HIOUUESS IN EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 



with his tangible, if crudely phrased, doctrine that the 

 brain digests impressions and secretes thought as the 

 stomach digests food and the liver secretes bile. More- 

 over, Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology, with 

 its avowed co-ordination of mind and body and its vital- 

 izing theory of evolution, appeared in 1855, half a decade 

 before the work of Fechner. But these influences, 

 though of vast educational value, were theoretical rather 

 than demonstrative, and the fact remains that the experi- 

 mental work which first attempted to gauge mental opera- 

 tions by physical principles was mainly done in Germany. 

 Wundt's Physiological Psychology, with its full pre- 

 liminary descriptions of the anatomy of the nervous sys- 

 tem, gave tangible expression to the growth of the new 

 movement in 1874; and four years later, with the open- 

 ing of his laboratory of Physiological Psychology at the 

 University of Leipzig, the new psychology may be said 

 to have gained a permanent foothold, and to have.forced 

 itself into official recognition. From then on its con- 

 quest of the world was but a matter of time. 



It should be noted, however, that there is one other 

 method of strictly experimental examination of the men- 

 tal field, latterly much in vogue, which had a different 

 origin. This is the scientific investigation of the phe- 

 nomena of hypnotism. This subject was rescued from 

 the hands of charlatans, rechristened, and subjected to 

 accurate investigation by Dr. James Braid, of Manches- 

 ter, as early as 1841. But his results, after attracting 

 momentary attention, fell from view, and, despite desul- 

 tory efforts, the subject was not again accorded a gen- 

 eral hearing from the scientific world until 1878, when 

 Dr. Charcot took it up at the Salpetriere in Paris, fol- 

 lowed soon afterwards by Dr. Rudolf Heidenhain, of 



415 



