Boris Sidis

“ We assume that the reader regards psychology as a science. It is however one thing to label a subject as a science and another thing to understand clearly in what sense the term science is used in the case of psychology. A clear understanding of the nature of science is here of special importance on account of the peculiar position psychology occupies in the hierarchy of human knowledge. It is therefore desirable to define the meaning of science before we proceed to discuss the subject matter of psychology.
Science is the description of phenomena and the formulation of their relations. ”

“ We may, therefore, say that science is a description of types of facts, the relationships of which are expressed in general comprehensive formulae, or laws. It is in this sense that we understand psychology to be a science; it classifies phenomena into types and searches for the general expression of their relations, or for what is termed psychological laws. ”

“ Uniformity of relations among phenomena must be postulated, if science is to be at all. If under the same conditions different results follow, science would have been an impossibility. Uniformity of nature is one of the most fundamental postulates of science. Psychology assumes uniformity; it assumes that there exist constant uniform types of mental activity with definite relations that can be formulated into psychological laws. Thus psychology at the very outset postulates consciousness and uniformity of mental phenomena. ”

“ What are the facts, the phenomena with which psychology deals? Psychology deals with facts of consciousness.
On the very threshold of our discussion, we may be stopped by the pertinent question: "You say that psychology deals with facts of consciousness, but what is consciousness?" Consciousness is subjective facts, such as the elements of sensation, feelings, pains, thoughts, acts of willing and the like. Positive science must have given facts, data to work upon ”

“ Science describes facts and formulates their relations in laws. The task of science is first to formulate facts belonging to the same type, and then to generalize them, that is to express their general relationship by one comprehensive formula, in spite of the many individual variations in the phenomena. ”

“ The problem as to what things are in themselves does not fall within the province of science, but within the domain of metaphysical research.
The question as to the nature of consciousness, what it is in itself, may be a very important one, but it lies outside the ken of psychology, just as the laws of aesthetics do not concern the chemist, although the latter may be a great lover of beauty. In the contemplation and enjoyment of a beautiful picture he will not introduce a chemical formula, and in his chemical experiments he will not introduce aesthetic considerations. ”

“ Mechanics deals with the laws of energy and motion, physics with molecular changes of matter, but neither physics nor mechanics would have gone far, had they stopped to answer the questions as to what motion, energy, matter are in themselves. ”

“ The only answer the geometrician could give is that we must assume that space is uniform, so that wherever we form our triangles we obtain the same results. The same is true in mechanics. The laws of motion and inertia hold good of the pebble on the roadside, of the dust grains dancing in the sunbeam, and of distant stars in the milky way. ”

“ Now the bodies themselves may be different in kind, in nature, may be of various material, may differ widely in structure, weight, and shape, and still, since they all belong to the same type of motion, they are, in spite of their manifold diversity, expressed in one general formula, in one law, namely, that the spaces traversed are proportional to the square of times. ”

“ In embryology the different changes of the embryo are minutely described, classified into types, into a certain number of definite stages, and then all the changes, in the infinite wealth of their variety, are expressed in the general proposition that the embryo in the short period of its development traverses in an abbreviated form all the stages that the species has passed through in the many ages of its existence ”