CHAPTER IV

PSYCHOLOGY

§ 1. AMONG the themes that awaken the interest of man and upon which he directs his inquiries and exercises his powers of thought, are, as we have seen in the first instance, the universe, or, in a narrower sense, the world, and the ever-changing, ever-varying phenomena of nature, multitudinous in their aspects, baffling in their enigmas, and dazzling in their glory and splendour. The desire to understand nature and so conquer and subdue it on the one hand, and the wonder at that which most impresses the senses on the other, are the first stimulators to philosophic thought. The dawn of philosophy has therefore been Natural Philosophy. It is characterized by its tendency to unravel the mysteries of the world. Next to the surrounding material world, however, that which interests man most is himself.

Science has proved that our earth is nothing but a small planet revolving in boundless space; but in remote antiquity as well as in modern times man considered himself as the chief creature in the universe. However firmly convinced he may be that the star-lit canopy above him has not been created for his personal use, or that other planets besides the earth are also inhabited, he never ceases to consider himself superior to everything else in the world. The reason is that with his mental development he gradually becomes conscious of his existence, of his knowledge or want of it, of his feelings, desires, and thoughts, and of his power to express and communicate them to others-in a word, of his being a world within a world.

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He is urged by some impulse to know; he meditates and tries to suggest a meaning to what baffles his understanding, and all the while he begins to wonder at himself, at the very power that he has to move and to talk, to will and to wish, to feel and to desire. It is said that Socrates brought down philosophy from heaven to earth, i.e. to man.' In other words, thought, at the initiative of this great Greek thinker, was directed to things human, to the study of man himself in preference to the study of the surrounding material world. yvôbɩ σeautóv (“know thyself") is said to have been uttered by him (although, as a matter of fact, Thales had already uttered it before him). And, ever since, the questions which the melancholy youth in Heine's poems is supposed to ask in the silence of the night, standing before the wide waste of the ocean:

Was ist der Mensch,
Woher ist erkommen,
Wo geht er hin?

("What is man? where does he come from? whither does he go?") have puzzled the thinkers of all ages, when the human race was still in its crude state, in the beginning of intellectual development, at the height of mental culture and civilization. Many are the wonders," says the Greek dramatist Sophocles, "but there is no greater

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1 Man consists of body and soul or mind. The study of man is therefore that of the soul and that of the body. By the term Anthropology" we designate all studies relating to man, mind or body, man as an individual or as a species, and in his relations to other mammalia.

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The term Anthropology" is of Greek origin, composed of aveрwnos (anthropos = man) and of λóyos (logos: discourse or science), i.e. science of man. Thus Anthropology" occupies itself with everything relating to man, treating of his origin, development, and of his diffusion over the globe. The questions exclusively dealing with man's body give rise to such sciences as anatomy and medicine, and are commonly called Somatology, or science of the body (soma=body, and logos=science), and belong to the domain of natural science. The characteristic distinctions of the varieties of mankind and the relations of the different races to each other form the science of Ethnology (from ethnos = people, and logos).

wonder than man." These questions, What is man? What is his place in nature? and What is his relation to the universe of things-questions which, as Professor Huxley said, underlie all others, and are more deeply interesting than any others have busied all manner of heads.

Häupter in Hieroglyphenmützen,

Häupter im Turban und schwarzen Barett,
Perrücken Häupter,

Und tausend andere arme

Schwitzende Menschenhäupter.1

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They have replied to them according to the spirit of the time. § 2. The questions relating to man's soul or "mind form the science called "Psychology.' It is called Psychology from vxn (psyche soul) and logos, and treats of mental and moral man as distinguished from physical man. Whether the soul or mind is something apart from and independent of the body, or whether the thinking, reasoning faculty which distinguishes man from bruteand which becomes more and more developed and differentiated with the growth and advance of the human race from the crude to the civilised state-is dependent upon the bodily or physical condition of man, is not for us to discuss here. These questions do not fall within the scope of a popular treatise. We shall merely observe that the connection between what is called physical and that which is called psychical, between the visible organs of the human body and those that seem hidden, has become in recent times a subject of great interest, and has led to many important scientific results. One need only mention such names as Huxley, Buechner, etc.

In this treatise, which is written from a merely historical and objective point of view, I have to refrain from pronouncing upon such questions as to whether the physical and mental form a unity or a dualism, whether reason is an acquired or an innate faculty;

1 Heads in hieroglyphical nightcaps,
Heads in turbans and swarthy bonnets,

Heads in wigs,

And a thousand other poor and perspiring heads

of us mortals.

whether, as Professor Huxley says, "the mental development of humanity is similar to the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into the butterfly, periodically casting off its skin, and the human mind in its grandest manifestations is the product of nature's forces and composed of the same materials as the sun and the planets"; or whether thought proceeds from the soul, which is " a divine spark from above." Whether, "when we have shuffled off this mortal coil," the soul will return to some unknown spiritual home, as the theologian maintains: "the body will return to the earth and the spirit to God," or whether thought will vanish with matter, both standing in inseparable connection, and man disappear like a plant, are questions which we can only mention but not discuss.

Thought may be the outcome of the "soul" or simply a physical faculty, a function of the brain which is more finely organised in man than in other mammalia. The important point for us is that the brain is in any case the organ of thought which vanishes from us with matter, and that the "lawyer's quiddits and quillets, cases, tenures, and tricks" are vanished from the skull which Hamlet takes up in the churchyard.

As long as thought exists in its connection with the body, as long as the brain continues its functions, we know and think, will, wish, feel, and are conscious of doing so.

"To study the process and manner by which we arrive at this consciousness, and to investigate the essence of that very power of doing so, i.e. our power of cognition and consciousness as well as the limits and validity of human reason, the complex functions by which we are able to conceive, to judge, or to imagine is the aim of Psychology.'

Psychology therefore deals with the operations of the

mind.

"Its main concern," says Professor Sully, in "The Human Mind," "is to give an account of the phenomena of the developed consciousness as it manifests itself in man. Such a scientific account will include a proper arrangement or classification of the various distinguishable factors that enter into our mental life, and also an

explanation of their origin and development. The aim of Psychology is thus not merely to describe mental phenomena, but to trace back their genesis and history.'

It treats of our own powers of attention and sensation, of perception, memory or the power of retention, of recognition, volition, of freedom of the will or voluntary movement as well as of imagination and illusions, of feelings and emotions, pleasure and pain, smell and taste. Psychology inquires into the operations of the mind with a view to discover its laws and the processes by which they produce these phenomena, as well as into its very nature, essence, or substance, its immutability and spirituality, and its connection with and dependence upon the other bodily organs, and the mutual action and reaction existing between them.

"Just as the anatomist," says Professor Huxley, "resolves limbs into tissues, and tissues into cells, the psychologist directs mental phenomena into elementary states of consciousness." The physiologist inquires into the way in which the so-called "functions" of the body are performed, the psychologist studies the "faculties of the mind. Whilst the physical sciences that have to do with the outer material world investigate by means of the senses, Psychology observes and investigates by means of a particular power called "inner sense.'

In a word, Psychology treats of mental life, intellectual or affective, of consciousness in all its aspects. The phenomena and facts which form the materials with which Psychology deals are derived either from consciousness or perception.

§ 3. What we think, know, or feel is either the result of innate cognition or a reflex of what we have received from without by the medium of the senses. We direct our

attention to what is going on in us when we do a certain thing, when we think or feel. But we study mental phenomena not only in ourselves but also around us, as they manifest themselves externally in others. We study looks, gestures, actions, and speech of others, and arrive at conclusions as to what is going on in them, by saying that when we ourselves act in such a way it is thus that we think or feel.