A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



total magnitude of the stimuli. Here, then, was the 

 law he had sought. 



Weber's results were definite enough and striking 

 enough, yet they failed to attract any considerable 

 measure of attention until they were revived and ex- 

 tended by Fechner and brought before the world in 

 the famous work on psycho-physics. Then they pre- 

 cipitated a veritable mele"e. Fechner had not alone 

 verified the earlier results (with certain limitations not 

 essential to the present consideration), but had in- 

 vented new methods of making similar tests, and had 

 reduced the whole question to mathematical treat- 

 ment. He pronounced Weber's discovery the funda- 

 mental law of psycho-physics. In honor of the dis- 

 coverer, he christened it Weber's Law. He clothed 

 the law in words and in mathematical formulae, and, 

 so to say, launched it full tilt at the heads of the psy- 

 chological world. It made a fine commotion, be as- 

 sured, for it was the first widely heralded bulletin of 

 the new psychology in its march upon the strongholds 

 of the time-honored metaphysics. The accomplish- 

 ments of the microscopists and the nerve physiol- 

 ogists had been but preliminary mere border skir- 

 mishes of uncertain import. But here was proof that 

 the iconoclastic movement meant to invade the very 

 heart of the sacred territory of mind a territory 

 from which tangible objective fact had been sup- 

 posed to be forever barred. 



PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 



Hardly had the alarm been sounded, however, before 

 & new movement was made. While. Fechner's book 



266 



