OF THE SOUL. 



273 



mind, in the interest of psychological research, goes 

 back to the age of the Encyclopaedists, Diderot having 

 written a treatise on the deaf and dumb. Nothing of 

 importance, however, was done till, within recent times, 

 and greatly under the influence of M. Eibot, 1 experi- 



1 Theodule-Armand Ribot (born 

 1839) had already in his earliest 

 work, mentioned in the text, on 

 ' Contemporary Psychology in Eng- 

 land,' marked out on a large scale 

 the field of psychological research 

 in the following words (1st ed., p. 

 36) : " We may comprise first of all 

 under the name of. general psychology 

 the study of the phenomena of 

 consciousness ; sensations, thought, 

 emotions, volitions, &c., considered 

 under their most general aspects. 

 This study, which must be the 

 point of departure and the basis of 

 all others, is the only one which so 

 far has been cultivated by psy- 

 chologists. It is, however, clear 

 that general psychology must profit 

 by all the discoveries in its sub- 

 ordinated branches. It will be 

 completed, first of all, by a com- 

 parative psychology, of which we 

 have tried to show the object and 

 the importance ; further, by a 

 study of anomalies or monstrosities, 

 which we may term psychological 

 teratology. It is needless to demon- 

 strate how useful the study of de- 

 viations is for the complete under- 

 standing of phenomena ; but what 

 is remarkable is the neglect of psy- 

 chology on this point. Outside of 

 the ' Letter on the Blind,' by 

 Diderot, which does not give what 

 it promises, the pages of Dugald 

 Stewart on James Mitchell, and 

 some scattered observations, psy- 

 chology has completely closed its 

 eyes to anomalies and exceptions. 

 It is the physiologists who have 

 drawn from the curious ' History 

 of Laura Bridgman ' the conclusions 

 which it suggests ; conclusions quite 



VOL. III. 



contrary to the doctrine of trans- 

 formed sensation, and which, 

 founded on facts, are by no means 

 in the vague style of ordinary argu- 

 ments. A deaf or a blind man, 

 one originally deprived of some 

 sense, is he not a subject specially 

 fit to be observed, and to which 

 we can apply one of the most 

 rigorous processes : the method of 

 differences ? Have the study of 

 cases of folly, though quite in- 

 complete as yet, been so far fruit- 

 less ? " 



In his later work on ' Contem- 

 porary German Psychology,' the 

 term "experimental," which in 

 the earlier treatise meant rather 

 "empirical," the psychology of 

 observation, than the psychology of 

 experiment, is extended to embrace 

 the new psychology of Germany, 

 which has recourse in a measure 

 to experiment. It is there argued 

 that the older method " is powerless 

 to pass much beyond the level of 

 common -sense." As its main repre- 

 sentative the works of Bain are 

 specially commended. "It is in 

 the largest and best sense a de- 

 scriptive study. In Germany, on 

 the contrary, those who are work- 

 ing to construct an empirical psy- 

 chology accord little place to 

 description. To characterise their 

 work we must employ a term which 

 has been much abused in our day, 

 but which is proper here, i.e., 

 physiological psychology. Almost 

 all of them are physiologists, who, 

 with their habits of mind and the 

 methods peculiar to their science, 

 have touched upon some points 

 of psychology" ('German Psy- 



S 



