A Half-way House of Science

Abstract

THE rival camps of mechanists and vitalists have been struck, the contending parties have advanced to meet one another, holding out the ‘right hand of fellowship,’ and are jointly engaged in constructing a half-way house, a shelter for those who wander on the path between biology and physiology. Here, in this shelter, the teaching of the school of animal psychology and its new technique can be imbibed. Its fundamental study has commanded attention, since interest in the phenomena of living matter was first aroused, but its establishment as a science is of recent date, and is at present much handicapped by the incompleteness of the physiological record of structure and function. The Sturm und Drang period in the history of science is now passed, and a, stage entered upon where the accumulation of knowledge by careful individual effort adds stone after stone to an ever-growing structure. The Zeitgeist seems to call for a survey of the work done on animal psychology, and with this object in view Dr. Hempelmann prepared his book. A glance at the exhaustive bibliographical section will show at once with what thoroughness and conscientiousness he has attacked the work.

Tierpsychologie: vom Standpunkte des Biologen.

Von Prof. Dr. Friedrich Hempelmann. Pp. viii + 676. (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft m.b.H., 1926.) 36 gold marks.