tually nonexistent. Further, empirical psychology as a complete science does not exist at all. And what is going on now is at bottom not a revolution, not even a reform of science and not the completion through synthesis of some foreign reform, but the realization of psychology and the liberation of what is capable of growing in science from what is not capable of growth. Empirical psychology itself (incidentally, it will soon be 50 years since the name of this science has not been used at all, since each school adds its own adjective) is as dead as a cocoon left by the butterfly, as an egg deserted by the nestling. James says that

When, then, we talk of ‘psychology as a natural science’ we must not assume that that means a sort of psychology that stands at last on solid ground. It means just the reverse; it means a psychology particularly fragile, and into which the waters of metaphysical criticism leak at every joint, a psychology all of whose elementary assumptions and data must be reconsidered in wider connections and translated into our tenns. It is, in short, a phrase of diffidence, and not of arrogance; and it is indeed strange to hear people talk of ‘the New Psychology,’ and write ‘Histories of Psychology,’ when into the real elements and forces which the word covers not the first glimpse of clear insight exists. A string of raw facts; a little gossip and wrangle about opinions; a little classification and generalization on the mere descriptive level; a strong prejudice that we have states of mind, and that our brain conditions them: but not a single law in the sense in which physics shows us laws, not a single proposition from which any consequence can causally be deduced. We don’t even know the terms between which the elementary laws would obtain if we had them. This is no science, it is only the hope of a science [see pp. 400-401 of Burkhardt, 1984].

How are we connected with mythology through this name? Psychology, like physics before Galileo or chemistry before Lavoisier, is not yet a science which may somehow influence the future science. But have the circumstances perhaps fundamentally changed since James wrote this? At the 8th Congress of Experimental Psychology in 1923, Spearman repeated James’ definition and said that psychology was stifi not a science but the hope for a science. [66] One must have a considerable amount of philistine provincialism to represent the matter as Chelpanov did. As if there exist unshakable truths which are accepted by everybody, which have been corroborated over the centuries and which some wish to destroy for no reason at all.

The other consideration is even more serious. In the final analysis we must openly say that psychology does not have two, but only one heir, and that there can be no serious debate about its name. The second psychology is impossible as a science. And we must say with Pavlov that from the scientific viewpoint we consider the position of this psychology to be hopeless. As a real scientist, Pavlov [1928/1963, p. 77] does not ask whether a mental aspect exists, but how we can study it. He says:

How must the physiologist treat these psychical phenomena? It iv impossible to neglect them, because they are closely bound up with purely physiological phenomena and determine the work of the whole oigan. If the physiologist decides to study them, he must answer the question, How?

For how many thousands of years has man elaborated psychical facts . . .. Millions of pages have been written to describe the internal world of the human being, but with what result? Up to the present we have no laws of the psychic life of man [ibid., p.