THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY. 413 



plied. His services to psychological method were of this order, and 

 therefore belong rather to the logic of science than to the history of 

 Psychology. But, as his luminous exposition of the logical status of 

 the " laws of mind " ^ had an unquestionable influence on the most 

 systematic application of these laws yet made, in the comprehensive 

 work of Prof. Bain, it will be proper to inquire whether this advance 

 too had its antecedents in the physical sciences. 



Mill's logic of psychology is characteristic. Like all his doctrines, 

 it has a positive and an hypothetical part — the hypothetical admitting 

 almost all that his opponents of every school would assert, and the 

 positive so stated as if those admissions had not been made. The 

 positive aspect of it may be embodied in three propositions. Psy- 

 chology is a science^ because the facts of mind present certain uni- 

 formities of succession, which we call laws. It is an independent sci- 

 ence, because its laws are ultimate, and cannot be deduced from the 

 physiological laws of our nervous organization. Finally, this science 

 has certain limits., which are stated, however, with a vacillation and 

 obscurity very far from usual with so clear and resolute a thinker, but 

 which appear to be : that sensations of one sense cannot be resolved 

 into those of another; that "the other constituents of the mind, its 

 beliefs, its abstruser conceptions, its sentiments, emotions, and voli- 

 tions," have probably not been generated from simple ideas of sensa- 

 tion ; and that, even if this can be proved, " we should not be the more 

 enabled to resolve the laws of the more complex feelings into those of 

 the simpler ones." In the hypothetical part (which has been much 

 more strongly expressed in the later editions of the " Logic," though 

 without any corresponding alteration of the positive part), Mill is 

 quite prepared to admit that "the laws of mind maybe derivative 

 laws resulting from laws of animal life, and that their truth, therefore, 

 may ultimately depend on physical conditions." But the probability 

 of this genesis being shown, he apparently regards as so remote that 

 it is not worth while to take the antecedent physical conditions into 

 account except as disturbing agencies. '^ He refuses to see that if the 

 evolution of the higher forms of life from the lower can be made 

 out, we do not say as an induction, but even as a good working hy- 

 pothesis, the foundations of Psychology will be subverted, and it 

 will be changed from what* we may call a statical into a dynamical 

 science. 



Mill belonged, less by age than by precocious mental development, 

 to a generation which found in him its perfect scientific, and in Mr. 

 Carlyle its most consummate literary, expression. In literature, it 

 turned with reverted eyes to an ever-receding golden age, and wrote 

 histories ; in science, the impulse was rather to widen, clear, and con- 

 nect the old paths, than to strike out in new directions — to get round 

 obstacles, than to tunnel them. " Reaction " is so ready a spell to 

 1 "Logic " (sixth edition), ii., pp. 431, 442. 2 " Logic," ii., 433. 



