Manual of empirical psychology as an inductive science

Front matter

LlflDNE[\'S

l\^?[^ui Psychology

De Garho

Preface

MORE than a quarter of a century has elapsed since this book began its rounds among the schools and the educated public. Its path had not been smoothed, and many a prejudice was to be overcome. But supported by the confidence manifested by the teaching world, it has gained a firm foothold in our schools and institutions, and now begins its eighth round with renewed courage, hoping for like friendly reception. The author is conscious of having used a free hand in improving the successive editions, and performs a pleasant duty when he thankfully acknowledges the assistance of all those colleagues who have contributed to the perfection of the book.

As a reminder of its origin, the words with which the first edition of this book was introduced, may fitly find a place here:

"As I offer these pages, — the result of many years of study and pedagogical observation, — to the judgment of the public, as well as to the appropriate regard of a royal educational department, I regard it my duty to say but little concerning the purpose and plan of the same. The motive to the preparation and publication of this volume was a double one. The first was the experience, to me sufficiently clear, that the existing psychological text-books, however valuable they may be, leave much to be desired in regard to comprehensibility and incitation to original thought. An attempt to

PREFACE. vii

remedy these lacks would, therefore, appear desirable. The second motive was the conviction that in empirical psychology one can and should have regard to those real explanations which lie in th.e facts and which can be derived without metaphysical exposition; and, further, that one has no reason whatever to limit himself to mere verbal explanations — for what else does the old doctrine of the so-csXledi faculties offer?

' ' If empirical psychology is to offer not only an aggregation of facts, but is to lead to the study of philosophy, it must, though not philosophy itself, at least provide a foretaste of the same, must guard against all incompleteness and superficiality by the earnestness of its investigation. In this regard, nothing could be more injudicious than a presentation of results without sufficient grounding, without organic development. Therefore, the author has chosen in this work that genetic method which, proceeding from the known and unquestioned facts of common consciousness, seeks to develop the psychological laws which condition these facts, and which are inductively derivable from them, whereby nothing shall be set down which, for every unprejudiced and thinking man, does not follow from results already obtained in connection with these facts. In this way, not only positive results in knowledge are to be produced, but also an abiding interest in connected investigation leading to these results; for in the awakening of this interest consists, finally, the chief preparation for the study of philosophy.

' ' In regard to the relation which this work bears to psychological literature, it may be said that, for that conception of empirical psychology which is here the ruling one, almost the only serviceable points of relation are to be found among the thinkers of the Herbartian school. With the latter, however, the connections are to be met with as often as could be wished. Herbart's standpoint was that of empirical psychology; only this psychology works without metaphysical or viii PREFACE.

mathematical tools. In regard to this point, Herbart himself says, ' I rest not alone upon the single point of the ego, but my basis is as broad as all experience ' (Preface to Psychology as a Science).

' ' And herewith I commit this book to the public. It is, above all, a manual of instruction, and should be regarded as such. It was, therefore, the comprehensibility of expression to which I felt obliged to direct my most careful attention, all the more because I am convinced that the most abstract truths may be clothed in simple words just as far as they have been clearly thought, and that true scientific treatment is injured by nothing more than by ingenious poniposity of words, and by phrases behind which stands no thought. How far I have succeeded in my task ' to bring the doctrines of psychology into a form accessible to the common understanding, founded on facts and illustrated by examples,' those may judge to whom, according to their relations to the school and to science, this judgment is committed."

r^: ocTo^rxL.

I. Psychology In General

section page

§ 1. consciotjsitess 1

§ 3. The Sottl - - 3

§ 3. Body and Sotjl 4

§ 4. Empikical Psychology - 5

§ 5. Pbinciples of Empieical Psychology 8

§ 6. Method of Empieical Psychology - 10

II. I

THE INTERACTION BETWEEN BODY AND SOUL.

§ 8. The Nebvous System IS

§ 9. Cejttealizatiojt of the Neevotjs System 17 § 10. Possibility op Intebaction Between Body and Soul.

False Views Regabding It 30

§ 11. Nebvotts System and Sottl Life 31

g 13. Results of the Intbeaction of Body and Soul 35

IIL PSYCHOLOGY PROPER.

