Licence: In copyright
Credit: The mind of man : a text-book of psychology / by Gustav Spiller. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![creed has no rival. It would be safer to say, An experiment is a trial, test, or observation, carefully made .... so [as] to get the desired result in a pure form.” This again sounds vague. Stout’s definition is no more 'Satisfactory. Experiment, he says, “is only observation under test •conditions, deliberately pre-arranged for the purpose of settling a definite question” {Manual, 1898, p. 26). It seems that one may vary con- ditions at will without having deliberately pre-arranged anything and without one’s having in view the settling of a definite question. For instance, in pulling hard at something firmly fixed I notice that I hold back my breath. In accordance with customary method, I try to pull hard while breathing normally. Here, instead of waiting for an opportunity, I create it. In that—in the creation of an opportunity, or in varying and controlling the conditions—lies probably the nature of experiment. Stout’s definition applies only to special experiments; since even many of the quantitative attempts start without hypothesis. Most probably, there is no clear line of division between observation and experiment. As the former becomes systematic and varied, so it approaches the nature of the latter. Experimental introspection is not a subject usually discussed in treatises •on psychology. When we are told that self-observation is an absurdity (Comte and others), or that we must become skilled if we are to take a momentary glance at what is happening (Hume and others), it follows that •experiment is out of the question. Herbart, indeed, takes high ground. He tells us that “ psychology must not experiment with man ” {Lehrbuch, 1834, p. 9). Is then experimental introspection impossible or impracti- cable? We have seen that attention to selected portions of the field of attention is possible to a high degree. Does then the creation of an ■opportunity, instead of waiting for it, introduce a fatal, disturbing factor? Observation replies in the negative. It was as easy to allow breathing to proceed normally in the “pulling” experiment, as to do anything else which one is not accustomed to. Experimental introspection, in short, has certain •advantages, but no appreciable drawbacks. As Beneke puts it: “Nothing is falser than the assertion that introspection cannot be assisted by •experiment. Not only is such assistance possible, but it offers here perhaps greater scope than in any other department of nature, and that because the necessary control is generally more in our power ” {Die neue Psychologie, 1845, p. 21). Everybody recognises the superiority of experiment over simple observa- I tion. The student must, therefore, be prepared to learn that m psycholo^ 1 every inquiry must be experimental. Simple observation is only permis- ‘ sible when, for peculiar reasons, experiment is undesirable or out of the question. The normal procedure, the all but exceptional method, must • include experiment. The reader will see that in sec. 7 I applied systematic observation ; to the elucidation of the problems of pleasure, pain and volition. Accord- ing to the last ruling, these inquiries should be experimental. Take, the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21938982_0055.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
