November 26, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



501 



experimental investigation, quoted v^ith re- 

 spect by later physiologists. I should name, 

 thirdly, the second part (Methodenlehre) of 

 the "Logik" (1883 and later), which carries 

 on the work of Mill and Jevons, but far out- 

 ranks its predecessors in depth of insight and 

 range of positive knowledge. I should name, 

 fourthly, the highly characteristic " Psycho- 

 logismus und Logizismus " of 1910 ; Wundt 

 was at his best, constructively and historically, 

 when he had been spurred into action by the 

 success of what he thought a scientific heresy 

 And I should name, last, the little " Einfiihr- 

 ung in die Psychologie " (1911), a book in 

 which Wundt's consummate mastery of his 

 subject and the sweep and freedom of his 

 style bring him as near as he ever came to 

 the popular conception of a genius. 



I have not included in this list the " Gruud- 

 ziige der physiologischen Psychologie." Every 

 one knows that Wimdt founded, in 1879, the 

 first laboratory of experimental psychology; 

 and every one knows that the PP, as his stu- 

 dents have dubbed it, is the standard work of 

 reference for that science. The book was, no 

 doubt, born of a great idea; and it is, without 

 question, indispensable to the psychologist. 

 But I do not think that it is a great book; 

 that, in the very nature of the case, it could 

 hardly be. Its one serious rival, Brentano's 

 " Psychologie vom empirischen Standpuncte," 

 which saw the light in the same year (1874), 

 is great both in conception and so far as it 

 goes — it goes only half-way to its appointed 

 goal — in execution; as late as 1907 Brentano 

 had published only two minor corrections of 

 his original text. But Wundt was attempt- 

 ing an impossible task, the welding of a 

 highly imperfect nerve-physiology to a rudi- 

 mentary experimental psychology. He ap- 

 proached it with full scientific equipment and 

 with no small measure of literary skill; the 

 result, none the less, was inevitably an ency- 

 clopedic handbook of the two disciplines 

 rather than a single physiological psychology. 

 So it comes about that Brentano's " Empirical 

 Psychology " stands to-day as it stood nearly 

 fifty years ago, while the PP has lumbered 

 through edition after edition, hardly even 



aiming at system before the fifth (1902-3), 

 and still badly needing system in the sixth 

 and last (1908-11). The demand for these 

 editions proves that the book is, as I said 

 just now, indispensable to the working psy- 

 chologist, and we can not be too grateful to 

 Wundt for the time and labor spent upon the 

 successive revisions. It would be a pity, how- 

 ever, if he were to be judged by a work which, 

 characteristically thorough and painstaking 

 as it is, still represents only one side, and 

 that perhaps the least original, of his efforts 

 on behalf of experimental psychology. The 

 Wundt who organized the Leipzig laboratory, 

 and who wrote or directed the investigations 

 that fill the twenty volimies of the " Philoso- 

 phische " and the ten of the " Psychologische 

 Studien," is larger than the Wundt of the 

 familiar book. 



The long series of editions proves, of course, 

 that the PP has appealed to a far wider circle 

 than that of the professional psychologists. 

 Wundt, indeed, has always been singularly 

 successful with his literary ventures. We ex- 

 pect that a class- text, if it survives the first 

 crucial year, will be often reprinted; but we 

 do not expect that three-volume works on 

 ethics and logic, to say nothing of a " System 

 der Philosophie " which expresses its author's 

 personal convictions in highly abstract terms, 

 will again and yet again demand revision and 

 reissue during their writer's lifetime. Such, 

 nevertheless, has been Wundt's fortune. Most 

 astonishing of all is the career of a semi- 

 popular book, translated into English under 

 the title " Lectures on Human and Animal 

 Psychology " : first published in two volumes 

 in 1863, it achieved its sixth edition, as a 

 single volume, in 1919. Not that there is 

 any real reduction in size! — that has not been 

 Wundt's habit. On the contrary : the lectures 

 of the original edition that dealt with social 

 psychology have simply been excluded, and 

 their modem equivalent published separately, 

 in the ten large volumes of the " Volker- 

 psychologie." 



So we are brought to this tremendous 

 achievement of Wundt's old age. He pub- 

 lished the first two volumes, on Language, in 



