498 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



23. 

 Jlathe- 

 niatical 

 psychology. 



ently before his mind than they had, he was tempted 

 to try how far the conceptions of equilibrium of motion 

 and of the composition of forces could l^e applied to the 

 inner play of ideas which chase, oppose, and displace 

 each other, preserving all the time a kind of dynamical 

 equilibrium. His elaborate mathematical calculations in 

 the first part of his greater work on psychology do not 

 specially refer to the purely intellectual process ; ^ they 

 refer rather to all inner processes which oppose each 

 other, which come into conflict, restraining each other in 

 proportion to their contrast, creating a tendency towards 

 reversion to former conditions. Such a play of oppos- 

 ins; forces is to be found Hkewise in the larger field of 

 human society ; this is accordingly quite as much a case 

 for the application of those psychical mechanics which 

 Herbart aimed at establishing. 



In a history of scientific Thought, which aims at 

 showing by what gradual steps the various provinces 

 of phenomena have been brought under the methods of 

 exact treatment, the psychology of Herbart has an im- 

 portant as well as a unique and isolated position. It 



^ Herbart himself saj's of his 

 mathematical chapter, that the re- 

 .sults thereiu given " do not follow 

 immediately from the conception 

 of a thinking being ; but they re- 

 fer to the mutual arrangements of 

 any things, in so far as they are 

 opposed and as they collide, re- 

 stricting each other in proportion 

 to their contrast, tending to revert 

 to the previous condition, the 

 unrestricted portions being fused 

 into complex forces. The forces 

 which are active in society are 

 doubtless originally psychological 

 forces. They meet in so far as they 



appear in language and in actions 

 in a common sensual world. In 

 the latter thej' restrict each other ; 

 this is the universal spectacle of 

 conflicting interests and social 

 frictions. Also the fusion no doubt 

 exists. . . . We therefore assume 

 that among men living together 

 the same conditions appear which 



i exist, according to our view, among 



I the ideas in one and the same con- 

 sciousness. We examine the re- 



I suit of their mutual restrictive 

 action" (" Psychologie als Wissen- 



: schaft," 'W^erke,' ed. Harteustein, 

 vol. vi. Y>. 31, &c.) 



