Popular or Scientific Animal Psychology. 8 



bar out any other motive of animal psychology beyond 

 "the animal's own understanding" 1 are frightened by 

 a critical analysis of psychological notions, and style it 

 a "reactionary endeavor," through which modern animal 

 psychology is again to be "shackled by the dogmatical 

 fetters of mediaeval scholasticism." Let the correct 

 answer to this objection be given by William Wundt, 

 professor at the University of Leipzig, a prominent 

 authority among German psychologists. It is all the 

 more impartial, as Wundt does not seem to be acquainted 

 with any of our former publications, and cannot reason- 

 ably be suspected of being influenced by the "scholastic 

 reactionary party." Wundt thinks that modern animal 

 psychologists deserve the reproach of too rashly making 

 use of unfinished and inadequate concepts, 2 and he 

 thus continues : 



"Bacon's comparison of the insufficient observation 

 of nature by the Aristotelians of his day to the report of 

 an ambassador, who based his knowledge of the meas- 

 ures of a government upon town gossip and not upon 

 accurate examination, applies fairly enough to the 

 animal psychology of our time. It is permeated through 

 and through by the concepts of the every-day psy- 



1 ) See "Brehm's Thierleben," 2d edition, Vol. I; Ein Blick auf das 

 Leben der Gesamtheit, p. 20 ff. In the recent (third) edition the whole 

 tendential babble of Brehm on animal intelligence, unpolished in contents 

 and form, has happily been omitted in the introduction to the first 

 volume. Yet the psychological explanation of animal life, founded upon 

 that collection of empty phrases, has, I am sorry to say, remained un- 

 changed in the course of the work, even in the most recent edition. See 

 also our review of the third edition in "Natur und Offenbarung," 37 

 (1891), p. 570 ff. and 40 (1894), p. 61 ff. 



2 ) "Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology" (translated from 

 the Second .German Edition by J. E, Creighton and E. B. Titchener, 

 1896), Lect. 23, p. 341. 



