German psychology of to-day : the empirical school

Front matter

Boston

Medical Library

8 The Fenway

Preface To The America>^ Edition

A31EEICAX and English students will be grateful to have M. Eibot^s valuable work in their own tono;ue bv a competent translator. It contains the combined result of carefiil observations, experiments, and calculations which can not be obtained otherwise, except by reading innumerable books and monographs most difficult to collect. His interpretations and criticisms also are original and profound.

If we would properly ^estimate the exact nature and functions of what is called Physiological Psychology, we must adhere resolutely to two positions, which to some may seem opposed, but are really confirmatory of each other.

I

It is by self-consciousness that in the first instance, and in the last instance, and throughout, we know the actings of the mind. We assume, what every one admits, that there are a special set of phenomena, that is, observed facts, which we denominate mental or psychical : such are sensations, perceptions, judgments, hopes and fears. These are not perceived by the senses. ISTo man ever saw a recollection or touched an emotion. We have an inward as well as an outward sense, and we are conscious of them. We are more, we are conscious of them as acts of self. They are not memories or feelings indefinite, or of our neighbors, but of ourselves. We thus know self always in particular modes and activities. More specifically we know self (1),

\'1U PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

as existing, or what is the same thing, as having being. We know it (2), as having being independent of our observation of it. It does not exist because we notice it, but we notice it because it exists. It is (3), known as having power, as acting and being acted on.

Whatever possesses these attributes may be regarded as a substance (from subslsto) ; not meaning thereby that it has any occult substratum, which is the creation of metaphysicians. Matter is a substance because it has existence, existence independent of the observing mind, and is known as exercising resisting power. Mind is also a substance, because it possesses these three properties, all of which are known to us. While mind and matter may both be called substances, they are different kinds of existences. We know them by different organs ; the one by self-consciousness, the other by the senses. Again we know them as possessing altogether different properties ; the one as perceiving, reasoning, feeling, willing ; the other as extended and exercising energy. The properties of the one can not be predicated of the other. Thinking and feeling have no place in that stone ; nor have softness, hardness or gravity in our souls.

We can observe the actings of the known self and get individual fe,cts. We can systematically observe them and expose them to a process of abstraction and generalization, or what is called induction, and thus construct a science which is called Psychology. Aristotle is the founder of this science, and brought out and exposed to view such qualities as sensation, association, phantasy, memory, reminiscence, and reason active and passive, besides orective or motive j)owers. Since the days of the Stagyrite, the inductive psychologies constructed mainly on the evidence supplied by consciousness have been innumerable, and have all contained more or less truth, which has landed us, as all truths do, in mysteries.

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION, ix

Besides the knowledge which consciousness gives us directly it enables us indirectly to know what passes in the minds of others by means of their deeds, speeches and writings, which we can understand, because we are conscious of like states in ourselves. We can understand the deeds of Achilles, or the devils of Milton, because we have the same elements within ourselves. A skillful analyst could construct a psychology out of Shakespeare, or out of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.

In Psychology as the science of the soul, and not of the mere brain and nerves (which belong to physiology), we start with conscious acts, we observe them as we proceed, and our final appeal is to them. The universally recognized distinctions between sensation and perception, between the memory and the imagination, between simple apprehension and judgment, between the understanding and the reason, between the judgment and the feelings, between the reason and the will, between desire and volition (more important than any discovery yet made by the observation of the brain) were all perceived and defined by inward inspection.

There can therefore be a psychology constructed out of the data supplied by self-consciousness. There can not be a science of the mind without such data. Any professed psychical science which does not include the actings of the conscious self, its perceptions, its memories, its reasonings, its determinations is a physiology and not a psychology ; it may exhibit the laws of the brain and nerves, but not of the judging and feeling soul, A science of the mind can no more be constructed by the senses than a science of matter by the inner consciousness, Dr, Tyndall says, "Let the consciousness of love be associated with a right-angled spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion, we should then know when we love that the motion is in one

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dircctiou, and when we hate that the motion is in the-other, but the why would still remain unanswered ;" not only so, but without self-consciousness we could never know that there was love, or that there was hate, or that they had any connection with the motions of the brain.