§ 13. Theeepold Division of Psychology - - 39

CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Production Of Sense-concepts

SECTION PAGE

§ 14. Sensation -.....- 32 § 15. Content, Steength, and Tone ov Sensation - 34 § 16. Relation Between Stimulus and Sensation. Psychological Law - - - - 36 § 17. The Two Chief Classes of Sensation - - 41 § 18. Sensations of the Body - - - - 43 § 19. Sensation Aeising fbom the Senses - - 46 § 20. Sense of Touch - - 48 § 81. Chemical Senses 51 § 23. Heaeing - - - - - 53 § 23. Seeing ... 56 § 24. Sense Conteibution to Knowledge - 62 § 25. Bodily Movements - - - 65 § 26. The Sense-Peeception - - - - 68

CHAPTER 11.

REPRODUCTION OF CONCEPTS. WHAT BECOMES OF

THEM.

§ 27. Clear and Obscure Consciousness - - 71 § 28. Fundamental Laws foe the Reciprocal Action of Concepts - ... 70 § 29. Aeeest in Paeticulae ..... 78 § 30. Reproduction of Concepts - - - 81 § 31. Special Laws of Repeoduction - - 84 § 32. Repeoduction of the Series - - - - 86 § 33. Significance of the Seeies Foem - - - 90 § 34. Repeoductions and Sensations - - - - 94

CONTENTS. xl

SECTION PAGE

§ 35. REPEODtrCTION OF MOVEMENTS - - - 97

§ 37. Kinds op Memoky - 101

§ 38. CoTJBSE OP Development in Memory - - 104

§ 39. The Imagination - - - 106 § 40. Significance of Imagination fob Instruction and

Moral Training - - 109

§ 41. The Concept op Time - - - - - 111

S 43. The Concept of Space. The Space Series - 113

§ 43. Experience in Space .... ne § 44. Concepts as Psychical Powers. Psychological Culture 131

§ 45. Apperception - - ... 133

§ 46. Significance of Apperception. Attention - 136

§ 47. Fate of Concepts. Eeview and Eesults - - 138

Chapter III. The Intellect

§ 48. Thinking in General . . - 131

§ 50. The Syllogism .... 136

§ 51. Truth of the Judgment ... 139

§ 53. The Formation of Notions - - 140

§ 53. Kinds of Notions - - - - 143

§ 54. Speech and Thought ... 145

§ 55. KisE AND Development of Language - 148

§ 56. Development op the Human Understanding - 151

Chapter IV. Self-consciousness

§ 58. The Ego as Concept op the Body - - 156

§ 59. The Ego as Meeting-Place op Concepts - - 158

^ 60. The Historical Ego . . - - - 161

§ei. "We" AS Social Ego - - - . - 164

j^ 63. The Inner Sense ..... 166 xli CONTENTS-

FART II.

THE FEELINGS.

PAGE

SECTION

§ 63. How Feelings Abisb - - - - 169

§ 64. Content, Tone, Stbength, and Dukation of Feelings 173

§^5. Feelings and Concepts - - - - 174

§ 66. Classification of Feelings - 175

§ 67. The Univeesal, ob Fobmal Feelings - - 177

§ 68. Sensuous Feelings - - - 179

§ 69. Otheb Loweb Feelings - - 183

§ 70. HiGHEB Feelings .... 184

§ 71. Intellectual Feelings - . - 186

§ 73. Esthetic Feelings - - - - 188

§ 73. .Esthetic Feeling in Its Elements and as a Whole.

FoBM AND Content of the Beautiful - - 191

§ 74. .Esthetic Taste - - 194

§ 75. MoBAL Feelings - - - - 196

§ 76. Eeligious Feelings . - - 198

§ 77. Pebsonal, ob Egoistic Feeling ... 200

§ 79. Eecipeocal Action of Feelings .... 305

§ 80. Violent Feelings, ob Passions ... 307

§ 81. Classification of the Passions ... 210

Chapter I

§ 83. Satisfaction of Desires - . 214

§ 84. Relation of Striving to Thinking and Feeling 317

§ 85, The Interaction op Desiebs .... 219

CONTENTS. xii!

