PSYCHOLOGY AND THE UNIVERSITY

Abstract

conditions for a significant acceleration of its growth are for the first time present. These conditions need not be specified exactly here. Suffice it to say that they consist of certain recently discovered facts, certain recently devised methods, certain recently constructed theories and, most important of all, certain recently advanced basic propositions which are sufficiently comprehensive and dynamic to serve as a con¬ ceptual foundation for the development of this science. The advance of psychology is especially important because its inter¬ relationships are so manifold that any discovery which it makes will immediately animate research and speculation in many other disciplines. To recognize this one has only to consider the mutual dependence of the sciences and the number of those that immediately wait on psy¬ chology—sociology, anthropology, criminology, pedagogy—or that are more remotely related—history, government, law. It is generally agreed that all social institutions are determined to a large extent by the interaction of human needs, sentiments and beliefs. Since these constitute the proper subject-matter of psychology, an economist is merely stating what seems too obvious for words when he says that a large proportion of economic and sociologie problems cannot be solved without psychologic data and that psychology is as necessary to social science as chemistry is to physiology. Listen for a moment to the words of the social philosophers and judge whether they are not basing their proposals on certain supposi¬ tions—usually their private supposition—as to the nature of man. Is it not the function of psychology to correct or to verify such supposi¬ tions ? Reflect on the increasing urgency of the problems of the neuroses and the psychoses. Consider the increasing number of physicians who are becoming convinced that many physical disturbances—perhaps even a majority of the less serious ones—are engendered by psychic states— mental shocks and conflicts, anxieties and depressions. Note how eagerly

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