II

But while all this is true, on the one hand, and as important as it is true, it is not to be forgotten on the other, that mind and body, as the most determined spiritualists admit, are closely connected, are, in fact, mutually dependent. Many of our psychical states, particularly our sensations and sense perceptions, are produced by bodily action, cerebral and nervous. Without the bodily senses we could have no knowledge of anything external to the mind, and so far as we can see even our mental experiences would be very limited. Again, our intellectual and emotional states have all an effect less or more marked on the body through the brain and nerves. Every thought and every emotion has an influence on the cells of the gray matter at the periphery of the brain, and this may be diffused through the whole frame to promote or injure the health. Not only so, but as substances are known by their acts, we may know more of mind than we can do by mere self-inspection, by its action on tlie cercbro-spinal mass.

The peculiar excellence of this new branch of inquiry is that it uses the same means as those by which physical science has reached such certainty, particularly experiments conducted by instruments devised for the purpose, and can test the results reached by measurements capable of being expressed numerically. These have therefore a definiteness which can not be secured by the more immediate but looser observations of consciousness. I claim, indeed, that M'e have so far a compensation for this, in that we have a more

PREFACE TO THE AMERTCAX EDITION. xi

direct and a much fuller knowledge of mind by the inner sense ; but this can not be put in so scientific a form. The result we reach is that we are to attain a knowledge of mind by the judicious combination of the two processes, the one aiding the other. But the impression should not be left that we can gain a true knowledge of mind, of its lofty ideas, say of order and design, of perfection and infinity, or of its sentiments of reverence, benevolence, hope and love by mere experimenting on its material adjuncts which act and are acted upon by it.

I do not regard this physiological psychology as constituting a new psychology, as is claimed by M. Kibot. It is a nev/ and promising branch of the old science. It has not altogether been overlooked in ages past. The founder of Psychology, Aristotle, treated of the senses, and sought "to determine the functions of each. Descartes made observations on the brain, and Berkeley showed that we can not discern distance directly by the eye. The Scottish school has given attention to the same inlets ; and its principal masters, Reid, Brown, and Hamilton were acquainted with the most advanced physiology of their day. But it is admitted on all hands that science now requires and has vigorously commenced a more searching examination than our older inquirers could institute as to the mutual relations of mind and brain. Young inquirers are rushing into the field as adventurers do to a newly discovered mine.

There are certain departments in which physiological psychology has made valuable discoveries and will make more, and these of increasing value. In particular :

1. By it and by it alone xve can investigate the bodily senses, including the sense of temperature, in all of which there are still mysteries whose solution will throw light on the mode of the mind's action. It will, I believe, at no distant date be settled whether each of the senses, as is probable, has a special seat in the brain.

Xll PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

2. The relation of language, as a mental exercise and as articulation, to the brain, specially to the third convolution of the left side of the brain as discovered by M. Broca, will be accurately determined. ^

3. There are laws of the association of ideas which are purely mental, and these have been approximately ascertained. Aristotle made them Contiguity, Resemblance, and Contrast; perhaps they may be more fully classified as Contiguity and Correlation, including Resemblance, Contrast and others. But in explaining our experience we meet with difficulties : for example, we find that the flow of thought is stayed at one time, as when we are wearied at night, but is resumed at another time, as when we are fresh in the morning, and this no doubt is to be explained by cerebral laws not yet discovered.

4. It is of importance for many scientific purposes to determine the rapidity of thought and feeling in ordinary and extraordinary circumstances, and also to find out how this rapidity may be hastened or slackened. We already know approximately what time is occupied by a sensor nerve in tlie transmission of an excitation to the brain, and the time occupied by the motor nerve in the voluntary reaction ; and there have been attempts at the measurement of pure thought and feeling, of choice and discernment (Wundt), and of memory (Ebbinghaus).

