Chapter One—
1. Psychology as a Science
The Definition of Psychology
There are two questions which every human being—with rare exceptions—asks himself through most of his life.
The rare exceptions are the persons who know the answer to the first of these questions, at least to a significant
extent. But everyone asks the second, sometimes in wonder, often in despair. These two questions are: How am I to
understand myself? and: How am I to understand other people?
Historically—in the development of the human race and in the life of an individual—these questions constitute the
starting point of, and initial impetus to, psychological investigation.
The inquiry implicit in these questions can be cast in a wider, more abstract form: Why does a person act as he
does? What would be required for him to act differently?
Writing in the early years of this century, the German psychologist Hermann Ebbingaus made an observation that
has become famous: ''Psychology has a long past, but only a short history." His statement was intended to
acknowledge the fact that, throughout recorded history, men have been intensely concerned with issues and
problems of a psychological nature, but that psychology, as a distinct scientific discipline, emerged only in the
second half of the nineteenth century. Up to that time, the domain of psychology had not been isolated as such and
studied systematically; it existed only as a part of philosophy, medicine, and theology. The establishment of
Wilhelm Wundt's experimental laboratory in 1879 is often regarded as the formal beginning of scientific
psychology. But