ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 511 



as well as to the interpretation of the Weber- Fechner 

 law of psycho-physical dependence. 



We are indebted to Prof. Wundt of Leipzig for a 

 complete and exhaustive examination of the new 

 province of exact science. 1 He enlarged its boundaries, 



31. 



Wundt 



1 The psychological school, of 

 which Prof. Wundt can be con- 

 sidered the head or centre, has been 

 contrasted by M. Ribot, in his 

 ' Psychologic Allemande Contempo- 

 raine' (1st ed., 1879), with the 

 English school, and, in the ex- 

 position in the text, I have taken 

 a similar view. It would, how- 

 ever, be unjust not to note that in 

 England, prior to the publication of 

 Prof. Wundt's principal writings, a 

 development of psychology in the 

 same direction had already begun. 

 The principal representative of this 

 development is Prof. Alexander 

 Bain (born 1818), whose two great 

 works, 'The Senses and the Intel- 

 lect' (1855) and 'The Emotions 

 and the Will ' (1859), appeared even 

 before Fechner's 'Psychophysik,' 

 and were characterised by J. S. 

 Mill as "an exposition which de- 

 nerves to take rank as the foremost 

 of its class, and as marking the 

 most advanced point which the a 

 posteriori psychology has reached," 

 being "the most genuinely scientific 

 analytical exposition of the human 

 mind which the a posteriori psy- 

 chology has up till this time pio- 

 duced" ('Edinb. Rev.,' October 

 1859, reprinted in ' Dissertations 

 and Discussions,' vol. iii. pp. 99, 

 100). Bain carried out what had 

 been called by Thomas Brown 1: the 

 physical investigation of the mind," 

 and was probably the first English 

 psychologist who enriched the older 

 associational psychology by an ex- 

 tensive use of the teachings of physi- 

 ology ; the germ of his theory being 

 contained in a passage cited by him 

 from Johannes Mailer : in fact, he 



appreciated the well-known dictum 

 of the latter, " psychologies nemo 

 nisiphysiologus. ' ' Shortly after t he 

 appearance of Prof. Bain's works, 

 ! the overmastering influence of the 

 evolutionist school in England, 

 headed by Mr Spencer and tup- 

 ported by Darwin, and .the pro- 

 nounced opposition with which the 

 psycho-physical school started in 

 Germany, cast somewhat into the 

 shade the steady development, in 

 this country, of the exact science of 

 psychology by those who formed the 

 direct succession to the older, purely 

 introspective, school of Scottish 

 thinkers. As I am not, in the pres- 

 ent chapter, treating of psychology 

 and philosophy, but of the attempt 

 to gain, by the methods of the 

 exact sciences, a conception of the 

 phenomena of animation and con- 

 sciousness, I leave for another oc- 

 casion the appreciation of the 

 English school of psychology. The 

 members of this school considered 

 physiology as an aid to psychological 

 research, whereas most of the rep- 

 resentatives of the modern German 

 school were, to begin with, physi- 

 ologists or physicists, and only 

 became subsequently psychologists 

 or philosophers. Characteristic of 

 this school are two points : the 

 opposition they made from the 

 start to the existing methods, and 

 their prominent use, not only of ob- 

 servation, but of experiment. The 

 less ostentatious development of 

 English thought would, no doubt, 

 have led in the end, but for the 

 reasons given above, to like resultn. 

 An opposition similar to that so 

 marked in Germany was, however, 



