628 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 



In no domain of experience does this point stand out so clearly as 

 in psychology. In the material world, the elements which we dis- 

 tinguish have their position in space, one outside another, though 

 an interaction is supposed to exist between them. But such an 

 external relation cannot be valid in the domain of mental life. 

 Here, the single element is so woven into the whole, that its very 

 character is determined by it, and the whole is here not to be con- 

 sidered as a mere product of the elements. In psychology, analysis 

 and distinction have a more artificial character than in physical 

 science. We have less right still to consider mental elements as 

 absolute realities than to look at material atoms in this way. How- 

 ever, there is no other way to scientific understanding of mental 

 life than analysis on the basis of observation and experiment. 

 And at its first beginnings, as at its limits, mental life has a spo- 

 radic character, presents itself, at least apparently, as isolated 

 sensations, so showing a great contrast to the character of totality 

 and synthesis, which it has where it appears in full development 

 and maturity. We have here an antinomy which is of great im- 

 portance to all psychological research. We cannot explain life 

 as a mere product of the elements distinguished by the analysis, 

 neither as a product of the sporadic flashes, to which it seems to 

 be reduced at its limits; and yet the elements, to which the analy- 

 sis and the observation of limits conduct us, cannot but bear an 

 inward relation to the concrete consciousness and its synthetic 

 totality. 



This antinomy has had a great influence on the development of 

 psychology. It manifests itself especially in the struggle between 

 the two great schools, the one founded by Hartley and Hume 

 and continued in the association-psychology and the Herbartian 

 school, the other founded by Leibnitz and Kant and continued in 

 the idealistic school of Germany. The first school leads to a mental 

 atomism, while the other maintains the synthetic character of 

 mental life. I am not going to follow up the history of this struggle 

 in its particulars. There is no psychologist, whose general stand- 

 point and special views are not determined by his position as re- 

 gards the relation between atomism and synthesis in the domain 

 of mental life. There is a temptation to dogmatize on both sides. 

 They may both consider their particular point of view as an abso- 

 lute and all-embracing one. 



There is a psychological atomism which looks at the elements 

 of psychological analysis as absolute and real parts, mechanical 

 composition of which produces the mental life. It forgets that 

 the whole psychological problem begins anew in every mental 

 atom. For as in physical science the atoms, which seemed to be 

 absolute, turned out to be worlds apart, in the interior of which 



