The scope of modern psychology : an inaugural lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, November 1906 / byW.G. Smith.

  • Smith, W. G. (William George), 1866-1918.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The scope of modern psychology : an inaugural lecture delivered in the University of Edinburgh, November 1906 / byW.G. Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and others, one important mark of these investigations being their intimate contact with concrete fact. And now that it is clearly recognised that the problems of logic, ethics, and metaphysics are distinct from those properly belonging to psychology, though closely related to them, there is hope for a solution of the problem of personality which will do justice both to the natural and the ideal aspects of man’s activity; both to the slow, halting, and empirical character of man’s advance in all his achievements, and to the ultimate rational structure which gives a meaning to development. When the foundations of psychology are laid thus broad and deep, as they are being laid in modern investigation, the study of it gives a knowledge and a training which are of eminent value to the learner. The student cannot under- stand adequately the present position of the science without coming to know its past history and its philosophical affiliations, and without being inevitably brought into contact with the great masters of science and philosophy from Aristotle onwards. Its study brings him into close contact with the methods and results of the biological sciences, while at the same time he is learning to appreciate the elements and forces in the mental world, of which literature and art and all man’s institutions are the historical expression. Reflective analysis of experience on the one hand is supple- mented on the other by the training in exact scientific method which practical exercises in the psychological labora- tory supply. There is thus ample justification for the con- tention that psychology is well fitted to take its place as an independent subject among the studies leading to graduation. And I am convinced that the training which a broad-minded study of psychology is fitted to give, would be of the highest value in the wider sphere of the national life. Is it not true that the educator, the preacher, the legislator, and the re-
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