PSYCHOLOGY AS SO-CALLED "NATURAL SCIENCE."
QUESTIONS concerning the nature, problem, and legitimate methods of Psychology, and concerning the relations which it sustains to other forms of science and to metaphysics, are apparently far from being settled to the entire satisfaction of all parties to the controversy. No apology is, therefore, needed for discussing these questions in the first number of a new philosophical magazine. Scarcely more need is there of apology for making the recent book of Professor James[1] the occasion—or, perhaps, it would be more correct to say, the text—for our proposed discussion. These volumes are so learned, so full, so interesting, so frank, so "pronounced" on doubtful issues, and—I may add—so provoking, that they are particularly well suited to such a purpose. And if the comment is at all to resemble the text, it must be nimble in its movement, and striking in its postures, even at the risk of sacrificing something customary, if not essential to philosophical gravity of demeanor.
Although it is not intended to pass in review the entire contents of this work, or even to indicate all its marked excellences and defects, some general characterization of it seems almost indispensable. The most obvious criticism which the expert reader will offer is this: here are two bulky volumes, but they scarcely make one book, in the sense in which we are accustomed to use the word "book," of a connected scientific treatise. These volumes, that is, are a collection of articles, written with extraordinarily full mind and free hand. But no explanation—from whatever view of the nature, scope, and method of psycho-
- ↑ The Principles of Psychology, by William James, Professor of Psychology in Harvard University. 2 volumes. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890.
