OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 711 



formula which was for him the unifying principle of 

 thought, under the guidance of which he collected and 

 marshalled an enormous mass of empirical knowledge. 

 In doing this he took little notice of what others had 

 done before him. His knowledge of the history of 

 Philosophy was extremely superficial. 



On the other side Wundt is a true representative of ve. 



Wundt a 



the German ideal of " Wissenschaft ," which denotes true repre- 

 sentative of 



science and erudition combined. Wundt is untiring in gc^ 8 "" 

 the study, appreciation, and criticism of earlier and con- 

 temporary thinkers ; and one of his earliest and chief 

 achievements is his great Treatise on ' Logic/ in which 

 the nature, the limits, and the different forms of 

 scientific reasoning are exhaustively analysed. This 

 and his early researches in the borderland of physiology 

 and psychology impressed upon him the inadequacy of 

 the abstract principles of the exact sciences for dealing 

 with mental phenomena. It was especially the criticism 

 of the conceptions of substance and causality which pre- 

 vented him from falling into and maintaining that one- 

 sided confidence in purely mechanical reasoning which 

 characterises the whole of Spencer's philosophy. He 

 himself has given us an account of the enlargement of 

 his views which drew after it a correcter and fuller 

 appreciation of philosophical and psychological problems, 

 as distinguished from those of exact science. 



" If I were asked," Wundt says, " wherein the psy- 

 chological value of experimental observation consisted, 

 and still consists, for me, I should say that it has pro- 

 duced and more and more confirmed an entirely 

 new view of the nature and connection of psychical 



