610 PSYCHOLOGY 



subject of that theoretical interest which develops its positivism first 

 of all in the objective realm. So the rise of science of the objective 

 becomes possible. But not yet, evidently, can the psychic find corre- 

 sponding treatment, as law-abiding and uniform in its movements; 

 for if the inner sphere be constituted just by the segregation of 

 materials in so far practically unmanageable, the theoretical treat- 

 ment of them is thereby baffled; and a science of these contents 

 must await the rise of a reasoned positivism of the inner life. 



It is necessary to point this out, for it explains certain nega- 

 tive aspects of later historical movements and why psychology 

 as a science of content w T as so late a growth. In two later world- 

 epochs, in particular, and in their respective world-thinkers, some- 

 thing of the same situation presents itself. I refer to the rise of 

 modern dualistic philosophy in Descartes, and the rise of Positivism 

 of the stricter sort in Auguste Comte. 



II. The Dualistic Transition 



The transition to Descartes was made through the Stoics and the 

 theologians of the Christian Church. The Stoics, reacting against 

 the practical individualism of the Cynics and Cyrenaics, reached the 

 concept of a sort of general selfhood which guaranteed law and 

 order and virtue. This was a practical and eclectic rather than 

 a reasoned attempt to overcome the dualism of their immediate 

 predecessors. 1 The church theologians reasserted an individualism, 

 but to them the individual became spiritual. 



In these precursors of Descartes there was worked out a genetic 

 motive which is unmistakable also in the individual's development: 

 I mean the advance or progression from a dualism of "inner- 

 outer " to one of " mind-body " from what may be called a distinc- 

 tion of attributes to a distinction of substances. The individual 

 proceeds, in his generalization, to carry over the physical part of 

 his own person separating it substantially from the psychic part 

 to the side of the "outer" as such. It is only when he is able to 

 do this, and does it, that the dualism of mind and body is any- 

 thing like complete. The substantializing of the mental princi- 

 ple which has so far proceeded by certain curious stages being 

 variously a refined physical something, a breath, the limiting no- 

 tion and form of matter now finally becomes the hypostatized 

 substance which bears the psychic qualities. The substance soul 

 does finally become logically detached, but mainly for theoretical 

 and doctrinal purposes; 2 for even then soul and body remain in 



1 Cf. Caird, loc. cit., lect. xvii. 



2 The earlier crass doctrine of transmigration, as in the Orphics and in Empe- 

 docles, did not involve a reflective dualism; for the soul was not defined as 