Chapter II. The Particular Forms Of Desire

section pagb

§ 86. Classification of Desires - - - - 223

§ 88. Inclination and Pbopensity - ■ . 337

§ 89. Ruling Passions --.... 339

s5 90. The Growth of Passion; Its Eise and Dbclinb - 231

§ 91. Vabieties of Passion .... 334

§ 92. Violent Emotion and Passion ... 236

CHAPTEE III.

WILL.

§ 93. Will in General - - - - 238

§ 94. Development op Will .... 340

§ 95. Outward Effect of Will. Action and Deed - 243 g 96. Inward Effect of Will. 'Frbedom in Mental States 245

§ 97. Reflection and Self-Detebmination - - 247

§ 98. Psychological Freedom - - 248

Appendix

§ 102. The Deeam as a Prototype of Mental Disease . 201 § 103. Psychical Disturbances Within Healthy Mental

§ 104. Rise of Mental Diseases - 260

§ 105. Chief Forms of Mental Disease - 269

15 106. Intensifying of Mental Activity Through Diseased

Conditions - - - , - - - 373

INTRODUCTION.

I.

PSYCHOLOGY IN GENERAL.

§ 1. CONSCIOUSNESS.

That which is extended in space we call matter or material. A change in matter is motion. There are two necessaryconditions of motion, time and space. The falling of a stone, the wilting of a leaf can not take place without space and time.

Since space is essential to changes in matter, these changes may be termed extensive conditions of matter; in so far as they concern merely the outward conduct of matter, they appear only as the external conditions of the same.

Hand in hand with the external, extensive, or space and time changes of things, go the internal, the intensive, or the mere time conditions, which we think of as belonging to the ultimate indivisible elements of matter called atoms. These inner conditions of the atoms are, of course, entirely withdrawn from our experience, for whatever falls within the range of our experience must of necessity be external. Notwithstanding, however, we must assume that the inner conditions of the atoms have changed, when we perceive a change in the outward aspect of the same, just as we assume the unchanged state of those inner qualities of matter, which are entirely unknown to us, so long as the outer conditions (efEects, manifestations of force) do not change.

There is but one group of internal conditions which does not elude our experience, but which is immediately accessible: these conditions are our own inner states; for we stand not without, but within this group.

Our own inner, unextended, time conditions, we call mental states, or ideas; the totality of these is called consciousness; the interpenetration or synthesis of the same on all sides to the strict unity and oneness of the "I" is called

SELr-CONSCIOUSNESS.

I 2. THE SOUL.

That which self-observation teaches about consciousness may be reduced to three fundamental facts.

There are given:

1. A multitude of ideas (concepts), which come and go;

2. The ever changing unity of the same, in the form of consciousness;

3. The union of the successive states of consciousness into the oneness of self-consciousness, in the form of a single unchangeable ego, or I.

The interpretation of these three fundamental facts has led to the assumption of a soul essence, or suhstatice.

We distinguish between a substance, or essence, and the conditions or states of the same. The essence ever endures, even though its states change. The essence to which all our ideas, and all of the inner conditions derived from, them cleave, we call the soul. Ideas are states of the soul — the soul is their bearer, i)

The unity and singleness of consciousness enables us to draw a conclusion as to the nature of the soul substance.

1) In the technical language of philosophy, "essence" bears the name substance. States or qualities are called accidents; the relation between substance and its accidents, which in common language is characterized by the word "have," to possess, bears the name l/nher' ence, and is one of the hardest problems of metaphysics.

THE SOUL. 3

•

It might be either simple or compound; it might further be identical with the cause of the bodily changes, or different.

The assumption of a many-membered bearer of soul states is excluded by the fact that all spiritual conditions, however changeable and contradictory they may be among themselves — the simultaneous as well as the successive — exhibit the highest degree of reciprocal attraction and interpenetration. Our ego presents itself to us as one and indivisible amidst all the changes of soul states, which would not bs possible were the states of the soul, like those of objects, divided among different substances. The bearer of spiritual states must, therefore, be simple.

