OF THE SOUL. 



207 



inner life as the playground of rising and vanishing ideas, yC 

 he introduced the conception of the limit or threshold of Conc g\ ions 

 consciousness, suggesting through this, if not elaborating, ^ 

 an idea which has since been variously worked out : that 

 of the unconscious, the subconscious, and the subliminal. 

 In addition to this, Herbart urged the necessity of 

 conducting psychological inquiries by the exact method 

 of observation, measurement, and calculation, and although 

 he did not succeed in this endeavour he had a clear 

 notion of what would be required in order to convert 



ever, did not follow Fichte in his 

 process of abstract thought through 

 which the term Mind (Self or Ego) 

 ceases to denote the individual and 

 becomes a general or absolute mind, 

 for Herbart was as much influenced 

 by the individualism of Leibniz. 

 He confines his ontology and psycho- 

 logy to that of individual beings, 

 considering the conception of a 

 general or absolute mind as an il- 

 legitimate abstraction. According- 

 ly he consistently opposes the 

 higher Hegelian logic and psycho- 

 logy which, as it were, represents the 

 life and thought of the Absolute, 

 and he confines himself to the lower 

 or formal logic, and to the psycho- 

 logy of individual human minds. 

 The principal difference which 

 existed between Herbart's psycho- 

 logical position and that of con- 

 temporary thinkers in this country 

 was that Herbart, quite as much as 

 the Idealists whom he opposed, came 

 to psychology from the metaphysical 

 point of view, i.e., from the dis- 

 cussion of the problem of reality. 

 This problem hardly existed for 

 English and Scotch thinkers at that 

 time. The Idealists, however, did 

 not apply their metaphysical solu- 

 tions of the problem of reality to 

 that special reality which we call 

 the Soul or the inner personal life 



of the individual, but dealt rather 

 with cosmological and theological 

 problems, as also with problems of 

 human history and society. On the 

 other side, the early educational 

 interests of Herbart led him back to 

 views current in the Leibniz- Wolffian 

 school, which did not lose sight of 

 the existence and independence of 

 a plurality of individuals in the con- 

 ception of an underlying unity 

 or substance after the model of 

 Spinoza. A new problem, however, 

 existed for Herbart as it already 

 existed for Leibniz how is the 

 plurality of existing beings (called 

 by Herbart, "Reals ") to be recon- 

 ciled with the universal order ? 

 Leibniz had solved this problem in 

 his " Monadology" by the concep- 

 tion of a central monad and tlie 

 theory of a pre-established har- 

 mony. This solution Herbart does 

 not adopt. For him the unity or 

 order of the existing things and 

 beings is that of a system, and as 

 such he also conceives of the unity 

 of mental life. This idea of a sys- 

 tematic unity, as differing from that 

 of a substantial unity, has since the 

 time of Herbart, and probably much 

 through his influence, gained ground 

 in modern psychology both in this 

 country and abroad. 



