pure feeling” from 
“pure sensation’ when really both are pure mythology? Isn’t it 
the defect of biology also that it tries too much to complete a biology 
merely as such, without the help of psychology? When two sciences 
are ripe enough to fall together and be one, that is good; but there is no 
earthly use in trying to keep them as far as possible apart in the mean- 
time. In this, I think, Spencer was right. There is only one evolu- 
tion, let us keep an eye on both sides of it. 
3. As to Mr. Spencer’s positive contributions to psychology, these I 
may not discuss in detail. They are mainly incidental to the ideas in 
the service of which his speculations were made. His theories have 
nearly all been disproved; I mean his particular theories. But 
his contributions by the way are of very great importance. And 
even the disproved theories, they have been leading-strings for thought 
and motives for research to countless workers. You cannot open a 
competent book in any of three or four great departments of thought, 
but you find the most fruitful discussions turning about the hypotheses 
of Spencer. I take it that this is one of the greatest possible services 
of a great man—to produce definitely directed effort, even though his 
private views go down in the result. 
And now for the cons. 
Here what there is to say seems to me to be mainly a statement of 
the limitations incident to the very qualities which we have found to 
be Mr. Spencer’s principal claim to our admiration. Every great idea 
seems in its first blush simpler than it is. Natural selection, for ex- 
ample, is proving itself by giving ground. But the fame of its author, 
Darwin, does not suffer from that, even apart from the fact that Dar- 
win was wiser than are his disciples. We are now saying “back to 
Darwin,” and although we can never say “back to Spencer,” yet 
Spencer has his place fixed for all that. The real limitations of Spencer 
are evident just in this contrast with Darwin. 
1. Spencer’s genetic Psychology was an idea, just as his genetic 
Biology and Sociology were ideas, and the same idea. But he could 
not prove this idea in all these departments. He could only see the 
evident and surface facts which his idea was likely to explain. This 
he did in a very remarkable way in the “System of Synthetic Philoso- 