Notwithstanding this, however, it might be one and the same with some one of those substances upon which the states of our body depend, since these are also to be thought as simple. As a matter of fact, a distinguished thinker, the philosopher Leibnitz, claimed for each one of them the character of a representing essence. But that simple substance which we have assumed as the bearer of the purely time conditions of our minds, must, under all circumstances, take such an exalted position among the primal substances of the body, that we are fully justified in distinguishing it from all elements of our body as a substance of a peculiar and, higher kind, and in giving it a special name. This substance, of whose conditions alone we have immediate knowledge, and upon which the processes of our body must be projected through a chain of reciprocal actions in order to reach our consciousness, is the soul. It is, therefore, a simple substance, or essence, different from the body, concerning whose further peculiarity and actual essence nothing more can be determined from the standpoint of experience.!)

1) The further elaboration of this subject, which forms one of the most difEcuIt and most contested departments of philosophy, belongs not to empirical psychology, but to metaphysics.

i EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOOT.

Bemark.— The total inability to compare mental with material states cannot, merely on this account, furnish a reason for the assumption of a simple soul substance, because we do not know the inner states or conditions of matter (the analogue of our mental states). The true ground for this assumption is the unity of consciousness, — it is the fact that we unite simultaneous psychical conditions to the strictest unity, and that we relate the concepts of even the most remote periods of time to one and the same spiritual center — our ego. The materialistic view of the soul is not able to establish this point of unity which we find in the simple soul substance.

? 3. BODY AND SOUL.

We distinguish between body and soul in man. They stand over against each other as outer and inner, as sentient and spiritual, as compound and simple. Notwithstanding this opposition, however, they are essentially related and they reciprocally condition each other.

The living body presupposes a soul, and the soul presup- '" poses a living body. The body from which the soul has departed is a mere "thing," and the disembodied soul is a mere "spirit."

Aside from this connection in thought, experience shows us a series of most striking facts which exhibit the reciprocal dependence between body and soul, so that the two appear merely as the two different sides of one human being. Philosophy seeks to explain this double-sidedness. According as the unital or dual nature of man appears as a result of this explanation, the philosophical view will bear the character of monism or dualism.

Dualism regards body and soul as ^wo fundamentally different things, which do not allow of reduction to a common principle. Monism is either materialism or spiritualism (idealism) according as it seeks to explain the spiritual from the material, or the material from the spiritual.

BODY AND SOUL. 5

The conception of man according to experience proceeds from the fact that in the realm of experience we may distinguish two large dissimilar groups of phenomena; (1) the group of phenomena which pertain to space and time/ and (2) the group which pertain merely to time, the two standing over against each other as outer and inner experience.

Anthropology, or the science of man, falls, therefore, into somatology; i. e., the doctrine of the body; and into empirical psychology, i. e. , the doctrine of the soul. Each of these sciences will have regard to the other only in so far as is absolutely necessary to the understanding of the facts.

Remark. — Since man is properly regarded as a microcosm, in that the general relations of the universe occur in man in smaller proportions (the human soul is formed in the image of God), any given view of the relation between the spiritual and the bodily in man is dependent upon the philosophical view which is held concerning the universe, and is in a certain sense only a copy of the latter. Dualism as a fundamental philosophical conception was introduced into modern philosophy by Descartes (f 1650), who assumed two separate substances, the thinking substance, and the material substance (thought and extension). His successor, Spinoza, is the father of Monism, in that he taught that there is but one infinite substance, which exhibits itself to us from different sides as mind and nature. This thought was further extended in Schelling's philosophy of identity. In this system matter and mind stand side by side as different though equal forms of manifestation of one fundamental principle. The monism of Spinoza and Schelling separates into the spiritualistic branch, which finds its most extreme expression in Fichte's absolute ego, and Into the realistic-materialistic branch, which begins with John Locke (t 1704), and has its most significant continuance in the philosophy of the French clearing-up period, as well as in modern materialism.

< It is, in general, the problem of psychology to investigate the natural laws of soul life, and from these to explain the manifoldness of soul phenomena. In the solution of this

6 EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOar.

problem either of two ways may be pursued: that of deduction, which leads from the universal to the particular; or that of induction, which mounts from the particular to the universal. The first way characterizes the path of speculation, upon which the philosophical sciences proceed; the latter way shows the course of experience, which the empirical sciences pursue.

