In choosing a subject for this address, I have felt at liberty to go outside the boundary of psychiatry, and I propose to put before you a slight sketch of the present position in clinical psychology. First, it is necessary to explain what I intend to denote by this term. It may be said that there is not and cannot be any branch or section of psychology that can properly be so called; for the clinician necessarily deals with his patient as an entire organism, and cannot, in considering his mental life, abstract from any one part or function of the mind to concentrate his attention upon another; his psychology therefore must be concrete and must deal with the mind as a whole. This is true, and it follows from this truth that, when our knowledge of the human mind shall have become an adequate and well-established science, that science must be the theoretic basis for all who are practically concerned with the working of the mind, whether they are chiefly and immediately concerned with the normal mind or with minds in disorder.

During the period from March 1st, 1918, to January 11th, 1919, the writer held the appointment of Mental Specialist to Boulogne Base, and was in charge of the mental wards for that area. These were located at No. 8 Stationary Hospital at Wimereux, and received all the mental cases developing in or brought to the Boulogne and Calais areas. In addition a number of cases were sent for report from the local standing medical board, and many cases were seen at other hospitals.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,—Probably most of what I shall say to you this afternoon will be well known to you; indeed, many of you may think the information self-evident and trivial, but in spite of this I hope that what I say may serve to re-emphasise in your minds the fact that we are all very subject to our environment.

Men and women hold to and have faith in certain opinions as the result of long thinking around and along certain lines. Our social and political tendencies are the outcome of an analysis more or less critical, and believed by the individual to be impartial. A scattered phrase or an apparently insignificant incident may attract attention, and be the beginning of a prolonged mental conflict which is finally determined by a definite line of thought. It does not follow that the reasoning is always logical, or the argument conclusive to people of other opinions, but nevertheless a conclusion is arrived at, and it is final.

In many respects the difficulties of administration are greater in hospitals and private institutions than in public asylums maintained out of the rates. The financial problems raised by the reduction of hours and the increase in salaries, as well as the greater cost of all commodities, are very serious when there is little prospect of increasing the income to meet the increasing expenditure. What will happen if the present tendency continues no one can foresee, but it seems quite clear that the middle classes will soon be unable to bear additional burdens. Already many patients with limited income cannot possibly pay increased charges, and it would be cruel to discharge, for financial reasons, aged patients who have been under care for years, and have no other home than the asylum in which they live.