The experimental aid which the laboratory has to supply
in such cases is not a newly invented device, such as we needed in the
case of the motormen, but simply the methods well known as so-called
mental tests.
The experiments with such tests by which single mental functions are
measured approximately in short quick examinations, has been much
discussed in psychological circles. For a long while the thorough
scholars remained very reluctant to accept such an apparently
superficial scheme, when these tests were proposed especially for the
pedagogical interests of the schoolroom. It was a time in which the
scientific efforts were completely devoted to the general problems of
the human mind and in which individual differences were very little
considered. Moreover, the questions of applied psychology still seemed
so far distant that the true scholar instinctively took his standards
from the methods of purely theoretical research. Seen from such a
point of view, it could not be denied that the tests were not
sufficient to give us a complete scientific analysis of the
personality in its subtler structure. The theorists knew too well that
if the reactions, or associations, or memories, or tendencies of
attention, or emotions of a subject were measured really with that
scientific thoroughness which is the ideal of research, long months of
experiments would be needed, and little could be hoped for from tests
to be performed in half an hour.
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