Accordingly, rational or speculative psychology as a part of philosophy is distinguished from empirical psychology as one of the sciences of experience. While the natural sciences with the help of the inductive method — founded by Bacon of Verulam (t 1626), and applied by Newton with such brilliant results — pursues its own way, entirely independent of metaphysical investigation, psychology has been treated, until very recent times, almost entirely as a philosophical doctrine, in that metaphysical theories which have been posited concerning existence in general have been applied to the soul. The process was a deductive one. It is on this account that as many psychologies have arisen as there are philosophical schools.

In opposition to this conception, empirical psychology has set itself the task of proceeding from the particular facts of consciousness, and, in accordance with the method of induction, to base upon them an explanatory theory of soul life. Empirical psychology has this double advantage over the natural sciences: first, that these particular facts of consciousness as objects of inner experience are immediately accessible, whereas the objects of external experience in the natural sciences are only m,ediately known; i. e., by being brought to consciousness through the senses; and second, that the abundance of these facts is extraordinary, on account of the ever-changing events of soul life and of the multiplicity of minds.

It finds itself at a disadvantage, however, in so far as the elements of psychological facts, on account of the unity of consciousness, are not given separate, but sometimes manifest such a complication that they become problems for psychology, though being its sources of knowledge, i)

While for outer experience everything divides according to space and time, and may be separated for clearness of human knowledge, the events of inner experience do indeed exhibit succession in time, but no juxtaposition in space. The knowledge of the original connection of the elements of soul life is, therefore, much more difficult than is the case with changes in space and time, and it need not, therefore, seem strange to us, that until the most recent times, the applicability of the causal notion to change in mental states has been entirely denied, and men were inclined to regard the faculties of the soul as powers which rule regardless of law.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, the application of the natural history method of induction to the sphere of inner experience has proved itself particularly fruitful, especially since Herbart's revolutionizing investigations, so that the place of empirical psychology among the exact sciences can no longer be questioned.

Remark 1. — Herbart's service accrues not only to rational, but also to empirical psychology, since his psychology is based, not so much on the single fact of self-consciousness, as upon the whole circle of facts of common consciousness. He himself says, "I do not stand upon the single point of the ego, but my basis is as broad as all experience." (Preface to Psych, as Science.) In that Herbart applied calculus, that mighty Implement of investigation in natural science, to the phenomena of the equipoise and movements of conceptions, he t brought psychology nearer to the exact sciences. It is true that his* calculations relate only to ideal magnitudes, and to ideal relations, so

1) These complications assume extraordinary dimensions, because on account of the continuance of conceptions in a united state, the constitution of our consciousness at a given moment is determined, not alone by conceptions actually present, but also by those which have formerly been present, so that the whole psychical past projects into the immediate present.

that one could only imagine an application of the same to concrete psychical processes, but an attempt has recently been made to reckon with actually measurable magnitudes within the realm of mental life, and to produce, by way of experience, a measuring unit for the strength of conceptions. This is the theme of Psycho-physics, by G. F. Fechner (Elements of Psycho-physics, 3 part, Leipzig, 1860), whose avowed purpose is "The fixing of the measure of psychical magnitudes."

Remark 3. — Empirical psychology as an exact science is independent of all fundamental metaphysical views as to the essence of the soul (I 3), and from the beginning it renounced the solution of those questions which presuppose such a fundamental view. In what the essence of the soul actually consists, how it enters into reciprocal action with the body as known in experience, how the simplicity of its essence is compatible with the multiplicity of its states, and in what the state of conceiving really consists, will be explained by empirical psychology, just as little as physics Is able to answer the questions, What is matter? What is force? How are they related? But just as there remains to physics, notwithstanding this, a wide field of investigation in the kingdom of mediated natural phenomena, just so there remains a broad field of investigation open to empirical psychology, which is entirely independent of any metaphysical view concerning the essence of the soul. How, through the aid of the senses, sensations and perceptions arise, how they are treasured up through the memory, changed through the imagination, elaborated through the understanding; how the struggle of concepts calls forth the various states of mind, and what laws obtain here, — concerning these things much indeed may be imparted, quite Independently of every fundamental speculative view. Empirical psychology will gain through the breadth of its investigations that which it may perhaps lose in depth; it will not make rational psychology superfluous, but will be rather a preparation for it, as well as for the study of philosophy in general.

