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NATURE 



[September i6, 1920 



put forward, of reflex phenomena has not been 

 sustained by later investigation, but it was a 

 resolute effort to explain a large group of facts 

 of which an adequate theory is still to be sought, 

 and it led incidentally to not a few interest- 

 ing observations, some of which are referred 

 to by Sherrington in his book on the nervous 

 system. 



Wundt succeeded F. A. Lange as professor of 

 "Inductive Philosophy " in Zurich in 1874. In the 

 same year the "Grundzuge der physiologischen 

 Psychologic " was published in two volumes (in- 

 creased to three volumes of huge proportions in 

 the fifth edition of 1902). His sojourn in Zurich, 

 however, was of short duration. In 1875 he re- 

 moved to Leipzig, on his appointment to one of 

 the philosophical chairs in the university ; and, 

 despite several attempts on the part of other 

 centres of learning to draw him away, Leipzig 

 continued to be his home for the last forty-five 

 years of his life. 



In his " Antrittsreden " of 1874 and 1876 

 Wundt sketched the view which, as professor in 

 Leipzig, he consistently maintained of the function 

 of philosophy, and of the influence which philo- 

 sophy, as he conceived it, should exert upon the 

 empirical sciences. Philosophy, he contended, is 

 based upon the results reached by the empirical 

 sciences, and forms their necessary supplement 

 and completion. It has for its main purpose to 

 consolidate into a coherent system the generalisa- 

 tions of the special sciences and to trace back to 

 their ultimate grounds the principles and pre- 

 suppositions which the special sciences are com- 

 pelled to use'. But, he insisted, if philosophy is 

 dependent for its material upon the special 

 sciences, the latter are no less dependent upon 

 philosophy for a justification of the fundamental 

 concepts without which scientific explanation 

 would be impossible. And great as had been the 

 influence of Kant, Hegel, and even Schopenhauer 

 upon the science of their time, he foresaw that the 

 influence of exact philosophical thought upon the 

 science of the future would be greater and more 

 significant still. From this point of view it was 

 natural that, as a philosophical inquirer, his atten- 

 tion should be directed at the outset to the 

 problems of knowledge. His "Logik," the first 

 volume of which was devoted to " Erkenntnis- 

 lehre," was published in 1880, and the second, 

 dealing with the methods of scientific investiga- 

 tion, in 1883 (in later editions the " Methodenlehre" 

 expanded into two volumes), is undoubtedly a 

 work of considerable impor-tance, and may justly 

 be said to occupy a distinct place in the history of 

 logical science. In the first volume the author 

 tries to steer a middle course between the purely 

 formal view of logic on the one .hand and the 

 metaphysical view of it on the other, while in the 

 second volume he undertakes by far the most 

 accurate and detailed examination in existence of 

 the principles, methods, and results of the special 

 sciences. The study of logic in this country has 

 suffered much through want of an English trans- 



NO. 2655, VOL. 106] 



lation of a book which in its way is unique. The 

 next of Wundt's larger works to be published was 

 the "Ethik" (1886) — an investigation, as he 

 described it, of the facts and laws of the moral 

 life. Although not, I think, on the same level of 

 value as the "Logik," it is a suggestive and 

 stimulating treatise, basing an ethical system upon 

 the doctrine of evolution, which here takes form 

 for him especially in the ideas of human progress 

 and of the "Gesamtwille. " Finally, as the cul- 

 mination of his attempt at philosophical construc- 

 tion, the "System der Philosophic" appeared in 

 1889, in many respects the most original of all his 

 writings, and that by which his position in the 

 development of philosophical thought is most 

 definitely established. 



The position is not one that can be indicated in 

 a few words. Wundt took his departure from the 

 point of view of what he called " immediate expe- 

 rience " — experience as he conceived it would be 

 prior to the elaboration of it by reflective thought, 

 which is itself evolved from it. The data of such 

 primordial experience might be classified under the 

 three heads of presentations, affective processes, 

 and conative activities. Originally, presentations 

 are, he insisted, for the experiencing subject not 

 different from objects; they are Vorstellungs- 

 objecte, wholes which contain the elements, as yet 

 undifferentiated, which thought in the course of 

 time distinguishes. The development of thought 

 means that presentations come to be separated 

 from the objects to which they are taken to refer ; 

 and, when the attempt is further made to conceive 

 these objects as freed from contradiction, they 

 have to be represented as destitute of such attri- 

 butes as sense-qualities, which, as intuitively ex- 

 perienced, must belong to the subject. The world 

 of physical science is, therefore, wholly conceptual 

 in character ; for physical science the ultimate con- 

 stituents of objects are material points. On the 

 other hand, a psychological treatment of the sub- 

 jective factors leads to the notion of activity and 

 passivity as mutually involved in every mental 

 state. But we are compelled to conceive of 

 activity as that which is essentially characteristic 

 of our conscious being and to ascribe the passivity 

 we experience to the objects which affect us and 

 thereby counteract our activity. The pure activity 

 which he thus took to be characteristic of the 

 subject Wundt designated will ; will he regarded 

 as the essence of subjective existence. Ontologic- 

 ally, however, there was no stopping short of a 

 monistic view of the universe. In the long run 

 the concept of object rests upon an effect which the 

 will experiences, and what thus limits the will is 

 not in itself immediately known. We can only 

 conclude, on the basis of our own experience, that 

 what occasions passivity must in itself be active ; 

 and, since will is the only activity known to us, 

 we are justified in ascribing our passivity to 

 another will. Presentations, then, are to be traced 

 back to the reciprocal action of different wills. -^ 

 further step brought the author to his final con- 

 tention. Our personal individual wills are not, he 



