288 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



unity of mental life, of psycho-physical parallelism, &c. 

 He considers that in the second half of the nineteenth 

 century philosophical thought has progressed from the 

 conception of a metaphysical unconscious to that of a 

 psychological unconscious existence. The difference 

 between the treatment of the history of modern 

 psychology in the accounts of such writers as 

 M. Ribot in France, Professor Baldwin in America, 

 Eudolf Willy and von Hartmann in Germany, and James 

 Ward in England, is truly significant and instructive.^ 

 In spite of violent opposition and the persistent deter- 

 mination on the part of professional psychologists to 

 ignore von Hartmann's ideas, some of the leading 

 thinkers of the day have introduced the conception of the 

 unconscious into their psychological discussions. It is 

 already apparent that, under different names, the con- 

 ception of the unconscious is gradually becoming domiciled 

 in psychological treatises,^ even if it should be no more 



without which psychology would be 

 impossible ; (3) subject activity is 

 neither phenomenal nor real ; the 

 apparent 'originality' and 'spon- 

 taneity ' of the individual mind is 

 for psychology at anj' rate but the 

 ' biologist's ' ' tropisms.' " Ward 

 concludes his article by saying that 

 "the definition of psychology, the 

 nature of subject activity, and the 

 criticism of the atomistic theory, 

 seem now fundamentally the most 

 important " psychological problems. 

 ^ In English psychology the 

 Herbartian term of the "threshold " 

 or limit of consciousness, implied 

 already in Leibniz' conception of 

 the petites perceptions, or, as it 

 were, the twilight of consciousness, 

 has been domiciled in such expres- 

 sions as the "subconscious" or "sub- 

 liminal." In Germany, the majority 



^ Perhaps the most instructive 

 piece of writing on the problems of 

 modern psychology is to be found 

 in Jas. Ward's address before the 

 section of Genei-al Psychologj* of 

 the Congress of Arts and Sciences, 

 held at St Louis, September 1904, 

 reprinted in the ' Philosophical 

 Review' (vol. xiii. pp. 603-621). 

 Referring to the ' ' actuality " theory 

 of Wundt, " already more or less 

 foreshadowed by Lotze," Ward 

 takes up the fundamental dualism 

 of subject and object, and refers to 

 "three recent writers of mark," 

 representing "three conflicting posi- 

 tions : (1) subject activity is a fact 

 of experience, but psychology can- 

 not deal with it because it is neither 

 describable nor exiilicable ; (2) sub- 

 ject activity is not a fact of experi- 

 ence, but it is a transcendent i-eality 



