GUSTAV TIIEODOR FECHNER 49 



has been born again with no less than Friedric Paulsen as accoucheur. 

 Ebbinghaus lias dedicated to Fechner's memory his classical treatise on 

 psycliology, and Mlibius, the neurologist of Leipzig, has commemorated 

 him in a volume of medical essays. Kiilpe, the philosopher and psy- 

 chologist of Bonn, has been unwearied in critical appreciation of Fech- 

 ner's achievements, and William James, who twent3'-five years ago gave 

 his official opinion that the " proper psychological outcome of Fechner's 

 work was " just nothing," has made the amende honorable in a gener- 

 ously sympathetic essay in the " Pluralistic Universe." In glancing over 

 the earlier pages of the present paper, the writer had the feeling that it 

 resembled more a card catalogue of Fechner's publications than an ap- 

 preciation of his work and works. If so, the fault lies somewhat in the 

 faceted many-sidedness of Fechner's activities, as well as in the writer^s 

 deficiencies in power of interpretation. Perhaps the perspective of time 

 now reaches far enough for us to view the outline of what he wrought 

 in fairly true proportions. If so, one may say in brief that, able and 

 ingenious physicist as he was it is doubtful if he could ever have risen 

 to the stature of a Faraday; his philosophy will perhaps attract mainly 

 those rare minds who, while working officially by the pale cold light of 

 the intellect, are still prone to follow the promptings of the spirit into 

 regions lying beyond the pale of syllogistic reasoning. His more solid 

 and probably lasting achievements belong to the latter half of his life, 

 to the period of the " Psychophysics " and the " Aesthetics." 



As for the daily life itself, it was outwardly singularly uneventful 

 even for a German " Gelehrter." He rarely left Leipzig, but, year in 

 and year out, conscientiously fulfilled within its walls the duties of a 

 public-spirited citizen. And the city responded by awarding him in 

 his middle age an honorary citizenship, and at his death, with rare 

 municipal good taste, erected a modest bust to his memory at the very 

 turn of one of the winding walks in the Eosenthal where he had passed 

 many a sunny afternoon of the long German summer days, discoursing 

 with his friends on things that are little dreamed of by many a school 

 philosopher. In accord with his scanty means was his dwelling in the 

 Dresdener Strasse, fittingly called a nest; his study was furnished with 

 a chair, a table, a stove and some bookshelves ; a catalogue of the library 

 resting on the shelves would usually indicate a stack of manuscript and 

 a table of logarithms : sonst Nichts. Here there passed quietly away on 

 the nineteenth day of November, 1887, almost exactly twenty-five years 

 ago, the philosopher, the art critic, the humorist, the mathematician, 

 the friend of children, the creative genius in science, Gustav Theodor 

 Fechner. Verily, as Wundt said, in the funeral oration, " we shall not 

 look upon his like again," 



VOL. LXXXII.- 



