38. Modern Soul Research

It is impossible in a brief overview to mention all the perspectives opened up by experimental psychology. Among many things, the most important thing that pedagogy has to learn from this young branch of research will certainly not be the least important. The teacher, who has to direct the laws of the adolescent's mental life, will in future have to be guided by the experimentally established laws of this mental life. He will have to trust memory and practice only as much as these mental faculties can achieve according to the psychological results. - And Kraepelin makes the decisive demand on psychiatry to make use of the results of experimental psychology. For many years, this researcher has endeavored to answer the question of "in what way and to what extent" this is possible. He is of the opinion that the time has come when psychiatry can make no further progress with the observation methods in use up to now. These methods must be supplemented by those of the newly blossoming experimental psychology. - It is precisely Kraepelin's testimony that one likes to refer to when it comes to appreciating the new science. For this level-headed and intellectual researcher is not blind to the dark sides of this science, which some of its proponents are guilty of. "We must admit that among the flood of experimental work that the last decade has brought us, some of it does not meet the justified requirements, that the weeds have often sprouted abundantly along with the wheat." But Kraepelin's other words are just as true: "Nevertheless, we can expect with certainty today that the young science will survive this developmental disease without damage and will be able to permanently assert its independent place alongside the other branches of natural science and physiology in particular."