PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 75 



physiology. The numerous accessions of physiological knowledge dur- 

 ing the last seventy years tend to obscure the unpropitious outlook at 

 the dawn of the period. Eef erring to the time (1841) when he became 

 preparateur to his distinguished predecessor, Magendie, at the College 

 de France, Claude Bernard drew a gloomy picture. 4 The established 

 "natural history" sciences — geology, botany, zoology — possessed fair 

 equipment, particularly on the museum side. While chemistry, thanks 

 doubtless, to Liebig's activity at Giessen, made rapid strides. But 

 physiology enjoyed no such advantages, was opposed, indeed, even by 

 a genius of the calibre of Cuvier. " So soon as an experimental phys- 

 iologist was discovered he was denounced; he was given over to the 

 reproaches of his neighbors and subjected to annoyances by the police." 5 

 Sir Charles Bell had intimated the contrasted functions of the anterior 

 and posterior roots of the spinal nerves (1807), but had given no 

 experimental proof: and Marshall Hall (1835) had discovered the 

 reflex function of the spinal cord. But no group of investigators had 

 arisen such as was to place Germany in the leadership. Her pre- 

 eminence, unchallenged still for physiological psychology, dates from 

 the life-work of Johannes Miiller, and his profound influence, especially 

 at Berlin, from 1833 till his death in the year before " The Origin of 

 Species" (1859). 



At this date the intellectual condition of Germany may be called 

 unprecedented without exaggeration. And the fate reserved for unique 

 things has overtaken it. Later men, particularly on the scientific side, 

 have heaped on it multiplied misunderstanding or even obloquy. Little 

 as I cling to them, I am compelled to declare that Schelling and Hegel 

 were no day-dreamers, evolving camels from their inner self-conscious- 

 ness. Both were great men, and Hegel takes his place among the few 

 marvellous intellects of history. But both suffered from their very 

 success. Hegel's philosophy formed the seedplot of that comparative 

 and critical Wissenschaft for which human history supplies the ma- 

 terial. As these disciplines developed, the defects of the Hegelian 

 system became more and more irremediable. Yet, the system lacking, 

 the sciences could not have come to birth. Schelling stood in similar 

 case. German science from 1797, the year of the publication of his 

 Xi Ideen zur einer Philosophic der Natur," till 1830 or thereby, drew 

 inspiration from his humane, if vaulting, spirit. Alex, von Humboldt, 

 as his biographer Bruhns points out, attempted " by means of a com- 

 prehensive collation of details, and the institution of the most search- 

 ing comparisons, to give a scientific foundation to the ideal cosmology 

 of Herder, Goethe, Schelling and their disciples." Further, Schelling 

 stimulated Carus, the comparative anatomist : Oersted, the father of 



4 Cf. " Physiologie generate," p. 203. 

 6 Ibid., I. c. 



