Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/557

 HUGO MUNSTERBERG, Psychology and Life. 543 may be adduced for holding that the latter might prove far more fruitful in psychology than the former have shown themselves to be, while, on Prof. Miinsterberg's own showing, the whole group of facts he calls ' mystical ' is constitutionally incapable of scientific treatment by psychology as he understands it. As such absurdities cannot be tolerated, it is obvious that other assumptions must be tried, and adopted, if they work well. It is in the interest neither of the sciences, nor of philosophy, nor of practical life, that a narrow-minded and superstitious veneration should ascribe an immutable rigidity to the working methods of any science, and least of all to those of the present day. And a credo quia absurdum attitude, when the consequences of inadequate assumptions mani- fest themselves, is as bad in psychology as in theology. Even if, therefore, all Prof. Miinsterberg's antitheses were as sound as they are unsound, they would constitute only a proof of the urgency of a reinterpretation of one or both of the antithetical conceptions. This is a possibility which seems never to have occurred to Prof. Munsterberg. He has, unluckily, got a notion that causal and teleological connexion are exclusive alternatives. The solution is simple ; let him reconstruct his notion of a cause, and abandon his belief in its sacrosanctity and infallibility. When he has done this, the irritation which now makes him ' want to fight ' will be allayed, and he will cease to provoke convulsions throughout the philosophic world. F. C. S. SCHILLEE.