208 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



14. 



Exact 

 method. 



15. 



Beneke. 



psychology into an exact science. His followers in con- 

 sequence adopted this term as characteristic of Herbart's 

 school, and started in the year 1861 a periodical for 

 exact philosophy. Of other developments which had 

 their origin in Herbart's psychology I shall speak 

 further on. 



Almost simultaneously another German psychologist 

 started in direct opposition to the current idealistic 

 philosophy. This was Friedrich Eduard Beneke l (1798- 

 1854). He did not succeed in impressing the German 

 mind in the same way as Herbart had done, or in influ- 

 encing philosophical thought. Yet he deserves to be 

 specially mentioned in this connection as the only 

 genuine representative in Germany of that important 

 and original psychological school which had its origin in 



1 Beneke was influenced as much 

 as Herbart by an educational in- 

 terest, but he differs from Herbart, 

 with whom he agrees in his opposi- 

 tion to idealism, by discarding all 

 preliminary metaphysical discus- 

 sions. For him psychology is the 

 main part and foundation of all 

 philosophy much in the same way 

 as philosophy of the human mind 

 was considered in this country. 

 The publication in 1822 of a work 

 on ' Physics (not metaphysics) 

 of Morality ' (' Grundtegung zur 

 Physik der Sitten '), drew after it 

 the prohibition of his lecturing at 

 the Berlin University, where he had, 

 though unsupported by an official 

 position, gathered a considerable 

 audience. Beneke received verb- 

 ally from the Minister Altenstein 

 " an explanation that it was not 

 single passages which had given 

 offence, but the whole scheme, and 

 that a philosophy which did not de- 

 duce everything from the Absolute 



could not be considered to be philo- 

 sophy at all" (see Hertlingin 'Allge- 

 meine Deutsche Biographic,' article 

 " Beneke "). The supposition that 

 Hegel personally influenced this re- 

 markable decision can, according to 

 Kuno Fischer (' Hegel's Leben,' &c., 

 vol. i. p. 156), not be proved. It is 

 rather a testimony to the enormous 

 weight which Hegel's line of thought 

 possessed in the eyes of statesmen 

 like Altenstein, Johannes Schulze, 

 and others. Beneke's view can be 

 summed up in the statement that 

 " the soul is a system of forces or fac- 

 ulties, under which name we have not 

 to think of the faculties of the older 

 psychology but of a systematic and 

 completely unified complex" (ibid., 

 vol. ii. p. 328). We are indebted 

 to Prof. Stout for the first compre- 

 hensive appreciation in this country 

 of Beneke's as well as of Herbart's 

 psychology in his articles in ' Mind ' 

 referred to above. 