5. An interesting field is opened in discovering at Avhat age certain acts begin to be performed and certain ideas begin to rise, as, for instance, at what age infants fix their eyes on objects or think of space and time, right and wrong. A beginning has been made in these investigations by Darwin, Spencer, Stanley Hall, and they will be followed by others.

The most systematic and valual>le researches on the general subject have been made by German investigators. Much knowledge was imparted and mu(;h impetus to inquiry by

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the great work of John Miiller on Physiology. Special v/orks began with Herbart of Leipsic, who songht to apply mathematics to psychical phenomena. Little positive truth was thereby discovered, as mathematics, which deals only with quantity and position, can throw little light on the operations of the mind ; but inquirers were taught to seek scientific definiteness of results. AYeber made curious discoveries as to the sensitiveness of different parts of the body such as the tongue and back. Fechner, in his Psychophysik, has made some important observ-ations as to the relation bet\veen the external excitation and the psychical jierceptions, and these have been tabulated. It has been difficult to reach a law applicable to all the senses. It may \)e remarked that this subject will not be cleared up thoroughly till the inquirers take the view of causation given by John S. Mill, that a cause always consists of two or more agents. The external excitant does not constitute the entire cause of the perception, but the two acting and reacting constitute the cause of the eifect that follows.

Lotze was a man of genius, and has had great influence both in Germany and in this country. He has called in Local Signs to account for sense perceptions in space. I believe tliat there is truth in his theory, although he has mixed it up with metaphysics ; but the precise nature of these Local Signs, which appear to me to be physiological and not psychical, will require to be definitely determined.

The observations and speculations of Fechner and Lotze have raised a great many discussions, and earnest inquirers have reached different results. Hering of Prague has attacked the psychophysics of Fechner at nearly every point, denying that he has been able to establish any of his laws. On the other hand the latter has been defended in some of his positions by Delboeuf, who seeks, by experiment, to establish certain laws of his ow^n discovery.

Helmholtz, the great physicist, has thrown himself into

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this discussion and has inquired particularly into the origin of our idea of space. He divides the theories into those of the nativist and empiricist, he himself holding the latter. Under the former he includes the a priori theory of Kant, which supposes that the mind adds to the knowledge acquired through the senses ; a view which can not be entertained by those of us who oppose the doctrine that the mind imposes forms on things. On the other hand I can not see that the idea of space can be obtained from a gathered induction or from a series of experiences no one of which contains the idea. We may maintain that the mind by its native power discovers at once objects in space and occupying space ; and by an easy process of abstraction we separate the space from the objects it contains.

Wundt is the most eminent living representative of the school of physiological psychology. When he brings in metaphysics, however, exception may be taken to some of his conclusions. Thus he will find few to follow him when he says that our sense perceptions are the conclusions of a process of reasoning instead of being immediate, as if we could by any legitimate process of reasoning get the perception of an extended thing from that which has no extension. I am pleased to find that he is abandoning this theory (see p. 220 of this treatise) in favor of a theory of apperception, a word used by Leibnitz, and pointing to a truth. But in treating of his own subject, the relation of the cerebro-spinal mass to mind, he has shown much ability, discrimination, and wisdom ; as he has also done in measuring the time occupied by nervous action and reaction.

We have now a clear and comprehensive account of the German observations, experiments, and discussions in this work of M. Ribot, with which every student of psychology should be acquainted. I am not sure that he has set a sufficiently high value on the observations of consciousness ; but just here another of his excellencies is seen : he has

Preface To The American Edition. XV

carefully separated psychology, which is a science of observation, external and internal, throughout from all metaphysical speculation.

The work has been well translated by one who was a distinguished student and Fellow in Mental Science of Princeton College, and who has since studied under the great masters in Germany.

James McCosh.

