" PHYSIOLOGICAL " PSYCHOLOG ) ' 487 



which, I fear, too few scientific men realize to-day. The years 1780- 

 1840 witnessed an efflorescence of speculative thought unparalleled in 

 western history save once — in that wonderful century (422-322 b. c.) 

 when Socrates, Plato and Aristotle secured for the Greeks a far more 

 permanent and formative hold over mankind than was ever achieved 

 by Aristotle's amazing pupil, Alexander the Great. As at Athens, so 

 in the modern period, transitive intellectual personages are legion. 

 Here it must suffice to mention Herder, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, 

 Herbart and Beneke. Fichte's previsions of a social science, Spel- 

 ling's wide-spread sway over nascent physiology and medicine, and 

 Hegel's splendid mission, as founder of contemporary critico-historical 

 and comparative studies that have altered the face of human nature, 

 must be suppressed now. But, for psychology, Herder, Herbart and 

 Beneke present matter of high import. 



Herder possessed that rarest of endowments, a seminal mind. His 

 thought scattered seeds everywhere, which have come to fruitage since 

 in philology, comparative religion, anthropology and psychology, to 

 name no others. Genetic conceptions inspired him, and his command 

 of enormous reading enabled him to illustrate them concretely, if 

 sporadically. Under the influence of Albrecht von Haller, the eminent 

 Gottingen naturalist, who founded experimental and brain physiology, 13 

 he foresaw the necessity of physiological research for psychology. 

 " According to my thinking," he wrote, as early as 1778, " there is no 

 psychology possible which is not at every step definite physiology. 

 Haller's physiological work once raised to psychology, and, like 

 Pygmalion's statue, enlivened with mind, we shall be able to say 

 something of thought and sensation." 14 Xo less remarkable is the fol- 

 lowing, in its prophetic insight ; " Among millions of creatures what- 

 ever could preserve itself abides, and still after the lapse of thousands 

 of years remains in the great harmonious order. Wild animals and 

 tame, carnivorous and graminivorous insects, birds, fishes and man are 

 adapted to each other." 15 



But, admitting Herder's vision to the full, his main title to a dis- 

 tinct place in the historical line of psychologists supplies the reason 

 why, strange as it may seem, we must dismiss him briefly in the present 

 context. The most recondite and, at the same time, most potent 

 onality of self-consciousness roots in its eerie power of objectification. 

 Students brood upon this increasingly, sciences like historical criticism, 

 sociology and aesthetics offering testimony. Men bandy words about the 

 '' social mind," about " mob psychology," about a " national or epochal 

 ethos'' and so forth. Customs and institutions, myth and religion 

 yield paleontological records, not of individual men, but rather of 



13 Cf. "The History of Physiology," Foster, pp. 291 ff. 



14 Cf. " Vorn Erkennen und Empfinden der menschlichen Seele," Werke, IX. 

 "Quoted by Sully in the Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.), Vol. XL, s. v. Herder. 



