342 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A more formidable apprehension is tlie one that there will slip 

 in, Tinder the name of physiological psychology, not a science, but 

 a doctrine, and this — to call things by their right names — the ma- 

 terialistic doctrine. This objection should be examined to the 

 bottom ; it is important to have it removed, not only in the inter- 

 ests of sound thought, but also in those of the science which is 

 concerned. Nothing could be more fatal to the future of this sci- 

 ence than to give it a materialistic significance. 



In principle, psycho-physiological science is neither materialis- 

 tic nor spiritualistic. It is, or ought to be, exclusively experi- 

 mental and scientific. Its disinterested character in this respect 

 is proved by the fact, which has not been sufficiently insisted on, 

 that it was founded by men of spiritual belief : the sj^iritualist 

 Descartes ; after him the mystic Malebranche ; and, succeeding 

 them, Charles Bonnet, of Geneva, the most religious man of the 

 eighteenth century. Among contemj^orary German psychologists, 

 as named by M. Ribot, are Lotze, an avowed believer in spirit, 

 who has revived Leibnitzianism in Germany ; Helmholtz, the great 

 physicist, is a Kantian, as also is Wundt, the chief of the school, 

 who declares that physiology can account for the inferior but not 

 for the superior faculties of the human mind ; Fechner, the dis- 

 coverer of the law that bears his name, is an illuminate far more 

 spiritual than materialistic ; and Weber is a pure physicist, indif- 

 ferent as between metaphysical schools. Thus, not one of the most 

 authoritative masters of the new science in Germany is a materi- 

 alist. The same can not be said of all the physiologists who are 

 occupied with these questions ; but the science itself is indifferent 

 as between the two doctrines, and can associate itself with either. 

 Yet, to be just, and not to hold to appearances only, it is clear that 

 a science which occupies itself with the physiological conditions 

 of thought, or with the part played by matter in the operations 

 of the mind, will always have a color of materialism. If Descartes 

 had only written the first part of the " Treatise on the Passions," 

 in what could this treatise be distinguished from Lamettrie's 

 " Homme-Machine " ? Suppose, now, that in consequence of the 

 m^ultiplication of objects of study, and through the division of 

 labor, an author should limit his studies to the first order of re- 

 searches, without adding the corrective, as Descartes did in the 

 third part of the "Passions," should that make him pass as a 

 materialist ? Certainly not. All that we can ask of him is to 

 leave such questions open. 



A second right that can not be denied to psycho-physiology is 

 that of establishing and affirming facts, Avhether or not they be 

 agreeable to this or that doctrine. For example, the fact of hyp- 

 notic suggestion recently brought to light has a frightful appear- 

 ance to many minds, who believe that it involves the overthrow of 



