Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/112

104 full meaning of the term, with all the previous achievements of physics for its use.

With a real science of the facts of consciousness at hand, the attempt at a "mental physiology" appears as absurd as an attempt to establish a science of meteorology from the twitterings of the birds—especially when the birds are imaginary ones. The physicists have thus not only given to the new psychology its basis, but have also freed it from the rubbish of an overheated imagination.

There is still another source which we must consider, namely, the old psychology. By the "old psychology" we mean psychology before the introduction of experiment and measurement; in its last forms it is the psychology of the Herbartians or of the English associationalists.

We have already seen how the fundamental method, that of observation, was established by the old psychology. The method of direct observation of mental life is the only possible one, and until it had received a firm basis any science of psychology was impossible. As has been explained in Part I, all the other methods of psychology are only refinements of this method. The new psychology is thus merely a development on the basis of the old; there is no difference in its material, no change in its point of view, and no degeneration in its aim. What the old tried to do, namely, to establish a science of mind, and what it did do, as far as its means allowed, the new psychology with vastly improved methods and facilities is striving to accomplish.

This close connection, however, must not involve us in a false estimation of the direct results accomplished by the old psychology. The method of unaided observation was applied to exhaustion, and the later works contained little more than the earlier ones. Indeed, the final sum total of psychological knowledge acquired by this method can be stated to be a mass of ingenious speculations, of endless discussions, and of true and untrue facts; even such achievements as the laws of association have, in the light of newer methods, been shown to be merely superficial arrangements of facts. It has been claimed that unaided observation has yielded valuable storehouses of facts, and it furnishes a special satisfaction to some people at the present day to point out guesses of this older psychology forestalling achievements of the newer science. Among the clever observations concerning facts of mental life and the ingenious guesses at their laws, there are and must be some which are ultimately found to be partially or wholly correct. As Helmhoitz remarks: "It would be a stroke of skill always to guess falsely. In such a happy chance a man can loudly claim his priority for the discovery; if otherwise, a lucky oblivion conceals the false