ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATURE. 509 



\n him that we are indebted for the term Psycho-physics, 

 wliich in the present cha})ter ] have used in a more 

 general sense. Feclmer Wdikcd independently of Lotze 

 and Hehnholtz on th(> lines of K. H, "Weber. He does 

 not seem to have been much inlhienced by either Kant 

 (ir Herbart. In ISGO lie ])ublished his ' Elemente der 

 Psychophysik,' which was to be an exact treatise on the 

 relations of " mind and body," founded upon a measure- 

 ment of psychical quantities. 



Herbart's attempt to submit psychical phenomena to 

 the exact methods of calculation had failed through the 

 \vant of a measure for psychical ({uantities. Lotze had 

 siiij:ested the idea of a psycho-physical mechanism — 

 '.'., a constant and definite connection between inner 

 and outer phenomena, between sensation and stimulus. 

 Iv IT. AVeber in his important researches on " Touch and 

 1 '>odily Feeling " had made a variety of measurements of 

 -ensations, and shown that in many cases stimuli must 

 be augmented in proportion to their own original inten- 

 sity in order to produce e([nal increments of sensation. 

 These observations lent themselves t(j an easy mathe- 

 matical generalisation. Feehner was the first to draw 



have been fouml out l>y Okeii- 

 Si-helling's method'"' This mix- 

 ture or alternation of exact science 

 .mil specuhition, of faithfuhiess and 

 loyalty to facts as well as to theory, 

 )uus through all Foclmer's life, 

 Work, and writings. Much of his 

 )"ietry, of his fanciful and para- 

 il'xical effusions, is meant seriously, 

 I 1 is really more colierent than it 

 . p[>eared to his readers, some of 

 whom knew him only under his 

 '•udonym of Dr Mi.>es. He lived, 

 .ught, and worked truly on the 

 rderland of nature and mind, of I 



this world ami another, of science 

 and poetry, of reality and fiction. 

 Like Lotze, he wanted the genuinely 

 historical sense. Like Lotze, too, 

 he received from others only sug- 

 gestions which he elaborated in- 

 dependently in his own original 

 fashion. As little as Lotze does 

 he seem ever to have attempted 

 to realise and understand any other 

 philosophical system than his own. 

 To both, the ultimate problem was 

 capable oidy of a subjective solu- 

 tion. Cf. vol. i. p. "200. 



