258 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



41. 



Return to 

 empirical 

 psychology. 



42. 

 J. F. Fries. 



Style from that of his published works ; Fichte, in the 

 course of his academic and political activity, modified 

 very considerably the manner in which he approached 

 what always remained his characteristic point of view ; 

 but the actual return from a purely rational to an 

 empirical psychology was led by two educationalists — 

 Herbart and Beneke. As stated in the beginning of 

 this chapter, it was through them that psychology proper 

 became a recognised branch of philosophical teaching. 

 To these two names we may add that of J. F. Fries 

 (1773-1843), who brought philosophy, as it were, back 

 again from the transcendental to the empirical level.^ 



In addition to this there were two distinct influences 

 at work which co - operated with the movement just 

 referred to in concentrating the attention of many think- 

 ing minds upon definite psychological questions, such as 

 the nature and destiny of the human soul. The first 

 of these influences came from the side of the natural 

 sciences, which, mainly under the leadership of Johannes 



^ The importance of Fries' phil- 

 osophy lay mainly in two very 

 different directions. First, in his 

 philosophy of religion, in which he 

 assimilates idea* independently ex- 

 pressed by Jacobi and deals — as 

 Schleiermacher did more funda- 

 mentally — with religion as a psy- 

 chological phenomenon. Secondly, 

 in his philosophy of nature, which, 

 in opposition to that of Schelling, 

 approached more to the position 

 occupied in this country by natural 

 philosophy. In this respect he was 

 probably the only contemporary 

 German philosopher who was 

 noticed and appreciated by Gauss. 

 The celebrated naturalist, Schlei- 

 den, tells us how Gauss referred to 

 Fries' ' Mathematische Naturphil- 



osophie ' (1822), in the following 

 words addressed to a student : 

 " Young man, if you manage after 

 three years of arduous study to 

 understand and appreciate this 

 book, you may leave the university 

 with a conviction that you have 

 employed your time better than 

 most of your fellow-students " (see 

 Henke, ' Jacob Friedrich Fries,' 

 1867, p. 226). To both of these 

 directions of Fries' speculation I 

 shall refer in later chapters. Fries 

 was also one of the first who led 

 psychological research in the direc- 

 tion of anthropology. His ' Hand- 

 buch der psychischen Anthropo- 

 logic' appeared in two volumes 

 in 1820. 



