MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1937, Page 16

MODERN PSYCHOLOGY

A W.E.A. LECTURE

DIFFERING SCHOOLS

The W.E.A. psychology class at Lower Hutt commenced its session in the Borough Council Chamber on Wednesday last, when Dr, A. G. Butchers delivered a lecture on heredity. "Psychology," said Dr. Butchers, "can now justly claim to be an exact science, the subject of which is human behaviour, and the methods of study of which are comparable with those of physics, chemistry, etc." The methods of psychological research differed with the differing schools, said Dr. Butchers. The conceptual psychologists relic* chiefly on introspection, aided by observation and comparison of the experiences of others, and a study of the nervous system of the body. The behaviourists excluded introspection entirely as a scientific mode of studying the subject, and relied wholly on experimentation and observation of the behaviour of human beings' and animals, together with a knowledge of the main facts of biology and physiology as they bore upon their inquiries. The physiologists emphasised the biological and physiological side of the science, and sought to find in the bodily mechanisms, and in the facts of evolution, a full and complete explanation of all the phenomena of human behaviour. The psycho-analytical school concentrated upon hypnosis, suggestion, free association, and allied modes of discovering and relieving the neuroses and psychoses of their patients. Many of the best-known universities of Great Britain, Europe, and America had established psychological laboratories equipped with elaborate mechanical and other provisions for research work upon one or all the above lines. ONLY THE BEGINNING. The results of psychological investigation and experiments had already profoundly changed or affected human society, particularly in the following fields —individual, educational, political, industrial, religious, social. Many cherished and long-established human institutions had been overhauled in the light of its discoveries, and there was every reason to beliave that what had .already resulted from the application of its principles to individual and social life was b:.t the beginning of even more important developments in the future. Dr. Butchers then laid down the following three postulates, upon which, he said, his Series of lectures would be based. These were:— (a) The theory of causation. There is a cause or set of causes for everything, which it is the essential business of science to unravel and make clear. (b) The theory of the unity of life. Human life is in all essential respects similar to that of' the lower forms, to which mentality must also be conceded, differing in quality only, but not in kind, from our own. (c) The theory of the unity of the body. There is no mind apart from the body, which is organised for behaviour as a single unit. Though we come into the world empty-handed we brought with us a bodily mechanism structurally equipped for the business of living, its parts set to go off, like an alarm clock, when the time for action came. This inherited "set,", or tendency, was what was commonly.: known as instinct. The life cycle of the silk worm afforded an excellent exemplification of the working of such a mechanism, specifically adapted to definite ends. The instincts in man were for the most part less specific in character and more delayed in appearance. PROBLEM OF INSTINCT. The fact of evolution afforded a clue to the right solution of the problem of instinct. All life was one. It had been continuous throughout time. Each individual passed on to its offspring part of itself—a cell endowed with potential immortality and structurally stamped with the past experience of the species to which it belonged. This was the living past. Though like begot like, the laws of variation and of adaptation to environment produced modifications which became permanently ingrained in the life-cells of the species. This structural set was common to every form of life. Each new individual began its independent existence equipped with such a bodily mechanism, which could not do otherwise than function according to its inherited set, or nature. This physiological racial inheritance must not be confounded with that other racial inheritance which we called social, namely, the cultural inheritance which .included science, art, music, literature, philosophy, history, invention, and the like. The vocal organs were physiologically inherited; language was not. Many problems would have to be considered in the course of the lectures, concluded Dr. Butchers, but for the present it was sufficient to realise that every act of behaviour, every response made to our environment, whether by way of deed, thought, aspiration, or .regret, was rooted in our individual physical make-up, a clear understanding of the nature and processes of which was essential to intelligent and successful. living. The word instinct could be dispensed with if one had a clear grasp of the meaning of heredity. "The Force of Environment" will be the subject of next Wednesday's lecture.