Whatever motive prompted the authorities to admit abnormal psychology into the fold, it was Dr. Morton Prince '75 who raised the necessary fund and insisted that such an enterprise should be a part of the Department of Psychology in a College rather than in a Medical School. It was Dr. Prince's notion that such a group devoted to a program of scientific research could evolve with more vigor if free from the urgent therapeutic necessities of a psychopathic hospital.

A number of other cogent reasons for the inclusion of this subject in the college curriculum present themselves.

Psychopathology Fits in College

In the first place, psychopathology needs the university. Up to the present time it has been the handi-work of private practitioners; men prey to the claims of the nervous world. It has now reached a stage when it is ready for companionship with academic psychology. Its concepts need to be exposed to the experimental method and to a rigorous criticism, and for that the men who carry on the work must be able to enjoy the kind of leisure and intellectual fellowship that it is the business of a university to provide. Psychopathology requires contact with all the various attitudes of academic psychology, the sensational, introspective, 'gestalt' and behaviouristic. Just as pathology has come to rest upon normal physiology, so must psychopathology rest upon normal psychology. As there is no course of psychology in the Medical School, it is appropriate that psychology be made a part of the college.

It is also of importance that informal cooperations with general biology and philosophy be made possible. It seems that in the realm of philosophy certain men are coming down upon a number of comprehensive synthetic generalizations which will revolutionize and then include the more special concepts of physics, biology and psychology. The philosophy of organism as developed by Professor Whitehead dissolves the old dichotomy of mind and matter. At such a critical epoch in the history of thought when all disciplines are affected, it is of advantage to each science to keep in close contact with the whole.

These considerations should make it obvious enough that abnormal psychology can benefit by contact with other university sciences. Whether or not the converse is true, whether abnormal psychology has a contribution to make to Harvard, that remains to be seen. It is our prejudice of course that psychopathology makes for value.

Close Contact With Reality

Academic psychology has something to learn from it. Its subject matter is important; for the investigation of the aberrancies of nature is one of the recognized ways to truth. Psychopathology provides normal psychology with a welter of previously unconsidered facts, data that cannot be described by any of the available concepts. The concepts advanced by analysts to describe their findings are in many cases at variance with existing psychological hypotheses. The divergence is bound to produce intellectual tensions that will catalyze thought and make possible an ultimate harmony. The analysts have provided one of the shocks that have jolted the old-school of intellectualizing introspectionists out of their sedentary preoccupations. Once more a gust of real air has brought life to a fading hothouse plant. They who remain unspotted by the world will never know the whole truth. Truth includes the spots. In some such way were Spencer's brilliant deductions about the customs of savages proved insufficient when men took the trouble to live with primitive people and intimately observe their ways.

There has been much wholesale criticism of psychopathology on the part of the professors of psychology, but it safe to say that not one of them has ever enjoyed the experience of watching the language of gesture and listening to the free talk of a case of obsessional neurosis day after day for a year or more. In the presence of the insane a professor of psychology is no more at home than a country boy on his maiden voyage at sea, or a savage in the presence of an eclipse of the sun. It is a common error to condemn a subject on account of the peculiarities of the men that practice it. It is only natural that in the early stages of any science there should be an undue amount of mythological speculation. It it not to be wondered at that there are innumerable unwashed and untempered psychoanalysts who have discredited the subjects of psychological analysis in the eyes of the scientific world by their vague and extravagant statements. As if in blissful ignorance of the nature of scientific testimony phantasms have been promulgated with generous abundancy. Undoubtedly amidst the weeds there are to be found some flowers, but there is no telling one from the other and so criticism mows them down weed and flower alike. Certainly this state of affairs is more a function of the analyst than of the subject matter; for we have here a legitimate realm for disciplined inquiry.

Psychology Pictures the Mind

A number of psychopathological concepts such as those of dissociation, repression, complex, rationalization, identification, projection and introjection have already found a place as convenient forms of description for otherwise indescribable phenomena. It is the concept of the unconscious however that has raised the most bitter antagonism. To the psychologists who have had a first hand acquaintance with the eccentricities of the mind it has become increasingly clear that a complete description of mental phenomena was impossible without the supposition of processes in every way similar to those subjectively apprehended as psychical occurring outside the field of awareness. This had led to the paradoxical notion of "unconscious conscious processes", which has so puzzled the academic psychologists. This idea, however, should not in any way be disquieting, if like many concepts of physics for instance, it is understood as a convenient fiction.

Cultural Contributions

Psychopathology has contributions to make not only to academic psychology but to culture in general. Willy nilly it has become the language of a large part of the contemporary world. It has had its affect in many quarters; the novel, the drama, biography, history, sociology, criminology, anthropology and primary education have all been touched by it for better or for worse. At the present day we are witnessing a momentously critical change in the attitude of mankind. Three hundred years ago Lord Bacon formally inaugurated the scientific era, and man turned his face from God to the natural world. Today the emphasis upon the study of nature as a physical world is being to some extent replaced by an emphasis upon the study of human nature as a physical world. Backed by the methodology of science, man is setting about his prime task, that of investigating his own kind. The inner world of mind, unconscious forces, subjective values; these are becoming problems for contemplation and inquiry.

Is Dangerous Subject

It is obvious of course that abnormal psychology is a subject that is loaded with dynamite: and pregnant with possibilities for the disintegration of character. It exposes the combustibles at the springs of life. When a man witnesses the transformation of a human being from a state of poised serenity to one of maniacal possession: and stands face to face with the inexpressible fury of concentrated spiritual rage, it is inexpressibly brought home to him that the potentialities for destructive power within the human mind are immeasurable and as appalling as a cosmic cataclysm. But when one feels all these things and is conscious of them, it simply leads one onward, as all men are in some measure intrigued by fire.