" PHYSIOLOGICAL " PSYCHOLOGY 489 



as a natural science becomes easy. Let us try to see how Herbart 

 presaged such tendencies. 



He denies that consciousness consists in a bunch of faculties. Mind 

 persists as a system of concrete relations between its constituent parts. 

 These parts interact mutually, and therefore stand in mechanical rela- 

 tions to one another. As thus related, they constitute a unity of 

 " presentation " which resists " arrest of any of its components.'' Ac- 

 cordingly, "presentations" may form series; these series, in turn, may 

 arrest or strengthen, and shorten or intertwine, mutually. "While the 

 simple substance of soul (metaphysical) remains unknown qualita- 

 tively, its activities, in its processes of self-maintenance, afford the 

 states of consciousness which psychology studies. In this respect the 

 soul happens to be identical with all other " reals " which, in sum, 

 make Herbart's universe. Therefore, methods peculiar to the positive 

 sciences find application, and mathematical analysis becomes a chief 

 instrument of discovery. Further, the opposition between " presenta- 

 tions " transforms states of consciousness into forces, with the result 

 that a statics and dynamics (mechanics) of mind emerge. It is 

 feasible, accordingly, to calculate the equilibrium and movement of 

 " presentations." So, conformably to science, Herbart frames hypoth- 

 eses and tries to establish them by mathematical methods. He sets 

 himself to show accurately how the indeterminate manifold of sensa- 

 tion, as envisaged by Kant, and the multiplicity of ideas as set forth by 

 the faculty-psychology, come to an organic unity in appercipient self- 

 consciousness. In a word, the proper study of psychology is mind 

 which, in turn, consists precisely in those transforming processes known 

 collectively as " apperception." A very apposite delimitation of the 

 psychological field, one would add. And it is both interesting and 

 important to note that, in this theory of apperception, above all else, 

 Herbart continues to speak in contemporary psychological thought. 

 His connection with the modern movement, though by no means clear 

 on the whole, appears in special tendencies. First, in his complete 

 acceptance of the method of regressive analysis; second, in his appeal 

 to experience; third, in the attention which he has compelled to the 

 possibility of mathematical applications in this unstable sphere; fourth, 

 in his gradual drift away from his own metaphysical basis as he 

 wrought to render psychology a natural science — to prove that, in 

 mind, as everywhere, natural law reigns supreme. 



Notwithstanding all this, his opposition to anything in the nature 

 of a physiological psychology seems certain. For this curious hesita- 

 tion reasons must be sought, not in any antagonism peculiar to Herbart 

 himself, as some recent experimental enthusiasts, blind to history, have 

 fondly supposed, but in the general perspective of his age. Like many 

 of his followers, he was a partisan enemy of the speculative philosophy 

 that ruled Germany, and he paid the inevitable price. His judgment 



