OF THE SOUL. 197 



persons may put to the philosopher. In the beginning 

 of the century, both the word soul and the term 

 Psychology were more frequent in the philosophical 

 literature of Germany than they were in that of France 

 or England. In the two latter countries, treatises on 

 similar subjects were more commonly put forth under 

 such titles as : On man, On the human mind, &c. ; the 

 word soul being more generally reserved for discussions 

 referring to what we may term the emotional and 

 spiritual side of human nature. That I nevertheless e. 

 prefer to speak of the soul and not of the human frage.- 

 mind or human nature, may be justified by the fact that 

 the word soul introduces us at once into an historical 

 discussion, which took place in the middle of the century 

 in Germany, and which may be considered to mark one of 

 the great changes that have come over our way of regard- 

 ing all questions connected with the mental life.-^ What 



^ A good account of this con- where it received a classical ex- 

 troversy is given by F. A. Lange in pression in the works of La Mettrie 

 his celebrated ' History of Material- and Holbach. In Germany the 

 ism ' alreadj' referred to. This great influence of Leibniz counter- 

 history traces the materialistic hy- acted for a long time the material- 

 pothesis from its beginnings in istic in favour of a spiritualistic 

 ancient philosophy, where it found view ; materialism, however, gained 

 a brilliant exposition in Lucretius' a permanent foothold in German 

 celebrated poem on the ' Nature of thought in the middle of the nine- 

 Things.' Lange then sets out the teenth century, and this, under the 

 revival of materialism as it accom- influence of two distinct lines of 

 panied the rise of the modern thought. The first was that of 

 scientific spirit, following it through French medical science, dating back 

 the writings of Gassendi on the to the writings of Cabanis and 

 Continent and Hobbes in England, Broussais, and continued through 

 the peculiar combination of scientific Flourens, Magendie, Longet, and 

 materialism with religious belief in ' others. The second came quite 

 Boyle and Newton, in Hartley and : indej^eudently through the reaction 

 Priestley, and its dying out in the j against the idealistic systems of 

 writings of Toland in the course of ; Schelling and Hegel as well as 

 the eighteenth century. From through the development of cer- 

 England the materialistic move- tain elements in these. The philo- 

 ment of thought spread into France sopher who brought these in- 



