cerns, therefore, every intelligent man to ask what the significance of this movement is. It should be remembered from the beginning, however, that, although modern psychology has been specially characterized by emphasis upon the physiological and experimental sides, these lines of investigation by no means exhaust the meaning of this later psychological movement. For, as Royce says, "One must insist that the study of neurological facts has, although very great, still only relative value for the psychologist. For one thing, what the psychologist wants to understand is mental life, and to this end he uses all his other facts only as means; and, for the rest, any physical expression of mental life which we can learn to interpret becomes as genuinely interesting to the psychologist as does a brain function."1 The experimental method, too, it should be noted, is no attack on the methods previously employed. Most sober psychologists would agree with Külpe - himself a most able worker in experimental psychology — that experiment can no more take the place of introspection in psychology than it can that of observation in physics. It is only able, as ९९ 1 it is only intended, to supplement the previous method by filling the gaps which remain when introspection is employed alone, by checking its descriptions, and by making it generally more reliable."1 Using the term modern psychology, then, to cover the trend of all later psychological investigations, and not merely those of experimental or physiological psychology, what the most important inferences from modern psychology? What does it mean? The answer can be given very compactly. There seem to the writer to be four great inferences from modern psychology, and each with suggestions for life and character- that is, with direct suggestion of the conditions of growth, of character, of happiness, and of influence. These four inferences are: Life is complex; man is a unity; will and action are of central importance; and the real is concrete. In other words, modern psychology has four great emphases; for it may be said to urge upon us the recognition of the multiplicity and intricacy of the relations everywhere confronting us; of the essential unity of the relations involved in our own nature; of the fact that this 1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 10. unity demands action and is best expressed in action; and that we are, thus, everywhere shut out from resting in abstractions and must find reality only in the concrete. Manifestly these contentions are all closely interwoven, and they may even be regarded as all summed up in the last-as asserting the inter-relatedness of all. For if only the concrete is real, then life is, in the first place, no abstraction or series of abstractions, but rich and complex beyond all formulation. In this complexity, secondly, no sharp lines can be drawn, all is interwoven; the life of man, therefore, is a unity - body and mind. But all experiences, bodily and mental, tend to terminate in action, in which alone the whole man is seen; will and action, then, are of central importance. The four propositions tend thus to fall together. It is these four propositions which form the subjects of the main divisions of our entire inquiry. THE COMPLEXITY OF LIFE: THE MULTIPLICITY AND INTRICACY OF RELATIONS INTRODUCTION NOT CONFUSION, BUT GREATER RICHNESS PSYCHOLOGY'S first emphasis is naturally upon the complexity of life—the multiplicity and intricacy of the relations everywhere confronting us. For the first effect of the study of this later psychology, it must be confessed, is likely to prove confusing and even bewildering; the old familiar landmarks seem all gone. There are no sharp distinctions, no hard and fast classifications, no short and simple formulas. The old way in which, without hesitation or misgiving, we built up the structure of our mental life-combining simple atomic sensations into perceptions, perceptions into conceptions, conceptions into judgments, and judgments into syllogisms is suddenly closed for us. We are forced to question the truth of such a process at every stage. As we face the facts of modern psy chological investigation, it is not the simple, the direct, the abstract, that we see, but the necessity rather for what James calls "the reinstatement of the vague and inarticulate to its proper place in our mental life." It is characteristic, indeed, of the modern point of view that James should begin his psychological inquiry, not with assumed simple sensations, but with the attempt to point out only the chief characters of the whole concrete stream of consciousness.2 The problem is complex and intricate. Life seems to have overflowed its banks, and we wonder if it can ever be brought under rule again. But we need not resist this trend of the newer psychology. For it is only the refusal to make the formulation of life simple by ignoring many of its facts. It does not mean final confusion, but only greater richness. Indeed, it may be doubted if there is anything that the health of the whole life— physical, intellectual, and spiritual — needs more, or more continuously, than a strong conviction of the complexity of life. We may well heed, therefore, this insistence of modern psychology. 1 Psychology, Vol. I, p. 254. 1 Psychology, Vol. I, Chap. IX; Ctr. Külpe, op. cit., p. aa. |