Evening star., 1935-05-14
STARS, MEN AND ATOMS
Notebook of Science Progress in Field.
Laboratory and Study
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

by fear 1t should be considered as a
pushing from behind" Other forces
which attract from before, in accord
ance with the ambivalence Of all man
ifestations Of energy, need to be fully
taken into account.
Attitudes Of mind harass the in
dividual when they contain unsolved
problems and continue to do SO until
the problem reaches some sort of So
luton and the individual correspond
ingly some sort Of quiesence. These
internal stresses and strains constitute
what might properly be called stress
diagrams that have an inherent ten
dency Of their own to gravitate to
some state Of equilibrium, an express
sion on the energic side which sus-
pect Is not dissimilar to the psyche
logical expression of anxiety. I might
add curiosity as another of those
drives which make for the release Of
tension"
The fundamental concepts of psy-
chology, DR.. White says, are under
going a change "of importance COM
parable, in my mind, to such events
as the substitution of the Ptolemaic
conception of the universe by the
Copernican or the advent of the
Darwinian theory of evolution"
This change. he points out. is in
the emergence of the idea of the
organization as a whole" Man is
something more than the sum total
OF all his parts.
THE form of the universe as 1t
appears to man." said DR.. White lis
necessarily a function of his mind
The mind, like the camera obscura,
reflects certain aspect of the uni
verse in miniature. 1t may be said
that the world without and the
world within are so related to each
other that they exist like the oppo-
sites, day and night. Each has its
particular form and content only
because of the other.
1T has always been conceived that
the world within was dependent upon
the world without, but here we have
definite indications that the reverse
is also true. Nobody doubts that our
perceptions and our ideas would
cease to exist if there were nothing
to D:ovide stimuli from outside reali-
ti,, but here we have definite in
dication that these outside realities
world cease to exist if this world
within disintegrates. Neither one can
exist without the other.
THE old structural academic psy-
chology assumed that on the psyche
logical side the finished productive
idea, for example - could be traced
back to its elemental constituents,
which in this instance were sensa-
tions. But the study of child psy-
chology has demonstrated that the
child does not first acquire q series
Of discrete sensations and then put
them together so as to form percep-
tions, so that these perceptions are
nothing more nor less than the sum
Of the sensations which compose
them. The first experiences of the
child are already perceptions with
respect to which it tries to relate
itself. The specific and concrete are
not amalgamated to make the COM
plex, and it becomes evident that the
whole is not expressed In the sum
of its parts. The whole Is more than
the sum Of its parts, for by the or
ganization Of these parts and their
relation to each other, something en-
ters the situation which is possessed
by none of those parts separately.
Completely of behavior is mot de-
rived by progressive integrstion of
more and more originally discrete
units. The conception of chain re-
nexes a. Hually presented "a not IN