OF SOCIETY. 579 



The cardinal question then seems to be to define the 

 part that ideas play in the progress of society or in 

 history. But still more important is the question as to 

 the nature of these ideas themselves. The fact that 

 every idea is a mental product leads us back to the 

 study of psychology ; and here we meet with two dis- 

 tinct schools of thought in modern German philosophy. 

 Both schools attach the greatest importance to psycho- 

 logical studies, to those studies which were neglected by 

 Comte, but revived by some of his followers, and largely 

 cultivated in this country by Spencer and his pre- 

 decessors. 



In Germany we have seen how, in the school of 

 which Professor "Wundt is the centre, new methods and 

 new interests were imported into psychological research. 

 It is noteworthy that, in the sequel, this master of 

 modern psychological method has devoted himself to a 

 study of the psychology of the Collective Mind, to 92. 



* Wundt's An- 



anthropological and ethnological studies. tiiropoiogy. 



But this represents only one side of the development 

 which, in the interest of gaining a correcter view of 

 historical progress and culture, psychology has taken in 

 Germany. In that country there exists another school 

 equally original though less known abroad, which does 

 not attach so much importance to what we may term 

 the psychology of the collective or social mind, but is 

 rather intent upon fathoming the hidden depths of the 

 individual mind as revealed in the life and work of the 

 creative genius, the poet and the thinker. This is the 



appreciate the social power of 

 imitation, though he does not 



value it so highly as Tarde. 



