ON THE PSYCHO-PHYSICAL VIEW OF NATUHE. 511 



as well as to the interpretation of the Weber- Feehner 

 law of psycho-physical dependence. 



We are indebted to Prof. Wundt of Leipzig for a 

 complete and exhaustive exauiinatiiju of the new 

 jirovince of exact science.^ He enlarged its boundaries, 



31. 



WuiiUt. 



' The psycliulogical t-clii)ol, of 

 which Prof. Wuudt can be con- 

 -iilered the head or centre, has been 

 contrasted by M. Kibot, in his 



■ I'sychologie Allemande Conlempo- 

 i.tine' (1st ed., 1879), with tlie 

 llnglish school, and, in the ex- 

 position in the text, I have taken 

 a simihir view. Ifc would, how- 

 1 \er, be unjust not to note that in 

 Knglatid, prior to the publication of 

 I'rof. Wundt's princi[)al writings, a 

 ii'velojiment of psychology in the 



- tme direction had already begun. 

 I'lie principal representative of this 



■ li'velopment is Prof. Alexander 

 Main (born 1818), whose two great 

 v'.orks, ' The Senses and the Intel- 

 i.'ct' (185.^) and 'Tlie Emotions 

 and the Will ' (1859), appeared even 

 I'cfore Fechner's ' Psychophj-sik,' 

 and were characterised by J. S. 

 -Mill as "an exposition which de- 

 serves to take rank as the foremost 

 of its class, and as mai-king the 

 most advanced jioint which the a 

 fistcriori psychology has reached," 



I eing " the most genuinely scientific 

 analytical exposition of the human 

 mind wliich the a posteriori psy- 

 ' hology has up till this time pro- 



■ luced"" ('Edinb. Rev.,' October 

 1 ^."^9, reprinted in ' Di.ssertations 

 and Discussions,' vol. iii. pp. 99, 

 100). Bain carried out what had 

 been called by Thomas Hrown " the 

 physical investigation of the mind," 

 and was ])robably the first ICnglish 

 psychologist who enriched the older 

 associational jisychology by an ex- 

 tensive use of the teachings of i)hj-si- 

 ology ; the germ of his theory being 

 contained in a passage cited by him 

 from Johannes Miiller : in fact, he 



apiircciated the well-known dictum 

 of the latter, *' psycholof/ux nemo 

 nisi physiolo!/us.'" Shortly after the 

 appearance of Prof. Bain's works, 

 the overmastering intiucnce of the 

 evolutionist school in England, 

 headed l>y Mr Spencer and sup- 

 ported by Darwin, and the jjro- 

 nounced opposition with which the 

 IJsycho-physical school started in 

 Germany, cast somewhat into the 

 shade the steady develoi)mont, in 

 this country, of the exact science of 

 psychology by those who formed the 

 direct succession to the older, purely 

 introspective, school of Scottish 

 thinkers. As I am not, in the ]ires- 

 ent chapter, treating of iisych(jlogy 

 and philosophy, but of the attempt 

 to gain, by the methods of the 

 exact sciences, a conception of the 

 phenomena of animation and con- 

 sciousness, I leave for another oc- 

 casion the appreciation of the 

 English school of psychology-. The 

 members of this scliool considei-ed 

 physiology as an aid to psychological 

 research, whereas most of the rep- 

 resentatives of the modern German 

 school were, to begin with, physi- 

 ologists or physicists, and only 

 became subseiiuently psychologists 

 or philosophers. Characteristic of 

 this school are two points : the 

 op])osition they made from the 

 start to the existing methods, and 

 their jiioniinent use, not only of ob- 

 servation, but of ex])eriment. The 

 less ostentatious development of 

 English thought would, no doubt, 

 have led in tiie end, but for the 

 reasons given above, to like results. 

 An ojiposition similar to that so 

 marked in Geiniany was, howevei-, 