PEEFAOE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

Works published in Germany during the last six years have made it necessary to revise this volume. To simplify it, quite a little has been suppressed. The principal additions have reference to recent monographs on psychology, new discussions of the law of Weber, and work done in the psycho-physical laboratory of Wundt. The chapter devoted to Wundt has also been worked over in view of the second edition of his Physiological Psychology, of which a French translation is being prepared. It has seemed better, therefore, not to give a detailed analysis of the book, but to devote more space to works which have not been translated, and probably will not be.

February, 1885.

00]^TEKTS.

TfiANSiiATOE's Note, v

Preface by James McCosh, D. D. LL. D , vii

Preface to the Second Edition, xvii

The old psychology — Tlie new psychology — Its principle — Its method — Physiological psychology — Comparison of English and German psychology ; general characteristics of the latter — Object of the book.

I. Principles of the psychology of Herbart — II. Mathemetical method : static and mechanic of mind — III. Feeling — IV. Critique of the psychology of Herbart.

School of Herbart and the Ethnographic Psychology, 49

I. Influence of Herbart: His principal disciples — II. Ethnographic psychology : Th. Waitz— III. Lazarus, Steinthal, and their views.

Lotze: Theory of Local Signs, 68

I. In what sense Lotze is an empirical psychologist — Metaphysical tendencies of his spirit and method — Unfortunate consequences — 11. Object of the theory of local signs : general sketch of the theory — Extension referred to intensity — HI. Special study of visual and tactile local signs — Importance of Lotze's theory : its critics.

xix

XX CONTENTS.

Nativists and Empiricists : Origin of the Notion of Space, 96

Status of the problem — I. Tactile space — Niitivist theories: Miiller, Weber, Stunipf— Empirical theories — II. Critical study of the question — III. Visual space — Nativist theor}': Hypothesis of identity (Miiller) ; of projection (Volkmann, Bonders, Nagel, &c.)— Theory of Panum ; theory of Hering, of Stunipf — The empiricists — Theory of Helraholtz, of Wundt, &c. — Logical and association theories — Critical study of the question : advantages and defects of the empirical position.

General aspects of psychophysics before Fechner — II. Psycho-physical researches: observations of Weber — Three methods employed — III. Experimental determination of the smallest pei-- ceptiUe difference, for sensations of touch, muscular effort, temperature, sound, light — IV. Experimental determination of the smallest perceptible sensation in the same cases — V. The logarithmic law — VI. The critics of Fechner, Bernstein, Brentano, Hering — Eesearches of Delboeuf — Objections to the mathematical expression of the law, to its experimental basis — Difference between Weber's and Fechner's laws — Resume of the question— Discussion of Wundt and Zeller as to the possibility of measuring psychic facts.

Wundt and Physiological Psychology, 188

Wundt's general conception of psychology and his method — II. Nerve physiology : specific energy of the nerves ; criticism of this theory — III. Perception — Extension referred to a psychological synthesis — Function of local signs and movement — IV. Abstract notions — V. Apperception — VI. Feeling in general—VII< The esthetic feelings— VIII. Moral feelings— IX. Beligious feelings — X. Will and apperception: liberty and character — XI. Consciousness.

The Duration of Psychic Acts* 250

I. Eesearches on this subject to the present — II. Determination of the physiological time in different conditions. Mean figures of experiment. Probable duration of tlie simplest intellectual act — III. Second period of psychometric research — Extent of consciousness — Duration of different kinds of association— Judgment — Pathological variations — Epitome of results.

CONTENTS. XXI

I. Condition of psycLoIogy in Germany: Study of additional questions in natural fsyciiology — Horwicz, feeling prominent — Bretano: relation to Stuart Mill — Kussniaul — Strici^er — Schneider : psychology of evolution, Ac, &e. — II. Analysis of elements of sensation (Helmholtz) — General results and resume of the work.

GERMAN PSYCHOLOGY OF TO-DAY.

Introduction

Thirty years ago, at most, if any one liad dared maintain, in this country, that psychology was still in a state of childhood, and had little prospect of growth, he would have been accused of paradox. One would have advised the critic to read again the works that have been devoted, since Locke, to the different manifestations of the human spirit, and the reply would have been judged sufficient.

