Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/231

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PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
227

its present systematic form and its definite place in the fellowship of the special sciences. For these reasons, his influence and methods have penetrated everywhere.

A bare list of his principal works suffices to exhibit the range and force of his tireless activity: "Beiträge zur Lehre von den Muskelbewegungen," 1858; "Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnemung," 1859-62; "Vorlesungen über die Menschen-und Thierseele," 1863, 2d ed., 1892 (Eng. trans.); "Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie," 1874, 5th ed., 1902 (Eng. trans.); "Ueber die Aufgaben der Philosophic in der Gegenwart," 1874; "Ueber den Einfluss der Philosophic auf die Erfahrungswissenschaften," 1876; "Logik," 1880-83; "Ethik," 1886, 2d ed., 1892 (Eng. trans.); "System der Philosophie," 1889; "Grundriss der Psychologie," 1898 (Eng. trans.); "Völkerpsychologie," 1900-06; and many contributions of first-rate importance to Philosophische Studien, the organ of his laboratory and philosophical circle, since 1881, the first year of its publication. When we remember that four of these books are masterpieces, and that one of them is the recognized classic in its subject, some idea of Wundt's importance emerges.

Seizing the opportunity incident to his historical position, Wundt aimed to relieve psychology from the reproach of being merely an instance of more or less loose descriptive classification. He proposed to lift it to the level of scientific explanation. By what means?

It is experiment that has been the source of the decided advance in natural science, and brought about such revolutions in our scientific views. Let us now apply experiment to the science of mind. We must remember that in every department of investigation the experimental method takes on a special form, according to the nature of the facts investigated. We can not experiment upon mind itself, but only upon its outworks, the organs of sense and movement which are functionally related to mental processes. So that every psychological experiment is at the same time physiological, just as there are physical sciences corresponding to the mental processes of sensation, idea and will. This, of course, is no reason for denying to experiment the character of a psychological method. It is simply due to the general conditions of our mental life, one aspect of which is its constant connection with the body.[1]

Or, again:

Psychology is compelled to make use of objective changes in order, by means of the influence which they exert on our consciousness, to establish the subjective properties and laws of that consciousness.[2]

Or, once more:

Physiological psychology is, therefore, first of all psychology. It has in view the same principal object upon which all other forms of psychological investigation are directed: the investigation of conscious processes in the modes

  1. "Human and Animal Psychology," p. 10 (Eng. trans.).
  2. Philos. Studien, I., p. 4.