634 GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 



analyses and of our distinctions, so I now say of our working hypo- 

 theses: we have no right to regard it as a mere accident that the 

 world can only be exactly known if we apply just these working 

 hypotheses. A system of metaphysics which would construct a view 

 of the world without any regard to the working hypotheses which 

 have been necessary, would be of no philosophical value. 



IV 



As psychology is synthetical as compared with physical science, 

 so it is analytical as compared with historical and ethical science. 

 Historical science treats on human works, ethical science on hu- 

 man ideals, but psychology treats on the elements and on the gen- 

 eral laws of mental life. The relation of psychology to historical 

 and ethical science is dependent on the relation between elements 

 and works and ideals, There are here three lines of thought which 

 may develop side by side. They all draw from the same deep source : 

 from the immediate and spontaneous mental life, the real and 

 concrete life, which no analysis can exhaust, and which can never 

 be expressed completely in any work or any ideal, as little as in 

 any sum of elements. All research has here as its subject the in- 

 finitely concrete totality and tries from different points to de- 

 scribe its nature and to express its fullness in definite forms. But 

 the tones of life are so manifold and lie so closely together, that 

 no scientific notation can express them completely. This is as true 

 with regard to historical and ethical science as with regard to 

 mental science. But within this identical position there is an inter- 

 action between mental, historical, and ethical science. If we want 

 to find out the elements and laws of mental life it is not enough 

 to study the single individual in its special states. A study is also 

 required of human works and ideals, in which the nature of mental 

 life is revealed throughout the ages. There exists no mental life 

 in general. It appears in different forms at different times and 

 places, and it strives to develop itself as fully as possible in every 

 one of these forms, though the totality of its elements has a differ- 

 ent timbre in every special case. Here psychology has a larger 

 amount of material for its analysis. The sociological method in 

 psychology works side by side with the introspective, the experi- 

 mental, and the physiological methods. Mental science has a more 

 abstract character than historical and ethical science, because 

 elements are more abstract than works and ideals. Psychology 

 here ought to apply the inversely deductive method, as it was 

 already applied by Comte and described by Stuart Mill, 



The first step is to point out the process which has led to the 

 rise of a work or of an ideal; the second is to deduce and explain 