To-day it would be no longer sufficient for any one. The point of view has changed, and many are disposed to think differently. In recognizing — as is just — that the old psyeliology has rendered service, has established some points definitely, shown in analysis a penetration and delicacy difficult to surpass, one refuses to see in all this more that attempts. The spirit of the natural sciences has invaded psychology and made it more difficult. One asks whether a collection of ingenious remarks, of fine analyses, of observations clothed in terms of elegant exposition, of metaphysical hypotheses set with precious truths, that must, by right, be forcible, constitute a body of doctrine, a true science ; — whether it is not time to resort to a method more rigorous. Thus has arisen the separation, every day more apparent, between the old and the new psychology.

Although it has cut a good figure enough, the old psychology is doomed. In the new surroundings that have recently grown np the conditions of its existence have disappeared. Its methods do not suffice for the increasing difficukies of the taskj for the growing exigencies of the scientific spirit. It is compelled to live upon its past. In vain its wisest representatives attempt a compromise, and repeat in a loud voice that it is necessary to study facts, to accord a large share to experience.^ Their concessions amount to nothing. However sincere their intentions ; in fact, they do not execute them. As soon as they put hand to the work the taste for pure speculation seizes upon them. Besides, no reform is possible of that which is radically false, and the old psychology rests upon an illegitimate conception, and should perish with the contradictions that are in it. The eiForts that are made to accommodate it to the exigencies of the modern spirit, to work a change in its real nature, bring only delusion. Its essential characteristics remain always the same ; one can show it in few words. In the first place, it is possessed of the metaphysical spirit ; it is the " science of the soul ; " internal observation, analysis, and reasoning are its favorite processes of investigation : it distrusts biological science, associates with it only in reluctance and by necessity, and is ashamed to acknowledge its debt. Feeble and old, it makes no progress, and asks only to be let alone, that it may spend its age in peace.

Such a conception is no longer vital. Its metaphysical tendencies exclude the positive spirit, forbid the employ of a scientific method, deprive psychology of the fruits of free research. It does not dare to assert itself as a study of psychic phenomena alone, distinct and independent. Yet

' Others more determined in Germany, some few Hegelians, and with us the disciples of the school that takes the name "spiritual realism," make psychology a branch of metaphysics and despise natural psychologists. We have no intention of combating these mystics; no discussion is possible with them, because there is nothing common ; neither principles, methods, language, nor end.

this is a real necessity. In proportion as the old habits of mind are eiFaced, will we see, more and more clearly, that psychology and metaphysics, formerly confounded under the same title, presuppose intellectual aptitudes that are opposite and exclusive. We will perceive that talent in metaphysics bears an inverse ratio to talent in psychology ; that henceforth, apart from some rare geniuses who combine the two perhaps, the psychologist should renounce metaphysics and the metaphysician psychology.

For the old school, since taste for internal observation and subtilty of spirit were exclusive signs of a call to psychology, the programme summed itself up in two words — observation and reasoning. Internal observation is, without doubt, the first step ; there is always a necessary process of verification and interpretation ; but it can not be a method. To maintain this is to forget or to disown entirely the conditions of a scientific method. If psychology can be constructed in this way, good eyes and fixed attention will suffice for the construction of physiology.

Subtilty of spirit is also too fragile an instrument to penetrate the compact and serrated line of the facts of consciousness. For the last two hundred years it has been testing. We owe to it good descriptions, excellent analyses ; but its work is done. Its province now is simply details, shades of meaning, refinements, subtilties. And as far as it dare touch upon the profound, it will be only to heap up more delicate and hidden distinctions. It does not reach the general — can never explain it. Under these conditions the psychologist becomes a romancer, a poet of an especial kind ; he seeks the abstract rather than the concrete ; he dissects instead of producing, and psychology becomes a kind of literary criticism, very penetrating and acute, but nothing more. The study of psychic phenomena in their totality from the lowest form in animals to the highest in man is forbidden him. Such a psychology is incapable of referring these manifestations to the laws of life ; it has neither fullness nor strength.