I 5. THE PRINCIPLES OF EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY. The principles (sources of knowledge) of empirical psychology are the facts of inner experience. These are gained by means of observation and experiment.

The observation is a fourfold one, since its subject as •well as its object is double; i. e. , is either our own or another ego. We must distinguish, therefore, (a) our own observation of self, (b) our own observation of others, (o) the self-observation of others, (d) the observation of others on others. The last two kinds can come to us naturally only in the form of communications.

Self-observation is the most important source of psychological investigations. Only in this way do we learn the states of the mind in an immediate manner, in order afterward, mediately to, conclude concerning the mental states of others from manifestations and communications. Yet this is subject to peculiar difficulties, since the observed object, the soul, does not lie before us, separated, like an object of outer experience, but coincides with the observing subject, the ego. The latter must, therefore, separate itself into an observing and an observed part, of which the first, the deeper, withdraws itself from observation; for if one should wish to make this also an object of observation, he would have to attempt another division of the ego, in which case the observing part would have again to withdraw itself from observation, and so on. Self-observation can, therefore, penetrate only to a certain depth, and there are phases of consciousness in which the plummet never touches bottom. Furthermore, there are conditions which one can not observe in himself, such as the beginnings of consciousness in childhood, the passions, or violent emotions, when we are "beside ourselves," and the various extreme and anomalous states of mind which appear occasionally in individuals only as a product of an extremely peculiar individual development (diseased states of the mind, etc. ).

The observation of others must, therefore, be added as supplementary. This widens the circle of psychical facts beyond the narrow limits of the individual. We learn to know different individuals and in the most varied psychical

10 EMPIRICAL PSYCHOX.OGY.

conditions. By this means the influence of inner and outer factors of bodily constitution, of temperament, of education, of association and calling, upon the psychical development is made manifest. In this connection it is particularly instructive to observe children and savages, insane people and criminals, persons in whom one sense is wanting, and other "odd" people. (Animal psychology, Kaspar Hauser. — Consult the works of Ideler, Pitaval, Knigge, Adel, Mau- * chart, Engel, Buelow, and others.)

Remark. — Of all the vast number of psychological facts, only a few will serve as starting points for an inductive investigation, since most of these facts are only the expression of a highly complicated psychological state. It appears necessary, rather, to simplify the psychical data through designedly produced situations, and through alternate exclusion and production of individual psychological factors in order to establish, their influence upon the whole product. Experiment, which plays so important a part in the field of outer experience, is consequently not to be excluded from psychology. It has essentially contributed to the disclosing of those elements of all soul life, namely,- sensations, according to their different peculiarities and the laws of our knowledge. The accessibility of experiment in the territory of derived states Is indeed very limited, because the determination of simple elements is very difScult on account of the extraordinary changeableness of the soul phenomena.

g 6. THE METHOD OF EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

The inductive process assumes a special form in the various inductive sciences, according to the particular nature of any given science. In natural history it becomes a descriptive and classifying process; in physics, an explanation of facts by means of laws, and partly by hypotheses; in anatomy, a dissection, or separation of the manifold, while in physiology it becomes a teleological and genetic method. Empirical psychology employs just so much of each of these methods as its nature demands.

METHOD. 11

As a natural history of the soul, it seeks above all to bring the phenomena of consciousness into characteristic groups according to similarity., to describe and classify these groups as tr/pes of soul activity. This in particular was the standpoint of the old empirical psychology, which hypostasized these types into faculties,!) and thought in thus doing to have fulfilled its mission.

They forget that the faculties of the soul are mere abstractions of scientific thought, and not in any way objects of natural history, or anything real. The new psychology retains this distinction of faculties (Understanding, Reason. Memory, Imagination, etc.) that the learner may get his general bearings, but it can in no wise consider its work as finished when it has made these distinctions.

As an anatomy of consciousness empirical psychology separates the highly complicated phenomena of the same into its non-divisible elements — namely, into concepts — and as physiology of the soul it seeks, by means of the genetic method, to prove how, through the reciprocal action of the concepts in the course of the psychical development of individuals and of peoples, the various permanent and changeable conditions of consciousness are formed. This proof will be successfully made only when, as physics of the soul, it seeks to exhibit the laws according to which the reciprocal action of concepts is governed. Wherever notions of mag-