ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 497 



tained in his works. 1 Herbart was quite as correct 

 in his ideal of what psychology should be, as he was 

 unfortunate in the .particular manner in which he 

 elaborated it. 



Psychology was to be founded on experience, meta- 

 physics, and mathematics. Kant had studied the inner 

 activity of the mind as it is compounded of sensation, 

 perception, and apperception ; of understanding, judgment, 

 and reasoning. In opposition to this Herbart went back 

 to the position taken up by Locke and Hume, looking at 

 the inner life of a conscious mental being or soul, not as 

 a complex of mental faculties, but as a flow of ideas or 

 perceptions. How is the unity and simplicity of this 

 mental being preserved in the midst of this continuous 

 flow of ideas ? how is it regained as often as it is in 

 danger of being lost ? His investigations start at the 

 point where the inquiries of the association school of 

 psychologists started in England. Having, however, the 

 mechanics and dynamics of physical forces more promin- 



1 Dr Stout has given an ac- 

 count of the Herbartian school 

 in the 14th volume of 'Mind,' p. 

 353 sqq. He confines himself to 

 Drobisch, Waitz, and Volkmann, 

 the psychologists proper. M. 

 Ribot (loc. cit.) has dwelt more 

 on the development of the Herbart- 

 ian school in the direction of an- 

 thropology and ethnology ; he 

 mentions specially Waitz, as well 

 as Lazarus and Steinthal. He 

 contrasts their work and their 

 positions with those of the great 

 anthropologists of the English 

 school, such as Tylor, Lubbock, 

 and Herbert Spencer, and notes, 

 in the German school, the absence 

 of Darwinian ideas. It is import- 

 ant to observe that both in the case 



VOL. II. 



of Prof. Wundt of Leipsic and of Mr 

 Spencer in England that is, in the 

 case of the latest outcome of the 

 Kant-Herbartian philosophy on the 

 one side and of the Association phil- 

 osophy in England on the other 

 and in each case under the influence 

 of the exact and biological sciences, 

 philosophy ends in elaborate treat- 

 ises on Anthropology, which with 

 Spencer is conceived under the 

 name of Sociology. Similarly, the 

 school of Hegel ended in elaborate 

 historical treatises. Hume tumed 

 from abstract philosophy to politi- 

 cal economy and history, and 

 Herder as we shall see later on 

 anticipated much of all this 

 movement in his History of 

 Mankind. 



2 i 