What strikes one, in fact, in the old psychology, is its extreme simplicity ; it is simple in its object, simple in its means. It presents a character that is narrow, and, to speak it in a word, childish. It lacks air and horizon. Questions are proposed in a shallov/ and insufficient form, treated by a verbal method which approaches the scholastic. All resolves itself into deductions, arguments, objections and replies. In this refinement of subtleties, always increasing, we reach at last symbols only: all reality has disappeared. In the solitary spirit that racks and torments itself to draw everything from within, that meditates with closed eyes, taking from v/ithout only what is necessary to save itself from death by inanition, a rarefied atmosphere is produced, that nothing living can breathe. The soul is haunted with wild visions.

To any one who takes up these questions in their succession, it is easy to show that this metaphysical preoccupation, this abuse of the subjective method and the reasoning powers, paralyze the best minds. The state of consciousness isolated from that which precedes, accompanies and follows it, i. e., its anatomical, physiological, and other conditions, is nothing more than an abstraction ; and when we have duly classified it, referred it to a hypothetical faculty which is itself attributed to a hypothetical substance, what have we discovered, what have we learned ? If, on the other hand, the state of consciousness be studied as part of a natural group whose elements mutually suppose one another, and are to be studied each apart and in its relation to the others, we rest in reality. We are not satisfied with the formula so dear to the old psychologists : " This is from physiology." But we take our own wherever we find it ; we receive instruction from all sides, and do not mistake for a science the nomenclature of phantoms of our own making.

INTRODUCTIO]^. 5

Too much reasoniDg : this is the impression that the old psychology makes upon the disciples of the new. Reasoning— that is confidence of the spirit in itself, and faith in the simplicity of things. The new psychology submits that the spirit ought to distrust itself, and believe in the complexity of things. Even in the less complex order of biological science, our inductions and deductions are baffled at each step. What ought to be, is not ; what is inferred is not verified ; where logic says yes, experience says no.

Do the representatives of the old psychology — and they are still many, though diifering in shades of opinion — understand the position they have taken with reference to contemporary science? The physicist and the chemist trust themselves only in their laboratories : the biologist daily adorns his workshop with new machines, arms himself with all his weapons, multiplies his instruments and means of experiment, strives to substitute the passive and mechanical registry of phenomena for their subjective estimation, since the latter is always vacillating and uncertain. The psychologist, on the contrary, dealing with facts of the extremest complexity, is unable to begin again the work of his predecessors, or reconsider what is already well established, is compelled "to interrogate himself," without information, experience, apparatus, or means of procedure. If his work is a science, it must be confessed that it resembles nothing else that bears that name.

II.

The new psychology differs from the old in its spirit : it is not metaphysical ; in its end : it studies only phenomena ; in its procedure : it borrows as much as possible from the biological sciences.

We have tried elsewhere to show the advantages of a psychology without metaphysics, or, as has been said since,

"a psychology without a soul." Let us set aside this negative aspect of our subject to consider it now under its positive aspect.

One of the greatest obstacles to the progress of psychology, now, for a long time, a signal obstacle, is the very nature of the facts of consciousness, so vague, so fleeting, so difficult to fix. While objective phenomena are distinguished from one another by their specific qualities, their relations in time, and especially their form, figure, and all their quantitative determinations in space ; psychical states, taken in themselves, recognized in consciousness alone, have differences only of quality and relation in time. Thus it has been the task of the new psychology from the first to attempt to increase their determinateness, or, what amounts to the same thing, the sum of their relations. It is here that the discoveries of physiology have been a great help. It being established that psychical movements are connected, in a general w^ay, with the cerebro-spinal system, physiology has shown more recently, that every psychical state is invariably associated with a nervous state, of which reflex action is the most simple type. This principle is uncontrovertible for the majority of cases, in the highest degree probable for the remainder.