482 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



historical sense. They groped in the dim, grey dawn of science, with- 

 out our advantages, but they set the problems which we attack hope- 

 fully in the bright glow of early morning. If, then, we remember this, 

 we shall be less surprised to learn that, leaving many lesser lights aside, 

 at least two dozen men, between Locke (1690) and Lewes (1860), play 

 their preparatory parts to Fechner, Wundt and the devoted con- 

 temporary group of psychological coworkers. To make this clearer, 

 let me adduce some names, adding the approximate dates of most 

 significant activity. Locke, 1690; Berkeley, 1709; Lavatar, 1772; 

 Kant, 1781; Herder, 1785; Galvani, 1786; Cabanis, 1801; Volt a, 1801; 

 Gall, 1805; Spurzheim, 1813; Young, 1807; Sir Charles Bell, 1811; 

 George Combe, 1820; Herbart, 1825; Fourier, 1825; Js. Muller, 1835; 

 Beneke, 1835; E. H. Weber, 1846; du Bois Keymond, 1818; Lotze, 

 1852; Helmholtz. 1856; Bain, 1857; Lewes, 1860; Fechner, 1860; 

 Wundt (1874), the inheritor of all this renown, who, in a manner 

 parallels for psychology Darwin's position in natural history. 



Our next task is to unravel the tangled skein of investigation and 

 tentative hypotheses, of discovery and unsolved problems, for which 

 these names stand. This is no easy thing, because some of the threads 

 can not be disentangled. But we may contrive to render the situation 

 less puzzling, and so see how we came to stand where we have been for 

 the past twenty years. 



Premising that they cross, recross, and even coincide occasionally, 

 tbree lines of development may be traced. These are : First, the phi- 

 losophical, in the accepted sense of this term, which originates, of 

 course, in a view of human experience as a whole, or, restricting the 

 compass somewhat, emphasizes the gross organization of consciousness; 

 second, the physical, which lays stress on the relation of certain events 

 in consciousness to objects presented under the primary conditions of 

 space and time; third, the physiological, which founds on the inter- 

 connection between conscious processes and the structures of the body, 

 particularly the cerebro-spinal system. As every one knows, the first 

 appeared earliest, while the second and third, being dependent upon the 

 advance of positive science, had to await what we may call the New- 

 tonian and genetic epochs, the one initiated by Copernicus, the other by 

 Herder and Schelling. Till the age of Kant, philosophy and physics 

 are dominated by British thought, all things considered : from Kant till 

 the first quarter of the nineteenth century French thought acquired 

 increased importance; thereafter, the primacy passed to Germany, 

 where it still remains, the influence of Darwinian ideas aside (and so I 

 shall omit reference to the later British school). For, physiology and 

 physiological psychology, along with the problems issuing from the 

 new outlook, are German products in the main. The synthesis of in- 

 formation constituting the modern science of consciousness was " made 

 in Germany." 



