PROGRESS OF PSYCHOLOGY. 451 



his science was in process of absorbing psychology, 

 or rather of showing that psychology is illusory, for 

 he will replace such metaphysical conceptions as 

 soul, consciousness, and will by " real physiological 

 processes " (Loeb). He has not yet succeeded in this 

 process of substitution, and it appears to us that his 

 expectation or his mode of stating it reveals a m^isun- 

 derstanding. 



At the same time, this anti-metaphysical physi- 

 ology — of which Professor Ernst Mach * of Vienna 

 is an outstanding champion, expresses a true ideal 

 for physiology. For there the terms of interpreta- 

 tion ought to be entirely objective (i.e., as objective 

 as any general terms like stimuli, neuron, neuroses, 

 can be), and terms like consciousness and will are 

 irrelevant. 



EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY. 



The introduction of experimental methods into 

 psychological research was one of the distinctive 

 steps of the nineteenth century, but as most of the 

 results have been gained since 1878 when Wundt 

 opened his laboratory of physiological psychology at 

 Leipzig, it is still too soon to estimate their value. 

 Although Wundt has been the direct inspirer of most 

 of the modern work — whether in opposition or in 

 agreement — we may go further back to Johannes 

 Miiller and Weber, to Fechner and Helmholtz. 



Johannes Miiller (1801-1858), — To this genius 

 we owe the discovery of the law of the "specific 

 energy of the senses," — that the same stimulus, the 

 same external phenomenon, acting on different 



♦ E. Mach, Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensa- 

 tions, trans. Chicago, 1897. 



