ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 495 



Herbart, therefore, to overthrow the so-called faculty- 21. 



His attack 



psychology, and to insist on the essential unity and ?^ a * e lt 

 simplicity of the inner life, must have made a great 

 impression on all who came under the influence of his 

 philosophy. It did this in two ways. 1 It first of 



1 Besides Herbart (1776-1841), 

 whose psychological writings date 

 from 1813 to 1825, another German 

 psychologist is usually mentioned as 

 having helped to overthrow the older 

 faculty-psychology. Beneke (1798- 

 1854), a younger contemporary of 

 Herbart, conceived of psychology 

 as a natural science. His principal 

 work, ' Lehrbuch der Psychologic 

 als Naturwissenschaft.' appeared 

 in 1833, and has been several times 

 republished, the fourth edition ap- 

 pearing in 1877. Beneke worked 

 in opposition to Hegel at Berlin, 

 his historical forerunners being the 

 German philosophers, Jacobi, Fries, 

 and Schleiermacher, as well as the 

 English philosophy of the so-called 

 Association - school. An account 

 of his philosophy does not belong 

 to a chapter on psycho-physics ex- 

 cept in as much as he introduced 

 into the study of the inner life not 

 indeed the facts and data of physical 

 i.e., physiological science, but 

 the physical method. He was the 

 purest representative of the psycho- 

 logy of the " inner sense.'' Whilst 

 Herbart based his psychology alike 

 on experience, metaphysics, and 

 mathematics, Beneke accepted only 

 the first, and discarded the latter. 

 Standing thus outside the all- 

 powerful school of Hegel and the 

 increasing influence of Herbart, 

 Beneke had during his lifetime 

 only a limited audience, and re- 

 ceived due attention in a wider 

 circle, first and principally through 

 Ueberweg, who was greatly im- 

 pressed by him. In fact, his 

 influence was felt in Germany 



about the same time as that of 

 the English and Scottish philo- 

 sophers. Ueberweg, in his well- 

 known ' History of Philosophy,' 

 vol. ii. pp. 281-292 (Engl. transl. 

 by Morris, 1874), gives a full ac- 

 count of Beneke. Prof. Erdmaun 

 gives a very full account also in 

 his excellent ' Grundriss der Ge- 

 schichte der Philosophic ' (3te Aufl., 

 1878, vol. ii. pp. 628-641). The fact 

 that Beneke's method is intro- 

 spective, brings him not only into 

 contact with the English school, 

 but also with French thought, 

 which has always been character- 

 ised by subtle psychological anal- 

 ysis. This explains the fact that 

 M. Marion (in the ' Grande Encyclo- 

 pedic') calls Beneke "un des prin- 

 cipaux philosophes Allemanrls du 

 siecle," a designation which would 

 hardly be echoed either in Germany 

 or in England. The best account 

 of Beneke's position in the de- 

 velopment of psychology extant in 

 the English language is that of Dr 

 G. F. Stout, in his article 

 " Herbart compared with English 

 Psychologists and with Beneke," 

 in the 14th volume of the 1st 

 series of ' Mind ' (1889). M. Ribot, 

 in his well-known book on ' Modern 

 German Psychology ' (Engl. transl. 

 by Baldwin, 1899), does not say 

 much about Beneke, but his ac- 

 count of Herbart and his school, 

 and their position in psycho-physi- 

 cal thought, is concise and much 

 to the point. Dr Stout's articles 

 on Herbart in ' Mind ' (vols. 13, 14) 

 are also much to be recommended. 



