The Legal Profession v. Professor Hugo Muensterberg their professional and civic duty by failing to make use of psychological methods of ascertaining how the testimonial certitude of witnesses and the guilty consciousness of accused persons may be tested. The cause was tried by Judge Solon Wiseman, Mr. Simplicissimus Tyro being counsel for the plaintiffs, and Mr. R. E. Search, assisted by Mr. S. I. Kist and Mr. X. Perry Ment, being the defendant's counsel. The defendant pleaded lack of domicile in the state where suit was brought, alleging that at the time of service of the writ upon him, he was stay ing for one day only in Windyville, Illiana, the place of the trial, which took place, by the way, before the Superior Court of Wundt County, and that— The sole purpose of his presence was to deliver, before the Ambitious Affratellation of Office Boys, Busy Bunch No. 14, an address entitled "The Psychology of the Wastebasket" (in which he urged upon the said office boys an exhaustive daily study of the wastebasket papers, by means of which they were certain to discover the uniform psychological con nection between the intellectual personality of their office-chief and the number of times the letter M occurred on the scraps thrown into the basket); that on the succeeding night he was engaged to deliver and had delivered in another state, to wit in Rural town, Indinois, an address before the Honorific Order of Suburban Dames, entitled "Studies in Domestic Psy-collar-gy; No. 11, The Psy chology of the Collar- Button" (in which he reported the results of over 9000 observations of the behavior of the ordinary collar-button, the object being to ascertain whether by the method of association a person could, within a practicable time, discover a lost collarbutton by immediately dropping another one under precisely similar circumstances and repeating the same muscular movements of search under the bureau and elsewhere); that the defendant had then returned to his domicile, where he had ever since remained, except when lecturing the people of Phila delphia and other cities. The Court, however, did not sustain this plea, holding on the authority of Plato v. Kant, 3 Incog. Rep. 44, that as thought was infinite and universal, the domicile of a philosopher was anywhere and everywhere. The plaintiffs' counsel, having reserved the right to cross-examine, called the attention of the jury to the fact that only nominal damages of $1 were asked for, and stated that the sole object of the plaintiffs was to vindi cate the honor and the intelligence of their profession. He proceeded to say that he would divide his case under two general heads: —
111
First, at the time of the defendant's first publication, namely February, 1907, ifas there in print and accessible such information published by psychologists, as should have led the legal profession to believe that there existed, in Germany, France, or the United Stales, exact methods of experimented psychology available and valuable for practical use in trials to measure testimonial certitude and to diagnose guilt} Secondly, Were these methods in fact and in intrinsic merit such that they could be actually now used and relied on in trials as being supe rior to the methods hitherto in use? For the purpose of answering these ques tions, he would have to be obliged to do without other witnesses, because the task of summoning all the psychologists of Europe and America was prohibitive. Hence he would rely upon the cross-examination of the distinguished defendant himself. One of the first questions elicited the reply that the defendant did not read legal journals. "Then why do you expect lawyers to read psycho logical journals?" was the retort. Another question brought out the fact that the information in question, with regard to the applicability of experimental psychological methods to legal purposes, was not in exist ence in the English language, and in a great variety of publications to which a lawyer would first instinctively refer, not even in the Harvard Psychological Studies, of which the defendant himself was editor. Q. But in these journals and studies he would have found articles on the psychology of conjuring tricks, of tickling, of football, of puzzles, of roosting crows, and other bizarre and unpractical topics? A. He would. Questions further brought out the fact that the whole subject was recent, the Stern method dating from 1902, the WertheimerJung method from 1904-5, so that the defen dant had allowed only about three years for putting the entire legal profession in default. Cross-examination also made it evident that many Continental psychologists and jurists had expressed opinions that these methods were not yet adapted for forensic use, or for practical application to criminal practice. Q. Well, then, perhaps you can explain to the jury what on earth was the psycholog ical process which led you to break forth with an appeal to the American people to rebuke our legal profession for a supposed obstinate refusal to use a method which its very inventor, a few months before you wrote, had so frankly avowed to be "as yet thoroughly unsuitable for criminal practice"? A. (No answer.) Q. And to parade before the American people, as genuine and orthodox tools of
