more secure position than psychology, resting upon casual introspection, anecdote, definition, and metaphysic. Indeed, speculative psychology is so largely taken up with things uncertain and unknown that it scarcely deserves to be called a science. We may well ask, what will be the end of this? Shall we ever have exact and systematic knowledge of mental phenomena? If so, will it be with or without measurement?
4. Psychology may be following in the path of the material sciences.
We have seen that as these advance, they depend increasingly on measurement and quantity. But they once consisted of careless observations and crude speculations. The psychology of the Greek philosophers was better than their physics and biology. Methods of experiment and measurement were but slowly devised and applied in the material sciences. Astrology and alchemy in their day were thought more important than astronomy and chemistry. It was once considered a satisfactory explanation to say that water rises in the pump because nature abhors a vacuum, or that a body is hot because it is filled with caloric. The interest in biology was once confined to stories of the phœnix and ant-lion, or in a search for simples and the elixir of life. Later, biology consisted of artificial classifications and dubious anecdotes and of medicine allied to quackery. It is only during the last forty years that vitalism is being slowly expelled from biology and scientific work is being slowly done in physiology and pathology. It seems still to be commonly held that the survival of the fittest explains the origin of the fittest. The history of the material sciences throws light on the present condition and future outlook of psychology. If Bacon sought to develop astrology, and Newton busied himself with alchemy, it is no wonder that some men of genius now-a-days take peculiar interest in telepathy, etc. If material science once consisted of definitions, anecdotes, and speculations, it is no wonder that these make up a large part of psychology at the present time.
