346 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 924 



after proper consideration of the effect of the 

 decision. To run with the unthinking crowd 

 is no part of scientific business. If the pres- 

 ent method has its drawbacks, it has also ac- 

 complished a preponderating amount of good 

 service. Wm. H. Dall 



August 16, 1912 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Founders of Modern Psychology. By G. 



Stanley Hall. New York and London, D. 



Appleton & Company. 1912. Pp. ix + 471. 



Of the twelve years from 1870 to 1882, the 

 author spent nearly six as a student in Germany. 

 The first triennium, ending with the year 1873, 

 was devoted to philosophy, and it was at this 

 period that I came under the influence of those 

 men [Zeller, Lotze, Fechner and von Hartmann] 

 characterized in the first four chapters. After 

 coming home and teaching what I had learned 

 from these masters and others for six years, during 

 which my interest in more scientific methods and 

 modes of approach grew, especially after the first 

 edition of Wnndt's " Psyehologie " in 1874 and 

 as a pupil of James and Bowditeh, I passed a 

 second triennium in Germany, to which period 

 Wundt and Helmholtz [the subjects of the two 

 concluding chapters] belong. 



Six years in Germany, without the haunt- 

 ing oppression of the doctor's thesis! — such 

 was our author's opportunity, and he made the 

 most of what was offered. He heard Hegel 

 from the lips of Michelet ; he sat with Paulsen 

 in Trendelenburg's seminary; he undertook 

 work of research in Ludwig's laboratory, with 

 von Kries as partner; he experimented with 

 Helmholtz; he was the first American student 

 in Wundt's newly founded laboratory of psy- 

 chology; he discussed psychophysics with 

 Pechner, the creator of psychophysics; he was 

 present at Heidenhain's early essays in hypno- 

 tism; he attended those lavishly experimental 

 lectures of Czermak, where hecatombs of dogs 

 were sacrificed on the altar of science and " in 

 one case even a horse was introduced to show 

 heart action " ; he was informed by Zollner of 

 the marvels wrought by Slade, and later he 

 saw those same marvels performed " at eve- 

 ning parties in Berlin by a young decent in 

 physics " ; he followed courses in theology, 

 metaphysics, logic, ethics, psychology, the 



philosophy of religion — in physics, chemistry, 

 biology, physiology, anatomy, neurology, an- 

 throiwlogy, psychiatry; he frequented clinic 

 and seminary, laboratory and lecture; and he 

 roamed afield as far as Paris on the west and 

 Vienna on the east. Non cuivis homini con- 

 iingii adire Corinthum! But Dr. Hall made 

 the journey twice over, and took his fill of the 

 intellectual feast. 



The six men to whom the present volume 

 is devoted have already been named. First 

 in order stands Eduard Zeller (1814-1908), 

 who began his public life as a protestant the- 

 ologian — he married the daughter of P. C. 

 Baur, the founder of the Tiibingen school — 

 but is better known to the present generation 

 of scholars as the historian of Greek philos- 

 ophy and the dreaded examiner at the univer- 

 sity of Berlin, where be became professor of 

 philosophy in 1872. Zeller is followed by 

 Eudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), the 

 greatest name in German philosophy between 

 Herbart and Wundt, who spent his working 

 life in Gottingen (1844^1881) and died within 

 a few months of his call to Berlin. Next 

 comes Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), 

 physicist and mystic, whose philosophy was 

 held during his lifetime in ill repute, though 

 its by-product brought him enduring fame as 

 the founder of psychophysics. Fourth upon 

 the list stands Karl Robert Eduard von Hart- 

 mann (1842-1906), the apostle of pessimism 

 and of the unconscious, an invalid and recluse, 

 who lived his days with philosophy and music 

 in a cottage just outside Berlin, and who 

 enjoyed the popularity that has fallen in later 

 times to Haeckel and to Nietzsche. Next 

 comes Helmholtz, unquestionably the greatest 

 figure in the book. Last of all stands Wundt, 

 the AUmeister of experimental psychology, 

 still happily with us, though now on the eve 

 of his eightieth birthday. 



To understand the choice of these six men 

 — for who beside the author would count Zeller 

 and von Hartmann among the founders of 

 modern psychology? — we must understand 

 something of Dr. Hall's own training and 

 temperament. Passing to Germany from a 

 denominational American college, he took 



