Science certainly has not to run after practical benefits. Just as the chemist examines his materials theoretically without asking whether they are poisons or means of nourishment for the body, so the psychologist has to investigate the phenomena of consciousness without considering side issues. But the history of science shows that those departments have always developed most richly which have been serviceable to practical life. Just as the admiration of nature becomes constantly more intense, the deeper natural science penetrates, so will mental life grow in dignity the better we learn to comprehend it. That physician remains but a dilettante, who will judge the diseased mental life without having studied the same in health.
Experimental Psychology stands thus midway between the sciences of mind and of nature.
Yes, it ought to become that, it can become that, and it will become that, when the universities rightly understand its true advantages and their highest duty.