THE ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN SOUL 197 



coverable by internal experience (introspection) and unaided 

 external: observation. Of such facts as are only accessible by 

 means of instrumentation and systematic experimentation, he 

 could, of course, know nothing, since their exploration awaited 

 the advent of modem mechanical and optical inventions. But 

 the factual foundation of his treatise, though not extensive, 

 was solid, so far as it went, and his selection, analysis, and 

 evaluation of the materials at hand was so accurate and 

 judicious, that the broad outlines of his system have been vin- 

 dicated by the test of time, and all the results of modem ex- 

 perimental research fit, with surprising facility, into the frame- 

 work of his generalizations, revision being nowhere necessary 

 save in nonessentials and minor details. Wilhelm Wundt, the 

 Father of Experimental Psychology, pays him the following 

 tribute: "The results of my labors do not square with the ma- 

 terialistic hypothesis, nor do they with the dualism of Plato 

 or Descartes. It is only the animism of Aristotle which, by 

 combining psychology with biology, results as a plausible 

 metaphysical conclusion from Experimental Psychology." 

 ("Grundzuge der physiologischen Psychologie," 4t€ Auflage, 

 II, C. 23, S. 633.) 



Literally translated, the title of Aristotle's work signifies a 

 treatise concerning the soul. It set a precedent for the 

 scholastic doctors of the thirteenth century, and de anima be- 

 came with them a technical designation for all works dealing 

 with this theme. In the sixteenth century the selfsame usage 

 was embalmed in the Greek term psychology, which was coined 

 with a view to rendering the elliptic Latin title by means of 

 a single word. Melanchthon is credited with having originated 

 the term, which, in its original use as well as its etymology, 

 denoted a science of the 'psyche or soul. 



Towards the close of the seventeenth century, however, the 

 meaning of the term in question began to undergo a marvelous 

 evolution, of which the end is not yet. The process was ini- 

 tiated by Descartes, under whose auspices psychology was 

 changed from a science of the soul into a science of the mind. 



